This edited volume offers new insights into capacity building in the Eastern European context. This volume will be an important reference book for academics, practitioners and others working on or in Eastern Europe.

Book Description:

In public administration theory and practice, the 21st century has been marked by a shift of emphasis from efficiency (often simplified as cost-saving, downsizing, and outsourcing) to effectiveness, due to the realization that nothing is so expensive and unproductive as a badly-working civil service. In developing and transition countries, a productive civil service is even more important. Yet, in order for the public administration and “government” to work (and work well) “capacities to govern” must be developed. These capacities include capacities related to setting strategic direction, building capacity to implement policy, and building new ways of financing public goods and services, as well as – especially in development and transitional countries – to absorb funds and manage programs. The purpose of the present collection of rigorously selected and thoroughly edited contributions to the NISPAcee 11th Annual Conference (which took place in Bucharest, Romania, in 2003, under the heading “Enhancing the Capacities to Govern: Challenges facing the Central and Eastern European Countries”) is to contribute to that discourse and to discuss the nature of effective civil service and public policy in general, but especially in the Central and Eastern European region. The selection includes both theoretical and empirical cases, mostly from and about the region, often about countries or cases that have hitherto received scant, if any, scholarly attention in public administration.

Preface

Bryane Michael, Rainer Kattel, Wolfgang Drechsler

Introduction: The Challenge of Capacity Building in Central and Eastern Europe

Bryane Michael

Section I: Building Capacities for the Present and the Future
Gearing Central and Eastern European Governments Towards Weaving the Future through Ruptures in History

Yehezkel Dror

The Capacities to Govern in Central and Eastern Europe

Martin Potucek

Section II: Changing Perceptions of Governance

Democratic Values in Times of Radical Change: A Comparison at the Local Level between Lithuania, Belarus, Russia, Sweden and the Netherlands

Michiel S. de Vries

Katarina Staronova

Analyzing Policy Formulation in theCzech Republic: The Case of the Temelin Nuclear Reactor

Donald Fuller

Section III: Changing Relationship between the Nation and the Region   

Toward an EU Regional Policy: Challenges and Realities for Accession

Peter Szegvari

Democratic, Decentralization and Efficient Regional Governance:

Politico-Administrative Relations in the Polish Regions from 1989 to 2003

Tatiana Majcherkiewicz

Crimean Tatar Legislative Representation in the Context of 2002 Ukrainian Elections

Rustem Ablyatifov

Section IV: Financing Capacities to Govern 

Vertical Imbalance, Externalities and Bailout – The Case of Polish Local Government Borrowing

Bartlomiej Gurba

Problems of Overcoming Perverse Fiscal Incentives for Local Governments in the Republic of Bashkortostan

Ildar Zoulkarnaev

Unanticipated Budgetary Consequences of Devolution: Capacity Enhancing Potentials within the Current Russian Constitutional Framework

Bryce Herrington

The Property Tax - A Missed Opportunity for Fiscal Decentralization in Transition Countries? The Czech and Slovak Cases

Phillip J. Bryson

Section V: Managing the Relationship between the State and Society

Evaluating the Quality of Internal Information Flows and Citizen Interaction in Estonian Local Authorities

Kristiina Tonnisson

Challenge for Effective Health Sector Governance in Hungary:
Co-operation between the Medical Profession and Government

Pavel Ovseiko

Sorin Ionita and Aurelian Muntean

Anti-Corruption Education and Training in Lithuania

Mantas Jonauskis

About the Authors

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