Civil Service Reform in Transition: A Case Study of Russia

Author(s):  
Svetlana Inkina

Public administrative and civil service reforms have widely been used as a popular strategy to bring about systemic changes in entrenched bureaucracies. The general tendency that occurred in Post-Communist states was to adopt comprehensive policy measures dealing with the efficiency and effectiveness of state apparatus. This paper examines the process of an attempted civil service reform in Russia starting from the first term of Putin's Presidency. Based upon interviews with experts and senior public officials, it elaborates on the role of leadership, or the willingness of the national political elite to improve the system of public administration; the impact of path-dependency upon the course of institutional transformation; and finally, the role of reform strategy in the policy implementation process. The article concludes that the case of civil service reform in Russia may be explained by a combination of policy-making variables listed above. In addition, it highlights the transformation of the Russian policy-making system during the years of political centralization. Full text available at: https://doi.org/10.22215/rera.v8i1.222  

Author(s):  
Svetlana Inkina

Public administrative and civil service reforms have widely been used as a popular strategy to bring about systemic changes in entrenched bureaucracies. The general tendency that occurred in Post-Communist states was to adopt comprehensive policy measures dealing with the efficiency and effectiveness of state apparatus. This paper examines the process of an attempted civil service reform in Russia starting from the first term of Putin's Presidency. Based upon interviews with experts and senior public officials, it elaborates on the role of leadership, or the willingness of the national political elite to improve the system of public administration; the impact of path-dependency upon the course of institutional transformation; and finally, the role of reform strategy in the policy implementation process. The article concludes that the case of civil service reform in Russia may be explained by a combination of policy-making variables listed above. In addition, it highlights the transformation of the Russian policy-making system during the years of political centralization.


2014 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 709-725 ◽  
Author(s):  
Calliope Spanou

The nature of the relationship between the public administration and politics and the subsequent role of the administration appear to be incompatible with the emergence of an administrative elite. After analysing the reasons for this incompatibility, the article explores the impact of the measures taken in the wake of the economic crisis on the civil service and its reform, and also the prospects for the development of a senior civil service. The key, and also the challenge, to any change in this direction remains the rebalancing of the relationship between the public administration and politics. Points for practitioners What might interest practitioners is the issue of the conditions of effectiveness of civil service reform in times of economic crisis and significant pressure.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Sarah James

Abstract State governments, often described as “laboratories of democracy,” design and implement many public policies, but this moniker also implies course correction when initial efforts fail. But how do states learn from failure? Existing hypotheses about policy learning and broad research capacity are insufficient. Using case studies of failed juvenile justice policies in Texas and Washington, I explore when failure acknowledgment occurs at all. I argue that a state’s bureaucratic capacity to gather data—distinct from its analytical capacity—is necessary for public officials to acknowledge failure, highlighting the impact of policy and institutional design on evidence-based policy making and policy corrections.


1977 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 615-624 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Sigelman ◽  
William G. Vanderbok

The bureaucratization of the political process that characterizes twentieth century politics in many countries has not bypassed Canada—as evidenced by skyrocketing rates of government employment and expenditure and, even more dramatically, by the ever-expanding policy-making power of Canadian bureaucracy. One observer sees the civil service as occupying an increasingly strategic role in Canadian politics, a condition thatreflects in part the expanding role of modern government into highly technical areas, which tends to augment the discretion of permanent officials because legislators are obliged to delegate to them the administration of complex affairs, including the responsibility for drafting and adjudicating great amounts of sub-legislation required to “fill in the details” of the necessarily broad, organic statutes passed by Parliament. Some indication of the scale of such discretion is found in the fact that, during the period 1963–8, an annual average of 4,130 Orders-in-Council were passed in Ottawa, a substantial proportion of which provided for delegating authority to prescribe rules and regulations to ministers and their permanent advisers. By contrast, the number of laws passed annually by Canadian federal parliaments is rarely over one hundred.


2021 ◽  
Vol 26 ◽  
pp. 769-791

This paper aims to highlight the role of applying good governance standards in reducing corruption and achieving sustainable development in Yemen, since good governance represents the core of the development process of countries and societies. Good governance is based on the principle of transparency, accountability, efficiency and effectiveness in order to raise the capacity and efficiency of the state and make it more capable and effective to achieve sustainable development. Corruption in all its forms is one of the biggest obstacles to sustainable development in Yemen, and a major reason for wasting state resources and limiting foreign investment, and thus the expansion of poverty, the poor, and other effects related to the failure to achieve sustainable development. Yemen is one of the most Arab countries facing major challenges in the field of implementing good governance and combating corruption in order to achieve sustainable development and achieve its goals at all political, economic, social and environment. This paper concluded that Yemen suffers from a lack of implementation and enforcement of good governance standards, as well as a rampant corruption, which has led to an expansion of poverty and a significant decline in development rates. Key words: Good Governance, Corruption, Sustainable development.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 294
Author(s):  
Venance Shillingi Salum ◽  
Roselyn. W. Gakure ◽  
Romanus Othiambo

The study investigated the impact of stakeholders on implementation of strategic plans in Tanzania’s public sector. Organisations fail not due to bad formulation of strategies, but the execution of strategies is vital to their failure or demise; and hence implementation process remains a challenge towards achieving organisation objectives. The main objective of the study was to investigate the impact of stakeholders on implementation of Strategic Plans in public sector. Seven (7) executive agencies which made 26% of all 27 executive agencies in Tanzania were randomly drawn using simple random sampling. Then, stratified random sampling was used to obtain a sample size of one hundred eighty-eight (188) respondents which was 30% of the target populations (632 employees) in the headquarters of sampled executive agencies. The study found that there was weak positive relationship (R = 0.236) between role of stakeholders and execution of strategic plans; although was statistically significant at alpha = 0.000. Also,  = 0.056 at significance level of 0.05 indicated that, 5.6% of the total variations in implementation of strategic plans is influenced by stakeholders and 94.4% is contributed by other factors which were not considered in this study. The study concluded that stakeholders do influence implementation of strategic plans in public sector. In line with findings, the study recommended that management in public sector should pay more attention on stakeholders if they have to benefit from, otherwise may negatively influence implementation process of strategic plans in public sector.


Author(s):  
Anne-Marie D'Aoust

Foreign policy analysis (FPA) deals with the decision-making processes involved in foreign policy-making. As a field of study, FPA overlaps international relations (IR) theory and comparative politics. Studies that take into account either sex, women, or gender contribute to the development of knowledge on and about women in IR, which is in itself one of the goals of feminist scholarship. There are two main spheres of feminist inquiries when it comes to foreign policy: the role of women as sexed power holders involved in decision-making processes and power-sharing in the realm of foreign policy-making, and the role of gendered norms in the conduct and adoption of foreign policies. Many observers insist that feminism and foreign policy are linked only by a marriage of convenience, designed to either acknowledge the political accomplishments of women in the sphere of foreign policy such as Margaret Thatcher and Indira Ghandi, or bring attention to so-called “women’s issues,” such as reproduction rights and population control. Scholarship on women and/or gender in relation to foreign policy covers a wide range of themes, such as the role of women as political actors in decision-making processes and organizational structures; women’s human rights and gender mainstreaming; the impact of various foreign policies on women’s lives; and the concept of human security and the idea of women’s rights as a valid foreign policy objective. Three paradigms that have been explored as part of the study of women in comparative politics and IR are behavioralism, functionalism, and rational choice theory.


2003 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles W. Gossett

In 1996, the state of Georgia passed a radical civil service reform law that, in effect, removed all new employees from the traditional civil service system and made them “at-will” employees. Additionally, many functions, such as recruitment and classification, were decentralized to the operating agencies. This study attempts to review the impact of these changes on employees in one of the agencies, the Department of Juvenile Justice. A comparison is made of the attitudes of employees who are covered by civil service regulations and those who are not, principally with respect to organizational commitment and loyalty. The results of the survey suggest that, to date, the impact of these reforms on commitment and loyalty is not significant.


2015 ◽  
Vol 83 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabrice Larat ◽  
Christian Chauvigné

While there is universal recognition of their important role in the functioning of administrations and for the motivation of public officials, the values that serve as a reference for the public service are witnessing a change in the way they are understood and implemented in practice, particularly with regard to the new requirements of public management. The analysis developed in this article centres on the interplay between various dimensions relating to the perception and use of the key values of the French civil service and highlights the tensions that prevail despite the apparent preservation of the axiological reference universe of those concerned. It raises the question of the role of schools in the training of values management. It draws on the results of a survey conducted in France by the network of civil service schools (Réseau des écoles de service public; RESP) among managers undergoing training and their teachers and supervisory staff. Points for practitioners The study shows that organizations that are responsible for the initial or continuing training of civil servants offer a breeding ground for the (re)production of public service values. However, for civil service managers to be able to deal with the potential tensions between values (no clear hierarchy, apparent contradictions) it is necessary to develop their capacities for reflective analysis and practical application that will allow a critical distance and promote a contextualized ethical approach.


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