Abstract
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The latest studies of the civil service development in the Post-Communist countries show that the politicization of the pubic administration is a considerably general process everywhere. The reason of this tendency is rather complex, the changing role-perception of the politicians, the pressure by the media, the misunderstandings of the strategic governance, the growing burdens on the public sector in the globalized world are important factors in the explanation.
The first decade of the 20th Century brought very contradictional changes in the Hungarian politico-administrative development. The need for “strengthening the effectiveness of the governance” has been interpreted as necessity of stronger political governance. The governments in position have made significant moves toward the implementation, sometimes emphasizing the crucial role of the state in the development. A significant part of the society has not forgotten the “good old days” of the state-socialism, and they applauded the populist strategies of increasing the state-responsibilities.
In practice, the power of the government-center has been being increased permanently; the separating line between the political and professional appointments in the civil service moved more and more down, the efforts for establishing “political special forces” in the central administration repeatedly appeared. The position of the administrative state secretaries (the permanent directors of the ministry’s apparatus) has been eliminated, and the staff has been subordinated to the political secretaries.
Beside the politicizing civil service changes, the institutional-organizational structures have also been modified. In 2006, directly after the government change, the new cabinet amended the civil service act, fixing the introduced changes, and initiated a substantial turn in the system of the governance. In order to the efficient management of the EU structural development resources, the strategic functions of the policy making have been transferred from the “ordinary government structure” to a new, centrally organized executive agency system, governed by a centralized political body set in the PMO. Interesting enough, that the EU accepted the establishment of so called “flagship-project” initiated, organized and managed by the national government, seemed to be more efficient than the regionally or locally started and managed developing projects.
The key problem is not the lack of the subsidiary, the serious problem is the lack of the efficiency and the effectiveness in spite of the strong efforts of the government in order to improve this system permanently. The parallel system of the EU found management beside the ministries became the symbolic and real byword for the strong, developing state. The staff at the agencies is young, well-educated, inexperienced in the administrative work and very result-oriented. The fluctuation of the stuff is extremely high. The outcome of the operation is very weak. Consequently, the state cannot pretend stronger capacity in the country than the society really has.
The experiences allow us to draw some important conclusions. The state certainly has key role in mobilizing the energies and synergies, but the state looses its resources if eliminates their sources: the professional and impartial public administration, the advantages of the regional and local autonomies, the productive partnership with the private and the civil sector, the rational of the subsidiary. More PPP needed, but not in terms of power, politization, patronage.
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