Social
Accountability and Open Government: Different Types of Collaborative Engagement
by Florencia
GUERZOVICH, Accountability consultant for international organizations, Ph.D. in
Political Science, Northwestern University and Paula
CHIES SCHOMMER,
Professor at Santa Catarina
State University (Udesc), Brazil.
This
presentation discusses how social accountability and open government approaches
can improve the provision of public goods and services through prioritizing
constructive engagement. Interventions aim to bridge state and civil society
actors and, potentially, to encourage co-production. Nevertheless, these
efforts do not come in a one-size fits all model of collaborative engagement.
We present a typology of collaborative engagement associating
different forms of engagement to four types of bridges: cable-stayed bridge, movable bridge, step stone
bridge and pier. This typology results from a theoretical-empirical exercise
on the interaction between context, strategy and organization[1].
Different types of bridges explain the potential and limits of state-society
engagement to tackle public policy and governance problems.
We illustrate
these types with a series of local social accountability and open governance
interventions in Brazilian cities, researched in 2015 and 2016. What the
Brazilian experience suggests is that, in the implementation of collaborative
open government and social accountability strategies, the actions (as opposed
to static plans or structures) serve as bridges between components of the state
and elements of the societies to which they belong. The different local
political contexts where action happens, shapes and can be shaped by
organizational structures and strategies that show different forms of
engagement.
Co-production,
social accountability, and open government are distinct but overlapping
concepts and correspondent practices (Box 1). Their shared goals (improved
policy, services, governance and development outcomes), multi-stakeholder
nature, and pillars such as transparency, state-society engagement and
accountability mechanisms link them. Many times one helps to operationalize the
other.
These
approaches have grown exponentially around the world in the last decades (Grandvoinnet, Aslam, and Raha, 2015; Edwards and McGee, 2016). There have been new
efforts to extend and increase the capacity of citizens to mobilize and
participate to tackle policy problems, and to co-produce services and solutions
for collective problems with state officials (Ostrom,
1996; Brandsen and Honingh,
2015; Schommer et al., 2015), and hold them
accountable.
Box 1: Key definitions:
Social Accountability, Open Government, coproduction
|
Social
accountability: the extent and capacity of citizens to mobilize and
take actions beyond elections to engage, trigger need-based responses, hold
accountable the state officials and service providers and/or bring about
redress. Open
government: though a novel and fuzzy concept, refers to citizens, civil
society and governments working together, sharing interests to tackle
governance and development challenges. Sustainable transparency,
accountability, participation and responsiveness of government to their own
citizens, sometimes aided by technology, are key components of this concept. Co-production: a strategy to
design and deliver pubic goods and services through the mutual and continuous
engagement of government and citizens (users), who share power, resources and
responsibilities, in a hands-on approach |
Sources:
Grandvoinnet, Aslam, and Raha, 2015; Edwards and McGee, 2016; OGP, 2015, 2016; Verschuere, Brandsen and Pestoff, 2013; Brudney and
England, 1983; Salm, 2014.
Some examples
include Moldovan and Filipino civil society groups working with public
officials to contribute to improved education outcomes (Vlad
et al., 2016a; 2016b; Guerzovich and Rosenzweig, 2013), groups in Ghana and Argentina,
monitoring fiscal flows (IBP, 2016). While many of these efforts have grown
from organic demands in each country, others have been inspired or imported
from abroad or are a mix of both. Either way, social accountability and open
government efforts are linked to broader international networks and ideas, and
technical and financial resources.
Many
stakeholders are supporting social accountability approaches that prioritize
collaboration, constructive engagement, and co-production across state and
civil society actors. The idea of co-production of information and control is
especially relevant: “a mutual and continuous engagement between regular
producers of information and control in public administration (government
agencies) and users or those interested in information and control (citizens, individually or organized into councils,
groups, and associations)” (Schommer et. al, 2015, p.
1377).
Yet, little is
known about what conditions are necessary for collaboration to emerge and to
build new bridges; and about the situations in which confrontation is preferred
over, or combined with, collaboration (Kosack and
Fung, 2014; for some sector-specific insights Wampler
and Touchton 2015; Wampler
2014). There is a knowledge gap about which types are better to contribute to
certain outcomes and impacts in particular contexts.
The assumption here is that
collaborative social accountability and open government interventions have more
chances of being effective when the link between strategy, context, and
organization reinforce each other. But, what does this interaction look like in
practice? This is where the typology comes in.
The typology we propose illustrates the different key
explicative variables that interact: strategy (e.g. collaborative vs antagonistic; technical, legal, political, shock vs gradual; adaptive or not; blueprint or customized;
multipronged vs simple), context (e.g. interests and
links between local elite groups and political actors; diversity and
independence of civil society organizations, academia and media; capacity of
the local bureaucracy; standing of state and national accountability agencies),
and organization (e.g. resource mobilization, decision-making procedures,
learning, and capacity building processes, number and diversity of membership,
technical know-how, leader characteristics) (Guerzovich
and Schommer, 2016).
To
operationalize these variables, we focus on four interconnected dimensions that
link them:[2]
·
First, capacities of the partnership - the willingness and ability of an
organization to act together with others to solve public problems in ways that
bolster individual organizations’ political and technical capacities.
·
Second, fit the context - the willingness and ability of an
organization (or organizations) to deploy a strategy that harnesses the context
by bridging segments of state and society (actors, institutions, norms, and
processes).
·
Third, complexity of strategy - the willingness and ability
of an organization (or organizations) to prioritize the cluster of procedures
and methods that are most likely to payoff their intended, strategic goals (Poli, Giraudy and Guerzovich, 2010).
·
Fourth, adaptability
for learning - flexibility to incorporate learning to manage the intervention as the glue that helps
engagement become resilient over time.
These
component factors and its interaction make it possible to identify four types
of state-society bridges – detached (pier), restrictive (movable bridge),
targeted (step stone bridge) and inclusive (cable-stayed bridge), summarized in
Table 1.
Table 1: Types of
State-Society Bridges through Social Accountability and Open Government
Interventions
|
|
DETACHED: PIER |
RESTRICTIVE: MOVABLE BRIDGE |
STEP STONE BRIDGE |
CABLE STAYED BRIDGE |
|
CAPACITIES OF THE PARTNERSHIP: STAKEHOLDERS (WHO ACTS?) |
Limited subset of individuals
and organizations. |
Limited subset of individuals
and organizations that sporadically coordinate action. |
Specially selected set of
individuals and organizations coordinate in concrete areas of intervention. |
Diverse set of individuals and organizations
coordinate and co-produce. |
|
FIT WITH THE CONTEXT: RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CONTEXTS (HOW IS THE ACTION?) |
Inexistent or tenuous by design
and/or due to closed space. |
Strives to engage amidst
existing or self-made contextual and organizational obstacles |
Reformers explicitly or
implicitly acknowledge that each area of intervention has its own technical
and political contexts and ways of working, which should inform the type of
strategy and organizational development needed to tackle it. |
Weaves context relevant politics through organizations
and strategy. |
|
COMPLEXITY OF STRATEGY: LINES OF STRATEGIC ACTION (WHAT ARE THE ACTIONS?) |
Blueprints imported to local
context without attention to incentives and action on the ground. |
Blueprints imported to local
context, minor adjustments. |
Tactics tailored to specific
aims and stakeholders, building on contextual and organizational resources. |
Range of tactics work
with each other to lever on stakeholders to achieve joint goals with diverse
contextual and organizational resources. |
|
ADAPTABILITY FOR LEARNING: DYNAMICS OVER TIME (WHEN IS THE
ACTION?) |
Lever external know-how on an
ongoing basis.. |
Lever external know-how, with
locally led course correction. |
Lever local experience for
focused strategic and organizational improvement. |
Lever local experience for
strategic and organizational improvement. Joint multi-stakeholder
learning - transformative forms of learning by doing. |
Source:
Adapted from F. Guerzovich, P. Schommer
(2016).
We illustrate
the shape and relevance of the four bridges through Brazilian Social
Observatories. Social Observatories are non-partisan and non-profit
organizations in which citizens and civil society organizations to transform
their right to get angry at corruption into concrete promotion of transparency
and better administration of public goods. The cities analyzed (Table 2),
in which state-society engagement around social accountability, open government
and, at times, co-production, takes place, share a number of national-level
commonalities. Still, the fit between organizations, strategies and contexts
are different.
Table 2: How do organizations,
strategy, and context fit together in selecting Brazilian cities?
|
|
Florianópolis |
Rondonópolis |
Itajaí |
Londrina |
|
Population (IBGE, 2010) |
421,240 |
211,718 |
183,373 |
506.701 |
|
State/Region |
Santa Catarina, in Southern Brazil |
Mato Grosso,
Midwest region of Brazil |
Santa Catarina, in Southern Brazil |
Paraná, in Southern
Brazil |
|
GDP per capita (IBGE, 2013) |
R$ 32,385.04 (US$10,274.44) |
R$26,064.26 (US$ 8,269.12) |
R$ 83,082.62 (US$ 26,358.70) |
R$ 29.634,98 (US$ 9,401.96) |
|
Human Development
Index for 2010 (IBGE, 2010) |
0,847 - high |
0,755 - high |
0,795 - high |
0,778 – high |
|
Case
|
An indefinite (or
vague) strategy led by the local Social Observatory since 2009, including
access to information and contracting |
Confrontational and
collaborative strategy led by the local Social Observatory since 2009,
including contracting and access to information |
Mainly collaborative,
sometimes confrontational, strategy led by the local Social Observatory since
2009, including contracting and access to information |
Collaborative strategy
led by multi-stakeholder platforms since 2009, including access to
information, open contracting, service delivery |
|
Type
of Engagement (Bridge) |
Detached (Pier) |
Restrictive (Movable
Bridge) |
Targeted (Step Stone
Bridge) |
Inclusive (Cable
Stayed Bridge) |
Source: F. Guerzovich, P. Schommer (2016 and
publication pending).
In the case of
the Social Observatory of Florianópolis (OSF, for its
Portuguese acronym) few public officials and academics brought this methodology
into practice, in 2009. Although citizens managed to partner with local
officials and recruit a one-off large amount of public financial resources, the
effort lacked multiple sources of diverse resources, partnerships, and actions
that would suggest engagement with the local political context.
The foundation
of OSF was inspired by social accountability initiatives in the cities of Maringá and Itajaí to control and
open public contracting in the local government. They imported the
organizational and strategic model developed in the first city and then
disseminated by the national organization Social Observatory of Brazil (OSB)
across the country. This is: they juxtaposed an external methodology to the
context of Florianopolis. The OSB’s best practice methodology included a series
of precise steps to organize social observatories. By implementing a
one-size-fits-all model they tried to ensure certain performance standards as
well as mitigate any reputational risks to the social observatories’ across the
country, from the activities in a particular city.
Besides the
standardized methodology, the OSF faced a restricted openness of the local
government and other stakeholders in the city. A small group of actors leads
the action, but their actions didn’t fit the context. They had the financial
support from a public fund for civil society organizations, but not that of the
private sector. Links with local business associations and traditional CSOs in
the city were weak. And they did not try to develop new relations with these
actors that they left aside. The observatory was not compelled to lever those
resources to adjust its approach to the local context by improving the best
practice from outside through new combinations of tactics. The observatory
showed limited will to understand and work with the context, and weak political
capacity to build coalitions and bridges. They were not flexible,
they were not open to inputs or suggestions from others. There was essentially
no room for co-production.
In other
words, they build a pier; a pier connects with the boats that are able to reach
to it. But not everyone on the shore can or wants to reach it. What they built
made it very hard or rather impossible to connect with the other shore, with
the actors on the other side of the river, equally not willing to navigate or
building bridges. The structure and the strategies they set up were not
conducive to establishing real bonds with different actors already working on
the terrain.
The
observatory of Florianópolis prioritized
superimposing an accurate external model to the local context, rather than
embedding and adjusting it so that it could better fit the context and
potentially transform it. Its organizational strategy, together with this
contextual misfit, was not conducive to results.
In the case of
Rondonópolis, the engagement or articulation between
state and society occurs with several obstacles.[3]
Some of these obstacles are structural, and others are self-made. Just like a
movable bridge, the possibility of engaging with actors on the other side of
the river depended on whether the bridge was open or closed. It was the group
of business leaders and members of the elite that decided when to open or close
the bridge; when to engage with new actors and when to
block that possibility of engagement.
The Social
Observatory of Rondonópolis (OSR), founded in 2009 by
a group of business leaders and people from the city’s traditional elite, has the goal of promoting the opening of public procurement in a local socio-political context unfavorable for this (Guerzovich and Dahmer, 2016, and Guerzovich and Schommer, 2016).
They borrowed a methodology and opted to focus on public spending, mainly in
relation to unfinished infrastructure projects.
The strategy
didn’t require mobilizing other segments of society to begin with. Quite on the
contrary, the group adopted an attitude of excluding actors and relying on the
power of the in-group. The OSR was designed to build a limited number and
quality of connections with other segments of the state and society.
The movable
bridge that was the engagement the observatory was able to build – connecting
two shores but only circumstantially – did not provide substantial enough
results in terms of social accountability and open government. A mainly confrontational
approach “my way or the highway” vis-à-vis a local
government with a policy agenda that favored other groups undermined the
observatory’s tactical and organizational choices. Since at the beginning, it
was the elite the one that held control of the movable bridge, it could decide
when to open it and when to close it, depending on their own personal
interests, and one could argue, not the interest of the public good. And this
is precisely the source of the mistrust they caused in the rest of society and
the public interest. To others in the city, the manipulation of the bridge
seemed to be advancing private interests.
Since 2012,
the OSR has made some new organizational decisions reboot its approach, like
hiring a new coordinator and renting its own office, which helped it regain
autonomy (both real and perceived). Overall, the OSR tried, learned, developed
new capacities, and pivoted towards a new strategy that relied on collaboration
with state and national level Supreme Audit Institutions.
This
collaboration made it possible to create a tailored multipronged strategy to
contribute to solving policy and governance problems the OSR and the Supreme
Audit Institutions are learning to co-produce openness and accountability
through joint efforts.
This change in
approach was not easy. The OSR had been self-generating an undesired obstacle
by building a semi inaccessible movable bridge: the perception by officials and
stakeholders of the observatory’s motives closed doors for it, even after it
changed its approach. Persistence and the articulation of ideas are slowly
starting to contribute to new opportunities and results in terms of openness
and improvements in the operational context. This new cycle of open government
and social accountability learning in Rondonópolis
suggests that engagement approaches are not born and fixed into a category in
the typology, but strategic learning and action have a key role to play in how
engagement unfolds. The initial movable bridge that they built might change
into something different, with a different way of connecting two shores, in the
future.
In Itajaí, open government and social accountability
strategies link state and society gradually, but in a targeted way. In Itajaí, a group of leaders of diverse traditional local
business associations and unions, and retired public officials created the
Social Observatory of Itajaí (OSI), in 2009. Though
inspired by the original experience of Maringá and
the methodology widespread by the Social Observatory of Brazil, what we see is
that this group of actors built a different type of bridge, better suited to
fit with the context: a step stone bridge. This is a much more carefully
crafted bridge in which each stone needs to fit exactly with the surface of the
water and the particular conditions of its environment - of its context.
Learning by practice is a key foundation of the construction.
Its leadership
adapted the standard practice to its context. At the launch of the initiative,
the city was in a state of calamity caused by major flooding. The state could
bypass standard processes and the elites were concerned about irregularities in
the reconstruction process (large funds available; no regular control
mechanisms). Standard social accountability tactics copied from outside town
could not have worked. Instead, they took these as a guide to kick off the
project, but they focused on experimentation and learning – what partners they
could count on, what to prioritize, how to qualify their technical work, how to
combine confrontational and collaboration approaches, depending the public
policy area and the actors involved. Overall, this organizational approach,
strategy and fit with the context contributed to building islands and this way
creating areas within the state and civil society permeable to this new form of
delivering results.
These step
stones – each one of them combining to build a bridge – aim at some segments
within the state and the civil society. The notion of directing the
collaboration to and prioritizing the links with some of the stakeholder is
consistent with the idea about the fact that several of the changes lead by
civil society members had as a result a critical group of actors strategically
committed to each other. These types of changes not always require a broad
mobilization (Granovetter, 1978).
By 2013, the
OSI developed and tested a new strategy of engagement with the political group
in City Hall, although initially the Observatory only managed to collaborate
with few public officials and had had difficulty to access information from the
city government. The OSI used formal and informal mechanisms to get it. After
many difficulties and formal denials, the OSI presented itself (and was
recognized) as the Mayor’s ally, though a vigilant ally. A critical juncture,
however, was the enforcement of the National Information Action Statute (LAI)
in 2012.
Since then,
the answers to OSI’s requests are faster and more frequent. Critical to this
success is the development of a win-win relationship with the Prosecutor’s
office that had the mandate and ability to respond to or to enforce
investigation and prosecution. According to the OSI, “Our role is social
oversight. The Prosecutor Office’s role is institutional, constitutional. They
have to fulfill that role and we can help them do so. In reality, we help them
because they help us” (Schommer et. al, 2015). The
complementary roles, expertise, and collaborative work led to a co-production
relationship. This was crucial to increase the observatory’s results and
credibility in the eyes of public administration. The partnership
also increased civil society’s capacity to implement social accountability
efforts and, ultimately, improve results, including the implementation
of the access-to-information legislation.
This process
and others have informed the OSI’s learning about the potential payoff of
acting to tend more bridges to different segments of state and society and also
specializing and building islands of new forms of governance and service
delivery moving forward. A step stone bridge that is effective enough to allow
different actors to use it, in the concrete context in which they are; to have access and engage. The OSI combines a standardized
approach to monitor bids with specific strategies developed to deal with
certain challenges. This bridge worked and was able to deliver results – it effectively
connected actors between themselves, allowing positive engagements, without the
need of mobilizing a great number of actors. The results, though, sometimes
contribute to additional mobilization.
Finally, the
actors involved in the case of Londrina were able to weave together
context-relevant state and society politics for open government and social
accountability through strategies and organizational structures. It is a bridge
with a large number of cables, which at the same time strengthen the structure
of the bridge in itself. Here, the development and actions of the Observatory
of Public Management of Londrina (OGPL, for its Portuguese acronym) relates to
how bridges were gradually built and/or strengthened by the business-led effort
to establish a Forum to develop the city[4]
and the multi-stakeholder City Council of Transparency and Social
Control. With a similar start to Itajai’s, in
Londrina the group managed to create engagement in many areas and with several
stakeholders overtime. Co-production was implemented in several ways and at
different levels of institutionalization. In other words, they created bridges
across existing and new islands for action and learning.
This sturdy
bridge was built in an unlikely terrain. The stigma of corruption that marked
the city encouraged different elites in the city to advance a series of
initiatives to change the course of history - precisely a context in which we
wouldn’t expect an inclusive and collaborative effort to fight corruption.
These elites could have built a pier or a movable bridge, putting their own
interests at the heart of their actions instead those of the public. But they included
efforts to put in practice and implement a development strategy, as well as
transparency and accountability initiatives. These efforts, which started as
targeted efforts (similar to Itajaí), became more
inclusive of diverse segments of the local society. Pro-openness stakeholders
implemented tailored tactics to lever diverse capacities and relationships in
society to prepare monitoring plans to different sectorial contexts and types
of services. The state itself became more flexible and open to more contributions
from society, although not in a linear and homogenous way (Guerzovich
and Schommer to be published).
A specific
case the OGPL tackled was the contract to purchase school meals, affected by
inefficiency and corruption. The OGPL targeted many but not all stakeholders in
the complex network of sectoral,
contracting, and accountability systems. It used a politically and technically
informed approach to engage the Department of Education, responsible for the
terms of reference for bidding, and for monitoring the implementation of
contracts. To do this, it needed to develop links across the city beyond the
original elite to gather information at the school level and then take it up
the policy-making decision chain. They were strategically performed alliances
and bonds, which added to the strength of the cable-stayed bridge. The OGPL
tried to use a constructive engagement strategy with these stakeholders and
benefit from their capacities. Even if relationships were initially
confrontational, they evolved gradually as the OGPL engaged different
stakeholders over time with target tactics. They adapted their approaches with
each alliance and engagement with a new actor. The work of the OGPL was valued.
The co-production is clear in the design of the contracts of school lunch
provision, and in the implementation/delivering of the school lunches, for
example.
Through a
range of actions like this the OGPL built a strong structure, with strong and
resistant materials – alliances with key actors, and adapted strategies. This
bridge is further strengthened by the participation of a great number of actors
in accountability processes, and what we see as a much more inclusive model of
accountability. Of course, building this type of cable-stayed bridge requires
time, and is a process in itself, continuous and never finished or guaranteed.
It involves the development of a collective intelligence, small steps toward
setting up a strong bridge for the long term.
The
organization structure of the OGPL also evolved through cycles of trial,
reflection, and adaptation, and the change in strategy. Now, the organization
has a more diverse board and group of volunteers than ever before and, it is
accountable to a broad group of constituents and partners.
The case of
Londrina is an example of elite based dynamics featuring the development of
civic capacities that grew from practice and strategy of pro-openness elites.
So, what can
we learn from the Brazilian experience? The key observation is that, in the
implementation of collaborative open government and social accountability
strategies, the actions (rather than static plans or structures) are true (and
diverse) bridges between the state and civil society actors involved. Different
types of bridges help understand the potential and limits of state-society
engagement when dealing with public policy and governance problems. Also,
context is key: the different political contexts shape and, over time, can be
shaped by the organizational structure and strategy that make up different
forms of engagement.
The engagement
approaches of each of the cases are not born and fixed into a type. Still,
progress is neither automatic nor guaranteed, and strategies can revert in less
promising directions. Strategic learning can play an important role in helping
reformers (in these cases those in the social observatories) shift course in a
positive direction. What makes state-society collaboration work appears to be
context, strategy and organization fitting after cycles of experimentation and
learning, rather than single moments of engagement?
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[1] In short, the interaction of strategy,
context, and organization is a frontier in the literature about effective
social accountability and open government intervention, generally, and
collaborative interventions, in particular.
[2] This selection builds on Guerzovich and
Schommer
(2016)’s analysis of four dimensions and 36 concrete indicators of strategic,
constructive social accountability interventions (Guerzovich and Poli,
2014b), and the analysis of five cases in Brazilian cities, in the next
section. Some characteristics of each type here are similar to those identified
by Schommer et
al. (2015) in different types of accountability and co-production of
information and control.
[3] F.
Guerzovich, P. Schommer (publication
pending) provides more detailed analysis of the three remaining cases.
[4] To find out more about the forum Desenvolve Londrina, access: