European Union as a Set of New Values in State-Building Processes in EU Enlargement Candidate Countries

The aim of the research was to analyze the latest values of the EU in the context of their adaptation in the process of state-building in the candidate countries for enlargement with a view to reforming the legal field of the States. The main method was the observation method as a component of the experimental procedure with subsequent interpretation of the results (description). The results of the study demonstrate the axiological importance of the EU’s main values. At the same time, the need for a gradual implementation of reforms in the sphere of state-building is argued, given the desirability of preserving national identity. It is concluded that the low level of adaptation of the EU pyramid of core values is corroborated and confirmed by statistical data, which requires a qualitative transformation of the reform strategy of the state-building processes of the candidate countries for EU enlargement. Scientific research was concerned with the search for the optimal and effective concepts of the integrated application of European values in the state-building processes in the candidate countries for EU enlargement.

Combatting corruption and collusion in public procurement: lessons from operation car wash

This article examines the question of how a nation can combat corruption and collusion and prevent these practices from plaguing and undermining public procurement processes. This matter is especially important to Brazil where Operation Car Wash exposed widespread corruption and collusion affecting public procurement. Although focusing on Brazil, this article reflects on a broader academic and policy debate as to how a nation can escape from a ‘high-corruption’ equilibrium, especially one strengthened by its interaction with supplier collusion. In particular, whether endemic corruption can be combatted through an invigorated law enforcement push, combined with incremental reform, or whether some ‘big bang’ approach, with complete institutional overhaul, is required to establish a new equilibrium. The article notes that the Brazilian experience provides support for the hypothesis that, where corruption is endemic, better laws and law enforcement may be insufficient on their own to break a cycle and to remove the incentives and opportunities for corruption and collusion that exist. However, it also recognizes that, for many jurisdictions, wholesale big bang reform is unlikely to be feasible. It thus proposes a multi-pronged, and self-reinforcing, set of reforms to trigger change, concentrated on weaknesses diagnosed in the system. In particular, it suggests that where corruption affects public procurement, beyond specific adjustments to procurement, competition and anti-corruption laws, procurers, anti-corruption and competition enforcement agencies need to work closely together to coordinate policies, achieve synergies and to combat incentives and opportunities for corruption and collusion within procurement processes. Such reforms must be combined with measures to tackle broader factors contributing to systemic corruption. Although inspired by the Brazilian case study, the diagnosis and proposed reform strategy provides a workable model for use in other jurisdictions.

Strategic Pause on the National Libyan Education Reform Plan: Insights & Enhanced Tactics

Primarily based on the strategic pillars presented in the essential plan titled: "National Libyan Public Education Reform: Entire Transformative Strategies 2020–2026" (Published: November 2017), which proposed comprehensive bases for reforming Libyan public education as a reflection on the problems that the whole Libyan public/private education system have faced due to still-existing circumstances. It divided the entire reform strategy into six years of definite procedures designed to solve the revealed problems through gradual, ongoing actions. This essential plan was followed by a detailed executive paper on the same reverence plan titled "Contextualizing the First Two Years of the Libyan Education Reform Proposed Strategies (2020–2026): Targeted Candidates and Reflective Activities" (Published: May 2018), which explained in detail the projected (Phase I) actions of the first two years of the plan. (Phase II) of applying such a plan was explained in a paper titled "Employing the Subsequent Four Years of the Libyan Education Reform Strategy: Administrations and Contributors" (Published: January 2019), which extensively described the four executive years of the reform strategy with considerations to the constitutional laws or the existing educational regulations in the country.This associated project aimed to obtain a deeper understanding and awareness of the consequences and variables resulting from the remaining state instability for over (10) years (2011-2021) in general, and from (2017-2021) in particular, along with an assessment of the impacts of the coronavirus (COVID-19) on the whole educational system in Libya. This comprehensive work is a result of (16) months of field qualitative study (&), which predominantly depended on the pillars of the suggested plan to professionally determine whether the projected National Reform Plan for the entire Libyan education system is still valuable to apply, or if it needs to be modified, developed, or even changed in some of its aspects or in one/all its phases. The significance of obtaining this field work emerged after the increase of great challenges that revealed problems faced by/facing the entire State of Libya: for instance, the effects of civil wars, a prolonged time of sharp institutional division (East and West), and a tremendous deficit (damage) in most education infrastructures and interferences, in addition to the almost non-existence of QAs, CPD, research, technology, and teaching facilities inside public schools, universities, and even in the vocational sector. This is in addition to the deep effects of the continued lack of a clear policy of education and the approximate non-existence of a clear and authentic Vision, Mission, and Goals (VMG) or sequenced tactics of leadership and lifelong learning for educators, inspectors, social workers, education administrators, TAs, and university lecturers, etc.This field study uncovered profound problems in the entire Libyan education system, which might lead to a complete collapse or major failures if it remains as it is now. It also re-verified the still-valued proposed National Libyan Public Education Reform (NLPER) strategy in combination with contemporary innovative concepts, added stakeholders, and developed tactical leadership philosophies and active crisis management techniques, all to be contained in a developed (7) years of reform strategy and tactics instead of the (6) suggested years, which will immediately take place (the updated Reform Plan) as a response to the findings of this study.

Bureaucratic Reform Strategy Employee Performance in the Secretariat of DPRD Kepulauan Riau Province

Bureaucratic reform is part of the organization's strategy to improve the quality of the organization's performance. The purpose of this research is to analyze the bureaucratic reform strategy in the Secretariat of the Regional House of Representatives (DPRD) of Kepulauan Riau Province on performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. The method used is descriptive qualitative, where the researcher makes observations according to the phenomena that exist within Kepulauan Riau Provincial DPRD Secretariat. Then the data analysis technique uses a logical model in accordance with the concept of performance which is part of bureaucratic reform. The results show that there is a weakening of the supporting factors in public services so that there is a weakening of organizational performance in facilities that are part of the supporting factors for Kepulauan Riau Provincial DPRD Secretariat due to the COVID-19 pandemic, besides that in the bureaucratic reform strategy, preparation and anticipation are needed in involving stakeholders if the involvement of other parties is considered necessary to encourage the improvement of the performance quality of the DPRD Secretariat of Kepulauan Riau Province.

Urban Principal Autonomy and the Goldilocks Dilemma: Considering the Nature and Limits of Principal Power in New York City

Some contemporary urban educational reformers believe that empowering principals with increased school-based autonomy will help them lead educational improvement more effectively. We consider this popular reform idea by examining how principals experienced and exerted autonomy in different forms in two distinct eras in New York City. Our findings suggest that principal autonomy as a centrally planned reform strategy for urban education encounters a Goldilocks dilemma: principal power is almost inevitably too hot or too cold, but never just right. However, principals can and do assert self-sourced autonomy in which they recognize and exercise whatever power they may have within prevailing organizational constraints, conditions, and restrictions. We conclude by examining implications.

Strategies for improving public finance management

Problem setting. Public finances, as a particular type of relations in the economic system, are aimed at ensuring the exercise of social interests. Therefore, managerial functions and their efficiency in this sphere are of great importance, as the success of all management activities of the State depends on their effectiveness. The search for strategic horizons able to ensure the success of managerial actions in the public finance sphere, the consolidation of strategic priorities for its development is crucial issues for the progress of the Ukrainian State on the path of progressive transformations.Recent research and publications analysis. Management of state finances is a subject of research of many scientists. In particular, R. Balakin, V. Kudriashov, S. Hasanov, O. Dluhopolskyi, T. Yefymenko, O. Kyrylenko, S. Klimova, H. Kotina, I. Malyi, O. Moldovan, and others dealt with these issues. The analysis of their publications allows us to define future ways for developing and reforming the system of state finances. At the same time, the concept of public finances versus state ones is much broader. Therefore, it requires a deeper and more detailed approach for substantiation of ways and strategies for improving the management of public finances in current conditions.Highlighting previously unsettled parts of the general problem. The article aims to substantiate the development of strategies for improving the management of public finances, taking into account modern challenges and development of the Ukrainian State, based on the research of peculiarities of the existing strategies for public finance management, analysis of the problems related to the distribution and redistribution of state funds. Paper main body. The sphere of public finances is regulated by a number of normative documents that define strategic directions for its development. First of all, we should mention the Public Administration Reform Strategy of Ukraine for the period up to 2021, which aims to improve public administration, including the system of state finance management. The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the Public Administration Reform Strategy of Ukraine for 2022-2025 and adopted the Action Plan for its implementation. This normative document accentuates ensuring the construction of a capable service and digital State in Ukraine, which safeguards citizens’ interests on the basis of European standards and experience. The peculiarities of public finance management in the system of public administration, its aim and objectives, were determined in the Public Finance Management Reform Strategy for 2017-2020, approved by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. However, the goals set in it need further consolidation. It necessitates the adoption of the Public Finance Management Reform Strategy for 2021-2025. The preparation of its final stage was negotiated at the meeting of the Sectoral Working Group on Public Finance Management of the Ministry of Finance of Ukraine in May 2021. A brief overview of the documents that define the strategies for the development of relations in the system of public finances and public administration, in general, gives grounds to assert that there is sufficient normative support in this area in the context of its strategic development. However, a number of problems remained unsolved during the implementation of provisions of the abovementioned strategies. Nowadays, there is a need in Ukraine to improve the management of public finances, especially in the use of budget funds, to perfect functional responsibilities of public authorities, and to search for new strategic approaches to the use of public sector financial resources to ensure the sustainable development of the national economy.One of the crucial directions for solving these problems is the introduction and implementation of the Strategy for the Development of the Public Finance Management System of Ukraine, which should become an effective tool for regulating relations in the public finance sphere and a means of influencing the consistency and effectiveness of reforms in it.It is necessary to adopt a medium-term Fiscal Consolidation Strategy based on the predominance of reducing spending over increasing revenues of the State. The Strategy should be adopted in terms of state budget execution, taking into account fiscal efficiency.In the conditions of growing informatization of the society, automation of all processes, and digitalization of the economy, it is necessary to form a Strategy for automation of the system of public finance management, which should become an effective tool for ensuring the improvement of the investigated sphere.All strategies for improving public finance management should be based on the principles of transparency of public authorities, stability and sustainability of the budget in the long run, budgeting effectiveness, fairness and efficiency of the system of inter-budget relations, consolidation of the budget process. The active use of the latest information technologies leading to the improvement of financial management and coordination of managerial activities of public authorities should accompany the implementation of strategies. Conclusions of the research. In the system of public finances, there is a sufficient number of normative documents that determine strategic directions for its development. However, mostly all of them regulate the peculiarities of the functioning of the sphere of state finances, while public finances is a broader concept than the state ones. Therefore, this shortcoming, along with the objective need to search ways for further development of the sphere of public finances, taking into account current realities, necessitates the development and adoption of a number of strategies that will determine directions for the improvement of public finance management.