I. Working group on Politico-Administrative Relations

WG Programme Coordinators:

The permanent WG on politico-administrative relations was created at the 1998 NISPAcee conference in Prague. Initially the WG concentrated its research activities on studying the general institutional framework of politico-administrative relations in CEE by investigating the attitudes and role perceptions of elected politicians and appointed officials and the impact of transition politics on their relationships in a comparative perspective. From these results the book ‘Who Rules’? (2001) was published and a second book entitled “Politico-administrative relations under coalition government” is currently in he process of publication. In 2002 the WG expanded this analysis from traditional ‘top down’ relationships in government to governance to incorporate the presence, impact of, necessity and contribution of other actors and stakeholders in the policy-making arena, in the attempted resolution of complex social problems through direct forms of involvement and contribution. At the current time a third volume of articles is being prepared for publication.

At the forthcoming 13th annual NISPAcee conference, the working group shifts and further extends its focus on those dimensions of politico-administrative relations in order to reflect the latest developments in CEE countries. There are two broad directions of analysis for which papers will be prepared.

After accession into the EU one part of former post-communist countries has challenged by the urgent need to reform (reorganize, adapt) their policymaking process and institutions at domestic level in order to enable them to participate effectively in the policymaking process at European level.  In order to meet these requirements, the leadership of those countries and their academic support must summarize the strengths and weaknesses of the development of political and administrative dimensions of the policy process during transition. They have to identify in which dimensions the emergent practices of interaction of politico-administrative institutions and participants would fit with the European practices and in which they need considerable reconstruction to make their countries voices heard and accepted in the process of making policy decisions at various EU institutions and levels. The fit of various levels of government is equally important for the development of horizontal integration between regions and sectors of neighbor countries as well as for the effective implementation of EU strategies at the national level.  The majority of the new member states are small countries who should have very well calibrated institutional arrangements and strategies in focusing their policymaking capacity into points in which issues that are existentially important to their nations are debated and decided.  At the same time effective policymaking institutional framework is conducive to the actual co-operation and integration in horizontal dimensions. In sum, the new focus is the study of interactions and contradictions politico-administrative dimensions in multi-level governance and policymaking in new member states. It is anticipated that previous dimensions of analysis (developments of politico-administrative core, policy networks and communities) as well as pre-accession institutional arrangements will be considered as institutional premises and also constraints in developing new politico-administrative configurations that fit with the requirements of multi- level governance. The analysis can focus on institutional changes and needs of changes at regional, ministerial, government level or at the level of EU institutions.

The transition context produced many normative expectations concerning basic institutional arrangements that would ease the consolidation of democracy. These expectations were formed largely in the analysis of post-war developments of Western democracies. Among them were models analysing the roles of politicians and civil servants which shaped the general analytical basis for WG research during the initial years.  Recent developments reveal that different countries that have rather different historical background and which belong to different cultures (often largely determined also by their religious origins) have also considerably specific routes in building up systems of governance that better fit to the needs of their nations. It is anticipated that transition to democracy results in the increasing variety of institutional arrangements and a variety of routes to stable democratic institutions.  It is therefore expected that many developments in the post-soviet space as well as in Southern Europe demonstrate a larger variety of configurations of the politico-administrative core of government than those which were generalized in models that departed from Western European and Anglo-American experience. Our aim is to foster study the policy process and the interaction (and intermingling) of politico-administrative dimensions in the real policymaking process in those countries.  It is expected that papers presented at this WG will facilitate the establishment of some new institutional regularities in the organization of roles of politicians and top administrative officials and civil servants determined by specific historical-cultural variables. This knowledge is very valuable for further development of cooperation and integration between EU member states, accession states and states in post-soviet space.

At the same time we will accept papers which contribute to further insights into state-society relations in public policy in Central and Eastern Europe through a case study approach. 

The research protocol is available in external files:
 MS Word file (43k) or  Acrobat PDF file (16k)

Guidelines for the papers are available in external files also:
 MS Word file (57k) or  Acrobat PDF file (38k)

 We request participants to follow the research guidelines carefully as a major criterion for selection of papers and funding participant’s travel is that papers follow the protocol effectively.  In choosing you topic and planning your proposed research, do not hesitate to contact the workshop coordinators.

We welcome all contributions from CEE as well as Western countries especially those who have no previous contact without WG. More detailed information about our WG is available at the NISPA website.