The Social Construction of Public Administration: Interpretive and Critical Perspectives

CHAPTER 5: Social Design in Practice

Developments in public administration that broaden approaches to problem solving, take greater account of relevant variables in policy making, and challenge public administrators and citizens in positive ways offer many possibilities for strengthening both theory and practice in this field. Social design strategies have been widely practiced by administrators at the local level in their efforts to develop innovative and community-based projects and actions. This chapter illustrates some of the values of and implications for the use of the social design concept as a guideline and as a metaphor for public administration by applying it to a few social policy issues. The social design approach is generally practiced in the following way: 1. The process begins with consideration of the diversity of values of the participants as well as the people who will be affected by the outcome of deliberation or problem solving. The ideas of different actors must be discussed, argued, and evaluated. 2. Participation must go beyond interest-group politics. Powerful groups are generally concerned with their own interests rather than the interest of the public. 3. The responsibility of administrators or policy makers is to design processes and facilitate interaction whereby multiple actors function together effectively. It is quite possible that the existing structure does not promote the participation of less-powerful groups or citizens. 4. Alternatives must be critically examined in terms of their political, economic, and social feasibility. 5. Policy design or decisions for the future require both analytical and social knowledge, but application of each must be critically examined through dialogue and discourse. 6. The voices of minority groups must be integrated into community problem solving. 101 CHAPTER 5 Social Design in Practice The social design framework may be used as a cooperative approach to community problem solving. This democratic framework brings participating actors together, often voluntarily. These actors include a city administrator with managerial resources and authority, professionals with specialized skills and knowledge, and citizens with special concerns and ideas about problems in their community. In this context, formal authority and power are not the basis for developing problem-solving relationships among participants. The public administrator ’s responsibility is to facilitate various interactions and support the problem-solving effort. COPRODUCTION AND COMMUNITY POLICING Perhaps one of the most interesting developments in the area of community problem solving is a movement toward “coproduction” between public administrators and citizens. Traditionally, public managers have been either crisis oriented, incrementally oriented, or rationally oriented in performing their everyday activities and have viewed citizen participation as an obstacle to the “craft” of management and the “art” of government (Gawthrop, 1984, p. 105). They have seen their program objectives as the efficient operation and delivery of a public service .This narrow view of administrative responsibility has given way to the broader notion of coproduction, which is based on the “recognition that public services are the joint product of the activities of both citizens and government officials” (Sharp, 1980, p.110). Coproduction may be defined as “those actions by which citizens are intended to augment or contribute to the actions of public agencies and involve conjoint behavior” (Warren et al., 1982, p. 43). It is citizens’ efforts that actually bring about the desired societal changes; the public administrator only assists or advises citizens in these productive efforts. Because citizens can act as critical evaluators of public services and can also create “service conditions,” they should be viewed as “coproducers in the sense that their behaviors change the environment (social and physical) in which service delivery takes place” (Sharp, 1980, p. 112). Thus public policy and administration in recent years have brought an interest in participatory democracy to the fore, with a refocusing on citizen participation (and voluntarism); citizen participation has become an energizing force in the governance process (Box, 1998). 102 THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION An interesting application of social design in community problem solving is the development of community-based policing in many city neighborhoods (Thurman, Zhao, and Giacomazzi, 2001; Peak and Glensor, 1996; Goldstein, 1990). This value-driven approach to providing police services functions at the neighborhood level, and its success is tied to changes in police organizational culture. The programs offer unique interactions between the police department and neighborhood organizations seeking to manage the future of their community through a “coproductive” effort. Neighborhood activities are consciously designed to improve individual safety and involve citizens and public agencies in interaction. For many years...