Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 25th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview VII. Public Administration Education Author(s) Katarina Staronova Comenius University Bratislava Slovakia Gajduschek Gyorgy, Sedlacko Michal, Title Master Programs of Public Administration and Management in CEE countries: Pathways and Identities File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Katarina Staronova Abstract The mushrooming of MPA/MPM programs across the CEE region since the early 1990s begs the question of their regional convergence - as well as convergence towards a 'Western' ideal-type as opposed to reflecting distinct concerns arising out of historical factors and specific challenges of public administration reforms this region had to face (Staronova and Gajduschek 2017). Nevertheless, additional questions regarding the relationships between MPA/MPM programs and their cultural-political contexts emerge. On the one hand, the programs have a performative role in regard to the organization of the relationship between the public and the state as well as understandings of the role of public administration and civil servants. The influence of individual program's 'identity' goes beyond just advocacy of a particular paradigm (NPM or otherwise), it includes a set of interpretation frames, values, cognitive tools and practical skills imparted upon the program's students. Program's 'identity' can thus be seen as, indirectly and through its graduates placed in key positions, contributing to the stabilization of particular sociopolitical orders and even specifically informing attempts at public administration reforms. The context of the Eastern European public administration tradition has been recognised to possess specifics that make it distinct from Anglo-American tradition or continental European tradition with its strong and deeply ingrained legalistic-bureacratic (i.e. Weberian) features (e.g. Ziller 2003, Peters and Pierre 2003, Demmke and Moilanen 2010). The cultural-cognitive national context and administrative tradition (which, due to similarity as well as exchange, can be - more abstractly - labelled as distinctly Eastern European) shapes the identity of a program, together with the initial imprinting of potential identity attributes upon the programs and the pressures arising out of the regulative institution of national accreditation procedures. This contribution looks at MPA/MPM programs in 5 countries (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Slovaka and Slovenia), exploring - and attempting provisional explanations on - the multiple relationships between national contexts and the 'identities' of the programs. For this we study several parameters of the programs' 'identities' including course profile, size, date of establishment, and mid-career vs. initial education character. It would also seem the programs adapt to other programs in the country (occupying specific positions in the wider administrative field), as well as region and the West (meaning that some specific understandings relevant to MPA/MPM programs diffuse across national boundaries).
