scholarly journals Public Administration Reforms in Slovakia: Limited Outcomes (Why ?)

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juraj Nemec
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Standard Group ◽  
Civil Service Reform ◽  
Public Administration Reform ◽  
The Right ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Eu

AbstractThe goal of this paper is to document and to analyse public administration reform dynamics and outcomes in three selected areas – transparency and accountability, civil service and local self-governments.The high level of potential access to government information in Slovakia does not “produce” increased accountability, predictability and also does not effectively serve as a tool to control corruption. We argue that citizens are not only victims, but also accomplishers: their tolerance for corruption, excessive bureaucracy and rentseeking is confirmed by many existing studies.Concerning civil service reform, Slovakia shows a substantial reform reversal towards politicisation and centralisation after 2001, which clearly threatens the fundamental features of democratic governance. Soon after the EU accession in 2004 major regressive changes took place, and the Civil Service Office was abolished in 2006. The new legislation in force from 2017 (forced by the EU conditionality) should return the Slovak civil service back on the right track – let us to see.With regard to self-government the reforms aimed towards the establishment of more independent local and regional self-government. However, the major issue here is the extreme fragmentation on the municipal level – almost 3,000 municipalities in the country, most of them bellow 1,000 inhabitants. Many studies confirm that amalgamation (or at least functional amalgamation) is necessary – but there is no political will to start it.What are the main lessons from the Slovak case ? The information provided indicates that the Slovak Republic belongs to the “standard” group of CEE countries – after the first wave of democratisation reforms immediately after 1989, most of the later changes were realised “thanks to” external motivations and pressures – and not always really welcomed. The specific issue, however, is the decentralisation reform in 2000 – 2005. This change, providing really fragmented local self-government by extra rights and responsibilities, was internally driven, with positive results from the point of view of self-government principles, but with many hurdles caused by too large a number of too small municipalities.

scholarly journals Public Administration Reform in Bulgaria: Top-down and Externally-driven Approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-124
Author(s):  
Emilia Zankina
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Human Resources Management ◽  
External Pressure ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Policy Outcomes ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Public Administration Reform ◽  
Main Factors ◽  
The Eu

The article examines public administration reform (PAR) in Bulgaria and the main factors that shaped the reform agenda and dynamics. PAR is examined along five key dimensions – transparency and accountability, civil service and human resources management (HRM), public service delivery and digitalisation, organisation and management of government, and policy-making coordination and implementation. The article argues that there are four main factors influencing reform dynamics and determining policy outcomes in the Bulgarian case: the specific political choices made by government elites, external influence of the EU and of past national legacies, and the importance of institutions and reform mechanisms. To illustrate these factors at work, the article examines three policy initiatives, i.e. e-government, the reduction of administrative burden, and civil service reform. The article presents a longitudinal analysis and a qualitative case-study approach, utilising Annual Reports on the Status of the Public Administration 2001–2018, mapping European Semester Documents 2011–2017, an inventory of PAR initiatives 2005–2018, and interviews of public officials. The pushes for reform have been top-down, externally-driven, and stop-and-go in nature. The results confirm previous findings that Bulgaria is among the EU countries with the poorest record in PAR, struggling to overcome communist legacies and high levels of corruption and politicisation. The Bulgarian case highlights several important lessons: the importance of political will and political dynamics for the outcome of reform efforts; the importance of external pressure and financing; the difficulty of uprooting long-standing legacies in administrative traditions; and the limitations of the top-down approach as an obstacle to the sustainability of reform efforts.

scholarly journals Theoretical principles of formation of a meritocratic approach to selection of personnel in the system of public administration

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (10) ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
O. V. Okhotnykova
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Comprehensive Evaluation ◽  
Equal Access ◽  
Civil Service Reform ◽  
Management Personnel ◽  
Moral Qualities ◽  
Service Commission ◽  
High Level ◽  
Selection Of

The article analyzed the approaches to the concept of «meritocracy». The article determined that the meritocratic principle in the selection of management personnel is revealed in the early selection of talented individuals who have managerial abilities, charisma, high level of intelligence, communication abilities, and are honest, responsible, unbiased with their own personal core. The author noted that the principle of meritocracy in the formation of a management elite is manifested in equal access to the system of public administration of all professionally trained persons with a high level of moral qualities that have been appropriately selected and have experience in management activities. The article analyzed the experience of forming a managerial staff in Singapore. The success of the Singaporean model of public administration is based on meritocratic principles, a strict bureaucratic hierarchy and administrative impartiality, and is based on four major strategies: Singapore’s comprehensive civil service reform; strong and effective anti-corruption measures; decentralization of the Civil Service Commission; payment of competitive wages to attract and retain the best personnel. The author identified the main stages of selection of management personnel in accordance with Ukrainian legislation. In our opinion, the meritocratic principle should be central to the formation of the national managerial elite through the prevailing system of qualifying tests, examinations on the basis of objective, impartial and comprehensive evaluation.

scholarly journals The Problem of Defining Local Self-Government as a Key Actor of a Unified System of Public Power and Admininstration (Analysis of the Problem Field)

2022 ◽  
pp. 17-32
Author(s):  
R. M. Vulfovich
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Public Power ◽  
Complex Processes ◽  
Fundamental Goal ◽  
The Russian Federation ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Right ◽  
High Level

The analysis of the problem field is a serious problem from the methodological and methodical point of view. The solution of this problem becomes particularly difficult in cases when the object under study is characterized by a high level of structural and process diversity, has a dynamic character, i. e. it is constantly evolving, and exists in many variants with the presence of the invariant enshrined in international acts and legislation of most states. The end of the last century was a period of rethinking of many concepts that define the complex processes of political and social interaction of various levels and elements of the system of power and public administration in Russia. The adoption of the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 1993 put forward fundamental problems that needed to be solved to move the country along the path of democratization, build a market economy and form an effective governing system. Article 12 of the first chapter establishes the autonomy of local self-government as an institution, guarantees its protection from excessive state influence. This provision reflects the global trend of consolidating the right to local self-government in democratic states. However, the European Charter of Local Self-Government includes a provision on the independence of local self-government in resolving issues of local significance only within the framework of state legislation, i. e. it establishes its subordinate nature. The latter provision automatically makes local self-government part of the unified system of public power and public administration, which is reflected in the corresponding amendment to Ch. 8 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation “Local self-government” in 2020. This makes t relevant he problem of the local authorities ‘ own powers, the division of functions between them and state authorities to achieve the fundamental goal of the modern state — to ensure an optimal uniform quality of life throughout the territory. The purpose of the article is to characterize the problem field in which the concepts of “public power” and “public administration” are defined and analysed in the context of considering local self-government as a key actor of both systems. The objectives of the research are to determine the boundaries of this problem field, its structure, as well as the difference in approaches to this problem in the works of Russian and foreign authors, including scientists from Central Asian countries.

Territorial Distribution of Alcohol and Drug Addictions Mortality Concerning Regional Disparities in the Slovak Republic from Year 1996 to Year 2015

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Mortality Rate ◽  
Slovak Republic ◽  
Regional Disparities ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Extreme Position ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Female Sex ◽  
Male Sex ◽  
The Individual ◽  
High Level

BACKGROUND: This paper deals with territorial distribution of the alcohol and drug addictions mortality at a level of the districts of the Slovak Republic. AIM: The aim of the paper is to explore the relations within the administrative territorial division of the Slovak Republic, that is, between the individual districts and hence, to reveal possibly hidden relation in alcohol and drug mortality. METHODS: The analysis is divided and executed into the two fragments – one belongs to the female sex, the other one belongs to the male sex. The standardised mortality rate is computed according to a sequence of the mathematical relations. The Euclidean distance is employed to compute the similarity within each pair of a whole data set. The cluster analysis examines is performed. The clusters are created by means of the mutual distances of the districts. The data is collected from the database of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic for all the districts of the Slovak Republic. The covered time span begins in the year 1996 and ends in the year 2015. RESULTS: The most substantial point is that the Slovak Republic possesses the regional disparities in a field of mortality expressed by the standardised mortality rate computed particularly for the diagnoses assigned to the alcohol and drug addictions at a considerably high level. However, the female sex and the male sex have the different outcome. The Bratislava III District keeps absolutely the most extreme position. It forms an own cluster for the both sexes too. The Topoľčany District bears a similar extreme position from a point of view of the male sex. All the Bratislava districts keep their mutual notable dissimilarity. Contrariwise, evaluation of a development of the regional disparities among the districts looks like notably heterogeneously. CONCLUSIONS: There are considerable regional discrepancies throughout the districts of the Slovak Republic. Hence, it is necessary to create a common platform how to proceed with the solution of this issue.

Administrative elites and the crisis: what lies ahead for the senior civil service in Greece?

2014 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 709-725 ◽  
Author(s):  
Calliope Spanou
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Civil Service Reform ◽  
The Public ◽  
Administrative Elites ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

The nature of the relationship between the public administration and politics and the subsequent role of the administration appear to be incompatible with the emergence of an administrative elite. After analysing the reasons for this incompatibility, the article explores the impact of the measures taken in the wake of the economic crisis on the civil service and its reform, and also the prospects for the development of a senior civil service. The key, and also the challenge, to any change in this direction remains the rebalancing of the relationship between the public administration and politics. Points for practitioners What might interest practitioners is the issue of the conditions of effectiveness of civil service reform in times of economic crisis and significant pressure.

scholarly journals Utility function applied to interregional cooperation: case of the ASEM

2008 ◽  
Vol 54 (No. 5) ◽  
pp. 234-244
Author(s):  
M. Fejfarová
Keyword(s):  
Economic Policy ◽  
International Relation ◽  
Utility Function ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Constructivist Approach ◽  
Asian Region ◽  
Interregional Cooperation ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Eu

This article presents one possible point of view on the interregional cooperation through the optic of neorealist and neoliberal international relation theories. Applying the constructivist approach to utility function and creating utility function of regions, the author aims to explain the reasons of difficulties of interregional cooperation from the two above mentioned rational points of view. The conclusions are drawn on the case of the Asia Europe Meeting cooperation showing that a low integration of a participating region may hamper an interregional cooperation, and that the current economic policy of the EU towards the Asian region is on the right track.

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