Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 18th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview IV. Working Group on PA Reform Author(s) Jolanta Urbanovic Mykolas Romeris University Vilnius Lithuania Urbanovic Leonard, Leonard Urbanovič Mykolas Romeris university Vilnius, Lithuania Title IV. working group on PA reform in Central and Eastern European and Central Asian countries in transition (PARinCEECA) File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Abstract Each state permanently reforms its system of public administration. The countries which did not undergo long-term and dramatic changes could improve governance of the state gradually absorbing the experience of other countries in state governing, the improvement of self-government of civil service and other spheres. Having regained independence, the Baltic states could not experiment for long and analyze which models of public administration were the best for their adaptation. The states chose European democratic values. It was imperative to intercept the Western experience of public administration without delay and preclusion. Certain mistakes were made while adapting the models of state governance intercepted from continental Europe and Anglo-Saxon states. First, the Baltic States did not have enough experience of independent state functioning. Second, the Western experience of public administration was hardly compatible with the nomenclature (inherited from the Soviet past), closed and corrupted reality of the administration of institutions of post-Soviet Baltic states. Thus, the Baltic States had to create the system of public administration from scratch. This system comprises the spheres of state and self-government institutions, civil service, statutory organizations and numerous other spheres. In order to achieve the efficiency of the public sector, the principles of new public management were attempted to be implemented; however, in some scholar’s opinion, it was in fact a phenomenon of fashion and rhetoric in the public sphere. Furthermore, while adapting the principles of new public management based on the experience of business management and intercepted from Anglo-Saxon countries, a new concept of the modernization of public governance is becoming more manifest in the continental tradition of public management. It is known as „new civil service“, „citizen participation in public governance“and other names. This new concept is like a milder variant of NPM focusing on such values as citizen, democracy, self-esteem. After almost two decades since the beginning of transformations in post-Soviet states, it is possible to speak about preliminary results. The aim of the present paper is to analyze the reforms of public administration of the latest decade in the Baltics in the spheres of the state and self-government governance as well as in civil service. In order to achieve this aim, the following issues will be analyzed: the development of the reforms of public administration, civil service and self-government, the present situation of public administration in the Baltic states, the encountered problems, the implementation of the projected strategies of reforms of public administration as well as the factors which influence the success of the reforms.
