The 20th NISPAcee Annual Conference "Public
Administration East and West: Twenty Years of Development"
May 23-25, 2012, Ohrid, Republic of Macedonia
The 20th NISPAcee Annual Conference, organised in
co-operation with the University, St. Kliment Ohridski - Bitola, Republic of Macedonia, was
attended by 240 participants from 32 countries worldwide. This included 22 CEE
countries covered by NISPAcee’s institutional membership.
NISPAcee would like to thank the local organisers, the
University, St.Kliment Ohridski - Bitola, represented by its Dean of the
Faculty of Administration and Information Systems Management, Prof. Panovska
Boskoska Violeta, and other colleagues, mainly Ms. Boskoska Meri and her team
for the excellent organisation of the conference, financial support and
preparation of the social events, which created a friendly and pleasant
atmosphere for all conference participants.
NISPAcee would also like to thank the programme coordinators
of the conference sessions and working groups for their contributions to the
high scientific and academic value of the entire event.
For the second time, NISPAcee included specialPre-conference Programme for Young Researchers:
Master Class "How to improve your paper”
This Master class was designed for young scholars from
the NISPAcee region who had already written a paper and who wanted to improve
upon it. The Master Class was scheduled in such a way as to allow participants
to work on their papers just prior to the conference. The Master Class was
conducted by Professor Dr. Michiel de Vries (Radboud University Nijmegen, The
Netherlands, who is also the Chair of Working Group IV on Public Administration
Reform and a member of the editorial board of numerous journals in Public
Administration) and Dr. Marlies Honingh, Assistant Professor (Radboud
University Nijmegen, The Netherlands).
The conference began with welcoming and opening speeches
given by representatives of NISPAcee (Gyorgy Jenei, NISPAcee President),University St. Kliment Ohridski - Bitola, Republic of Macedonia (Prof. Panovska
- Boskoska Violeta, Dean of the Faculty of Administration and Information
Systems Management), Information Society and Administration Ministry of the
Republic of Macedonia (Marta Arsovska-Tomovska, Deputy Minister), UN DESA (Qian
Haiyan - video presentation), EGPA (Geert Bouckaert (EGPA Immediate Past President,
IIAS Programme/Research Advisory Committee Chairman), IIAS (Rolet Loretan, IIAS
Executive Director, EAPAA (Theo van der Krogt, EAPAA Executive Secretary),IASIA (Allan Rosenbaum, IASIA Immediate Past President), ASPA (Stephen E.
Condrey, ASPA President-Elect), NASPAA (Nadia Rubaii, NASPAA President),Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Poland (Barbara Kudrycka,
Minister). The conference programme consisted of working sessions on the main
conference theme, general sessions, meetings of research working groups, EAPAA
sessions, several Panel Sessions and Forums, and Panels of new projects, which
enriched the programme of the conference with new information and a
presentation of new initiatives and opportunities for collaboration with external
organisations, as well as within NISPAcee.
During the 20th NISPAcee conference, the ceremony of theAlena Brunovska Award for Teaching Excellence in Public Administration was
held. The Award was given posthumously to Mzia Mikeladze, Caucasus University, ISET,
Georgia. The recipient on her behalf was her brother Malkhaz Mikeladze, the
Ambassador of Georgia in Mexico.
The NISPAcee Business Meeting was also, as usual, on the
conference programme. The annual reports (activities, finances) and future
plans were presented to representatives of the NISPAcee members and other
participating guests.
During the meeting, representatives of NISPAcee (Gyorgy
Jenei, President and Ludmila Gajdosova, Executive Director) signed theMemorandum of Understanding with the representative from NASPAA (National
Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration - Nadia Rubaii,
President).
Another Memorandum of Understanding of the Consortium of
7 Universities (USA, The Netherlands, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia, Estonia and
Romania) and NISPAcee was signed by representatives of the Consortium.
Within the meeting, a new NISPAcee strategy, bylaws and
membership categories and fees were agreed. New Steering Committee members were
elected for another period – Patrycja Suwaj, Bialystok School of Public
Administration, and Polish Association of Public Administration Education,
Poland and Mirko Vintar, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. From the new
Steering Committee a new NISPAcee President was elected – Mirko Vintar.
The closing plenary session began with a closing panel on
the theme: Twenty years of public administration development.
The second part was devoted to the awards ceremony:
The NISPAcee Merit Awards were presented to Michael
Brintnall, APSA, USA and Jacek Czaputowicz, National School of PA, Poland.
The Best Comparative Paper presented at the Conference
was presented to the winners, Karin Hilmer Pedersen and Lars Johannsen, Aarhus University, Denmark for their paper
"Pluralism in Public Administration and Shared Values: The Baltic countries”.
The Award ‘NISPAcee Best Graduate Student Paper’ was
presented to the winner, Ionut-Bogdan Berceanu, National School of Political
Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania for his paper "Reforming
Governments in Emerging Administrations. Case study: South-Eastern Europe”.
The full conference programme can be found via the link:
http://www.nispa.org/conference2012
REPORTS
WILCO Panel
The aim of the WILCO panel was to present some of the
intermediate results of the European project ‘Welfare Innovations at the Local
Level in Favour of Cohesion” (7th European Framework Programme) to a scientific
audience and to exchange insights into different approaches to such complex
issues.
Adopting a European geographical focus, the panel aimed
to present the ongoing academic discussions and research around innovation in
local welfare services, with the focus on the role of civil society
organisations and institutional developments stemming from the resulting
arrangements.
The panel included a general introduction to the project
and two presentations on key issues of social innovation in Croatia and Poland.
Two discussants commented on the presentations.
Main Conference Theme
Chairs:
Mirko Vintar, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana,
Slovenia
Gyorgy Jenei, Corvinus University of Budapest, Budapest,
Hungary
Allan Rosenbaum, Florida International University,
Department of Public Administration, Miami, United States.
The five sessions of the main conference theme described
and analysed the substantial trends of the twenty year development of public
administration teaching and research in the NISPAcee region.
The papers presented provided a detailed overview of the
forms and motivations of East-West cooperation and highlighted its
contribution:
- to
the development of new public administration, public policy and public
management programmes at universities in the region, learning from various
models of western institutions,
- to
the creation of curricula and teaching materials,
- to
foster cooperative research programmes, resulting joint conference papers,
articles, edited volumes, and research grants.
The papers provided valuable comparative analyses of
institutions, models and practices in the framework of a series of selected
country case studies dealing with Poland, Estonia, Slovenia, Romania, and
Slovakia.
They not only assessed the progress of the past two
decades, including results and problems, but also helped in articulating
trajectories and development strategies for the present and the future.
Especially useful insights were provided in the overviews on public
administration reforms in the Western Balkan countries in Georgia and in the
ASPA panel, in which civil service reforms in Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania,
Kazakhstan, Poland and Ukraine were discussed. In an outstanding in-depth
scientific and professional presentation, the presenter convinced us of the
long term importance of "Islamic” public administration.
Most papers pointed out that NISPAcee provided a
multi-cultural, institutional and professional background and framework for
both East-West and East-East cooperation in the region.
NISPAcee has contributed:
- to
the mutual influences of country developments in the region,
- to
the development of East-West and East-East cooperation in different arenas,
(political, professional, academic and research),
- to
the comparative analysis of various public sectors i.e. public finance, health,
social welfare, e-government etc.,
- to
the in-depth analysis of roles of institutions and international organisations
in the stimulation and provision of East-West and East-East cooperation (EU,
OECD/SIGMA, LGI, NAASPA, EGPA, EAPAA),
- to
the identification of cases/examples where cooperation was successful or
unsuccessful.
Roundtable discussions and other forms of debates also
contributed to the implementation of extremely lively and useful sessions in
the main conference theme sessions. The
main conclusion of the five sessions was that today, NISPAcee has had an
extremely important, multilateral bridging role in:
- bringing
together scholars from various countries to conduct comparative analyses on
regional issues and problems,
- facilitating
and organising the transfer of knowledge between US and West European scholars
and their East European colleagues,
- establishing
contacts between East European scholars and scholars from Central Europe, Caucasus and the Western Balkans,
- facilitating
the transfer of knowledge to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldavia, and Central
Asia.
And last, but not least, NISPAcee has become a recognised
regional organisation and considered as a major actor and partner in the region
in the field of public administration research and education for all the relevant
European, as well as worldwide, organisations.
General Session
Chair:
Profiroiu Marius, Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies,
Faculty of Management, Bucharest, Romania
In order to include a wide array of potential
contributors and to make the NISPAcee Annual Conference even more attractive to
Public Administration and Policy scholars, experts, and practitioners and to
further enhance its position as one of the most important meetings in the field
internationally, the 20th NISPAcee Annual Conference included General Sessions
in which papers that covered topics which went beyond the conference or working
group themes, were presented.
The only criteria for acceptance of the papers to these
sessions were:
(a) scholarly
quality, (b) interest of the topic and (c) "from or about the region”.
In the General Session (#1) there were the following
eight papers:
The papers contributed to stimulating fruitful debates on
interesting, valuable and actual topics that concern Central and Eastern
Europe. The themes had both a general approach (by presenting comparative
transversal analysis), and also a specific approach (by presenting specific
case studies).
The paper Grabbing the means of administration political
competition and party patronage in East Central European state-building
approached the scholarly debate on party patronage in East Central Europe,
which is subject to two broad disputes: the first concerns the role of
political competition and the second, the classification of East Central
European countries on the outcome factor.
This paper argued that both disputes can be resolved by
distinguishing between two types of patronage strategies, arguing that the
configurations of political competition aspects determine which patronage
strategy is chosen. This claim was tested using a qualitative comparative
analysis (QCA) procedure.
The paper Europeanization as a factor influencing
multiple interest representation: Lithuanian environmental policies’ case
presented an analysis of the interest groups in Lithuania, as post-communist EU
member states, demonstrating their institutionalisation, accompanied by the
process of Europeanization – with both "bottom-up” and "top-down” perspectives.
The transfers of activities to the supranational level are restricted by the
combination of resources the groups possess and their roots in the domestic
institutional environment.
The paper Capitalism: Discontent, partial remedies,
lingering doubts explored the question as to whether capitalism is finished or
is repairable. Symptoms of capitalist failure abound, yet three factors
highlight the problem: disconnection between labour and the market; increasing
income inequality, and capital hoarding and accumulation by banks and shadow
banks. The prospects presented were that
capitalistic changes will be more than cosmetic, being rather strongly
counter-intuitive.
WORKING GROUPS
I. Working
Group on Local Government
WG Programme Coordinators:
Gabor Soos, Political Science Institute of Hungarian
Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
Arto Haveri, Professor, Local Government Studies,
University of Tampere, Faculty of Economics and Administration, Finland
Topic: From the Past to the Future: How does history
matter for the development of local governments in CEE?
The fifth year of the Working Group on Local Government
focused on the state and development of local government/municipal autonomy in
Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States
(CIS). Autonomy was approached from the viewpoint of constitutional/legislative
autonomy, control over resources, and political independence from central
influence.
The number of applications was higher than in previous
years. Unlike past years, the geographical coverage was less widespread. Most
presenters came from only three countries—Poland, Romania, Russia—plus we had
one presentation from Latvia and another from Estonia.
The trend of professionalisation continued in Ohrid.
Presenters observed the time limits, focused on the main points, and used the
projector. Whilst the papers were at various levels of maturity, they were
mostly concise and well-structured.
This year too, coordinators missed cross-country
comparisons. Only one paper was really comparative, the others focused on one
country. As with each year, a set of papers concentrated on public
administration reforms as a major determinant of local autonomy. One of the
papers examined the effect of EU funds on the local room for manoeuvre. Some
papers focused on local democracy by discussing the opportunities and limits of
public participation and the direct election of mayors.
WG members discussed next year’s conference topic for the
working group in two of the sessions. Following the general theme of the 21st
annual conference, the WG decided to prepare a Call for Papers on Regionalism.
Specifically, our research questions will revolve around the effect of regional
reforms on local governments and the impact of EU policies on regionalism.
II. Working Group on e-Government
WG Coordinators:
Ljupčo Todorovski, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana,
Slovenia
Kristina Reinsalu, e-Governance Academy, Tallinn, Estonia
The three-years effort of the e-government workgroup
focused on building the learning platform for exchanging showcases and best
practices of using information and communication technologies (ICT) in the
public sector has shown that ICT induced a number of important changes in a
variety of government domains and sectors. However, these changes are not
always reflected in positive impact on governance practices, citizens
satisfaction with the availability of electronic public services, and their
readiness to adopt and use them. To address the issue of lack of impact his
year conference mostly focused on two relevant topics of evaluating
e-government efforts and e-participation.
The first topic is evaluating e-government efforts in
terms of their intensity, effectiveness, and impact.
Five papers on evaluation
dealt with a variety of aspects: e-government practices on local level in
Romania and Turkey, e-government institutional planning in Czech Republic,
e-government effectiveness in Russia, international e-government indexes and
respective rankings of Romania, and analysis of different evaluation approaches
used worldwide. The second topic of e-participation was presented in two
papers:
one focusing on citizen participation in the process of
constitutional changes in Turkey and the other presenting a guide for
implementing e-participation in local administrations around Europe. Finally,
one of the papers presented a showcase of using data warehouse technologies for
collecting and aggregating data from different sources in the statistical
office in Macedonia.
This year selection of eight presented papers was based
on twenty-three submitted abstracts. Nine of the abstracts were lated updated
to full papers. The papers were presented and discussed within three working
sessions in front of about fifteen participants.
III. Working
Group on Civil Service
WG Programme Coordinators:
Patrycja Suwaj, Polish Association for PA Education;
Bialystok University, Poland
Hans Joachim Rieger, Head of department in DBB Academy,
Bonn, Germany
With an average of more than 15–20 participants in each
session (with the exception of the last one) this working group was very busy.
The presenters and the participants were a good mixture coming from both
science and practice. This mixture of participants could also be observed in
the presentations, where we had scientific findings and comparative studies as
well as practical implementations and project reports.
In the warming-up phase, 4 teams were built to introduce
themselves and formulate expectations. These expectations were documented with
the meta plan technique. After a warming up session to install a team spirit in
the group, we decided to have a 15-minute presentation and a 15-minute
discussion of each paper which was selected for presentation.
Under the main conference theme "Public Administration
East and West: Twenty years of development” in the WG "Public service”,
different topics were covered:
• Designing
the Ideal: from an analysis of the present conditions in the civil service in
Poland to the prognosis for its future.
• After
Conditionality: Progress or Backsliding in Civil Service Reform in the New
Member States of the European Union.
• "Three-tier
model” of European whistleblower protection: views from the USA.
• Ethics
of officials in the context of a (Slovene) Good Administration.
• Professionalising
the civil service and implications on the public integrity level, Comparative
analysis for South-east Europe.
• Contradictions
and tendencies in collective and ministerial political appointments: a case
study of Slovakia.
• Fight
against Corruption in Russia: Incentives and obstacles.
• Professional
background and perception of public sector career determinants. Does it make
any difference?
• Is it
time to set up a Probation Service in the Republic of Macedonia?
• Implementation
of the performance appraisal process in the Macedonian civil service and its
determinants: does the design of the performance appraisal system matter?
• Promoting
leadership in the Romanian public administration.
• Leadership
as Knowledge and Leadership as a Tool.
• Transformational
leadership in local public administration. A study regarding leadership types
in decentralised local institutions in Romania.
Many new ideas, especially from young professionals, were
most welcome and intensively discussed.
All papers had clear objectives and also some practical
solutions. Some project reports were presented for the third time so it was
very interesting to follow the project results and implementation.
This presentation concept should be taken into
consideration by NISPAcee as an alternative presentation structure.
The presentations were much improved: the presenters
avoided a too broad historical background discussion and went straight to the
point of their message and what could be learned from their findings.
Within the discussions, we received new ideas for the WG
2013 in Belgrade:
• Staff
satisfaction and motivation.
• Demography.
• Gender.
The coordinators would like to thank the presenters and participants
for an intensive and engaged discussion.
IV. Working
Group on PA Reform
WG Programme Coordinators:
Michiel de Vries, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen,
The Netherlands
Veronica Junjan, University of Twente, School of
Management and Governance, Enschede, The Netherlands
Diana - Camelia Iancu, National School of Political
Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania
The theme of the 20th NISPAcee Annual conference in Ohrid
brought in a very high level of interest within the WG IV PAR in CEECA. With an
acceptance rate of about 40%, we selected 17 papers which were all presented
during the four sessions assigned to our group. The papers were grouped into
sessions, according to the following central themes: Comparative perspectives;
Stakeholder perspectives; Normative issues and Solutions. We enjoyed a constant and active audience of
about 20 participants per session. The participants, academics and
practitioners alike, engaged in lively discussions, where practical
experiences, perspectives, and theoretical frameworks were carefully analysed.
Three broad conclusions can be drawn, based on the
discussions. First, there should be more attention being paid to the use and
adjustment of theoretical frameworks to the local specific and institutional
context of the CEECA region. The results obtained, following the research
presented, should be more clearly fed back into the current theories, which
would imply increasing efforts to publish and become involved in international
discussions. Second, we were happy to have good quality papers presented by
practitioners active in the region. They provided useful reality checks for
academics, as well as a promising beginning for a dialogue between academics
and practitioners, which will hopefully lead to enhancing learning on both
sides. Third, the issue of measuring reform came to the fore as very
significant for both communities involved. In this sense, methodological issues
in constructing indicators, unintended consequences of measurement and
implementation issues were considered during discussions.
Based upon these conclusions, we intend to focus the Call
for 2013 to address and explore further these issues.
V. Working
Group on Internationalisation and Networking of Public Administration Studies
and Civil Servants’ Training Systems
WG Programme Coordinators:
Eugenijus Chlivickas, Training Centre of the Ministry of
Finance, Vilnius, Lithuania, President of the Lithuanian Public Administration
Training Association
Borisas Melnikas, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University,
Vilnius, Lithuania
Internationalisation and networking processes are one of
the most important conditions for the modernisation of public administration
studies and civil servants’ training systems in the European Union and in
central and eastern European (CEE) countries. The public administration studies
and civil servants' continuous training systems are closely related to the
strengthening of administrative capacities and new quality creation according
to the new global challenges.
The main attention focused on the following issues:
o accepting
new challenges for the improvement of public servants’ training, studies and
qualification quality in the future,
o new
phenomena and problems which will appear in the future,
o development
of the democratic spirit finds 21st century values in the process of
qualification development,
o how to
make public administration studies and professional development quality
relevant to international standards and current needs,
o the
importance of internationalisation and networking for teaching and professional
development processes; sharing new experiences accumulated in CEE countries and
members of the EU, whilst improving public servants’ qualifications and organising
teaching and studies,
o international
cooperation: its cultivation, not only in CEE countries, but also within the EU
and Europe, focusing on EU quality parameters,
o how
the training content of professional development should be relevant to networking,
determined by EU enlargement and the perspectives of EU cooperation with Russia
and other CIS countries,
o possibilities
for application of the experience accumulated by 'old' EU countries as well as
the USA and other western countries in CEE countries,
o opportunities
for the dissemination and application of central and eastern European
countries’ experience in Russia and other CIS countries and opportunities for
applying experience from Russia and other CIS countries,
o integration
of scientific research elements into the processes of studies, training and
qualification improvement by networking and internationalisation,
o necessity
to conduct and expand scientific research in the sector of civil servants’ and
public administration specialists’ studies and professional development.
The work in the group in 2012 revealed several problems
regarding international cooperation development in the area of civil servants’
training and suggested solutions to them. The title and content of the WG is
relatively new – particularly actual and promising nowadays. So, there is a
great demand to continue the work in 2013 which has already begun.
The main priorities of the working group have been
proposed for the next year:
o progressive
experience of public administration studies and civil servants’ training
accumulated in worldwide practice, EU countries and other countries,
o new
challenges, new opportunities and new teaching technologies which are to be
taken into consideration under conditions of EU enlargement and networking,
o analysis
of the current situation; development of internationalisation of public
administration studies and civil servants’ training systems and implementation
of long-term strategies,
o development
and implementation of international programmes and projects.
VI. Working Group on Fiscal Policy
WG Programme Coordinators:
Lucie Sedmihradska, University of Economics of Prague,
Prague, Czech Republic
Juraj Nemec, Matej Bel University, Banska Bystrica,
Slovakia
The WG on Fiscal Policy, during its meeting on fiscal
policy, focused on public finance and public financial management issues.
Originally two tracks were announced for this conference, i.e. a general track:
East and West: Twenty Years of Development: Fiscal Policy and Public Finance
and a specialised track: Contracting and outsourcing in the public sector, but
as a significant number of authors responded to the current major issue, i.e.
the impact of the economic crisis on public finance and the sustainability of
fiscal policy at national and sub-national levels, specific attention was
dedicated to these papers. Regardless of the topic area, the papers dealt, to a
similar extent, with both central and local government issues and applied
various methodological approaches: country case studies, comparative papers and
papers applying modern econometric methods. In total, 13 papers were presented
from ten countries.
The WG has decided on a few changes over the next few
years: (1) To change the name of the WG to Public Finance and Public Finance
Management, as it expresses more clearly the focus of the Working Group. (2)
The WG will continue to announce two research tracks at each conference;
however, we will invite all interested parties to be involved in this process.
VII. Working Group on Public Policy Analysis Development
Issues
WG Programme Coordinator:
Lesya Ilchenko-Syuyva, Associate Professor, Economic
Policy Department, National Academy of Public Administration, Office of the
President of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine
The 20th NISPAcee Annual Conference held in Ohrid,
Macedonia gathered academics and practitioners in various fields of public
administration, not only from central and eastern European countries, but from
all over the world.
In this framework, the Working Group on Public Policy
Analysis Development Issues provided a forum for discussion and a unique
opportunity to analyse and compare which factors restrict the further
development of policy analysis as one of the key issues in public
administration. The participants expressed great interest (nineteen presentations
were planned during four sessions, but due to organisational and financial
reasons, only twelve papers were presented and discussed during the conference)
in potential stakeholders of policy analysis, how the current stage of policy
analysis in a particular country impacts the economic, social and political
environment and how those challenges can be overcome. The Working Group created
a forum for exchanging experiences on how academics can meet contemporary needs
of public servants as well as in preparing and promoting relevant policy
advice.
The participants expressed a high interest in continuing
the activities of the Working Group on Public Policy Analysis Development
Issues under the umbrella of the NISPAcee annual conferences in these selected
areas: weaknesses/ strengths of policy analysis in a single country or
selection of countries, either generally or in specific sectors; application of
techniques (e.g. regulatory impact assessment, ex ante impact assessment,
evaluation) and a comparative analysis of similar challenges in policy analysis
faced by a variety of countries.
The Working Group contributors would like to express,
once more, their thanks to the NISPAcee Secretariat for all their efforts in
organising the NISPAcee annual conferences as well as to the local Macedonian
organiser – University "St Kliment Ohridski” for their cordial hospitality.
VIII. Working Group on Public Administration Education
WG Programme Coordinators:
Calin Hintea, Babes-Bolyai University, Faculty of
Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Theo van der Krogt, EAPAA (European Association for
Public Administration Accreditation), University of Twente, Enschede, The
Netherlands
This year was the first year of this new working group;
nonetheless, we attracted 28 papers, of which 13 were selected for
presentation.
One session was devoted to papers on public
administration education in specific countries; two sessions on teaching public
administration, and one on competences and learning outcomes.
The sessions showed immense interest in the area of
public administration education at the level of teaching, training and
research. We believe that the group has significant perspectives in terms of
participation and the quality of papers.
The working group will continue in 2013 and will focus
more on selecting the best quality papers within the field. We will give the
same freedom to candidates to come forward with papers on all aspects of public
administration education.
IX. Working Group on Administration and Management of
Internal Security Agencies
WG Programme Coordinator:
Sander Pollumae, Estonian Academy of Security Sciences,
Tallinn, Estonia
This was the first meeting of the working group devoted
to information about the arrangement, organisation, institutions and activities
of the police, prisons and other agencies of internal security. The papers
presented in the working group focused on the development of internal security
agencies during the last two decades and provided data from two countries –
Estonia and Macedonia. Next year’s conference topic was also discussed. The
group will focus on further research and a study of agencies and policies of
internal security.
X. Working Group on Good Governance, Human Rights and
Development in Weak, Crisis and Post-conflict States
WG Programme Coordinators:
Tetyana Malyarenko, Donetsk State University of
Management, Donetsk, Ukraine
David J. Galbreath, University of Bath, Politics,
Languages and International Studies, United Kingdom
The WG is a newly established unit, focused on in-depth
analyses of how the values of human rights create conditions for effective
governance and economic development.
This year, the WG’s activities aimed at the development
of a comprehensive approach, linking human rights, human security and good
governance in order to contribute to public policy, through which human rights
strengthen the efforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in eastern
and south-eastern European countries.
Thematically, the Working Group embraced the theoretical
work on human rights and good governance (for example, the paper by Vladimir
Salamatov "Institutional-behavioural parameters of public administration”),
specific case studies of good governance practice in CEE and CIS countries (for
example, the paper by Alex Aleshka "Georgia: the example of good governance
practices for CIS countries” and the paper by Marija Risteska "Gender and inter-ethnic
dialogue in Macedonia”) and themed comparative analysis, covering areas of
human rights, human security, good governance and economic development (for
example, the paper by Tetyana Malyarenko "Human security and development in the
Eastern Partnership: a comparative study of Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova” and
the paper by Marija Milenkovska "The impact of the European court of human
rights on protecting human rights in the weak, post-conflict countries”).
During the second year of our work, we will focus on the
principles of good governance in the judicial, law enforcement and security
systems, as applied to specific empirical cases of the implementation of human
rights standards in central and eastern European countries.
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