IX. Working Group on Transition, Change and Uncertainty
WG Programme Coordinators:
György Gajduschek, Corvinus University, Budapest, Hungary
E-mail: gajduschek@gmail.com
He is a Professor of Public Policy and Administration at Budapest Corvinus University and is a senior research fellow at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Centre for Social Sciences. He is also the President of the Public Policy Section of the Hungarian Political Science Association. He has published several papers and books, in both Hungarian and English – amongst others – on the civil service system, law and policy making and implementation in Hungary and in the post-communist region.
Eva Zemandl received her B.A. in International
Studies/Economics at Seattle University (USA) and her M.A. in European
Public Policy at the University of Kent’s Brussels School of
International Studies (Belgium). She is a doctoral candidate at the
Central European University in Budapest with the Doctoral School of
Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations. Her
research focuses on how political appointments to public organizations
influence organizations, governance, and policy. Her past research
includes social policies in European and CEE countries and European
Union governance and policy. Her previous experience includes working in
the NGO sectors in both Seattle and Brussels in areas such as
international trade/business, social and employment policy, and new
towns/pilot cities.
Main focus and working aims
This Working Group intends to deal with the often unpredictable nature of the CEE/FIS transitional context for public administration. It will explore the causes and consequences of large-scale changes and prolonged uncertainty (i.e. in a political, economic, and systemic sense, etc.) in CEE/FIS countries on public administration systems and organisations. Undoubtedly, this chaotic environment carries implications for the internal resilience and stability of both newer and more established public organisations.
Specific goals
Since 2014, the organisers of this WG have been constructing a (still a work in progress) theory to explain the phenomenon of systemic change and uncertainty in the public administrations of CEE-FIS systems. We hypothesise that the change-uncertainty phenomenon in CEE-FIS countries has a distinctly different character than change phenomena in more stable western contexts. Moreover, we consider that the nature of change-uncertainty in PA in CEE/FIS differs from expected/foreseen and regular inputs to the system. In other words, this phenomenon is more disruptive and has become pathological. For the 2018 NISPAcee Annual Conference, we invite contributions theoretically and empirically examining manifestations of the change-uncertainty phenomenon which is pathologically disruptive to PA systems in one or more CEE/FIS countries and carry implications and consequences for PA performance. Of course, we also welcome contributions challenging this perspective.
Guidelines for contributors
We kindly ask that you please:
·Limit paper abstracts to 300 words.
·Provide details of your (either or more) empirical, theoretical, and methodological contribution and elaborate in specific terms how your approach contributes to the overall aims of the WG.
·Please feel free to contact us directly with any questions prior to submission of your proposal: gajduschek@gmail.com/ zemandle@ceu.edu