Treating citizens as customers has been one of the key elements in transforming public services in Europe. Many public sector innovations have focused on giving citizens more voice and more choice, and on giving them the service quality they deserve.

But are we right to reduce the citizen’s role to that of a customer? What have been the implications of these changes in the public sector? Is the difference between citizens and customers a mere conceptual one, or do the differences run deeper? What is the political, legal, and economic position of citizens and consumers within the organisation of public services? Do they have a different position in different countries?

At this conference, we invite perspectives from public administration, public management, political science, law, business and marketing.

What

The Trans-European Dialogue (TED) is an annual scholarly conference organized jointly by the two key professional associations of Public Administration in Europe, the European Group of Public Administration (EGPA) and the Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe (NISPAcee). It is a high-level, focused conference on a timely topic in Public Administration (PA) that will profit from bringing together senior experts from different regions, thereby facilitating interchange and discussion across Europe and even including Central Asia and the Caucasus, which also belongs to NISPAcee’s area.

Philosophy

Unlike traditional academic conferences, the TED does not have a large number of papers. Instead, experts discuss a small number of papers and controversial statements. TED also wants to contribute to a closer collaboration between researchers from Central, Eastern and Western Europe.

Further information at the EGPA web site:

http://www.iias-iisa.org/egpa/events/dialogues/ted-trans-european-dialogue/

Publication

The NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy - Special Issue
Volume II, Number 2, Winter 2009/2010