Local Government Policy Evolution in New Zealand: Radical Reform and the Ex Post Emergence of Consensus or Rival Advocacy Coalitions

Abstract

Between 1984 and 1993 New Zealand reformers followed a top-down strategy designed to minimize the opportunity for resistors to affect the reform process and preclude the ex post emergence of a stable alignment of rival advocacy coalitions. The evolution of the local government policy debate since the implementation of radical reform in 1989 suggests that these strategic goals may be more difficult to achieve than at first thought. The quest to make local government more efficient and democratic by making it more accountable has given way to a 'minimalistactivist' controversy over the comparative institutional advantage of local authorities and the role of trust in their relations with central government that has the potential to contribute to the eclipse of the post-reform consensus and the emergence of a 'advocacy coalition structure'.

Politicisation but not Responsiveness: Preferences and Experiences of New Zealand Councillors

“…Demographically, elected members are educated, reasonably well off economically and they prefer to lead their councils (see Leach and Wilson 2002). It appears that the objectives of the reforms, informed by neoliberal ideology, have been achieved (Wallis and Dollery 2001a). Local leaders have adopted a participatory approach to the formulation of council plans and quite clearly prefer to take the leadership role in a number of areas.…”

“…Empirical studies of NZ local government have focused on strategic planning (Local Futures 2006;Reid, Scott and McNeill 2006); quality management (Houston and Katavic 2006); financial transparency (Pallot 2001); reform (Anderson and Norgrove 1997;Cameron 1995;Wallis and Dollery 2001a;Wistrich 1992); participation of women (Drage 1999); physical activity policies (Bullen and Lyne 2006); electoral reform (Cheyne and Comrie 2005); costs of fostering democratic participation (Drage 2008); and use of flexitime (Harr 2007). In addition there are two reports from the Office of the Auditor General (OAG, in Anderson and Norgrove 1997) that focus on the relationship between elected members and appointed managers in the policy process.…”

Empowerment of local government in New Zealand: A new model for contemporary local-central relations?

“…Writing soon after the major reorganisation of local government imposed by central government at the end of the 1980s, Jansen (1993, p. 6) opined that "local government autonomy is rather more pious hope than reality". However, reflecting on the experience of the 1990s, Wallis and Dollery (2001) noted that the impact of reforms reflected the predominance of the 'activist' view of local government over the 'minimalist' view. In the minimalist view, the proper role of local government is the provision of local public goods and local government should not engage in the provision of private goods and services.…”

The innovation of local public-sector companies: Processing big data for transparency and accountability

“…New mechanisms have been introduced to improve the participation of the public and the local affairs that concern them, to make local authorities more aware of the concerns of citizens and to increase the choices available Pallot, 1997, Wallis andDollery, 2001;Northcott et al, 2012). The involvement of the public and of public employees in choices thus becomes one of the key elements that can lead to a renewal of democracy where decision-makers and the main stakeholders are involved in the assessment system, in terms of its efficiency and effectiveness (Kelly and Swindell, 2002) but also in terms of social welfare 2017a).…”