03-11-2017, 05:03 PM
So, I'm currently working on a paper, mostly still in the research phase, about accountability in hybrid-organizations. What is this? Well, hybrid organizations go by many different names. We like to call then government sponsored enterprises here in the US. A lot of the rest of the English speaking world calls them quangos (quasi-autonomous non-government organizations). But they can also be called quasi-government organizations, gray sector organizations, and on and on. The main point is that these organizations exist in many different forms and straddle the public and private sector. Some are a part of the private market, some are government run monopolies, some are private organizations with public funding, some have government appointed boards, etc., etc. This is a trend that has been going on for decades all over the world, and we have thousands of these GSEs in this country, including several at the federal level. You may have heard of a few of them (Freddie, Fannie, Sallie just to name three) and it's likely you deal with at least one or two on a regular basis.
Public sector organizations face accountability through the legislature. The traditional model of public administration suggests that the administration is accountable to the elected officials, who are then accountable to the public. The reality is more complicated as the administrators can often be directly accountable to a number of different stakeholders causing a multi-dimensional accountability system (which some see as problematic, causing Multiple Accountability Disorder). But, the nice thing about these layers of accountability is that as administrators, we are stewards of the assets of the citizens within our jurisdiction. There is transparency (more than most people realize, you just have to know where to look) in place that allows the public to know how those assets are utilized.
The issue is that 15-30% of GSEs in this country aren't even registered as hybrid organizations. It isn't easy to tell they are hybrids. They don't have the direct accountability and it is extremely difficult to understand how the partnership exists and to verify the best interests of the public are being served.
Now, this is a much more complex issue than I could obviously lay out here. Even just trying to describe the nature of GSEs/quangos would take a lot of space on here. But given the examples at the federal level, you can get an idea for the type of thing to which I am referring. The continued privatization of our government, which has been going on for about 30 years, is going to just increase there hybrids as we rely on the private sector to provide public goods. What are your opinions on this? Are you in favor of this hybridization/privatization? What steps do you think would be good to insure accountability exists for these hybrid organizations?
I'm just kind of curious what people that don't necessarily look at this academically or from the inside think about all of this.
Public sector organizations face accountability through the legislature. The traditional model of public administration suggests that the administration is accountable to the elected officials, who are then accountable to the public. The reality is more complicated as the administrators can often be directly accountable to a number of different stakeholders causing a multi-dimensional accountability system (which some see as problematic, causing Multiple Accountability Disorder). But, the nice thing about these layers of accountability is that as administrators, we are stewards of the assets of the citizens within our jurisdiction. There is transparency (more than most people realize, you just have to know where to look) in place that allows the public to know how those assets are utilized.
The issue is that 15-30% of GSEs in this country aren't even registered as hybrid organizations. It isn't easy to tell they are hybrids. They don't have the direct accountability and it is extremely difficult to understand how the partnership exists and to verify the best interests of the public are being served.
Now, this is a much more complex issue than I could obviously lay out here. Even just trying to describe the nature of GSEs/quangos would take a lot of space on here. But given the examples at the federal level, you can get an idea for the type of thing to which I am referring. The continued privatization of our government, which has been going on for about 30 years, is going to just increase there hybrids as we rely on the private sector to provide public goods. What are your opinions on this? Are you in favor of this hybridization/privatization? What steps do you think would be good to insure accountability exists for these hybrid organizations?
I'm just kind of curious what people that don't necessarily look at this academically or from the inside think about all of this.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
