Public Administration Education and Europeanization: Prospects for the Emancipation of a Discipline?

The twin processes of Europeanization and Transition provide significant opportunities for the development of Public Administration education in Europe and provide a possibility to further the 'emancipation' of the discipline. In terms of Europeanization, the increasing challenges of politico-administrative interaction between national administrations and the institutions of the European Union illustrate that it is essential for Public Administration graduates to acquire an informed understanding of both the European context of policy-making and of the administrative organization and culture of other member states and countries associated with the EU. As a second element, the transition process in Central and Eastern European states could provide the discipline with further impetus to search for its own identity and approach in a European context. This article reviews the key findings of the results of the comprehensive inventories undertaken by the SOCRATES Thematic Network in Public Administration with regard to the current direction in which Public Administration education in Europe is moving. It addresses whether attention to European issues is reflected in the curriculum as well as links with the profession and whether cross-fertilization between the development of new programmes in the transition states and PA academic programmes in the EU member states has actually occurred.     

On the Relationship between Political Science and Administrative Science in Germany

The theoretical and empirical analysis of administrative activities has been an important area of research since the establishment of political science as an academic discipline in Germany at the end of the 1960s. But is administrative science still a significant part of political science in Germany today? I argue here that in Germany a political science oriented administrative science has developed from a science focused on public administration, that is, on organizational questions, to one focused on public policies and thus on questions concerning the conditions and consequences of political problem solving and control (Steuerung). The question of the internal organization of government is increasingly regarded as an irrelevant one; in addition, the institutional promotion and funding of political science administration research has dramatically decreased since the 1970s. Today's new challenges (economization and internationalization) for both government and public administration seem to exceed the capability of political science administrative research. These challenges open up new opportunities, however, since, in the search for solutions beyond the dichotomy of market/managerialism on the one hand and traditional bureaucracy and state government on the other, political science in particular regains more importance. As will be shown, there are now tendencies which indicate that political science administrative research might encounter a stronger political demand. If the consequent research is able to find a new mixture of theory and practice, this in turn could help revitalize political science administrative research in Germany.     

Public Administration in Germany: Problems and Potential of a Fragmented Community

What is the discipline of Public Administration (PA) ultimately for? The German community has recently entered new deliberations on this recurrent question, with several papers and workshops addressing the present and future of their national discipline. This article uses original survey data to introduce the views of the German community at large and analyzes intellectual commonalities against a background of institutional fragmentation. It scrutinizes preferences for epistemological positions, research aims, and publication strategies, while also investigating potentials for cooperation through interdisciplinary exchange and theoretical or thematic concordance. The results show a community in intellectual crisis. Faced with fears of decreasing reputation and influence, German PA is still divided about its purpose and separated by disciplinary borders.     

Democratic Consolidation in Timor-Leste: Achievements,Problems and Prospects

Timor-Leste has had three rounds of major elections, all of which have been widely regarded as meeting international criteria for being free and fair. There has also been one change of government on the basis of these elections. On these grounds, some observers have suggested that Timor-Leste has met the benchmark for having consolidated its democracy. Timor-Leste can be said to meet the criteria for an expanded minimalist definition of democracy, holding regular, free and fair elections within an open competitive political environment, with relatively little violence and intimidation and general freedom of expression. This political process has, as defined by the literature, also consolidated. However, Timor-Leste continues to face future economic challenges. The literature indicates that states with high levels of poverty, unemployment and with food shortages are more prone to political instability. Given that Timor-Leste's political party system relies heavily on charismatic individuals and, apart from Fretilin, has poor party structures, loss of current political leaders will add a further destabilising effect. Expected economic problems are likely to manifest around the same time that the current generation of political leaders are no longer active. The question will be, in this increasingly challenging environment, whether Timor-Leste can sustain its democracy.     

The Autopoiesis of Administrative Systems: Niklas Luhmann on Public Administration and Public Policy

This article offers an introduction to Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems as it pertains to public administration and policy, as a first step towards both a critique and its empirical application to empirical reality. It reconstructs Luhmann's early writings on bureaucracy and policy-making and shows how this early, more empirical work grounded his abstract theory of social systems in general and the political system in particular. The article also introduces some central concepts of Luhmann's more recent work on the autopoietic nature of social systems and considers the latter's consequences for bureaucratic adaptiveness and governmental steering in the welfare state. One of the main benefits of applying Luhmann's theory to public administration, the article concludes, is that it conceptualizes the central concerns of public administration within a complex picture of society as a whole, in which both the agency that issues decisions and the realm affected by these decisions are included.     

New Public Management and Administrative Reforms in Nigeria

This study examines the Nigerian attempts to implement the New Public Management (NPM) reform. The paper aims at identifying the strand, the extent of progress made and the reason(s) for success/failure recorded. The author finds that the poor success story of the reform is as a result of the preference of the more attractive cost-saving neoliberal economic aspect to the more involving and demanding bureaucratic aspect, the inconsistencies in program implementation, and lack of strong political will common to adopting reform in developing countries. The article recommends that reforms require dealing with the critical challenges of institutionalization, inconsistency and legitimization.     

普京执政三年:成绩、问题和前景

普京执政三年来 ,在政治上进行了行政、司法改革 ,加强了中央对地方事务的调控能力 ,并采取了坚决措施 ,严厉打击恐怖主义 ,维护国家安全 ;在经济上采取了一系列旨在振兴经济的措施 ,使宏观经济指标不断改善 ,财政状况不断好转 ,人民生活水平逐年提高 ;在外交政策上 ,采取务实的外交政策 ,使外交政策的调整服务于国家的安全和经济发展。尽管现在俄罗斯已经进入稳步发展的阶段 ,前景很光明 ,但是仍然存在不少问题 ,为了振兴俄罗斯 ,还有很长的路要走。     

Training of Civil Servants in Turkey: Progress,Problems, and Prospects

Abstract

Today, public servants in Turkey, like in many countries around the world, face major challenges, including an increasingly demanding citizenry, intensifying globalization processes, rapid developments in the use of information and communication technologies, and the rise in the number and influence of the civil society organizations. To overcome, or at least to lessen, the possible negative impacts of these and other such challenges, thoughtfully designed, and effectively implemented training activities may serve as catalyst. After a brief introduction, the article first identifies and describes the main policies and institutional players associated with training and development of civil servants in Turkey. Second, the article identifies and concisely discusses the most critical and enduring problems concerning training and development of civil servants in the country. The third section of the article evaluates prospects for developing effective training policies and practices. In doing so, the article offers ideas and arguments about the issue around the following topics: publicness, performance, proficiency and professionalism, participation, and partnerships and partnering. The article concludes with a brief summary of the issues discussed along with one specific suggestion for future research on training and development policies and practices in Turkey.     

The Future of Public Administration in Denmark: Projections, Prospects and High Hopes

Public Administration research in Denmark has a relatively short history. It was first initiated in the 1970s and was developed from public law. However, from an initial homogeneity it has become increasingly pluralistic in its approach due to three factors: a strong orientation towards the study of institutional reform in the public sector, inspiration from the international literature and the specific institutional set up of the academic community that divides it into separate schools. It is possible to distinguish three trends in today's Danish Public Administration research. These trends are inspired by historical institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism and sociological institutionalism, respectively. What is needed in the future is an increased dialogue between these trends. The purpose of the dialogue should not be to reach for a new homogeneity but to increase the critical debate among different schools in order to increase the general quality of public administration research in Denmark.     

Expectations from Administrative Reforms: An Attempt to Implement the Balanced Scorecard in a Public Sector Organization

The aim of this case study is to explore what actors in a Swedish municipality expect from a new administrative reform (i.e., an attempt to implement the Balanced Scorecard). The findings show that the expectations on changes are highest among the politicians, moderate among the administrators, and lowest among the operative employees. The differences can be explained by the way the reform is anticipated to favor or disfavor the actors, who in turn are influenced by the actors' past experiences. Most of the expressed expectations concern expectations of the outcome of the administrative reform, but some concern expectations on the reform itself.     

Elite Ethics: Comparing Public Values Prioritization Between Administrative Elites and Political Elites

In this article, we compare how administrative and political elites in The Netherlands, the European Union, and the United States perceive and prioritize four key public values—responsiveness, expertise, lawfulness, and transparency. Our data from 94 in-depth interviews show that political elites and administrative elites differ most in their perception and prioritization of expertise and transparency and less in responsiveness and lawfulness. Interestingly, these politico-administrative value differences largely hold across the institutional settings we study. Theorizing on our results, we formulate eight propositions for future studies. Our study contributes to public values research by using qualitative methodology and including politicians.     

Electronic Local Government and the Modernisation Agenda: Progress and Prospects for Public Service Improvement

The wider use of new information and communications technologies (ICTs) is central to the current drive to promote public service improvement in the UK. This paper describes the policy context within which 'e-government' is being developed by local authorities in the UK and evaluates the strategies developed by a sample of local councils against the key components of an ideal model of the electronic local government organisation. It suggests that many authorities have made significant progress in providing information 'on-line'. However, additional funding and staff development, combined with more fundamental changes to internal business processes and inter-organisational working, are needed if councils are to harness the full potential of new ICTs to transform their transactions with service users and citizens.