EUROPEAN

FORUM

THE PUBLIC SECTOR IN AN IN-BETWEEN

TIME: SEARCHING FOR NEW PUBLIC VALUES

TORBEN BECK JØRGENSEN

A number of new governance structures has been introduced in the Danish public
sector. These include contract agencies, user boards, boards of directors, marketiz-
ation, corporatization, involving voluntary organizations in public services, EU-
funded state border crossing co-operation, and Europeanization in many forms.
Despite their obvious dissimilarities, these governance structures have one thing in
common: they challenge the foundations of the public sector and territorial rep-
resentative democracy by blurring the distinctions between politics and adminis-
tration; between public and private; and between national and international. If poli-
ticians and voters are deprived of the capacity to make these distinctions, political
responsibility is bound to fade away. Also, each new governance structure down-
loads degrees of indeterminateness in the public sector since they may interact in
unforeseen ways and introduce new actors, roles and practices in the public sector.
This may cause the development of a more flexible public sector marked by ‘local’
appropriateness and adaptability but also by a multitude of inconsistent models and
principles. To avoid the latter, a general discourse on values and their institutional
requirements and the invention of public ‘domains’ is needed.

THE ‘IN-BETWEENNESS’
Close to the turn of the millennium, the Danish public sector is neither
here, nor there. At a rapid speed it is moving away from old principles
and traditional institutional arrangements, heading in no specific direction.
The classic public sector model is left behind and clear alternatives have
yet to be seen. It is a time of ‘in-betweens.’1 This is by no means a purely
Danish phenomenon. As Peters and Wright (1996) aptly put it, most West-
Torben Beck Jørgensen is Professor of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen.

Public Administration Vol. 77, No. 3, 1999 (565–584)

 Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 1999, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA.
566 TORBEN BECK JØRGENSEN

ern public sectors seem to leave a consistent but inappropriate model in

favour of many appropriate but mutually inconsistent models.
A further look at the emergent literature on the macroscopic changes in
the public sector clearly suggests that we are dealing with a shared problem
in Western societies. Peters and Wright (1996), Stewart and Walsh (1992)
and Dunleavy (1997) summarize main developments in the public sector
and point to the increasing fragmentation of the state. Kettl (1989) under-
lines the dramatic changes in the public sector, Milward (1996) describes
the modern state as hollow and stresses the development of contractual
relations, and Kooiman (1993) points to the growing complexity and
dynamics of governance in a number of European states. Raadschelders
and Toonen (1995) argue ‘that both government and governance are due
for review’, and Rhodes (1997b) suggests the term ‘the differentiated polity’
for the understanding of the new realities.
However, most writers tend to concentrate on changes fuelled by New
Public Management and Reinventing Government and have little to say
about the internationalization of the nation state so important for smaller
European countries. This analysis of the Danish public sector takes a
broader view.
It is the basic thesis that we face three major displacements in the deep
structures of the public sector: displacements between politics and adminis-
tration; between public and private; and between national and inter-
national. A number of new organizational forms adopted in the public sec-
tor moves the boundary between politics and administration. The growth
in number and types of organizations in the twilight zone between public
and private blurs sectoral demarcation. And internationalization makes it
troublesome to identify where the nation state begins and ends.
The main consequences are twofold. In the first place, the capacity to
distinguish clearly between politics and administration; between public and
private; and between national and international, is fundamental to terri-
torial, representative democracy. If voters are deprived of that capacity,
political accountability is bound to fade away. Second, and more important,
since these distinctions constitute basic mental categories in our under-
standing of the political system, their breakdown makes it urgent to find
more effective frames of reference.
Viewed through other lenses, the displacements make a number of future
developments in the public sector possible. Thus, it is argued that the inde-
terminateness of the public sector is considerable and increasing. As when
continental plates move and collide, cracks and chinks are moulded, giving
way to the inclusion of new actors and the invention of new roles and
practices. However, much of this newness is basically ‘local’, for example,
related to specific types of new organizational forms or specific ‘pockets’
of internationalization. We need to discuss how a public discourse on prin-
ciples and values can be established, linking local experience to the general
issue of public interest.

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 SEARCHING FOR NEW PUBLIC VALUES 567

This article presents samples of the developments in the public sector,

shows how these may add up to the displacements mentioned, discusses
possible consequences, and presents ways to cope with them. The reader
should note that the aim is not to present detailed documentation. It is
limited to the establishment of a possible diagnosis of the public sector.

POLITICS AND ADMINISTRATION

It is no new observation that the politics/administration dichotomy fails to
offer a neat description of reality (Aberbach, Putnam and Rockman 1981;
Campbell and Peters 1988). Nonetheless, it is important to observe develop-
ments which in the last two decades and very recently have contributed to
further blurring the boundaries between politics and administration.
In the first place, the public sector has developed a vast heterogeneity of
functions, organizational forms and modes of governance (Kooiman 1993)
making it increasingly difficult for ministers and other politicians to oversee
and actually control the administration.
Second, Denmark for more than two decades has faced parliamentary
instability. The rather stable four-party system effectively broke down in
1973 and since then seven or eight parties have been represented in the
Parliament. General elections have been frequent and partly for this reason,
ministers have had only short periods in office (Kirk and Knudsen 1996).
Majority governments have been very difficult to establish. The general
picture has been minority-multi-party government. In some cases, parlia-
mentary majorities consisting of parties from the extreme right to the
extreme left have been able to dictate governmental policies, because the
government chose to administer the policies of the opposition instead of
resigning.
Third, the media play a more important role in politics. Media attention
and speed of coverage have increased. Also, the media to a higher extent
focuses on specific cases and individuals, often seeking to identify political
accountability for assumed wrongdoings with little regard for the impor-
tance of the case in question. In fact, the parliamentary instability and the
reluctance of government to resign when facing an opposition on policy
questions tend to fuel media interference in politics.
The political system has reacted in several ways. Early in the 1970s, the
parliamentary response was specialization through the establishment of an
influential committee system, allowing MPs to interfere more closely with
the administration. In the 1980s many ministries established ministerial sec-
retariats to deal with general policy questions and to strengthen ministerial
influence in the administration. The tasks of civil servants have in later
years included political advice to the minister, in some cases also assisting
the minister as a party official. Ministers’ appointments of civil servants in
central government with a ‘political antenna’ have become more common.
Most important, however, is the tendency to strengthen the ministry’s

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568 TORBEN BECK JØRGENSEN

capacity to act as a policy-making body, to some extent on its own

(Knudsen 1997).
Facing the threat of being held responsible for something without much
notice, has further led to structural changes in central government. Two
contradictory reactions can be identified: agencification and de-agenc-
ification (Beck Jørgensen and Hansen 1995), resembling two basic organiza-
tional strategies for coping with the environment: buffering and bridging
(Scott 1992). The agencification strategy is to limit the number of issues
where ministerial accountability can be applied by establishing autonomous
or semi-autonomous agencies, i.e. to buffer politics and administration. The
de-agencification strategy seeks to strengthen central control of everything
in the administration, i.e. to bridge politics and administration. This strat-
egy leads to centralization, which has been seen in a number of ministries
by mergers of agencies, absorption of agencies in directorates, mergers of
directorates, creation of mega-ministries by absorption of directorates, etc.
The autonomization strategy has been emphasized in recent years. Four
examples indicate how this has occurred.

Contract agencies
First, several established directorates have been put under contract. The
idea behind these ‘contract agencies’ is simple. A contract agency implies –
similar to the British ‘next steps’ agencies – that a framework document
spells out a) the organization’s tasks, b) the resources devoted to the
accomplishment of these tasks and c) how and when the organization will
be evaluated. The purposes are a clearer separation of politics and the
organization’s operations, and increased efficiency.
So far, approximately 60 state organizations have contracts. The distri-
bution of contract agencies across functions and ministries does not follow
any clear pattern. Some of the organizations are service-producing organi-
zations, others are regulatory agencies. A few ministries have adopted the
idea in general; others have no contract agencies at all.
According to available evidence (Christensen, Ylling and Nexø Jensen
1999; Thaarup 1995), the result has been more focus on tasks and results
and at least a short-term efficiency gain has been achieved. However, in
most cases neither the parent ministries nor the ministers have taken a lead
in formulating goals. Parliament has not been interested in the question
and a majority of MPs has presumably never heard about contract agencies.
Goals have emerged bottom-up. Thus, a separation of politics and oper-
ations has not been achieved. Rather, policy-making capacity has increased
at the organizational level.

Board of directors
Second, a number of public organizations have been assigned boards of
directors. The purpose of establishing a board of directors is more often
than not an achievement of efficiency by involving fewer people, by a

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 SEARCHING FOR NEW PUBLIC VALUES 569

clearer separation of politics and administration and by importing private

sector management skills. The task of the boards is typically the formulation
of long-term missions for the development and operations of the organiza-
tion. Thus, the accountability formerly assigned to a political body has been
transferred to the board of directors. Organizations assigned boards of
directors include the Postal Services, the State Shipping Company, a num-
ber of sectoral research institutions, the Royal Theatre, the Greater Copen-
hagen Hospitals and publicly owned stake holding companies.
By and large, the boards decouple the traditional political bodies (Benzon
Knudsen, Marcher and Skov 1996). Politicians in parliament, county coun-
cils and local governments interfere less with organizational operations and
the media get fewer front page stories. Moreover, the boards seem to adopt
a depoliticized approach to their job. Disagreements are settled by consen-
sus-seeking, not by voting. Often, board members have tried the job before
and see their job as that of professional management.
User boards
Third, user boards have become widespread in the 1990s. The formal differ-
ence between boards of directors and user boards is clear. User boards
consist of elected user representatives whereas members of boards of direc-
tors are appointed by a political body. By law, user boards have been estab-
lished at all municipal elementary/middle schools and day care institutions
and in a number of other instances user boards have been established on
a voluntary basis, for example public libraries. The purpose is twofold: the
development of democracy and the improvement of service quality.
To some extent, user boards do well in enhancing user engagement. But
they have only limited influence on the services rendered by the organiza-
tions. This is not only due to the fact that user representatives are less
professional as board members but that by their very existence and account-
abilities, user boards challenge the traditional distribution of power. User
boards constitute a functional democracy which may conflict with territorial
democracy (Sehested 1995). And they certainly challenge the ideals of pro-
fessional autonomy (Brings and Egelund Lange 1996; Sehested and
Sørensen 1996).
Competition between public organizations
A free choice of public services has been emphasized. The traditional school
districts have been abolished in a number of municipalities, and patients
can contract with their GP in certain cases and choose a hospital anywhere
in the country. So far, the impact of these reforms are little studied. The
interesting question is how a free consumer choice criss-crossing sub-
national political boundaries, affects territorial democracy.
Concluding on politics and administration
In sum, these developments affect the borderline between politics and
administration. In general, MPs tend to get involved in administrative

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570 TORBEN BECK JØRGENSEN

details. Here, the permanent committees in Parliament give them a struc-

tural capacity to do so. Second, a number of issues are withdrawn from
political bodies by establishing new organizational forms. Third, these new
organizational forms may also act as de facto policy-making bodies, given
the lack of political interest so far. Fourth, marketization may decouple
political bodies from service production. Fifth, ministerial control is
enlarged by centralization within some ministries. Six, displacements
between politics and administration tend to occur differentially across the
board. What may happen within one ministry or one municipality may not
happen in another. If one looks for a functional borderline between politics
and administration it is unlikely to be consistent with the structural border-
line between those who are elected and those who are appointed.

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE

Organizations that are neither purely public nor purely private constitute
what has been labelled ‘the twilight zone’ (Seidman 1980). Although only
limited statistics can be found, which in itself is a charateristic of the twi-
light zone, these organizations seem to grow in number and to play an
increasingly important role in Danish society (Greve 1995, 1996). Thus, the
twilight zone is not interesting because it displays examples of strange devi-
ations from the normal picture, but because the growth in number and
types of hybrids makes the pure forms less prominent.
Examples of organizations in the twilight zone include publicly owned
stake-holding companies, private associations and voluntary organizations
with public funding, private firms with significant contracts with the public
sector, and public organizations in competition with private firms. Thus,
the twilight zone includes hybrids between at least two of the three: the
state, the market and the civil society.
The twilight zone is constituted by markedly different displacements
between public and private:

– transfer of public tasks by conversion of public organizations to

organizations under private law, for example publicly owned stake-
holding companies, and by contracting out (from state to market),
– transfer of public tasks to voluntary organizations (from state to
civil society),
– private firms’ growing orientation towards the ‘public market’, for
example the welfare industry (from market to state),
– private associations’ and voluntary organizations’ growing orientation
towards public duties (from civil society to state).

Each of these displacements has separate causes and purposes. The dis-
placements from state to market are more often than not motivated by
assumed efficiency gains and the achievement of a much more slender pub-
lic sector. Also, EU policies play a role with regard to the liquidation of

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 SEARCHING FOR NEW PUBLIC VALUES 571

public monopolies. But a number of other considerations and objectives

are relevant.

Contracting out
When to produce by yourself or buy from an external supplier is a well-
known question in managerial economics and the new institutional eco-
nomics. Nonetheless, when referring to policy areas such as social care,
contracting out for years has been a sensitive and ideological issue in
Denmark. Contracting out challenges in a visible way the boundary
between public and private; and supporters (the bourgeois parties and the
industrial associations) as well as the antagonists (the leftist parties and the
unions) are well organized.
However, if based on proper principles, contracting out may have some
advantages (Mikkelsen 1996). Successful contracting out presupposes com-
petition between bidders (private ownership itself is no advantage), in-
depth discussions on goals and tasks, and conscious considerations on
employee policies. If not done so, efficiency loss, quality deterioration, and
decreased political accountability are the likely results.
In the long run, the risk is monopolistic or oligopolistic market behaviour
with tacit cartelization and price agreements which are deemed expensive.
To avoid this, one can adopt a mix of private suppliers, standard public
production, and production by employee co-operatives and let these differ-
ent governance structures compete. This has been done with success in the
elderly care in the City of Hälsingborg in Sweden.

Voluntary organizations
Denmark is a country of associations. Whenever a problem occurs or an
opportunity shows up, Danes establish an association. What is unique for
Denmark compared to, for example, the United States is not the high num-
ber of voluntary associations but rather the simultaneous existence of
numerous associations and a large public sector. Voluntary organizations
have a distinctive feature compared with private firms and public organiza-
tions. Neither the stick (authority, compulsion) nor the carrot (money) is
necessary to get things done. Members do a job because they subscribe to
the goals and basic values of the organization.
Voluntary organizations constitute an interesting potential resource for
societal and public sector development (Klaudi Klausen, Anderson and
Strømbæk Pedersen 1996). They do have goals and a high consciousness
of values (compared to many public organizations), and members often
accept working conditions which make unions despair. Further, voluntary
organizations can change with more flexibility than most public organiza-
tions.
As is true of contracting out, using voluntary organizations for public
purposes entails some risks. Some voluntary organizations may stick to a
narrow mission and focus only on soluble problems, leaving the intractable

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problems to public authorities. Also, increased public funding tends to

bureaucratize voluntary organizations.

Functions of the twilight zone

It is obvious that the twilight zone is and can be used strategically in differ-
ent ways. First, the twilight zone can be considered as ‘the final parking
lot’ of an organization. Given specified tasks, the argument could be that
the twilight zone offers the best conditions for efficient performance. For
example, about 10 per cent of Danish primary and secondary schools are
privately organized but mainly financed by public funding. This number
is increasing. This gives room for schools seeking a religious and pedagogi-
cal niche. Also, voluntary organizations may have specific advantages in
the dealing with refugees because they often have an ingrained fear of auth-
orities.
Second, the twilight zone can be used as a ‘transformer’. Many organiza-
tions enter the twilight zone only to leave it again a few years later. An
example is publicly owned stake-holding companies. The traditional state
postal giro agency was transformed some years ago to a stake-holding com-
pany. The state sold its shares and the company has now merged with a
private bank. Within a few years the organization went from public to priv-
ate, using the twilight zone to get accustomed to private sector norms. The
same happened to Danish Telecom. The old State Factory for Army Cloth-
ing also became a stake-holding company but went bankrupt when fully
exposed to competition.
In sum, the twilight zone is made up of many different phenomena which
take us in many directions. They have only one thing in common: they
make the distinction between public and private a less reliable tool for the
understanding of society.

NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL

Internationalization causes a whole array of important displacements
between Danish and foreign (Thaarup, Sehested, Olsen, Bentzon and
Gjelstrup 1996). In general, Danish politicians and public authorities have
to act in a world with many specialized and sometimes competing inter-
national decision centres, and the boundaries between Danish authorities
and international authorities are less clear. Traditional geographical terri-
tories have lost their significance. But as with the twilight zone, inter-
nationalization is a development constituted by many highly differentiated
developments. In the following, we will consider differentiation with
regard to internationalization processes, the international organizing of pol-
icy sectors, and intra-organizational responses to internationalization.

Processes of internationalization
Internationalization impacts on Denmark in three distinct processes (Thore
Jensen 1995). Societal internationalization is the free exchange of ideas, infor-

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 SEARCHING FOR NEW PUBLIC VALUES 573

mation, capital, commodities and services across national borders. As the

public sector is unable to act completely isolated from society, societal inter-
nationalization often creates challenges and opportunities for the public sec-
tor. An example is the national weather forecasting stations. Due to massive
and rapid exchange of weather data and the development of computer
models, facilitated by information technology, any decent national weather
station is now able to operate on a global basis. An example with a more
general bearing on the public sector is international administrative fashions
like New Public Management.
Problem internationalization often raises a more immediate demand for
public action. It can be a direct effect of societal internationalization, for
example waves of refugees, international crime and uncontrollable financial
markets. Or it can be rooted in problems which by their very nature do
not recognize the artificial partitioning of the world made by people,
especially pollution.
Decision-making internationalization implies that an increasing number of
decisions are made in international fora. Examples are the United Nations,
NATO, the World Trade Organisation, OECD, and not the least the Euro-
pean Union. This type of internationalization may be a direct result of prob-
lem internationalization but may also have societal internationalization as
its aim.

International organization of policy sectors

A second important type of differentiation is to be found in the international
organizing of policy sectors within EU. The classic EU tasks – agriculture and
fisheries regulation – are mainly organized according to hierarchial principles:
a rule-dense EU bureaucracy at the top and national authorities acting as
the local inspection agencies. The basic task is to regulate conflicting parts.
Farmers and fishermen all want to produce and sell as much as possible.
The challenge in these sectors is to avoid problems such as ‘the tragedy of
the commons’.
Within policy sectors such as higher education, telecommunications and
transportation, another type of international organization is underway. The
key is to establish effective EU markets by harmonizing, standardizing and
privatizing. Danish universities, the Danish Telecom and the state railways
are supposed to compete with similar organizations in other countries.
Local government service organizations face a third type of international
organizing. For example, some schools and public libraries engage on a
voluntary basis in transnational networks, the purpose being a co-operative
exchange of ideas, people and information, thereby stimulating organiza-
tional and product development.
Dynamic forces internal to the policy sectors in question may trigger
further developments. Regulatory policy sectors face a dilemma between
national interests and common interests. When enforcing EU policies, Dan-
ish fishery inspectors face antagonistic reactions from their fellow country-

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574 TORBEN BECK JØRGENSEN

men: the Danish fishermen. To avoid that dilemma, supra-national

(regional) regulatory bodies may be established. This may also be the case
in the area of environmental policy. There are good reasons for establishing
regional agencies for the control of, for example, the pollution of the
Baltic Sea.
European competition in higher education, telecommunications and
transportation may result in sub-national differentiation between élite and
other institutions. The President of the University of Copenhagen has
claimed that his university should be given additional funding to make it
a strong competitor on the European market. The local school with strong
international ties will possibly not compete with local schools in other coun-
tries. But it may gain an advantage over other local schools in the same
area, attracting more pupils. As weather stations operate on a global basis,
they may find themselves transformed from co-operating national organiza-
tions to global competitors making weather data a priced commodity.

Internal organization of internationalization

The internal organizing of public organizations may also be altered. Public
organizations tend to respond to internationalization in three ways. Some
organizations create units specialized in international activities. Others seek
to integrate the international dimension in all relevant departments. And
then there are a number of cases between the extremes.
The trend seems to be that organizations subject to internationalization
first adopt the specialization strategy and then gradually switch to the inte-
gration strategy. When specializing, internationalization is considered as a
distinct issue. When integrating, internationalization is an aspect of all the
tasks facing the organization. National agencies with a rather long tradition
for being engaged in international activities such as the Environmental Pro-
tection Agency and the Inland Revenue and Customs Agency have adopted
an integration strategy.
Looking at the ministerial level, the gradual shift from specialization to
integration touches upon a basic change in the handling of international
issues. The borderline between foreign policy and national politics is chang-
ing. What was earlier considered as foreign politics and thus the preroga-
tive of the foreign ministry and diplomacy has gradually become ‘vul-
garized’ to a standard issue for all ministries. Often national agencies
negotiate with their opposite number organizations in other countries, ther-
eby encroaching on the domain of the foreign ministry.
In sum, internationalization tends not only to blur the traditional distinc-
tion between what is national and what is international, but also to have
a differential impact on the development of public organizations across pol-
icy sectors.

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ON THE EDGE BETWEEN PAST AND FUTURE

Despite all their dissimilarities and peculiarities, each major displacement
does have one thing in common. It systematically takes us away from the
well-known public sector.

The blurring of basic distinctions

The displacements do this by blurring the three basic distinctions between
politics and administration, public and private, and national and inter-
national. Moreover, these displacements interact and may thereby reinforce
each other. For example, internationalization may reinforce displacements
between politics and administration. The relevant environments of central
government departments tend to become like organizations in other coun-
tries and international organizations, thereby narrowing down what is to
become a policy before national politicians enter the stage. Also, the twilight
zone becomes internationalized. Perhaps the most illuminating example is
the Danish Telecom. In the early 1980s, telecommunication, as well as other
infrastructure, was perceived as an inherent part of classic state building –
and not only as a natural monopoly in the economic sense of the word.
Since then the Danish Telecom has gradually been privatized and then sold
to Ameritech in 1997.

Territorial dynamics
The concept of territory plays a highly important role in most political sys-
tems. The primary example is the conception of the sovereignty of the
nation state. Also, most political systems are divided into territories, being
administrative districts or local governments, the latter being especially
important in Denmark. Part of the reason for ascribing a high importance
to the concept of territory is that the geographical area forms the basis of
representative territorial democracy.
Many of the developments tend to challenge given political territories.
A free choice allows citizens to criss-cross political boundaries, as is the
case if a citizen chooses a county hospital outside his/her home county.
User boards are examples of functional democracy based on a role, not a
specific geographic area. Non-elected local authorities or special-purpose
bodies are often highly specialized public organizations with districts opti-
mized from a technical point of view and with little or no couplings to
local governments. Private firms on contract with several local governments
may look at the single local government as a customer, not as a political
body. The internationalization of public services weakens the relationships
with national governments.

The problem of political accountability

When it is difficult to establish whether a decision has been taken by poli-
ticians or by the administration, politicians have a less clear and diminished
‘capacity to be accountable’. The same is true when the boundary between

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576 TORBEN BECK JØRGENSEN

public and private is blurred. And finally, internationalization makes it

increasingly difficult to identify whether developments within the Danish
territory are the result of decisions made by Danish politicians or have
emerged from international co-operation.
When these distinctions fail to apply, the system is likely to be overbur-
dened, as the formal political institutions and in particular the rules about
political accountability presuppose that these distinctions can be made. In
short, actual behaviour does not fit with legal categories. Although many
political actors undoubtedly have noted the discrepancy between realities
and formalities, because of party competition they are tempted, in many
cases, to act as if there was no such discrepancy. The problem is further
reinforced by another discrepancy. It is likely, that media and voters –
opposed to insiders – subscribe to the classic narrative about the three basic
distinctions, believing in their existence.
If this is true we should be able to point to some indications of an over-
exertion of the accountability system. One thing to look for is political scan-
dals. In the first place, the interesting thing is not the sheer number of scan-
dals but whether or not accountability is easily located. Although no stat-
istics can be found, recent scandals do seem to have one thing in common:
it has been very difficult and costly to find out who is to blame. A number
of new procedures, court-like bodies and other quasi-juridifications of polit-
ical problems have been tried out (Christensen 1997).
Without much doubt this has given rise to a rather intense discussion on
political and administrative ethics, the argument being that in an ambigous
and opaque system there is a need for ethical guidance. Also, one can point
to the dramatically increased use of all kinds of evaluation of public services
and the growing complexity of these evaluations (Rieper 1996, 1997). Fol-
lowing Williamson (1975), one may say that the transaction costs of blaming
have increased significantly.

The problem of societal understanding

Essentially, the basic distinctions are deep-rooted mental categories. They
are close to having an a priori status in our understanding of society.
An indication is the creative but nevertheless unilluminating labelling of
the twilight zone. Examples include – besides the twilight zone itself – the
grey zone, quasi-non-governmental organizations, para-governmental
organizations, semi-public organizations, semi-private organizations, and
indirect public administration. Implicitly or explicitly, these concepts pre-
suppose that what is not purely public or purely private can best be under-
stood as a mix between public and private. Who says that twilight organiza-
tions are simply mixtures and not something entirely new?
If we are deprived of that mental mapping of society, we need more
effective frames of reference. Unless we find them, the problem of political
accountability cannot be solved. The mental problem is prior to the practi-
cal problem.

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 SEARCHING FOR NEW PUBLIC VALUES 577

On the one hand, we may have a rather clear picture of what we are
leaving behind. In this respect we may find ourselves ‘destined’, and the
dictum of Seneca may apply: ‘Destiny guides the wise, draws the fool’. On
the other hand, we can only in a sketchy way draw a picture of the future
public sector. Even a picture of the present public sector may be difficult
to draw.
The future picture may include the following:
– a whimsical political control of a diffuse public sector,
– composed of an array of differentiated policy sectors,
– some of these consisting of many relatively autonomous organizations,
– guided by contractual relations and varying forms of networks, and
– embedded in changing and overlapping territories.
There is no reason to paint a more detailed picture of the future public
sector. One may play with the future when inventing scenarios (Gjelstrup
and Palludan 1996; Peters 1996) but forecasting is troublesome because of
the public sector’s indeterminateness.

THE INDETERMINATENESS OF THE PUBLIC SECTOR

The indeterminateness of the public sector is considerable and increasing.
The reason is not that we are dealing with many developments taking the
public sector in many directions in itself. If so, we only have a computing
problem, although a tough one. Because of role indeterminateness and
interactional indeterminateness, this is not the case.

Role indeterminateness
Most if not all the new developments do not lay down certain tracks to the
future. New organizational forms are highly precarious. As Stinchcombe
(1965; p. 148) noted ‘a higher proportion of new organizations fail than old’.
On the other hand, new developments may create new possibilities by con-
stituting new situations, roles and accountabilities, and in some instances
they also introduce new actors in the governance of the public sector. Few
if any of these new roles and accountabilities are ready-made. On the con-
trary, they are open to interpretation, experimentation – and failure. In con-
clusion, each development downloads a degree of role indeterminateness
in the public sector.
Contract agencies do not constitute a legally binding organizational form.
The contract has no legal existence and in that respect it does not alter the
general rule of ministerial accountability. It expresses an agreement
between the minister (the ministry) and the public agency in question,
which may be bypassed by the minister any time. Thus, the concept of
contract agencies contains the seeds of many possible futures.
On the one hand, contract agencies only exist as long as the actors – the
parental department and the minister, the Ministry of Finance and the
agency – perceive the contract as binding. Bypassing the contract is tempt-

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578 TORBEN BECK JØRGENSEN

ing as soon as one of the actors sees an advantage in doing so. The parental
department may not trust the agency to administer themselves. The first
letter from the ministry saying: ‘well, something has happened and all
things considered, we think the contract really didn’t foresee that, so unfor-
tunately we are forced to . . .’ can be disastrous for the credibility of the
contract. In this scenario the likely future is that contract agencies collapse
one by one in a randomly ordered sequence.
On the other hand, the contract may have instituted a new ‘game’, the
essence being that the actors pretend the contract is legally binding. Indeed,
there can be good reasons for that. Time and prestige may be invested in
the contract. If so, it may be costly for the actors to ‘leave the game’. If the
actors therefore continue to pretend the contract is legally binding, paying
respect to the contract may become a habit. Once it becomes a habit it is
not far from becoming a normative obligation, which is close to quasi-legal
status. In this scenario, a new structural element has been added to cen-
tral government.
User boards, in contrast to contract agencies, have a legal status. But the
role of the actors is not clearly defined. Moreover, user boards introduce
parents as new actors. Thus, the future of user boards depends on how the
roles are specified and the experience and learning of the new actors.
On the one hand, local government politicians and public employees may
stick to ‘same procedure as last year’, because they perceive user boards
as threatening traditional territorial democracy and professional service. In
turn, competent users may show little interest in standing as candidates for
board positions, since they perceive user boards as non-influential. In this
scenario, user boards are being marginalized.
On the other hand, local politicians may define the combination of the
small functional democracy with the larger territorial democracy as a demo-
cratic progress, and employees may find it advantageous to incorporate
user experiences. Contracts defining accountabilities more clearly between
local government and user boards can be formulated. In this scenario, a
new democratic form has been added to local government.
Border-crossing co-operation between sovereign states, as funded by the
EU INTERREG programme, shares the same kind of indeterminateness. The
co-operation between the Danish County of Southern Jutland and the Ger-
man Land Schleswig-Holstein can take many forms. Southern Jutland may
be tied in to the continent. Or Schleswig-Holstein to Jutland. Or the night-
mare for centuries in Danish foreign policy: the autonomous Duchy of
Slesvig-Holsten (including Southern Jutland) may re-emerge in a new
shape. Or a partly artificial border may be softened a bit.
Many other examples could be mentioned. They would all lead to the
same conclusion: an increasing number of new roles, actors, and situations
add to the indeterminateness of the future of the public sector.

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 SEARCHING FOR NEW PUBLIC VALUES 579

Interactional indeterminateness
As with the way chemicals react on each other, many of the developments
may interact in unforeseen ways with unpredictable consequences. They
may reinforce or neutralize each other. Or they may create a ‘new substan-
ce’. We label this type interactional indeterminateness.
In general, interactional indeterminateness can unintendedly be increased
by current administrative reforms. When discussing the future of govern-
ing, Peters (1996) identified four possible futures, the emergence of each
depending on what properties of the public sector to be diagnosed as being
the problem, i.e. monopoly, hierarchy, permanence, and internal regulation.
The preferred alternative futures are, respectively, market government, par-
ticipative government, flexible government and deregulated government.
Consider tough reformers launching full-scale attacks on the classic public
sector, involving attempts to cure all four problems simultaneously. The
result is likely to be higher indeterminateness, as the four models on many
dimensions are contradictory.
For example, user boards at schools may be combined with a free choice
of school for parents, i.e. a democratic form of governance (voice) may be
combined with a market type of governance (exit). What would be the
likely result? This is hard to predict. The voice of parent representatives at
user boards may be taken more seriously if parents can sanction the school
by exiting. However, the exit option may as well undermine parent commit-
ment to the local democracy at the school. In many situations the exit option
may be perceived of as a much more effective sanction, compared to the
often slow and unpredictable democratic process. Whether the final result
turns out to be reinforcement or neutralization depends on a number of
factors, some of them presumably unknown today.
For another example, contract agencies may be combined with corporate
boards. The likely result is that survival of contract agencies is increased,
since the boards supposedly have an interest in guarding the contract
against ministerial arbitrariness. If this occurs on a broad scale, new subst-
ance has been created: a different central government, consisting of policy-
oriented core departments and relatively autonomous agencies with corpor-
ate boards attached. Thus, in a rather casual way, we have approximated
the Swedish constitution without any formal changes in the Danish consti-
tution.
Thus, the future is not linear. It is interactive. To predict the future of
the public sector is therefore just as troublesome as forecasting the weather.

The balance between stability and change

The discussion on indeterminateness clearly suggests that on the one hand
current administrative reforms in the long run may lead to much more
dramatic changes than expected. On the other hand, the rate of change in
some instances may be grossly overrated. Thus, we need a better descrip-

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580 TORBEN BECK JØRGENSEN

tive and theoretical understanding of the balance between stability and

change.
As only few scholars have studied long-term changes we possibly tend to
overlook the importance of the institutional heritage and thus institutional
stability. In Denmark, studies of institutional stability would include the
dualistic heritage from absolute monarchy in central government and the
strong local government tradition. Related to that, strong interests are
vested in the overarching institutions of the public sector, for example pub-
lic sector employee unions and the National Association of Local Govern-
ments, limiting or giving specific directions to impulses of change. As much
of the literature on public sector reform tends to overlook the vast hetero-
geneity of the public sector, we also need a better understanding of the
distribution of stability and change across policy sectors and ties of govern-
ment and the corresponding variety of dynamic forces. This analysis would
give us a better understanding of the clashes between dynamic forces
within and without the public sector and the formal institutions left over
from the past.

CHALLENGES OF THE FUTURE

In the last ten years experiments and developments have taken place which
were unthinkable a couple of decades ago. Nobody can claim that the pub-
lic sector in general is rigid and immobile today. The problem lies in other
directions. These experiments with the future and the related experiences
are not linked to each other. They are inherently local and bounded. The
future of the public sector can be said to be decided upon in numerous
ways and in numerous places, rather than by any central actor (Dunleavy
1997). This may lead to creativity but also to confusion. Therefore experi-
ments and experiences must be confronted with and enlightened by a gen-
eral discourse of the values and principles to be preferred in a future public
sector. What should be included in such a discourse?
Basic to this discourse is public values. There is one obvious reason for
this. The trend in the last fifteen years has been to emphasize efficiency as
a central value in public sector reform. There have been good reasons for
doing so. However, as has been noted in the discussion of the hollow state,
efficiency can hardly continue to be the only basic value pursued in admin-
istrative reform (Rhodes 1994). Also, reforms emphasizing market types of
governance, contracting out, and privatization make it increasingly
important to consider classic public values (Antonsen and Beck Jørgensen
1997; Goodsell 1994; Lundquist 1994; Peters 1996; Smith 1991; Stewart and
Walsh 1992).
However, the challenges of the future go beyond the balancing or re-
balancing of known values. Recall the three basic distinctions. They are
constitutive for the main institutional setup of the classic public sector. If
they fail to apply it is tempting to look for new distinctions. This strategy
may not be the most wise strategy.

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 SEARCHING FOR NEW PUBLIC VALUES 581

First, much of the debate on politics/administration; public/private; and

national and international tend to be highly polarized and ideologically
committed. Second, it is no easy task to invent new distinctions. Beneath
their appearent simplicity the basic distinctions are highly complex struc-
tures. Metaphorically speaking, they are the DNA molecular structures of
the public sector, each composed of clusters of indivisible building blocks,
the atoms. Public values can be considered these atoms. This metaphor
allows for a deconstructed analysis, leaving aside old distinctions for the
moment.
The discourse of public values includes at least the following:
Analytical issues
– What is the universe of possible public values? Suggestions in the litera-
ture include equity, impartiality, justice, honesty, fairness, probity, perma-
nence, secrecy, accountability, responsiveness, and protection of minorities
(Egeberg 1994; Lawton and Rose 1994; Rainey 1997; Stewart and Walsh
1992). There is a need to compile and specify the possible atoms.
– How can values be classified? A few suggestions are available. For
example Hood and Jackson (1994) distinguish between values related to
frugality, rectitude and resilience, Van Wart (1998) identifies different
sources of values ranging from individual values to public interest values,
and Hodgkinson (1996) emphasizes the important distinction between
values grounded in principles and values grounded in preferences.
– How do the identified values interact? If they conflict, what trade-offs
can be identified? These are crucial questions since values presumably often
do conflict. The literature on the competing values approach presents one
promising line of thought (Quinn and Rohrbaugh 1981).
Empirical issues
– Which values are actually pursued in the public sector, across the board
as well as limited to certain policy areas or specific types of public services?
– How are public organizations, policy sectors, and oversight organizations
organized not only to secure the pursuit of certain values but also to secure
a certain handling of conflicting values? The literature on these questions
is seemingly scarce, but see for example Hood and Jackson (1994) and Ege-
berg (1994).
– How do specific values emerge, who protects them, and how do they
travel from time to time, from country to country and from organization
to organization? Especially with regard to New Public Management and
other modern reform ideas, these questions have often been addressed in
the literature on new institutionalism (Czarniawska and Sevón 1996).
Normative issues
If these empirical questions above are transformed to normative questions
we have presumably covered most of the ground. However, one important
question remains: how and where can a public domain for addressing these
questions be constructed (Fox and Miller 1995; Rhodes 1997a)?

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582 TORBEN BECK JØRGENSEN

Albeit an analysis of this kind is basic to the organizing of the public

sector, it must be extended. First, it should be discussed whether specific
values are sensitive to the basic distinctions. For example, has a value such
as political accountability any direct bearing on whether a specific service
should be publicly or privately organized?
If we limit our understanding of democracy to representative territorial
democracy the answer is presumably ‘yes’. However, to new organizational
forms threatening representative democracy by blurring the basic distinc-
tions could directly be added alternative democratic elements (Sørensen,
Dreyer Hansen and Greve 1996). For example, private firms working on
public contracts could have elected user boards attached to them. The
domain of the ombudsman could include voluntary organizations receiving
public money. The Official Information Act could be extended to publicly
owned stake-holding companies.
Also, when considering contracting out, the most important question
may not be whether a specific service should be contracted out or not, but
whether the contract should go to a multinational private firm, a voluntary
association or a group of active self-governing citizens, since it is likely
that these different organizational forms will adhere to different values and
represent more or less convincing routes to democracy.
A well-developed analysis of public values helps to invent new con-
structs and can constitute the language needed when attempting to com-
pare and generalize local experiments and experience. Furthermore, cre-
ative and generalizable experiments may add up to new DNA molecular
structures of future public fields.

NOTE
1. This article is a revised and abbreviated version of a final report, resulting from a two-year
investigation of the Danish public sector, initiated and financed by the Danish Association
of Jurists and Economists. The investigation has been carried out independently of the
association. The report was authored by Torben Beck Jørgensen, Gunnar Gjestrup, Henrik
P. Olsen, Karina Sehested and Bent Thaarup. I am indebted to comments on earlier drafts
from Barry Bozeman, Larry O’Toole, Hal G. Rainey, R.A.W. Rhodes, Richard Stillman, and
my colleagues at the University of Copenhagen.

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Date received 20 November 1997. Date accepted 19 February 1999.

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