Advanced Training Course
Private affairs and public service: what makes us tick

May 30th, June 6th and 7th, 2009

 
The provision of public services and goods has been increasingly marked by a ‘mercantile mimicry ’.Typical private sector organizational practices and incentive structures are being ever more adapted by the public sector. Public services and goods are reconfigured and converted into merchandise, and, in this manner, subject to the logic of profit and market discipline. The logic of individual gain, on one hand, substitutes the sense of duty and ethics of public service. This advanced training course aims to reflect on the impact of this mimetic process regarding the motivations and behaviour of all those that work in these fields.

 
Venue: Ler Devagar, LX Factory, Rua Rodrigues de Faria nº 103, Alcântara, Lisbon.

Registration: 100€ or 25€ for two sessions

> Online Registration

Organization: Studies on Governance and Economic Institutions Research Group / Le Monde diplomatique - portuguese edition

Coordination: Ana Cordeiro Santos

 
Programme
 
May 30th, 2009

10:00 The (pretence) moral and economic superiority of incentives (Ana Cordeiro dos Santos, CES)

  • The economic justification: harmony of individual interests
  • The ethic justification: freedom of choice

14:00 Not everything has a price, but may come to have (Ana Costa, ISCTE)

  • Pleasure for a job well done and in autonomy
  • When reward and punishment convert into prices

16:30 The illusion of freedom of choice: Are we really free to choose in the market? (Ana Cordeiro dos Santos, CES)

  • Institutions, outlining alternatives of choice and social results
  • Fostered liberties and threatened liberties in mercantile and non-mercantile spaces

June 6th, 2009

10:00 Collectively defining common good (Ana Costa, ISCTE)

  • The rationality of collective choice
  • What does it mean to deliberate in the public sphere?

14:00 Acting for the common good: rival visions (José Castro Caldas, CES)

  • Each for themselves towards the abyss, or the tragedy of the common
  • (Almost)  all for one: the significance of shared values and norms

16:30 Collective action experiences: acting collectively against public risks (Marisa Matias, CES)

  • Public responses to risk management: environmental issues as externalities and the creation of ‘responsible citizens’
  • The fallacy of the universality of public risks: distributive conflicts and environmental justice
  • Differential vulnerabilities of populations and territories

June 20th, 2009

10:00 Incentives in the financial crisis (Ana Cordeiro Santos, CES)

  • The perversity of incentives from  financial sector managers
  • The case of family credit

14:00 Does quality public management mean business management? (Jorge Bateira, University of Manchester)

  • The New Public Management in State services: scarce results, perverse effects
  • Other paths towards a quality public management

16:30 Incentives and collective action in businesses (Ricardo Mamede, ISCTE)

  • The unpredictability of the future and the unfulfillment of contracts
  • Beyond exchanges: norms and commitments