ICOPA Seminar with Sean McCandless (University of Texas-Dallas)

Measuring Social Equity: Exploring The Impacts of Politics, Management, and Law

Abstract 
There is growing recognition that governments need to be accountable for social equity, which is the normative goal to foster fairness for all throughout the creation and delivery of public services. Despite the professed importance of social equity, practitioners and scholars have struggled to operationalize social equity to the extent that other values in the field are, such as efficiency and economy. This is a problematic state of affairs given that the achievement of any administrative value requires largely clear definitions of values and measurements of progress. This presentation addresses this question: What does social equity mean in terms of government practice, particularly concerning performance measurement? This presentation will explore, compare, and contrast how 10 governments have defined social equity and social equity performance measurement. The presentation will examine: a) the importance of historical and constitutional underpinnings; b) the roles played by administrative structures—especially administrators’ belief and value systems—in defining social equity; c) governments’ definitions of social equity; and d) promising metrics to measure progress at achieving social equity. 

About Sean McCandless