New Governance, Old Problems: Explaining the Appeal of Third-Party Tools

The rise in the number and use of third-party tools by governments have led to a new paradigm called "new governance." While this paradigm provides a strong framework for tool management and evaluation, it fails to explain the high use of third-party governance (TPG) by governments. But why do governments often prefer indirect to direct government? It is argued here that the appeal of TPG lies in its potential to provide a new answer to an old problem: the need to legitimise policies. An initial emphasis is on how input and output legitimacy could well be increased by trade unions in Singapore. This represents the first step towards a research agenda to measure the impact of trade unions on government legitimacy in Singapore, leading to a more wide-ranging exploration of regulatory regimes and the basis for the legitimacy of public actors.