Vitalis Nakrošis

Public Administration and Management Reforms in CEE: Main Trajectories and Results

Public Administration and Management Reforms in CEE: Main Trajectories and Results The common feature of CEE systems is that they change drastically. Political systems change, e.g. from dictatorships to democracies, and their elites are removed. Democratic checks and balances are established. State structures are reshuffled, e.g. toward more decentralisation. The economic system changes its nature, e.g. from state monopolies to market systems with private firms. Societal and social systems with NGOs, not-for-profit organisations and citizen action groups are established and are designed for people to participate actively in the public debate and to become stakeholders of their society and their communities (Peters 1996). To achieve planned changes, CEE countries had to choose their strategies. In focusing on the administration and the management of public systems, five scopes of reform are possible, from very narrow and limited to a very widespread and broad span of reform (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2004). Choosing one of these models has tremendous practical implications for the content of a reform programme, for the choice of the reform projects, for the sequence and timing of the reform portfolio. It also requires different tactical choices to be made. One of the issues is how many degrees of freedom there are to reform the public sector. Just as in many other countries, mixed strategies have been chosen for public- sector reform in CEE countries, and these choices have changed over time. However, it seems that the span of reform has rather been broad than narrow. It also seems that tactics could have been more visible than strategy because of electoral cycles. This brings us to the question of the trajectories to move ahead. Our article, heavily based in the joint NISPAcee research project4 tries to respond to some selected dimensions of the question of what the common and different trajectories and selected outcomes of public administration / management reforms are in the CEE region.

Longitudinal Change in Lithuanian Agencies: 1990–2010

Although Lithuanian agencies are relatively young, since 1990 they have experienced many organizational changes. The purpose of this article is to explain the change and continuity of Lithuanian agencies and other public sector organizations during 1990–2010 based on the transformative approach. Agency mapping and analysis of other data showed that organizational changes depended on a combination of exogenous and endogenous factors: Lithuanias transition to democracy and market economy, its accession to the European Union, the adoption of government-wide organizational reforms during the economic crisis, and the political turnover.

Theory-based evaluation of capacity-building interventions

Despite the increased attention of evaluation theorists and practitioners on theory-based evaluation, there is still no agreement regarding how to apply this evaluation approach in practice. In order to further advance the application of theory-based evaluation, the article elaborates a specific causal model for the in-depth evaluation of capacity-building interventions supported by the European Social Fund. This model of program outcomes is used to make a contribution claim: that better results of one set of performance management projects can be explained by their better design and more favorable conditions for their implementation compared to other similar projects. The article suggests setting some specific conditionalities – such as assessing the organizational maturity of potential beneficiaries and improving their project management systems before the start of project execution – to improve the implementation of future capacity-building interventions.

Design, Trajectories of Reform, and Implementation of Performance Budgeting in Local Governments: A Comparative Study of Germany, Italy, Lithuania, and Norway

Since the post-war expansion of the welfare state, citizens have raised their expectations about the role of government. However, in most OECD countries the growth rate of GDP slowed down until its dramatic drop in 2007 due to the worldwide financial crisis. Therefore, budgeting processes and formats have become even more important for supporting political choices, fostering organizational efficiency, and monitoring results. This chapter focuses consistently on performance budgeting as a tool for strategic steering and control—the internal dimension of (post) New Public Management reforms. Based on the transformative approach of Christensen and Laegreid in their book New public management. The transformation of ideas and practice (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), we deal with patterns of reform that have introduced steering and control instruments inspired to performance-like measures (accrual accounting, performance-based budget, management control and so on) into four European countries (Germany, Italy, Lithuania, and Norway) at the local government level over last 20 years.

Fiscal consolidation and structural reforms in Lithuania in the period 2008–2012: from grand ambitions to hectic firefighting

This article analyses the inputs, decisions, outputs and outcomes of fiscal consolidation and structural reforms undertaken by the Lithuanian authorities in the period 2008–2012. Our research was based on desk research, which was supplemented by interviews with government decision-makers. The article found that Lithuania successfully pursued fiscal consolidation, which contributed to stabilising its economy and public finances. If economic factors largely explain the timing of fiscal consolidation decisions, political factors are more powerful in accounting for the expenditure-led nature of fiscal consolidation in Lithuania. However, despite bold and ambitious plans, Lithuanias structural reforms proved to be fragmented and incremental due to the absence of a stable base of political support, sustained political attention and persistent political leadership. Points for practitioners First, Lithuanias experience shows the importance of previous policies and the constraints that they impose throughout crises when the speed of decision-making is crucial. Second, it illustrates that an external shock and a reform programme are not sufficient conditions for successful implementation – coalition politics and institutional resistance can derail some initial plans. Third, it demonstrates that even countries that successfully executed a large-scale fiscal consolidation programme may fail to seize the ‘windows of opportunity’ offered by the financial crisis to implement long-term structural reforms.

Party Patronage and State Politicisation in The Post- Communist Countries of Central and Eastern Europe: A Game Theory Approach

Abstract This article aims at offering a framework for analysing party patronage and state politicisation based on game-theoretic reasoning. It is argued that in order to reveal the main causal mechanisms behind these phenomena, one can focus on the cooperation between political parties analysis based on the model of prisoner’s dilemma. The article identifies four sets of obstacles to party cooperation in Central and Eastern Europe: unstable and polarised party systems; “the rules of the game” legitimising party patronage; dense party networks and their building through patronage; and insufficient regulation and weak enforcement of the merit principle in state administrations. The influence of these causal mechanisms in the post-communist countries can be explored through historical process-tracing and other methods. Finally, the article proposes several country-specific hypotheses for the empirical study of party patronage and state politicisation in Lithuania

Lithuanian public administration: A usable state bureaucracy?

Abstract Reform of the state bureaucracy has been a serious challenge in Lithuania. In the face of a dearth of leaders with the requisite administrative expertise as well as capacity for developing ideologically coherent programs, Lithuanias political parties have had great difficulty in properly managing and directing the ministries of the government. At the same time, the Soviet era legacy of command administration with an emphasis on formalism (versus practical execution of policy) has undermined bottom-up efforts to reform the state bureaucracy. While the European Union continues to impose reforms on Lithuanias civil service, the changes are largely cosmetic, as administrators cleave to old habits.

Comparing Agencification in Central and Eastern Europe

While the agencification process in Western democracies has attracted enormous scholarly interest in the last two decades, the development of public-sector organizations in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries has received very little attention so far. In addition, an overwhelming majority of existing public-administration research in CEE consists of single-country case studies. It can even be said that a tradition of comparative studies is missing in public-administration scholarship in CEE. In this general context, the research network to which the authors in this book belong has provided a much-needed framework for, first of all, starting systematic studies of public-sector organization (and agencies in particular) and, second, for carrying out empirical studies based on common methodology, thus enabling comparisons both within CEE and beyond this region.

Making change happen: Policy dynamics in the adoption of major reforms in Lithuania

Previous studies of policy reforms that were undertaken during the recent global financial crisis mostly focused on fiscal consolidation, with much less attention paid to other structural reforms. Although the impact of such external shocks as crisis or change of government on systemic change is widely acknowledged, little agreement exists on which intervening factors can best account for successes or failures of reform commitments. In this article, we propose an innovative explanation that focuses on the variables of political attention and change leadership, and which analyses temporal political and policy dynamics of reform decision making. We conduct a comparative analysis of the four performance priorities of the 2008–2012 Lithuanian Government led by Prime Minister A. Kubilius. The article concludes that a combination of persistent high political attention to policy reforms and strong reform leadership aimed at mobilising coalition support are essential factors in fulfilling reform commitments.

The Agendas of Public Administration Reforms in Lithuania: Windows of Opportunity in the Period 2004 – 2017

Abstract The article analyses changes in the reform agendas of the Lithuanian government in the period 2004 – 2017. Instead of exploring the systemic and formal agendas of administrative reforms based on government strategies and programmes, it focuses on the institutional and actual agendas of Lithuanian authorities using a set of 20 reform initiatives. In addition to the analysis of the institutional context, we also assess a coupling logic and the exercise of political or bureaucratic entrepreneurship during reform policy making. The article finds that budgetary constraints and the reform policy priorities of the Lithuanian governments explain the ambitious agendas of administrative reforms during the 2008 – 2012 government and, to a lesser extent, during the 2016 – 2020 government. The political logic of coupling and political entrepreneurship dominated the flow of the reform process when these governments were in office, producing the top-down approach to reform policy making. In contrast, the 2004 – 2006, 2006 – 2008 and 2012 – 2016 governments relied strongly on a policy-centred logic of coupling together with bureaucratic entrepreneurship, which resulted in the bottom-up approach to administrative reforms in the country.