Renewing the Socialist Past or Moving toward the European Administrative Space?

Abstract

Do east-central European bureaucrats more resemble their socialist-era predecessors or their member-state counterparts? Are socialist patterns persisting, or are we witnessing isomorphism toward a European Administrative Space (EAS)? Or both? I examine these questions through the Czech and Slovak cases. I begin by contrasting two ideal types: state-socialist administrative space and EAS. I present evidence from a survey of 296 Czech and Slovak managers and argue that Czech and Slovak administrations occupy interstices between state-socialist and European ideals. Although there is some evidence of convergence, Czech and Slovak administrations operate in spaces considerably distant from the EAS.

The Reformer's Spirit: How Public Administrators Fuel Training in the Skills of Good Governance

“…Given the post‐Soviet context in which this analysis takes place, this article also suggests that public administrators in Ukraine at the time of the survey demonstrated a sense of empowerment in exercising administrative discretion to bring about reform. This trajectory is on par with similar evolution observed in other transitional countries in the region (e.g., Scherpereel ) and suggests that significant changes in administrative culture are indeed possible within transitioning nations.…”

Sustainability of Civil Service Reforms in Central and Eastern Europe Five Years After EU Accession

“…So far, surveys have rarely been used to conduct cross-country research in CEE 50 . An exception is Scherpereel (2004), who surveyed 296 civil servants in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in the spring of 2004. Table 3 below shows the number of respondents to our survey per country.…”

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“…Similar searches of other public administration journals in English reveal only the work of Stewart and coauthors (Stewart & Stewart,1995;Stewart, Sprinthall, & Siemienska, 1997) and one mention by Scherpereel (2004). Given the numbers of people who have been shamed, lost public jobs, or been denied new jobs through lustration processes, this seems a striking set of scholarly omissions.…”

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