A naive version of quasi-neoliberal thinking has been predominant in many of the former communist countries in the last decade. Partly as a natural reaction to the failures of command economies and partly to adjust to often ill-understood western ideas and institutions, many politicians believed that the market alone had the power to destroy the old-fashioned structures of the centrally planned economy and authoritarian politics of the Communist past. In other countries, the inherited patterns of tough centralized control hindered most of the effort to replace them with efficient regulatory structures facilitating and compatible with the market economy and political democracy. Both approaches paved the way to corruption. It is only after a series of bitter experiences in the political and administrative practice of central and eastern European countries, that the awareness of their inadequacies is now widespread.

Without doubt, the role of public policy and administration is now much more valued than at the beginning of the 90s. However, there is still a lot of hesitation and confusion concerning the relevant scope and appropriate methods of administrative regulation in political practice. In addition, central and eastern European countries face serious problems in respect to the shaping of future governmental activities and balancing them with pressures to have results here and now. That is why cognitive, educative and the practical task of enhancing the capacities to govern has been selected as the main theme of the 2003 NISPAcee Annual Conference.

Prof. Yehezkel Dror from the Hebrew University, Israel, will be the Conference keynote speaker. His presentation will be based on his new Report to the Club of Rome The Capacity to Govern (.doc)(for those interested in the book, information about it as well as a nine-page abstract of the book (.doc) written by Prof. Kuklinski, University of Warsaw, Poland is available on the NISPAcee homepage, or upon request from the Secretariat)

Panel discussion: The Role of Education in Enhancing Capacities to Govern
Schools and institutes of public policy and public administration have the eminent task of educating not only future politicians and top civil servants, but also citizens, in order to prepare them for the challenging tasks they will be exposed to in the future in order to enhance capacities to govern. This is true both for universities and for in-service training institutes. How should they adapt their curricula? Is there a need to introduce special courses, modules and/or teaching methods?

Public administration depends both on the quality of the political system and public policy capacities to generate appropriate goals, develop options, prepare estimates of certain situations, identify the problems and suggest the relevant regulatory mechanisms. Many features of the political system influence the capacities of both politics and public administration: election procedures, the party system, the mix of representatives and participatory and direct democracy etc. Public policy may serve as an important guiding instrument for public administration. What matters is the ability of public policy institutions to offer sufficient help for strategic choices as well as their advisory capacities for many operational tasks to be solved by public administrative bodies. The rising role of the media in agenda setting and developing communication patterns between the political and administrative elite and the public should also be taken into consideration.

Contemporary central governments face considerable challenges, which were unknown in the past. On the one hand, globalization processes limit their operational space, undermine their revenue and generate new social, economic and security threats. In addition, an important part of their previous competencies is being shifted either to local government or to the private (commercial as well as civic) sector. On the other hand, unprecedented new opportunities emerge to central governments from globalization processes. This defines a qualitatively new situation necessitating their substantial redesign: strengthening the capacity to take - despite uncertainty and inconceivability - the future into account; implementation of regulatory reforms including the shift from direct to indirect methods of regulation; new forms of inter-sectoral coordination; management of research and development and creation of a knowledge society; establishing institutions and mechanisms able to deal with emergency situations; building capacities to support international collaboration, especially vis-a-vis the European Union enlargement, and more.

The implementation of the subsidiarity principle opens new horizons for regional and local governments. Innovative approaches are needed to cover the new governmental functions of regions and municipalities. What matters are: the ways in which regional and local governments can negotiate and collaborate with their central government, with each other and with regional and local governments from abroad; the potential for the operation of consultative frameworks between the representation of employers, employees and regional governments; the new patterns of collaboration between regional and local governments and the commercial and civic sector. Also important is the capacity in central government to facilitate regional and local governments while guiding them and exercising appropriate supervision.

Proposals for papers for the above mentioned topics of the Conference are invited. These papers are expected to be action-oriented, with the emphasis on recommendations based on the evaluation of present and expected situations and the problems and needs in a long-range perspective.
The Conference organizers would welcome any suggestions of issues and participants for the panel discussion.
In both cases, the Conference Organizational Committee will be responsible for the final selection of papers to be presented at the Conference and this will be based on the academic quality of proposals.