Backdoor politics: politicisation through restructuring in the Bulgarian civil service

Zankina, Emilia

doi:10.1080/21599165.2016.1260550

Cited by 9 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…If civil service laws permit, civil servants are directly replaced by the appointees of the new party. When the existing legal framework provides for a more autonomous civil service, the political leadership of the ministry may still opt to bypass the civil service laws, for example, by restructuring the organization (Zankina, 2016).…”

Section: A Typology Of Ministerial Alterationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, an increase in the number of political positions within bureaucracies (Beblavý et al, 2012), such as heads of agencies and local state administration, suggests political appointment practices. Yet another way is to look at changes in formal bureaucratic structures (Zankina, 2016) since it is a way to bypass legal restrictions of civil service laws. Expert surveys (Bach et al, 2018; Kopecký et al, 2016; Panizza et al, 2019) have also been used.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Personal or Party Roots of Civil Service Patronage? Ministerial Change Effects on the Appointments of Top Civil Servants

Staroňová

Rybář

2020

Administration & Society

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Patronage is typically studied following government terminations when political parties appoint their nominees into the state administration. However, patronage is understudied in cases when a change of minister takes place without government termination. Taking individual government ministers as the units of analysis, we identify four modalities of ministerial alterations: replacing, successive, incumbent, and switching ministers. We show that politicization occurs under “replacing ministers” following government termination, but the bureaucratic turnover is equally high under “successive ministers.” That suggests that patronage can be seen as an individualized power resource of autonomous ministers who exercise influence independently of their political parties.

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Section: A Typology Of Ministerial Alterationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Personal or Party Roots of Civil Service Patronage? Ministerial Change Effects on the Appointments of Top Civil Servants

Staroňová

Rybář

2020

Administration & Society

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“…Such instability and restructuring have solidified a long tradition of politicization of the public administration and have undermined efforts for improving the quality of services. Despite reform efforts, politicization remains a major problem in Bulgaria and is much higher than in many other EU countries (Zankina, 2016).…”

Section: Organization and Management Of Governmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Compared to other East European countries, civil service reform in Bulgaria can be characterized as belated, externally-driven, and with a poor implementation record (Zankina, 2016). The system has encountered great obstacles in overcoming past legacies and combating high levels of corruption and politicization.…”

Section: Civil Service Reformmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, this would still leave other instruments such as restructuring. Frequent re-structuring of administrative structures has been used for political ends as an instrument for bypassing the legal protection of civil servants and exercising party patronage and political purging (Zankina, 2016). -Professional development has had limited impact.…”

Section: Civil Service Reformmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Public Administration Reform in Bulgaria: Top-down and Externally-driven Approach

Zankina

2020

CEPAR

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The article examines public administration reform (PAR) in Bulgaria and the main factors that shaped the reform agenda and dynamics. PAR is examined along five key dimensions – transparency and accountability, civil service and human resources management (HRM), public service delivery and digitalisation, organisation and management of government, and policy-making coordination and implementation. The article argues that there are four main factors influencing reform dynamics and determining policy outcomes in the Bulgarian case: the specific political choices made by government elites, external influence of the EU and of past national legacies, and the importance of institutions and reform mechanisms. To illustrate these factors at work, the article examines three policy initiatives, i.e. e-government, the reduction of administrative burden, and civil service reform. The article presents a longitudinal analysis and a qualitative case-study approach, utilising Annual Reports on the Status of the Public Administration 2001–2018, mapping European Semester Documents 2011–2017, an inventory of PAR initiatives 2005–2018, and interviews of public officials. The pushes for reform have been top-down, externally-driven, and stop-and-go in nature. The results confirm previous findings that Bulgaria is among the EU countries with the poorest record in PAR, struggling to overcome communist legacies and high levels of corruption and politicisation. The Bulgarian case highlights several important lessons: the importance of political will and political dynamics for the outcome of reform efforts; the importance of external pressure and financing; the difficulty of uprooting long-standing legacies in administrative traditions; and the limitations of the top-down approach as an obstacle to the sustainability of reform efforts.

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Bulgaria: Swift Early Response by the Executive, Followed by a Complete Governance Failure

Toshkov

2022

Governments' Responses to the Covid-19 Pandemic in Europe

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Backdoor politics: politicisation through restructuring in the Bulgarian civil service

Cited by 9 publications

References 18 publications

Personal or Party Roots of Civil Service Patronage? Ministerial Change Effects on the Appointments of Top Civil Servants

Personal or Party Roots of Civil Service Patronage? Ministerial Change Effects on the Appointments of Top Civil Servants

Public Administration Reform in Bulgaria: Top-down and Externally-driven Approach

Bulgaria: Swift Early Response by the Executive, Followed by a Complete Governance Failure

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