Research on relationships between government agencies and non-state providers of basic services: A discussion on the methods, theories and typologies used and ways forward
Whose Public Action? Analysing Inter-sectoral Collaboration for Service Delivery
Kelly Teamey
Download NGPA Research Paper 38| (PDF)
Abstract
As detailed in the earlier Non-Governmental Public Action working paper based on the same research project (Teamey and McLoughlin 2008), relationships between non-state providers (NSPs) and government are hardly simple. Yet, the majority of research studies have tended to take a rather simplistic and reductionist view of these relationships, masking and bypassing their rich historical and contextual complexities.
This working paper provides an overview of the varied methods, theories and typologies that have been applied to research on relationships between NSPs and government. With the aim of creating a platform to critically discuss 'better' ways forward in terms of how research approaches are designed and carried out, this working paper considers the value of a range of typologies or models that have been developed by researchers to explain and analyse NSP-government relationships.
This is the second of two working papers for the Non-Governmental Public Action (NGPA) programme series based on a wide-ranging and rigorous literature review on NSP-government relationships. The earlier working paper identifies and discusses a range of key issues that were classified as being of particular importance to understanding the dynamics of NSP-government relationships. This second working paper is intended to further elaborate on the earlier working paper; to provide deeper insights into the methods and theories of research through which these key issues have emerged and offer suggestions as to how research can more rigorously explore the relevant key issues.
The initial literature review explored an extensive range of empirical, theoretical, exploratory and/or polemical literature that has examined relationships between government agencies and NSPs of basic services (i.e. education, health, water and sanitation) for poor people. It was carried out to situate a research project, Whose Public Action? (WPA), part of the non-governmental public action (NGPA) programme that is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
The Whose Public Action? (WPA) research on NSP-government relationships involved in the provision of basic services focusing on education, health and sanitation sector programmes in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh uses a range of complementary research methods and approaches. Similar to the majority of empirical studies, the WPA research has employed a combination of interviews, documentary analysis and participant observations in historical and programme analysis and in case studies. The case study units of analysis for the WPA research are NSP-government relationships in a particular programmatic field of each of the three sectors: education (that is, primary education); sanitation (that is, community-led sanitation), and health (that is, primary health care). One case was selected per sector programme in each country.
The research questions and methodological approaches drawn up for the WPA research have given importance to history, context and recognised the complexity of factors that condition relationships. Within each case study, the WPA research has examined the evolution of the relationship as well as the factors that have formed (and conditioned the agendas) of NSPs and government agencies in the relationship. It takes into account macro and meso-level conditioning institutional factors, the internal dynamics of each organisation, critical incidents and routine aspects of the relationship. The WPA research goes beyond the comparative advantage approach to examine the strategies used by each organisation and the dynamics of the relationship as it evolves.
The WPA research agenda has not simplified NSP-government relationships into a particular typology; indeed the research was not so much interested in classification as in describing the dynamics of relations about 'public action'. The WPA research recognised that relationships are multi-dimensional and that they change and evolve over time. From this perspective, a typology may be of relevance in as much as it can provide a reference or entry point to understanding relations.