Présentation faite à Helsinki, 10 juillet 2009, EGPA, Publié dans la Revue Internationale d'Administration Publique, juillet 2010

1. No philosophy, please,
we are managers!
Claude Rochet
Professeur des universités
Institut de la Gestion Publique et du Développement Economique, Paris
Institut de Management Public et de Gouvernance Territoriale, Aix-en-Provence

2. Summary
Why managerialism needs to be outstrip?
Drawing the lessons from nations’
building: the UK and USA cases
Back to the basics of political philosophy
The revival of an euro-atlantic debate
Consequences for the training of public
managers
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3. Doing things right is not doing the right
things
Efficiency is not Public health: the more
efficacy… efficient and the more
effective, the more costly !
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4. So, what is a good public decision?
Learning from F. Hayek
Rejection of logical positivism and neoclassical
economy and social constructivism
A central role to the State: replacing gov’t by men by
gov’t by law
Law as a natural selection process
But, where does a legitimate law comes from? Hayek
fails in answering this question:
– « J’ai toujours peine, personnellement à croire que moralité et utilité, par harmonie
préétablie, coïncident pleinement (…) Je ne refuserai pas mon admiration à la
démonstration de Hayek, mais je réserverai ma foi. Les libéraux ont parfois
tendance, comme les marxistes, à croire que l’ordre du monde pourrait réconcilier
nos aspirations avec la réalité ». (Raymond Aron, coments on « Road to
Serfdom »)
Hayek’s legacy: the question is NOT State or market, but
a problem embedded within the theory of knowledge
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Claude Rochet

5. Introducing ergodic hypothesis
If there is no determined law (of history or of the
market) to drive our decisions
Can we make anything? No!
Institutions are rules which reduce uncertainty
(D. North)
If the system has an ergodic behavior, deterministic
methods may work
But, when technological disruptions trigger
paradigm shift, institutions do no longer work
The system has a non ergodic behavior
Adaptive learning is the key
The role of the State is to foster this process and to
update the rules
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6. Back to the basics: Politics
What is a good society? Does such thing as the
common good exists? What is a good public decision?
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7. Credit and finance as an
economic activity per se
introduce disequilibrium and
corruptio
Country vs Court in XVIII century
England
With the birth of the financial crises
(1720) the key issue becomes
articulating civic virtue with
economic development
Industry and commerce are key
drivers of change, but unable to keep
apart from financial folly
Political virtue is the fruit of reason
that must must counterweight the
irrationality of “Wind Koopers”
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Claude Rochet

8. Learning from history and nations’
building
The founding of the USA
Originates in the corruption of England
“The end of classical politics” G. Wood
“ The lesser evil empire”, from positive to negative
liberty (I. Berlin)
The classical question of the common good is
repealed…
… but it strikes back with the euro-atlantic
republicanism: The Cambridge School (Skinner,
Pettit), The French school (Spitz), and the revival of
Machiavellian studies (Viroli)
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9. The key issue of the euro Atlantic debate
Does such thing as the common good exists?
The liberal individualistic hypothesis never delivered
There is no contradiction between private good and
common good
A co-evolutionary and reinforcing process
No market economy without civic virtue
Montesquieu “Agir pour l’amour des lois de son pays, l’amour de
or la patrie et de l’égalité”
Civic virtue acts as informal institutions
No cost, high effectiveness!
The common good is the very source of legitimacy…
… and the very source of a non deterministic
evolutionary process adapted to a non-ergodic world
A never ending process for an emergent and resilient
answer
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Claude Rochet

10. Public management as “practical arts”
Playing “spirit of finesse” against Common
“spirit of geometry” (Pascal) good
Knowledge
epistemic basis
Knowledge
« What »
(épistémé)
Practical
wisdom
(phronesis)
Conjectural
knowledge Management
(métis) public
Knowledge
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empirical basis
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Claude Rochet

11. Educating the elite: competencies
appropriated to a neo-weberian state
Instruction : Inherited values from the weberian Education : New competencies
model
Values to be updated: Competencies appropriated to an open and uncertain
• The State as a public policy architect for the world:
common good • Strategic scenario building in a non-deterministic
• Specific public law as a consequence of the environment
inequality between citizens and the State • Citizen integration
• Public law statute for civil servants o in public decision making
o in services conception
• A logic of public value creation measurable and
assessable
• Information systems as a l ever of administrative
reform
Values to be abandonned: New values to be promoted:
• Hierarchy • Redefining roles and responsibilities between
• Exclusive employment center and peripheries
• Labour division based on procedure • Develop an horizontal approach of public policies
• Valorizing mobility public private and private pub-
lic
• Modular progressive and resilient organization of
public services
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