WG4
Politico-Administrative Relations in CEE
The theme of Politico-Administrative Relations (PAR) and its focus on observing the roles and interplay between ministers and senior bureaucrats endures, both as a scholarly enquiry and as a practitioner concern.
Important information
From participants of this working group full paper is required before the conference.
25/11/2024
Extended deadline for submissions of Paper Proposals.
10/04/2025
Deadline of full paper submission
Register for 33rd NISPAcee Annual Conference 2025
Call for papers
Working Group Themes
The theme of Politico-Administrative Relations (PAR) and its focus on observing the roles and interplay between ministers and senior bureaucrats endures, both as a scholarly enquiry and as a practitioner concern. In Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), politico-administrative relations present a variety of arrangements across country settings that are shaped by many factors, including public administration tradition, political culture, institutional conditions, and levels of trust. The civil service reforms implemented by CEE governments and their preparation for EU entry have yielded piecemeal results and lack in continuity (Nakrosis and Gudzinskas, 2012; Meyer-Sahling, 2009). In addition, how the internal political-administrative environment operates is influenced by external factors, times of crisis, how populist parties influence PAR dynamics, and the role of trust in making appointments and sustaining working relationships.
In the past three decades the bilateral relationship between politicians and bureaucrats has also broadened to include the role of the ministerial adviser, and academic work strives to understand and theorise the contribution of this ‘third element’. The (seemingly) trilateral relationship may be presented as the minister at one point of a triangle, senior civil servants at the second and ministerial advisers at the third point (Connaughton, 2010). The empirical insights from CEE countries on advisers, and a comparative analysis of ministers, civil servants and advisers more broadly is, however, both under-represented and underdeveloped in the literature (see Krajňák et al. 2020; Sedlačko, Staroňová 2016; Pshizova, 2015; Staroňová and Rybar 2024 as an illustration of the contributions to date). It is important to unpack these roles and arrangements that arise in specific institutional settings, and to understand what is meant by a ‘third element’ in the CEE context.
We acknowledge that while public administration literature on CEE has flourished, it is opportune to revisit and continue to explore these topics within the forum of NISPAcee since PAR reform remains subject to volatility in some institutional settings and appears to be only partially achieved in CEE.
NISPAcee 2025 – call for papers on politico-administrative relations
This WG aims to bring together scholars and practitioners from different countries and professional backgrounds to consider theoretical perspectives and discuss empirical findings on politico-administrative relations in CEE and beyond. Early career researchers and Phd Students working on PAR themes are welcome to submit abstracts. We are interested in scholarship exploring interpretations and patterns of politicisation, arrangements for the provision of political and policy advice, and the role, functions, and impact of the ministerial adviser, and how the executive triangle is mapped and functions in national CEE country contexts. We also welcome papers on the coordination of the public policy process and exploring the development of policy advisory systems.
Permanent members of this working group are also affiliated with the research for the pan-European network, CoREx, which is funded by COST to undertake comparative research on the executive triangle (ministers, top level bureaucrats and ministerial advisers) in Europe. Professor Katarina Staroňová is the leader of WG1 on mapping the institutional set-up of the executive triangle.
Submissions may include, but are not limited, to papers on the:
• Assessments of politico-administrative relations in CEE and comparative papers.
• Descriptive papers outlining the institutional setting within which advisers and patronaged appointments operate, titles and definitions of roles, details of appointment, regulatory practices, and data available on advisers.
• Role of ministerial advisers (partisan appointees, political advisers, policy adviser) in CEE and their institutional arrangements.
• Effects of politicisation on senior appointments and civil service development; policy making, implementation and overall public administration performance (including EU policy delivery).
• Longitudinal studies of career pathways and recruitment patterns of senior officials.
• Exploring different forms and settings for politicisation and patronage.
• Novel ways of measuring the scope and extent of politicization in civil service systems.
• Development of policy advisory systems (PAS)
We invite abstracts that align with the PAR working group themes, identify a straightforward research question, and indicate the proposed contribution of the research. The content of the abstract should also provide information about the theoretical framework presented and the methodology used in the research.
Coordinators
Bernadette Connaughton
Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Limerick, Ireland
[email protected]
Dr Bernadette Connaughton is a Lecturer in Public Administration and served as Head, Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Limerick, from 2012-2015. Her teaching and research interests include comparative politico-administrative relations, ministerial advisers, environmental policy, and Europeanisation. From 2002-2008 she co-chaired the NISPAcee working group on Politico-Administrative Relations with Georg Sootla and B.Guy Peters. Her recent publications include a chapter in Ministers, Minders and Mandarins: An International Study of Relationships at the Executive Summit of Parliamentary Democracies (eds R. Shaw and C. Eichbaum) and a book The Implementation of Environmental Policy in Ireland: Lessons from translating EU directives into action (MUP in press).
Katarina Staroňová
Institute of Public Policy, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia,
[email protected]
Katarina Staronova graduated from Wagner School of Public Service, New York University USA and Central European University Budapest, Hungary. She hold PhD. from political science at Comenius University Bratislava Slovakia. In 2003 she worked as a research fellow at Woodrow Wilson Research Center, Washington D.C., USA.
She is an associate professor at the Institute of Public Policy, Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia, having co-founded it in 2005 and which offers first MPA program in Slovakia. Prior to Russian invasion to Ukraine in 2022, she taught at the Leadership program of RANEPA, Moscow since 2018, and is a guest lecturer at several Universities in CEE countries. Her research/scientific activities specialize on politico-administrative relations, public administration modernization, civil service reform, the process of public policy creation (including the transposition process), etc. She was part of a working group at the Government Office Slovakia, preparing Strategy for human resource management in the public sector 2015-2020, and in creating the new Civil Service Law, which came into effect on 1 June 2017. She is an author of numerous academic articles and studies on issues in civil service, e.g. baseline report on Individual Performance Appraisal in Central Government Organizations in Western Balkans.
She also works as a consultant in the issues of public administration reform, civil service management and policy capacity of civil servants for the World Bank, UNDP, and OECD, where she has participated in analytical missions in countries such as Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Moldova, Kosovo, Georgia, Romania and others.
Marek Rybář
Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia, [email protected], ORCID: 0000-0001-5242-2895
is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Studies and the International Institute of Political Science, Masaryk University, Brno, the Czech Republic. He has written numerous journal articles and book chapters on political parties, politico-administrative relations and executive political institutions in Central and Eastern Europe.
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