Merging for Capacity and a Capacity for Merging: Politicians, Citizens, and Discourses in Public Administrations

• Published date: 01 February 2017
• Author: Riccardo Mussari,Pasquale Ruggiero
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/faam.12102
• Date: 01 February 2017

Financial Accountability & Management, 33(1), February 2017, 0267-4424

Merging for Capacity and a Capacity

for Merging: Politicians, Citizens,

and Discourses in Public

Administrations

RICCARDO MUSSARI AND PASQUALE RUGGIERO∗

Abstract: It is assumed in many countries that the merger of municipalities

can increase the capacity of their public administrations. This paper concentrates

primarily on the activities preceding the implementation of the merger, by analyzing

the ex-ante stages of the process. Using a case study, the paper analyzes the activities

used to explain the merger initiative to citizens and to overcome any potential

resistance. The analysis is developed using the Foucauldian concepts of discourse

and technology of the self. The aim is to explain the way human resources can and

should be managed during the implementation of a capacity-building initiative.

Keywords: capacity building, merging process, technologies of the self, discourse

INTRODUCTION

The optimal size of jurisdictions is actually looping back to the center of

attention when the political discussion focuses on two phenomena which,

from a dimensional perspective, generate the opposite effects: the secession

of states, which increases the number of jurisdictions; and the merger of local

governments, which reduces that number within a single region or state.

The theoretical debate on the relationship between size and democracy has

attracted the interest of many political scientists (Dahl and Tufte, 1973; Hooghe

and Marks, 2007; Larsen, 2002; Lassen and Serritzlew, 2011; Anckar, 1999;

Bhatti and Hansen, 2011), reaching contrasting conclusions.

∗The authors are respectively from the Department of Business and Law, University of Siena,

Italy; and Brighton Business School, University of Brighton, UK and the Department of

Business and Law, University of Siena, Italy.

Address for correspondence: Prof. Pasquale Ruggiero, Department of Business and Law,

University of Siena, Piazza San Francesco 7, 53100 Siena, Italy.

e-mail: ruggiero@unisi.it

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28 MUSSARI AND RUGGIERO

The size of a jurisdiction is a traditionally debated theme also for economics

scholars. Although significant doubts emerge on the overall economic effects

produced by the merger of jurisdictions (Byrnes and Dollery, 2002; Dollery and

Crase, 2004; Mabuchi, 2001; Sancton, 2000), the merger of local governments

was and continues to be proposed as a potential option for improving public

service capacity and performance. Economists who support a reduction in local

governments through merging cite several reasons for their endorsement: an

exploitation of the economies of scale and scope (Alesina and Spoalore, 1997;

Reingewertz, 2012), an increase in managerial and political capacity (Bhatti

and Hansen, 2011), improvement in the quality of services to the citizenry

(Christenson and Sachs, 1980), internalization of benefit spillovers (Tanguay and

Wihry, 2008), and greater equity in the reduction of horizontal fiscal imbalance

(Soguel, 2006).

With few exceptions (Jung, 2013; Calciolari et al., 2013; Ruggiero et al., 2012;

Boyne, 1995, 1996), the merging processes conducted by local governments have

been all but neglected by Public Management scholars over the past decade.

Some new contributions to the discussion on mergers have appeared, especially

those examining the relationship between organizational size and efficiency

(Zafra-G´

omez et al., 2013; Andrews and Boyne, 2009; Dollery and Byrnes, 2007)

and organizational size and effectiveness (Jung, 2013). This paper provides a

contribution to the literature on the merging process of local governments as

they attempt to increase the capacity of their public administrations to provide

public services. For two main reasons, the focus is on merging processes as a

capacity-building policy.

First, it is commonly assumed in the economics literature that a larger

municipality should have the advantage of greater capacity—that increased

size should increase the probability of attracting high-caliber managers with

the necessary expertise to handle complex task performance and to generate

specialization advantages. Furthermore, a large municipality should have a

greater store of resources for local development; higher status in competition

with other municipalities; more qualified applicants for top political jobs; and,

consequently, the political power to influence relevant political decisions.

A second reason for this focus is that the emphasis on fragmentation,

specialization, and competition as a solution for improving public performance

in the public sector has been mitigated in the past few years, and the so-called

Post-NPM literature (Christensen and Lægreid, 2009; Lapsley, 2008) began to

accord greater attention to coordination, cooperation, and the management

of relationships among public administrations (Ramsland and Dollery, 2011;

Kettl, 2002; Peters and Savoie, 2000; Pierre, 2000), among public and private

organizations (Barretta and Ruggiero, 2008; Barretta et al., 2008; Agranoff,

2007; Kickert et al., 1997), and among public administrations and their

citizenries (Moore, 1995).

Merging initiatives and implementation processes are affected by many

aspects and many subjects, all of which play key roles in the success of the

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