contribution to enhancing citizenship, including: “(1) citizen
116 THINK STRATEGICALLY, ACT DEMOCRATICALLY
trust in government; (2) citizen efficacy; and (3) a shared conception of the
‘common good’” (1984, 284).
With regard to privatization, Levine argues that efficiencies will often
result because of the advantages of choosing between competitive bidders.
However, in the privatization model, the ideal becomes one of government
existing to provide a competitive environment where firms provide services
to consumers with or without a government contract. Such arrangements
do nothing to build citizenship or citizen trust. Rather citizens are viewed
and treated as mere consumers of privatized services behaving just as they
would buying a service from a business. As a result, “the high citizenship of
Pericles, Aristotle, and Rousseau that requires citizens to be active members
of a self-governing community is excused by the advocates of privatization
as irrelevant in an age of rational, self-centered private interests. . . . Publicspirited
action has no place in this scheme” (1984, 285). In short, privatization
cannot lead to better citizens, only the possibility of smarter consumers. In
contrast, coproduction, as Levine understands it, “lays the foundation for a
positive relationship between government and citizens by making citizens
an integral part of the service delivery process” (288).
Conclusion
We may conclude by noting that the difference between the New Public
Management approach to coproduction and that of the New Public Service
is not just a matter of semantics. For example, one of the most widely used
applications of coproduction techniques is in the area of policing. Think for
a minute what a policing program might look like if it were focused only on
cost savings and efficiency—the hallmarks of the New Public Management.
If a police department sought to enhance efficiency and reduce costs, citizens
might, for example, be recruited through a series of incentives or disincentives
to report more crime and/or create neighborhood watch activities to
prevent criminal activities. These alternatives and others would be evaluated
based on the degree to which they reduced the cost of policing services by
involving a set of consumers and engaging their assistance to meet police
objectives. It might be concluded in some cases and for some functions that
privatization is the preferable alternative because of the potential cost savings
that can accrue from private firms’ hiring less-well-trained and lower-paid
security officers. This would also have the advantage of creating competition
among security firms to find new and better ways to deliver police services
at a lower cost. The role of the police department becomes one of creating a
competitive environment. The role of the police officer in relation to coproduction
activities would be to ensure that citizens and neighborhood groups
understand their objectives clearly and absorb as many policing functions as
are practical and cost efficient to reduce and prevent crime. There would be
little need for an ongoing relationship between officers and citizens. In fact,
such efforts would most likely be costly, as they would divert police personnel
from their traditional duties of responding to individual crime calls.
On the other hand, coproduction as derived from the ideals of community
and citizenship as in the New Public Service would look very different. Community
policing, as it is commonly known, generally involves working with
members of the community to develop creative solutions to neighborhood
problems. Community policing is based on “the concept that police officers
and private citizens working together in creative ways can help solve contemporary
community problems” (Trajanowicz et al. 1998, 3). This requires
a change in the relationship between police officers and citizens, empowering
them to set police priorities and involving them in efforts to improve
the quality of life in their neighborhoods. While some of the mechanisms
employed in these efforts might appear similar to those used in cost-cutting
and market-driven strategies, in practice they are different. Neighborhood
watches, for example, would be approached as a vehicle for building community
ties and the relationship between public employees and citizens to
address neighborhood problems. The goal would not be, for example, to
reduce the marginal cost of a police officer’s responding to a call. Rather,
the goal would be to build a stronger community, with citizens who are
involved and empowered to prevent and reduce crime, and who share with
public servants the responsibility for making their communities better. The
role of the public servant becomes one of facilitating and encouraging such
involvement and helping to build the capacity of citizens.