If you'd ever had to fall in line at the DMV, you may have thought "even Costco has shorter lines than this", and entertained dreams of privatization.
Harvard University's Jane Fountain may wake you up. In Paradoxes of Public Sector Customer Service, she concludes that increasing customer service in government may actually lead to poorer government service.
- The use of market-based perspectives may be dangerous when these substantially recast the role of the state and the relationship between the state and its citizens.
- Service models may produce improvements, but they obscure political outcomes that render some customers much less powerful than others.
- Without political change, these "market segments"--the poor and the politically weak--will continue to be poorly served.
- The growing incursion of market metaphors into political life may further the already disturbing erosion of civic responsibility and civic engagement.
Well thanks a lot, Jolly Jane.
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