Abstract
|
Strategic governance in Central and Eastern Europe: concepts and reality
Annotation of a paper submitted to the 14th NISPAcee Annual Conference 2006
Martin Potůček, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic
There is a considerable gap between the needs of strategic governance at the global level in general (Dror 2001) and in CEE region in particular. (Potucek 2004) There is a lot of misunderstandings of its meaning, purpose, and appropriate implementation mechanisms and instruments. There are not many examples of effective collaboration between the key actors of strategic governance: politicians, civil servants, academic community, representatives of the commercial sector and civic associations, and citizens. The situation is further complicated after the failure of the two referendums about the EU constitutional treaty in France and the Netherlands, that brought about uncertainty about the European Union’s future orientation.
The paper offers the general conceptual framework for better understanding of the concept itself, and the specificities of its application to the region. The approach is based on taking the governance as the core notion and its strategic dimension as its derivative. There is the need for holistic (Perri 6 1997) and multidimensional (Veselý 2004) approach to governance. There are identified three constitutive dimensions of governance: its multi-level nature (Bovaird 2005), the privileged position of the four regulators - market, state, civic sector, and media (Kooiman 2003, Thompson 1995), and actor’s networks and networking. (Castells 2000) As for the strategic dimension of governance, there are three qualities and four resources submitted for further discussion. As for qualities, anticipation, ‘the choice of society’, and the concept of emerging strategies are considered. Core resources of strategic dimension of governance comprise the global ethics, cognitive resources, institutional resources and social capital. (Pierre – Peters 2000, Peters undated)
The concept will be applied to disposable evidence on real-world strategic governance structures, actors, and processes in CEE. There will be analyzed the past influence of the European Union - with its stress on strategic and conceptual instruments in public policy making - during the accession period, as well as the present EU requirements of the member states. The similarities and differences among selected CEE countries will become the basis for concluding remarks on future developmental needs of strategic governance in the region.
Literature:
Bovaird, T.: Public governance: balancing stakeholder power in a network society. In: International Review of Administrative Sciences, vol. 71 (2), 2005, pp. 217-229.
Castells, M.: The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford, Blackwell 2000.
Dror, Y.: The Capacity to Govern. London, Frank Cass 2001.
Kooiman, J.: Governing as Governance. London, Sage 2003.
Perri 6: Holistic Governance. London, Demos 1997. Paper No. 7.
Peters, B.G.: Developing strategic policy capacity in government. In: Thinking the Unthinkable: From thought to policy. Bratislava, UNDP, undated, pp. 22-36.
Pierre, J. – Peters, G.: Governance, Politics, and the State. New York, St. Martins Press 2000.
Potůček, M. (ed.): The Capacity to Govern in Central and Eastern Europe. Bratislava, NIPAcee 2004.
Thompson, J.B.: The Media and Modernity. A Social Theory of the Media. Oxford, Polity Press and Blackwell, 1995.
Veselý, A.: Governance as Multidimensional Concept. In: Understanding Governance: Theory, Measurement and Practice. CESES Papers, 2004, No. 5, pp. 11-23.
|
