The Public Official and the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF): Four Models of Public Governance in Search of Coherence--Presentation at the ENA Brasil Seminário International de Governança Pública

The French École National d'Administration has a long and well earned reputation as a professional training for civil servants in France and abroad at a variety of stages of their careers.   

Created by General de Gaulle in October 1945, the founding principles of the Ecole nationale d’administration are to broaden access to the highest executive levels of government service, and to provide professional training for senior civil servants.
Hence, the school’s principal responsibility is to recruit and train the men and women who will make public service a living institution and enable it to adapt to ever-changing times. At the same time, the school must pass on the ethics of government service to its graduates, based on the values of responsibility, political neutrality and selfless service. (École National d'Administration, Meet ENA, A School for Government Service).

ENA has been moving aggressively to stake out a global position as a conduit for French expertise in public administration and the training of civil servants.

ENA has developed very solid relations in Latin America:  

Brazil is a highly valued partner in the region: ENA took part in the celebrations of the Year of France in Brazil by organising a joint symposium on the theme of “The professionalism and the consolidation of the public service in a context of public policy reforms” with ENAP in Brasilia.  

The partnership with the State of Santa Catarina was strengthened by the creation in September 2009 of “ENA Brasil” and the starting of teaching missions carried out by French contributors.  (L'ENA,Accueil, International cooperation, The Americas,  Relations between ENA and the American continent).

Under the direction of its President, Rubens Araújo de Oliveira, ENA Brasil has been moving quickly to establish its reputation  as an important center for the training of public administrators for sub-national government actors.  

A ENA Brasil foi criada pelo Governo de Santa Catarina em junho de 2009, em convênio com a École Nationale d'Administration (l'ENA) da França, com os mesmos objetivos: formar gestores públicos comprometidos com altos padrões de eficiência da administração pública, por meio da educação continuada e da prestação de serviços e intercâmbios com instituições nacionais e internacionais. (/ENA Brasil, O que é a ENA Brasil? (ENA was created by the government of the state of Santa Caterinain June 2009,  by agreement with ENA France with the same objectives as ENA France: to train public managers committed to high standards of efficiency in public administration through continuing education and the provision of services and exchanges with national and international institutions.)).

As part of its celebrations of its first year of operation, ENA Brasil sponsored a conference held 17-19 November 2010 at its campus in Florianopolis, Santa Caterina, Brasil:  Seminário International de Governança Pública.  The conference  program is set out below.

APRESENTAÇÃO
14h - Rubens Araújo de Oliveira (Brasil) Doutor em Ciências Econômicas - Universidad de Alcala Del Henares. Professor da ESAG/UDESC. Presidente da ENA Brasil.

14h e 30min - Rethinking Public Policy and Civic Engagement in a time of economic crises
Curtis Ventriss (EUA) Ph.D. University of Southern California, School of Policy, Planning, and Development. Foi Consultor do Departamento de Desenvolvimento Econômico do Estado de Vermont. É Professor de Políticas Públicas na University of Vermont, tendo ministrado cursos nas universidades de Oxford, John Hopkins e Southern California.

15h e 30min - Coffee brake

16h - Responsabilidade cívica e governança moderna
George Candler (EUA) Ph.D. in Public Policy, Indiana University, School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Professor da University of North Florida.

17h - O Tratado de Lisboa: a resposta adequada aos desafios da globalização?
Manuel Carlos Lopes Porto (Portugal) Doutor em Ciências Juridico Económicas pela Universidade de Coimbra. Professor de da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Coimbra. Presidente da European Community Studies Association. Foi Deputado do Parlamento Europeu e membro da Comissão de Reforma Fiscal portuguesa.


15h - Mentalidade burocrática nas organizações públicas
Leonardo Secchi (Brasil) Doutor em Estudos Políticos pela Universidade de Milão. Professor do Departamento de Administração Pública da ESAG/UDESC)
Lançamento de livro: Políticas Públicas: conceitos, esquemas de análise, casos práticos
Editora: Cengage Learning

16h - Coffee brake

16h 30min - Sustentabilidade ambiental
José Rubens Morato Leite - (Brasil) Doutor em Direito Ambiental pela UFSC. Pós-doutor pelo Centre of Environmental Law da Macquarie University - Austrália. Consultor da IUCN. Professor de Direito Ambiental na Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina.

17h 30min – Atualidade da governança pública na França, relações financeiras entre poder central e autoridades locais
Ronan Kerrest - (França) Diretor geral adjunto (finanças) da prefeitura de Villepinte, Mestre em Geografia Urbana pela Universidade de Paris I. Foi Vice-Presidente do Conselho Geral de Seine-Saint-Denis, Prefeito Adjunto da Ilha Saint-Denis e membro do Conselho Superior de Educação

14h - Dos modelos de intervenciones públicas en sectores y mercados privados - las intervenciones de Noruega y China a través de sus fondos de inversiones soberanos
Larry Catá Backer (EUA) Juris Doctor pela Universidade de Columbia (NY). M.P.P. pela Universidade de Harvard. Membro do Instituto Europeu de Governança Corporativa. Professor da Penn State University.

15h - Coffee brake

15h e 30min - Sustentabilidade financeira na União Europeia
José Casalta Nabais (Portugal) Doutor em Ciências Juridico-Políticas. Professor da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Coimbra. Membro do Conselho Superior dos Tribunais Administrativos e Fiscais.

16h e 30min - Novas tendências em controle de gastos públicos – a experiência do tce/sc
Salomão Ribas Junior (Brasil) Conselheiro e ex-Presidente do TCE/SC. Foi deputado estadual e Presidente da Comissão de Sistematização da Assembléia Estadual Constituinte.

My paper presentation begins an exploration of what emerging models of sovereign wealth fund administration can tell us about changing cultures of public administration under regimes of globalization. The English language version of the paper, "The Public Official and the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF): Four Models of Public Governance in Search of Coherence" will be available soon. I have set out below a summary of of my presentation notes.

The Public Official and the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF): Four Models of Public Governance in Search of Coherence

Larry Catá Backer

I. Thesis:
Sovereign Wealth Funds are symptomatic of the rise of four important and significantly different models of cultures of public governance and its administration:

(a) private sector actor model
(b) legal-juridical—law/rule based model
(b) public policy/private execution model-- public officials coordinating public and private sectors
( c) political actor model —public sector privileged in private sector .

These models provide a useful window for understanding the ways in which emerging and fundamentally distinct framework assumptions about the nature of the state shape also shape the formation of assumptions about the appropriate role of public officials within states.


II: The Problem and its Context

A. Starting Point: Globalization
1. Free movement of capital
2. Borders become more porous but are not eliminated (freest movement of capital, services, enterprises and goods, but limited movement of people)
3. Economic markets populated by non-state actors are privileged
4. State role as regulator emphasized
5. Markets and actors become transnational
6. State regulation becomes commodified, a factor in the production of capital considered by enterprises in decisions about allocation of assets and operations.

B. The State in Markets: what happens to states when markets leak beyond territorial limits.
1. Regulatory role emphasized.
2. Participatory role limited to control of factors of production (capital, labor and consumption) within national territory.
     --Soviet economic model
     --Socialism "light" in post 1945 Europe
     --Fascist state corporatism
But nature of this role is contested:
     --Europe: private activities do not lose public character
     --U.S.: private activities by states can be undertaken without reference to public obligations of states
3. Limited participation in foreign markets
      --markets for capital (sovereign lending)
      --state intervention to protect currency
      --state intervention to adjust balance of payments asymmetries
     --conservative investment of funds in the currencies and debts of foreign states

C. The State in globalized Markets: possibilities for states seeking to participate in markets abroad.
1. With globalization of economic activity it is possible for non-state actors to organize their production to maximize aggregate wealth.
     --result permits the projection economic power well beyond the national borders of the states in which they are created and to
     --state regulation less effective on aggregate corporate operations; the largest and most operationally flexible corporations can effectively become self regulating.
2. Can states mimic the largest private corporations when it seeks to organize its economic activities beyond its borders? Rather than use its funds traditionally to invest in state activities or in foreign currencies or debt, states can also invest directly in private markets.
3. These market interventions challenge the role of the state, reflecting a consequence of globalization—the conflation of public and private functions of state (and also non-state) actors.

D. The role of the state as a transnational public or private actor becomes contested
     -- as a substitute for regulation, or
     --as a way to maximize national wealth or
     --as a means of projecting public power abroad through private markets for political goals.

E. In particular, state participation in transnational or foreign private markets and in the economic activity of other states directly changes the character of (1) the state, (2) of private markets and (3) of the character and role of public officials.
1. I have explored the first and second elements elsewhere.
2. I will focus on the third element, suggesting that the form of state participation in private markets through SWFs is critical to the development of distinct forms of public management culture.


III. Sovereign Wealth Funds as Systematized Institutions of Private Market Interventions
A. History
1. 1950s Kuwait financially insignificantly vehicle for management of quasi public wealth.
2. 1990s on—potent force for global activities of states and equally potent reaction in the form of calls for regulation and control.

B. Reaction among host states—shaping the universe of efforts to regulate.
1. Fear of protectionism at local level. If host states treat states differently from non-state actors in connection with market activities.
     --US; Europe, limited success in increasing regulatory intervention in activities of sovereigns investing in markets.
2. Failure of hard law at international level.
3. Soft Law approaches
     --Santiago Principles. Embrace of model of idealized private actor and “best practices” as basis for avoidance of host state protectionist legislation.

C. Four generalized “types” of Sovereign Wealth Fund, similarities and differences. Four distinct approaches to instituting Santiago Principles.
1. Singapore: state corporatism through a private enterprise model.
2. Norway: state corporatism through a normative juridical model operated with the objective of advancing a set of global and national law norms invoking the mechanics of the conventional profit making enterprise for that purpose.
3. China: state enterprise operated with the objective of advancing state political policy through private enterprises. Conventionally private profit oriented enterprises directed in specific areas of operation by state policy needs and goals. Sovereign wealth fund as a state directed conglomerate controlling external investment and internal funding of outbound investment.
4. Brazil: division of government, least autonomous and most traditionally public in character. Provides greater flexibility for government to meet its fiscal obligations in a form that is most closely integrated with public and sovereign operations of the state. SWF is more of a sovereign “debt” fund (“just a mechanism to shift around imaginary fiscal surpluses, which also only exist in the questionable way the so-called primary surplus target is calculated, since the country runs a nominal deficit of 3.3% of GDP” Tony Volpon, The rising BRL: Brazil’s sovereign debt, sorry, wealth fund to the rescue, Financial Times, 9-21-2010)


IV. SWF Models and Models of Public Governance and Administration Culture.
A. Singapore—implementation of non-state actor administration ideal
1. Santiago Principles Model: stricter division between public and private functions of the state.
2. Public administration separate from private administration of SWF.
3. Preserve traditional division between public and private spheres.
4. For the public administrator, the economic activities of the state remains the province of private sector specialists.

B. Norway—law/juridicalized model.
1. A public law model for private law activity.
2. The SWF is viewed as embedded in a global system of law that is at the center of its public and private sector activities.
3. The state has a positive obligation to enforce that law in its own actions and in the behavior of other states as well as private parties.
4. Economic activity privileges law and legality in both investment decisions and in the interaction of the SWF to its investments. Economic activities serve the objectives of the law-state.

C. China—integrating state and economy under the leadership of the Party.
1. The state is understood as the institution through which political and economic activity are harmonized.
2. State activity is undifferentiated between state and non-state sector activities.
3. Both public and private activities are meant to serve the greater objective of a coordinated effort for overall objectives.
4. Legal rules are meant to serve this objective; economic decisions are meant to serve the fundamental policy objectives of the state.

D. Brazil—political model; reclaiming the public element of non-state sector activity.
1. Economic activity is meant to serve political ends.
2. SWFs are understood as the opportunity to expand the range of traditional state practices in the protection of its economic position.
3. The view is internal. The objective is not so much to affect the world outside as to preserve the internal position of the state.
4. A political tool in which law and economics are tools. SWF given authority to invest in foreign currencies, for example.

V. Consequences for public governance.

A. The public administrator as bureaucrat.
1. Traditional role as regulator within conventional understanding of the role of state bureaucracies; state and non-state roles understood as distinct.

B. The public administrator as lawyer.
1. Traditional role bent to serve the object of law and legal rules.
2. Political and economic activity is grounded in the primacy of legal rules.
3. They limit the substantive and procedural scope of the operation of both state sector and non-state sector activities.
4. Process is emphasized along with the use of state to further legal integration.

C. The public administrator as coordinating political economist.
1. Traditional role bent to economic political economy.
2. The administrator serves as coordinator.
3. Private sector activity is directed in the service of the objectives assigned to it by the state.
4. State conceived as a space in which public and private activity is coordinated and the role of the highest level state officials to to manage this coordination.

D. The public administrator as politician.
1. Public function of the state is given primacy. Economic activity bent to internal political objective.
2. Public administrator serves the political classes
3. Object is to protect the state in the traditional sense.

The PowerPoint slides of my Portuguese language version, O funcionário público e o Fundo de Investimento Soberanos (SWF): Quatro modelos de governança pública em busca de coerência, can be accessed here. 

I have included a rough Spanish language synopsis as well:

El Funcionario Público y el Fondo de Inversión Soberana: Cuatro modelos de gobernanza pública en busca de coherencia

I. Tesis:

Fondos de Inversiones Soberanos son sintomáticos de la subida de cuatro importantes y significativamente diferentes culturas de gobernanza pública y su administración:

(A) modelo de actor del sector privado, separación entre modalidades de los sectores públicos y privados.
(B) modelo jurídico (estado de derecho)
(B) modelo coordinador público-privado--funcionarios públicos coordinando los sectores público y privado, onjectivos públicos metodos privados
(C) modelo deactor del sector político—modalidades públicos privilegiados en los esfiuerzos en el sector privado.

Estos modelos ofrecen una perspectiva útil para la comprensión de los supuestos emergentes acerca (1) del carácter del Estado y (2) el papel apropiado de los funcionarios públicos en los estados.


II: El problema y su contexto

A. Punto de partida: la globalización
1. Libre circulación de capitales
2. Fronteras nacionales se vuelven más porosos, pero no se eliminan
3. mercados económico poblado por actores no-estatales es la forma de actividades comercialñes mas priviliegiado
4. Émfasis en la función reguladora del Estado
5. Mercados y actores se convierten en transnacionales
6. La regulación estatal se convierte en mercancía, un factor en la producción de capital.

B. El Estado en los mercados
1. Función regulador
2. Función participativo, objectivos estatales limitados al control de los factores de producción (capital, trabajo y consumo) en el territorio nacional.
Ejemplos:
---modelo económico soviético
---El socialismo “democrático” estilo común en Europa entre 1945 y 1990
---Fascismo corporativo estatal
3. Limitada participación en los mercados extranjeros
- Los mercados de capital (préstamos soberanos)
- La intervención del Estado para proteger la moneda
- La intervención del Estado para ajustar el balance de las asimetrías de los pagos
- La inversión conservadora de los fondos en las monedas y deudas de los estados extranjeros

C. El Estado en los mercados globalizados
1. Con la globalización de la actividad económica es posible para los actores no estatales para organizar su producción para maximizar la riqueza total.
- Resultado permite la proyección de poder económico más allá de las fronteras nacionales de los estados en los que se crean y
- Regulación estatal menos eficaz en las operaciones de agregados, las empresas, en el límite se autorregula.
2. El estado también puede organizar sus actividades económicas más allá de sus fronteras. En lugar de utilizar sus fondos tradicionalmente para invertir en las actividades del Estado o de la deuda externa ort monedas, los estados también pueden invertir directamente en los mercados privados.
3. Estas intervenciones de en el mercado amenaza la estabilidad del Estado, que refleja una consecuencia de la globalización-la fusión de las funciones públicas y privadas de actiores estatales (y no-estatales).

D. En consequencia há discordância sobre el carácter del Estado y su función como un actor transnacional pública o privada
- Como sustituto de la regulación, o
- Como una manera de maximizar la riqueza nacional o
- Como un medio para proyectar el poder público en el extranjero a través de los mercados privados para fines políticos.

E. En particular, la participación estatal en los mercados privados transnacionales o extranjeros y en la actividad económica de otros estados directamente fuerza un cambio fuerte en su potencia en el carácter de (1) el estado, (2) de los mercados privados y (3) el carácter y el papel de los funcionarios públicos .
1. Me centraré en el tercer elemento, lo que sugiere que la forma de participación del Estado en los mercados privados a través de los fondos soberanos es fundamental para el desarrollo de distintas formas de cultura de gestión pública.
2. Para mejor apreciar estos cambios consideramos el desarrollo de SWFs.


III. Fondos Soberanos de Inversión en Instituciones Sistematizado de intervenciones en el mercado privado

A. Historia
1. De Kuwait hasta los 1990s—pequeños y jugete de príncipes y paises en desarrollo.
2. Desde os 1990s—crecimiento y reacción. Fuerza potente en mercados estanjerors y objectivo de regulación.

B. Medidas para regular
1. El miedo del proteccionismo si los estados de acogida de manera diferente el tratamiento de estados de los actores no estatales en relación con las actividades de mercado.
- Estados Unidos, Europa, proteccionismo militado por la necesidad de inversiones de otros paises.
2. El fracaso de esfuerzos para la imposición de reglamento
-nacionales
-internacionales
3. Soft Law enfoques
- Principios de Santiago. Imposisión de un modelo fundado en la articulación de un accionista privado idealizado.

C. Cuatro generalizado "tipos" de Sovereign Wealth Fund, similitudes y diferencias.
1. Singapur
--corporatismo estatal realizado en forma de modelo de organisación empresarial privado.
2. Noruega
-banco central, ministerio de finanzas, objectivo privado efectuado por instituciones públicas.
-comisión de ética, imponiendo sistema de conducta fundado en sustemas de derecho internacional. Estado vehículo de distemas de derecho implementado por medidios de mercados privados.
3. China
-estado, partido comunista, empresas.
-objectivos politicos. Métodos privados. El estado impone dirección de inversiones. Coordinación con SWFs y empresas estatales
-dirección es para el control de producción afuera.
4. Brasil
-fundado para servir como parte del sistems financiero del estado.
-dirección interna, el SWF otra parte de sustem gobermental para la protección del gobierno y lo fiscal.

IV. SWF Modelos y Modelos de Gobernanza Pública y Cultura de la Administración.
Cada sistema de SWF requiere un distinto tipo de administración pública. Estas distinctas culturas de administración son necesarios para the efectuación del SWF.

A. Malasia: el modelo del estado comop idealizando actor no- gobermental
1. Aplicación de los Principios de Santiago Modelo: estricta división entre las funciones públicas y privadas del estado.
2. Pública separada de la administración privada de SWF administración.
3. Preservar tradicional división entre las esferas pública y privada.
4. Para el administrador público, las actividades económicas del Estado sigue siendo la provincia de especialistas del sector privado.

B. Noruega –modelo derechista-juridico.
1. Un modelo de derecho público para la actividad de derecho privado.
2. El SWF se considera parte integra de un sistema de derechos y normas sglobal de la ley que está en el centro de sus actividades del sector público y privado.
3. Bajo las normas fundamentales de este sistema, el Estado tiene la obligación positiva de hacer cumplir esa ley en sus propias acciones y en el comportamiento de otros estados, así como los particulares.
4. La actividad económica privilegia la ley y la legalidad, tanto en las decisiones de inversión y en la interacción de los SWF a sus inversiones. Las actividades económicas se usan al servicio de los objetivos de la ley del estado.

C. China y la integración de estado y la economía bajo la dirección del Partido.
1. El Estado se entiende como institución a través del cual se armonizan la actividad política y económica.
2. actividad del Estado es indiferenciado entre las actividades del Estado y el sector no estatal.
3. Tanto las actividades públicas y privadas se ha creado para servir al objetivo mayor de un esfuerzo coordinado de los objetivos generales.
4. Las normas jurídicas tienen el propósito de servir a este objetivo, las decisiones económicas están destinadas a servir a los objetivos de la política fundamental del Estado.

D. Brasil- modelo político; recuperar el elemento público de la actividad del sector no estatal.
1. La actividad económica está destinada a servir a fines políticos.
2. Los fondos soberanos se entiende como la oportunidad de ampliar la gama de prácticas tradicionales del Estado en la protección de su posición económica.
3. La vista del sistema es primariamente interno. El objetivo no es tanto influir en el mundo exterior como para preservar la posición interna del Estado.
4. Un instrumento político en que el derecho y la economía son herramientas.


V. Consecuencias para la gestión pública.

A. El administrador público como burócrata.
1. papel tradicional como regulador dentro de la comprensión convencional de la función de las burocracias estatales, el estado y las funciones no estatales entendido como algo distinto.

B. El administrador público como abogado.
1. doblada papel tradicional de servir el objeto de las normas de la ley y legales.
2. La actividad política y económica se basa en la primacía de las normas jurídicas.
3. Que limitan el alcance sustantivo y de procedimiento de la operación del sector estatal como en las actividades no estatales del sector.
4. Proceso se acentúa con el uso del estado para la integración legales.

C. El administrador público como empresario público.
1. Modalidades de cultural administrativa pública modificado , administración pública fundado en objectivioos políticos y metodos privados.

2. El administrador actúa como coordinador.
3. Actividades del sector privado se dirige al servicio de los objetivos que le asigna el Estado.
4. Estado concebido como un espacio en el que se coordina la actividad pública y privada y el papel de los más altos funcionarios a nivel estatal para gestionar esta coordinación.

D. El administrador público como político.
1. función pública del Estado se da primacía. Inclinó la actividad económica con el objetivo político interno.
2. administrador público sirve a la clase política
3. Por objeto la protección del Estado en el sentido tradicional.