Re(De)-Forming public administration: an expert outlook on reform planning in Romania
It has been argued that the West with its well-established democracies was largely responsible for the filling of the institutional vacuum the East experienced after the fall of totalitarian regimes in the eve of the 90s. Scholars of international relations and public policies loudly debated on the...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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General Association of Economists from Romania
2012-08-01
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| Series: | Theoretical and Applied Economics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: |
http://store.ectap.ro/articole/766.pdf
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| _version_ | 1818365145078824960 |
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| author | Diana-Camelia IANCU |
| author_facet | Diana-Camelia IANCU |
| author_sort | Diana-Camelia IANCU |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | It has been argued that the West with its well-established
democracies was largely responsible for the filling of the institutional
vacuum the East experienced after the fall of totalitarian regimes in the
eve of the 90s. Scholars of international relations and public policies
loudly debated on the existent causality between the European
enlargement and the administrative reforms Central and Eastern
European countries experienced in the last two decades. Be it in the form
of soft or hard law, financial aid or penalties, Western norms were
supposed to have been transferred to acceding countries in a rather alert
tempo, and with a high(er) rate of compliance success. This research
builds on these arguments without yet embracing them completely and
tackles the issue of Western values successful transfer to public
administration reform planning in Romania. The main question it
attempts to answer is to what extent substantial compliance to the
European expectations for building a consolidated public administration
was achieved. In doing so, it compares formal national discourses of
successful public administration reform with personal experiences of
Romanian public managers, four years after Romania’s accession to the
European Union. Between 2005 and 2008, the Romanian Government
acknowledged the need for developing a highly professional, apolitical
category of civil servants later to be called “public managers”. These
managers, young people that were offered Governmental grants to train
themselves in Western universities, were supposed to guide national
reforms from the inside of the system. Their informal role was to use their
Western academic and training experiences and place them against the
national background so as to plan and execute a “good” public
administration reform. Was this achieved? What were the intervening factors? The interviews performed on public managers from central
government organizations are placed against the framework of postenlargement
Europeanization studies and sustain the original hypothesis
of the paper: there is a gap between reform discourse and reform
practice, and transfer of Western values is hardly visible when the agents
of this transfer are solely public managers. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-13T22:15:36Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-547c64a9c0ae43b48a01a1d7c3d5cf5a |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1841-8678 1844-0029 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-13T22:15:36Z |
| publishDate | 2012-08-01 |
| publisher | General Association of Economists from Romania |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Theoretical and Applied Economics |
| spelling | doaj.art-547c64a9c0ae43b48a01a1d7c3d5cf5a2022-12-21T23:29:33ZengGeneral Association of Economists from RomaniaTheoretical and Applied Economics1841-86781844-00292012-08-01XIX810312418418678Re(De)-Forming public administration: an expert outlook on reform planning in RomaniaDiana-Camelia IANCU0 National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest It has been argued that the West with its well-established democracies was largely responsible for the filling of the institutional vacuum the East experienced after the fall of totalitarian regimes in the eve of the 90s. Scholars of international relations and public policies loudly debated on the existent causality between the European enlargement and the administrative reforms Central and Eastern European countries experienced in the last two decades. Be it in the form of soft or hard law, financial aid or penalties, Western norms were supposed to have been transferred to acceding countries in a rather alert tempo, and with a high(er) rate of compliance success. This research builds on these arguments without yet embracing them completely and tackles the issue of Western values successful transfer to public administration reform planning in Romania. The main question it attempts to answer is to what extent substantial compliance to the European expectations for building a consolidated public administration was achieved. In doing so, it compares formal national discourses of successful public administration reform with personal experiences of Romanian public managers, four years after Romania’s accession to the European Union. Between 2005 and 2008, the Romanian Government acknowledged the need for developing a highly professional, apolitical category of civil servants later to be called “public managers”. These managers, young people that were offered Governmental grants to train themselves in Western universities, were supposed to guide national reforms from the inside of the system. Their informal role was to use their Western academic and training experiences and place them against the national background so as to plan and execute a “good” public administration reform. Was this achieved? What were the intervening factors? The interviews performed on public managers from central government organizations are placed against the framework of postenlargement Europeanization studies and sustain the original hypothesis of the paper: there is a gap between reform discourse and reform practice, and transfer of Western values is hardly visible when the agents of this transfer are solely public managers. http://store.ectap.ro/articole/766.pdf post-enlargement europeanizationpublic manageradministration reform |
| spellingShingle | Diana-Camelia IANCU Re(De)-Forming public administration: an expert outlook on reform planning in Romania Theoretical and Applied Economics post-enlargement europeanization public manager administration reform |
| title | Re(De)-Forming public administration: an expert outlook on reform planning in Romania |
| title_full | Re(De)-Forming public administration: an expert outlook on reform planning in Romania |
| title_fullStr | Re(De)-Forming public administration: an expert outlook on reform planning in Romania |
| title_full_unstemmed | Re(De)-Forming public administration: an expert outlook on reform planning in Romania |
| title_short | Re(De)-Forming public administration: an expert outlook on reform planning in Romania |
| title_sort | re de forming public administration an expert outlook on reform planning in romania |
| topic | post-enlargement europeanization public manager administration reform |
| url |
http://store.ectap.ro/articole/766.pdf
|
| work_keys_str_mv | AT dianacameliaiancu redeformingpublicadministrationanexpertoutlookonreformplanninginromania |