Activities :: (First Phase) :: Working Group on Po

Laszlo Vass, Budapest University of Economic Sciences, Hungary
Lecturers:
Ieva Lazareviciute, Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania
Ludmila Malikova, Comenius University, Slovakia

For the last four years the NISPAcee permanent working group on politico-administrative relations has been engaged in the analysis of the problem hampering the development of a stable interface between politicians and civil servants in Post-Communist states. The Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative of the Open Society Institute funded an initiative from the Working Group to produce a textbook for university education and in the title of "Politico-Administrative Relations: Who Rules?” The book edited by Tony Verheijen includes 8 theoretical, thematic chapters and 9 country cases. The English version of the textbook was published in the year 2001.

In view of our experience working with Central Asian and other former Soviet-Union states, it seemed of great importance to produce a copy of this textbook in the Russian language (the Book was translated and printed also in 2001). The textbook contains material which is highly relevant for the region and the copies were distributed to all NISPAcee members.
The textbook is greatly enriching the teaching programmes in emerging university courses on public administration and political science in CIS states, by making available both theoretical and case material on the important subject of framing politico-administrative relations.

NISPAcee, and the Working Group continued to transfer the lessons of the study of politico-administrative relations to the teaching practice on public administration to the CIS and Central Asia region as well. Taking into account that the book published in Russian was found a valuable resource for teaching politico-administrative relations in that region, a short, intensive training program was organized in Kiev, Ukraine. The aim was to attract those academics in CIS and Central Asian countries, who were interested in teaching politico-administrative relations and using the book produced by the Working Group in their future academic work.

The LGI provided fund made possible to finance the program. 20 applicants from CIS and Central Asian countries were selected as participants and 3 resource persons were mobilized for the workshop.

The three-day intensive work included presentations, discussions and teamwork. (See the next table.)

Topics	Resource persons
Theoretical approaches and their relevance to understanding European realities: East and West.	Laszlo Vass, Budapest University of Economic Sciences and Public Administration
Introduction to assignment: designing a module on politico-administrative relations in a comparative European context.	Ieva Lazareviciute, Kaunas University of Technology
Methodological problems in studying politico-administrative relations and their impact on teaching.	Laszlo Vass, Budapest University of Economics and Public Administration
How to teach critical issues in politico-administrative relations: Delivering policy advice.	Ieva Lazareviciute, Kaunas University of Technology
Professionalisation and politico-administrative relations.	Ieva Lazareviciute, Kaunas University of Technology
How to teach critical issues in politico-administrative relations: Ethics and politico-administrative relations.	LaszloVass, Budapest University of Economics and Public Administration
How to teach country case studies.	Ludmila Malikova, Comenius University Bratislava
New professional terms of public policy process and their interpretation in post-communist Eastern Europe.	Ludmila Malikova, Comenius University Bratislava
Group work on practical assignment and discussion on module outlines, conclusion of the workshop	Ieva Lazareviciute, Kaunas University of Technology

In sum the training successfully enriched the knowledge of the participants in politico-administrative relations and also the participants were efficiently confronted with the most crucial difficulties of the teaching the modern terms of public administration, public management and public policy in CIS and Central Asian countries. The most important lessons and results of the training are the following:

There is no comparison without stable, comprehensive and explaining theoretical fundaments. It is a question, how the academics in CIS countries are trained or retrained in social, political and administrative theories? The older generations of teachers may have general marxist(-leninist) backgrounds, the youngsters have some Western theoretical basics in PA theories while the CEE countries have definite Continental European (French-German) traditions in their public administration development. The teachers should at first be faced to their own thorough grounding and then to think about the students’ preliminary studies in theory.

The most time-consuming task of the training was the explanation of different meanings and contexts of the "terminus technicus” used by the mostly English language PA and policy literature and the professional terms used in the represented country. It means that there are some essential difficulties with the translation and the interpretation of the English PA vocabulary in Russian language. (Eg. politics and policy vs. politika, public vs. state, civil servants vs. state employees, etc.) Further problems appeared with the communication between Russian and other CIS country’s participants because of different interpretation of same terms in Russian. There was an excellent interpreter from the Ukrainian Institute of Social Psychology who had very good capacity to understand the multicultural situation and also the professional terms in PA. It was an invaluable support for the success of the program.

NISPAcee’s mission is helping the development of a democratic and professional public administration in the CEE region. Therefore we forced a normative approach in our teaching instead of using only a descriptive one. Probably, we do not have problem with such values as transparency, or professionalism etc. But the interpretation of the efficiency, elimination of the corruption, or the autonomous self-government might be much more difficult, because of the special societal contexts. If there is too big gap between the "Western” values and the current practices of certain country, the teacher may risk his/her authenticity before the students. Thank to the Soros Foundation and CEU, many participants of the course had comprehensive training in the values of liberal democracy which helped the normative approach of the politico-administrative relations. Interestingly, but not unexpectedly, Russian participants represented an individual ideological and a unique (and very developed) professional position of a presidential system, having specific and individual vocabulary as well. It created some more problems in the group-work until reaching the common understanding.

Today, we have to take into account the significant differences in developmental level among the Post-communist countries. Baltic States, also the academics from those states have much more developed and Westernized PA and policy knowledge than others. It seems to be very rational to organize trainings on more differentiated basis, namely separated for CIS and Central Asian countries. It is better to handle Baltic States separately as well.
The final teamwork-exercise throws the light upon a very important technical issue. While the academics from many different countries were working on a course outline of politico-administrative relations, an essential divergence has been revealed in their standards for a course syllabus. It is better to know that a standard course syllabus should not lack information about the main objectives and the prerequisites, the readings attached to or structured by the classes, and the assignments and the grading. Those countries, which want to join the European Credit Transfer System, should also calculate the exact workload of the students in the course, according to the class-work and the assignments.

There was an important part of the program the compilation of course syllabi in politico-administrative relations, using the NISPAcee textbook. The training participants worked in 4 workgroups, and successfully completed their tasks. The most important conclusions in this part of the program were the following:
The politico-administrative relation separately as such was not attractive enough for the participants to develop a course program in it. Colleagues from more developed democracies (Baltic) were more interested in this topic, but Russians and Ukrainian basically avoided this topic. They were more focused on administrative details, mechanisms and processes as the tools of the efficient governance than the problems of the politicized administration.
CIS educators are very familiar with the theoretical approaches, but they are not pragmatic and less sensitive about the "real world” experiences. The most vital part of the training program was the discussion on the terms and the theoretical aspects, but revealing the facts seemed to be critical and kind of intervention to the domestic, political sovereignty. Maybe the facts are too unpleasant and politically interpreted even today in this part of the world.
The elaborated syllabi dealt with the role of the administration, structure of the PA in certain countries (e.g. Central Asia), reflecting the basically formal-institutionalist approach of the participants. On the other hand, it is understandable that the students in this region need basic teaching in modern public administration and its terminology. The details come later and what is badly needed the sociological knowledge in studying administrative relations.

Finally, the participants agreed on the most crucial readings necessary for studying politico-administrative relations. The basic textbook is:
Politico-Administrative Relations: Who Rules? Tony Verheijen ed. NISPAcee, 2001.
Other essential readings and sources are:
B. Guy Peters: Comparing Public Bureaucracies. Tuscaloosa, University of Alabama Press, 1988.
J.Aberbach, R.Putnam, B.Rockman: Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1981.
Politicians, Bureaucrats and Administrative Reform. B. Guy Peters, Jon Pierre eds. Routledge/ECPR, 2001.
INTERNET sources, like UN, OECD and EU information bases.

Some participants raised the demand for a basic textbook in public administration and public policy written especially for the CEE and CIS audiences. It was pointed out that the regular American or Western interpretation of the terms is not usable in this region because of the traditional differences.

Activities in 2001

Training course: "Teaching Politico-Administrative Relations in East and West”

Place: Bratislava, Slovakia

Date: July 2001

Target group: young university teachers

In line with the mission of NISPAcee, the Working Group did not stop at the publishing of research outcomes, but also wanted to transfer the lessons to the teaching practice on public administration. Taking into account that the published book "Who rules?” is a very valuable resource for teaching politico-administrative relations in comparative context, a summer workshop was organized in July 2001 in Bratislava, Slovakia. The aim was to attract those academics, who are interested in teaching a Pan European joint module on comparative politico-administrative relations in East and West. The book produced by the Working Group on Politico-Administrative Relations served as the basis for the workshop, and the interested academics studied together the possible use of it as textbook in their future academic work.

The OSI/LGI and the EU SOCRATES Program provided fund made possible to finance the program. 20 young academic applicants from CEE countries and Western Europe have been selected as participants and 6 resource persons have been mobilized for the workshop. The UNDP RSC in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, hosted the event, and the NISPAcee provided the organization. The three-day intensive work included presentations, discussions and teamwork.

Meeting of the representatives of the WG on Politico-Administrative Relations at the EPAN conference

Place: Bratislava, Slovakia

Date: June 2001

Target group: young university teachers

The meeting between WG members and counterparts from EU member states focused on the discussion of the development and implementation of a Joint European Module on Politico-Administrative Relations. The politico-administrative relations working group under NISPAcee had been instrumental in driving the process towards the development of the Pan-European module, and four of the working group members made up the core of the EPAN East-West group.

In addition a meeting was held by the sub-group on theory (B.G. Peters, Tony Verheijen, Laszlo Vass, Aleksandra Rabrenovic, Katarina Staronova and Ieva Lazareviciute) to discuss the development of a research project on role perceptions of senior officials.

Meeting of the Working Group on Politico-Administrative Relations

Place: The 9^th NISPAcee Conference, Riga, Latvia

Date: May 10-12, 2001

A successful discussion on the future of the theoretical work to be conducted by the Working Group was held at the Riga conference. The meeting was used to review the outputs of the work of the last three years and to plan new initiatives based on the knowledge and insights gained by the group. One of the main underlying themes of the discussions was the need to move from the inventory stage to more in-depth analytical work, both at central and at local government level. A large part of the discussion in Riga focused on how the working group can organise itself to move in this direction.

An external review of the work conducted by the group, carried out by Prof. Guy Peters, pointed our the problems inherent in using the material produced thus far for the development of new methodological and theoretical approaches to politico-administrative relations. Even if the work done by the group is of great importance in terms of ‘mapping’ and problem identification, primary research is needed to create a solid foundation for the development of suitable theoretical and methodological models that would fit transition states. Therefore the initially set objective of producing an article on theoretical approaches was abandoned, and a different approach to theoretical work adopted.

The group decided that in order to develop the appropriate theoretical approaches further, a much expanded empirical research project should be developed, focusing on the role perception of senior officials, i.e. how they cope with their dual role, and combine ‘political’ and managerial aspects of their work. Three further meetings on the development of this project had been held in the mean time, one in Bratislava in June (during the EPAN conference), one in Bratislava in July (during the training workshop on the textbook) and one in Prague in September (during the meeting of the East-West group under EPAN.

Coalition politics

A further key issue on the agenda of the group for this year were the discussion of pilot studies on politico-administrative relations under coalition governments and the finalisation of the studies on politico-administrative relations at local government level.

The discussion on politico-administrative relations under coalition governments had been highly relevant for most states in Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltics, though less so for other successor states to the Soviet Union. Various aspects of the development of a better working interface between politicians and civil servants in a coalition government were presented in four papers.

The paper of Annika Velthut discussed the prime minister’s roles and sources of authority in coalition government on the case study of Estonia. The author especially focused on the mechanisms of enhancing the authority of the leader by using government support structures. The paper by Anna Laido focused on the interlinkage between government and parliamentary structures in coalition situations.

Prof. Laszlo Vass presented a concept framework for the comparative study of politico-administrative relations under coalition government, as well as a Hungarian case study. Based on the discussion in the group a team of ten group members worked on the preparation of studies according to the framework set by Laszlo Vass. This framework had in the mean time been completed and adopted by the group. It had been decided that this area would form the core area of discussion for the Cracow conference.

The second objective set out in the application, to develop an analytical approach to the study of politico-administrative relations under coalition politics, had therefore already been achieved.

Local government studies
A set of studies on politico-administrative relations at local government was presented at the Riga conference. These studies concern mostly a ‘mapping’ of the situation at local government level in various countries.

Meeting of the "Working Group on Politico-Administrative Relations” (2000)

Place: 8th NISPAcee Annual Conference, Budapest, Hungary

Date: April 13-15, 2000

Target group: Academics and scholar, young university teachers

The Budapest sessions of the working group focused on four main issues:

• Theoretical approaches to politico-administrative relations
• Thematic studies
• Completion of country studies on politico-administrative relations at central government level
• Start of analysis of country studies on politico-administrative relations at local government level

The first theme of the discussions actually became the central theme of discussions as the group focused on whether or not traditional theories and research methods can be successfully applied to the situation of countries in transition. There is a general feeling that the traditional approaches are inadequate to conduct a successful analysis of the main causes of the continuing stalemate in politico-administrative relations in transition states. One the main alternative to these methods (the ‘bargaining model’, based on theoretical work of Prof. Hood) was discussed during the working group session. As a conclusion to the lively and interesting debate, it was agreed that it needs further development, sophistication and testing if it is to become a suitable model for the study of politico-administrative relations in transition states.

In addition to the theoretical and thematic studies, some 10 country studies (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia) were presented and reviewed by the group.

The structure and approach to the textbook was also agreed upon.
A start was made with the development of case studies of politico-administrative relations at local government level.

Finally an additional topic was introduced by Lazlo Vass; politico-administrative relations in the context of coalition politics. This is a highly topical issue for transition states, coalition politics had been seen as a key factor in increasing levels of politicisation, as recently illustrated in the cases of states such as Romania and, to a lesser degree, Slovakia. It was decided to put this topic on the agenda for the following year’s working group sessions.

Meeting of the "Working Group on Politico-Administrative Relations” (1999)

Place: Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Date: November 7-8, 1999

The meeting was extremely useful to focus the minds of the group in between the two annual conferences and also to further develop the cohesion in the group. The number and areas of thematic studies was agreed upon, as well as the approach to the theoretical and methodological section of the textbook.

Meeting of the "Working Group on Politico-Administrative Relations”

Place: 7th NISPAcee Annual Conference, Sofia, Bulgaria

Date: March 25-27, 1999

The research activity under the working group in 1998-1999 focused on the development of country studies on politico-administrative relations and a comparative analysis, based on a research protocol for comparative research developed by the co-chairs of the group. The discussion during the working group meeting in Sofia focused on the analysis of factors determining the nature of politico-administrative relations, the development of comparative methodology and the research agenda for the following year.

Discussion of factors
Three sessions were devoted to a discussion of factors. The first session focused on the influence of political culture and history on the development of politico-administrative relations. The second session dealt with the question why laws have so far had only a limited impact on the stabilisation and professionalism of the administration. The third session dealt with a typology of policy processes designed by Georg Sootla. This typology could help explain the often-unpredictable differences in practise in Central and Eastern European states at given times.

Methodology
In the session on methodology the usefulness of existing configurations for the analysis of politic-administrative relations was debated. There was general agreement on the fact that the models used thus far (parts of the Heady configuration and the models discussed by Peters), do not allow sufficiently for the dynamic situation in states in transition. Two members of the Working Group designed a methodology for comparative analysis of politico-administrative relations, to facilitate further comparative research.

Activities in 1998

Establishment of the Working Group on Politico-Administrative Relations

Place: The 6^th NISPAcee Conference, Prague, Czech Republic

Date: March 18-20, 1998

The permanent working group was established at the NISPAcee Annual Conference in Prague and is chaired by Tony Verheijen (SIGMA and University of Limerick). The objective of the Working Group for 1998-1999 was to develop a methodological framework for the comparative study of politico-administrative relations and to carry out country case studies on politico-administrative relations at local and central government level. Some of these were discussed at the following NISPAcee annual conference, during which the working group also discussed further directions for its research work. In particular, regarding ways to overcome the existing structural problems in politico-administrative relations. Academics who were interested in participating in the working group were asked to write a country case study on the basis of the methodological guidelines developed by co- chairs of the group.