Turkey’s Public Administration Today: An Overview and Appraisal

ABSTRACT

This study overviews and appraises Turkey’s contemporary public administration system. Its prominent characterizing features are discussed, with an emphasis on both the achievements and problem areas. Turkey has a long history of strong traditional bureaucratic practices and culture, from which its contemporary public administration system has emerged since the Republic was established almost a century ago. Despite its many achievements, public administration has its problems, generally the product of conflicts between tradition and modernity. Due emphasis should, however, be given to addressing the challenges of its over-politicization, strengthening governance practices, enhancing the human factor, and instituting further modern administrative reforms.     

Bureaucracy,Post-Bureaucracy,or Anarchy? Evidence from the Italian Public Administration

The aim of this study is to investigate whether the features characterizing the modern public administrations, their organizational models, and the activities carried out, are still rooted in the old bureaucratic approach. The research gathered data from a questionnaire administered to 156 Italian public officers, employees, and managers. The analysis consists of a correlation test and a regression test to verify the hypotheses related to the aim of the study. The research shows that, despite the changes driven by NPM reforms, the Italian Public Administration is still linked to a bureaucratic model. Findings also show that Italian public servants are highly motivated despite the activities they carry out are strongly standardized. Additionally, it clearly emerges that in some cases Italian public administrations are perceived by their employees as pervaded by anarchy. The article has both interesting academic and practical implications for the management of public administrations.     

American Police Unions: A Hindrance or Help to Innovation?

In response to the crises of the 1960s, police departments in the United States embarked upon great change in their policies, operations, and programs. This literature, however, has largely neglected the duality of the role of police unions in the adoption of new programs and practices. Learning about the key actors in the innovations process, however, is crucial to understanding how organizational change emerges. This article builds upon previous research to understand the effects of police unions on the adoption of innovation. Findings indicate that police unions may actually promote rather than hinder the implementation of new innovation.     

Therefore,Is Bureaucracy Dead? Making a Case for Complementarity of Paradigms in Public Administrative Thinking and Discourse

Public Administration has gone through conceptual development to inject renaissance and public value creation. The literature provides a battleground of ideas between bureaucracy, new public management and post NPM with the latter ones chastising bureaucracy. The new developments should be seen as perfecting and correcting some of the extremes of bureaucracy but cannot replace it entirely. Owing to the broad nature of the public sector coupled with complex goals, agencies and mandates; this paper argues for a synergistic relationship and harmonization of the principles espoused by each paradigm; because each may be applicable in specific context, sector and periods.     

Introduction: The Symposium and Its Authors

Abstract

This symposium addresses the question “Has public administration grown up?” as a provocative vehicle for free-ranging inquiry into the state of the field. Its articles originated from a panel of the same name held at the 2003 national conference of the American Society for Public Administration. The authors, each of whom make a quite different response, consist of the panel's original five members plus four participants from the audience who later contributed their ideas in written form.     

Maturation of Public Administration in a Multicultural Environment: Lessons from the Anglo-Saxon,Latin, and Scandinavian Political Traditions

Abstract

A comparative analysis is made of three different models of public administration: the Anglo-Saxon, the Latin, and the Scandinavian. The purpose of this comparison is to analyze how these ideal-types of public administration handle the issue of power. Our argument is that without understanding and facing the issue of the amount of power that bureaucrats and politicians possess in any society, public administration will continue to be handicapped to understand the dynamics of the real world and therefore grow as a discipline. This is so despite the universalist claims of the currently fashionable ideas of the New Public Management.     

Records Management: A Key Element for Effectiveness,Accountability and Development in the Greek Public Administration

Records management is a fundamental activity of public administration. Public records are a crucial component of the most human actions. They form the basis of any political and legal system and secure human rights. Records Management Systems provide information for planning and decision making, promote the government accountability, improve servicing citizens and ensure the organizations' enactments legitimacy. This article presents and evaluates the records management practices of the core Greek Public Administration by conducting a survey concerning the Greek Ministries and trying to find out in what level the records management initiatives are embedded in the business culture and applied by the Greek Public Agencies.     

Using Twitter for Dialogic Communication: Local Government Strategies in the European Union

Abstract

Social networks have changed the way in which governments communicate with citizens, encouraging them to participate in decision-making processes. Nevertheless, few studies have specifically addressed the use of social networks in public sector from the standpoint of dialogic communication theory. The aim of this study is, first, to analyse the extent to which European local governments are developing dialogic strategies in their Twitter profiles in order to establish and enhance relations with their citizens and then to examine the impact of certain factors on the implementation of these dialogic strategies. The findings show that the situation is open to improvement, because local governments are mostly unaware of the benefits offered by the use of dialogic principles when establishing online relationships with stakeholders. Therefore, this paper sheds light on the dialogic potential that social networks provide in public sector, and particularly, it offers a guide regarding how local government should implement Twitter to foster the dialogic communication with citizens.