Symposium on the development of public administration in Southeast Europe
14 - 15 June 2007
Organised by
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Administration
in cooperation with
University of Belgrade, Faculty of Organisational Sciences,
NISPAcee (The Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe) and
ReSPA (Regional School of Public Administration)
Introduction
In the last fifty years administrative systems in the countries of Southeast Europe were developed under specific conditions and circumstances. Since World War II until the early 90's of the last century the systems were developed under the conditions of communist single-party regimes. The relationships between the state and public administration in these regimes were conditioned by the absence of democratic principles, openness, lack of responsibility, etc. In a few decades special administrative systems were developed in the region of Southeast Europe which in many aspects differed from the administrative systems of Western European countries. The times of transition, radical political and economic reforms, even tragic wars, which followed in the major part of ex-Yugoslavia, creation of the new states, marked the specific development of administrative science in the region. Although many countries in the region still strive towards the EU membership, administrative systems in most of them are too slow in building their capacities for servicing modern societies and countries. During the 90’s of last century the scientific and professional cooperation, the exchange of experience and good practices among institutions and individuals in the region, was almost brought to a standstill due to the above mentioned factors. At present the cooperation between the countries in the region is much scarcer than expected in spite of the rich administrative, historical, cultural and ethnic relationships from the past.
The central goal of the Symposium is to reinitiate and speed up the network building and to strengthen scientific and professional cooperation in the area of public administration development in the Southeast Europe. In this way we would like to actively contribute to faster development of administrative discipline, science and in particular administrative capacity in the region. We are convinced that the Symposium can also contribute to faster implementation of the main EU goals to integrate the region in its structures. Our aim is to attract practice experts from national and international institutions besides university and scientific institutions and individuals concerned with the development in the field.
II. THEMES:
The Symposium covered three thematically closely related areas:
- theoretical and systemic development of public administration;
- education and in-service training for public administration staff and
- current R&D projects and programmes of cooperation in the region.
Topic:s
Thematic group 1: Theoretical and systemic development of public administration
- Theoretical and systemic characteristics and specifics of the development of public administration in the countries of Southeast Europe compared with the EU countries
- Comparative analysis of constitutional law systems
- Relationship between public administration and politics
- Comparative development of administrative law
- Normative regulation of important segments in public administration in the light of the integration into the EU or the EU membership
- Development of civil servant systems compared with other countries in the region and the Member States of the EU
- Privatisation, social welfare state
- Administrative staff development aspects
- Reforms of health care system, education, pension systems
- Public finances, public sector economics
- Public sector management
- Public sector quality systems development
- Local self-government and local community
- E-government, e-participation, e-democracy
Thematic group 2: Education and in-service training for public administration service
- Presentation and comparative analysis of educational systems and programmes for public administration
- Functional education and public administration staff training
- Distance learning and e-education in public administration
- Joint study programmes
- Implementation of the Bologna reform programmes
- Quality in education and training for public administration
Thematic group 3: Current R&D projects, research and development programmes and international cooperation in the region
- European research/development programmes for the region
- Presentation of research/development projects and programmes on national and regional level
- Programmes for restructuring public administration and European integration
- Postgraduate research seminar
Link:
http://www.fu.uni-lj.si/SSPA/2007/