Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 26th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview III. PA Reform Author(s) Michal Sedlacko University of Applied Science FH Campus Wien Vienna Austria Staronova Katarina, Title Ministerial Advisory Centres in Slovak Republic: Accounts of Governing and the Boundary between Politics and Impartial Expertise File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Michal Sedlacko Abstract This paper responds to the forthcoming paper by Hal Colebatch in the Central European Journal of Public Policy on accounts of governing in the CEE pre-1989 as well as throughout the 1990s and beyond. Our aim is to uncover the accounts of practice that help conduct the work of governing in recently established ministerial advisory units in Slovakia, focusing in particular on traversing the boundary between politics and impartial expertise and the role of informal institutions. Our work, based on several interviews conducted with directors of advisory centres, highlights the close intertwining between administrative structure and processes on the one hand and political function on the other hand in everyday practice and practical dilemmas of managing these institutions. To help managers structure and make sense of everyday practice they use distinct accounts, which we analyse with the help of several axes and oppositions. By this work we also intend to sensitise CEE scholars to adopt a more practice-oriented and processual perspective of the work of governing.
