Abstract
This book makes an excellent contribution to the debate on governance and state capacity in the UK. Its main merit lies in the fact that it provides an urgently needed empirical context for what has been a largely theoretical debate so far. Felicity Matthews tackles the key issue discussed in the governance literature about whether or not state capacity is declining. The discussion has gone back and forth mostly along conceptual lines and Matthews’ feat is to furnish an empirical analysis of a particular policy mechanism – Public Service Agreements (PSAs) – to evaluate the various theoretical positions.
The first section of the book starts with a helpful overview of the debate about governance and state capacity. Matthews gives a thorough and sound description of the conceptual and theoretical positions before setting out her case. She argues that the extreme positions on either side are likely to be simplifications mainly due to a lack of empirical insight. This sets the scene for the main part of the book which examines Public Service Agreements as implemented by New Labour, supposed to address the main challenge of governance: increasing autonomy of local delivery agencies versus retention of strategic policy-making (or steering) at the centre. PSAs are well suited to throw light on this issue as they were newly established tools by the incoming New Labour government to address the three central risks to effective governing: multiple players in the delivery sector, the cross-departmental nature of policy issues, and loss of sovereignty to international agencies such as the EU.
Matthews outlines the theory and practice of Public Service Agreements (basically a raft of targets for service delivery set by central government), before analysing the impact of PSAs in two policy fields: climate change and recycling. Both issues are well chosen since they represent different constellations of the three key challenges to governance capacity mentioned above.
Matthews rounds up her work with a detailed discussion of the implications of her case studies and recommendations for future work. Her conclusions are well argued and strike a balance between the two views of governance, yet with the empirical evidence to show for it. As Britain is moving fast along the road to further devolution and the EU arrogates ever more policy-making powers to Brussels, this excellent book provides a robust foundation for future comparative studies assessing the impact of increasing complexity and fragmentation on state capacity in the UK and other European states.