Abstract
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There have been several rounds of New Public Management-inspired reforms in Kazakhstan, Russia and neighbouring Central Asian countries that have not led to significant improvements in public services, lower levels of corruption or sustainable governance. Existing research draws attention to the limitations of administrative reforms that neglect organizational culture and attempts to read-across practices which have been adopted in Western societies (Janenova and Kim, 2016; Knox, 2008; Larbi, 2006; Monobayeva and Howard, 2015). The call for papers in this working group refers to ‘innovative ideas of the people, for the people, and by the people’. This paper will therefore set out a framework entitled ‘outcomes based accountability’ (OBA) which attempts to move away from top-down governance, typical of post-Soviet countries, to one which is based on central and local government being accountable for the impact of pubic services on users. The approach demands cross-cutting targets that force ministries and departments to move beyond silo government and consider the welfare of those who receive public services.
Within this conceptual framework we will examine, in the first instance, a case study of Kazakhstan where President Nursultan Nazarbayev has set out five core pillars of institutional reforms in his A Plan for the Nation (2015) aimed at joining the top thirty developed countries by 2050. Specifically he has called for the ‘establishment of an accountable state’ the aim of which will be ‘a results-oriented state governance system with standardized and minimal procedures for monitoring, assessment and control.’
In summary, the paper will therefore set out an outcomes based accountability framework for Kazakhstan and through empirical qualitative research with public sector officials test their responses to the potential for such a model and possible obstacles to its implementation. It will also offer an assessment of the prospects for rolling-out an outcomes based accountability model to other Central Asian Countries based on the experience of Kazakhstan which is seen as an exemplar of successful post-Soviet transformation that can have significant influence in the region.
References:
Janenova, S. and Kim, P.S., (2016), “Innovating Public Service Delivery in Transitional Countries: The Case of One Stop Shops in Kazakhstan”, International Journal of Public Administration, published online on 16 February, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01900692.2015.1064445
Knox, C. (2008), “Kazakhstan: modernizing government in the context of political inertia”, International Review of Administrative Sciences, 74 (3): 477-496.
Larbi, G. (2006), “Applying the new public management in developing countries”, in Bangura, Y. and Larbi, G. (Eds), Public Sector Reform in Developing Countries: Capacity Challenges to Improve Services, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, pp. 25-52.
Monobayeva, A. and Howard, C, (2015),"Are post-Soviet republics ready for the new public management? The case of educational modernization in Kazakhstan", International Journal of Public Sector Management, 28 (2): 150 - 164
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