Soft governance, hard consequences: The ambiguous status of unofficial guidelines
成果类型：
Article
署名作者：
Brandsen, Taco; Boogers, Marcel; Tops, Pieter
署名单位：
Tilburg University
刊物名称：
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW
ISSN/ISSBN：
0033-3352
DOI：
10.1111/j.1540-6210.2006.00615.x
发表日期：
2006
页码：
546-553
关键词：
摘要：
Soft governance is an approach to policy implementation in which the central government relies less on hierarchy than on information to steer local organizations. This allows for a combination of formal accountability and professional autonomy that improves the quality of public services in both the short and the long term. Guidelines of an advisory, unofficial status are one tool that central government can use for this purpose. However, an inherent problem with this approach is that even though guidelines have no official legal status, in practice, they can take on the character of formal regulation when local organizations suspect that they cannot choose alternative courses of action, however well reasoned, without being sanctioned. It is a situation that encourages conformist behavior and diminishes the long-term potential for innovation. This phenomenon is illustrated with an analysis of disaster management in the Netherlands.
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