NISPACEE Conference, Romania, Call for Papers

crossposted from LGI Announce List

Subject: CfP: "Enhancing the capaticies to govern: challenges facing the C
EE countries"


http://www.nispa.sk/conf2003/conf2003.html

For applications/deadline, see the end of the message

INVITATION & CALL FOR PAPERS for the 11th NISPAcee Annual Conference

"ENHANCING THE CAPACITIES TO GOVERN: Challenges facing the CEE countries"

Bucharest, Romania, April 10-12 2003

Organized in cooperation with the National School of Political Studies and
Public Administration, Bucharest, Romania

The NISPAcee Conference provides a forum to encourage the exchange of
information and developments in the theory and practice of public
administration. The Conference addresses experts, scholars and practitioners
who work in the field of public administration in Central and Eastern Europe
(including all countries covered by the NISPAcee membership, the Russian
Federation, Caucasus and Central Asia).

The Conference will be structured into a plenary panel discussion and
working sessions on the main Conference theme with meetings of the NISPAcee
Working Groups running in parallel. Papers are invited on the main
Conference theme or on the themes of the Working Groups. The call for
participation in the Working Groups for next year's Conference is based on
the outcomes of the NISPAcee Conference in Cracow 2002. Information on the
Conference is also available on the NISPAcee web site (http://www.nispa.sk)
or at the NISPAcee Secretariat from the beginning of July, 2002.

THE MAIN CONFERENCE THEME

A naive version of quasi-neoliberal thinking has been predominant in many of
the former communist countries in the last decade. Partly as a natural
reaction to the failures of command economies and partly to adjust to often
ill-understood western ideas and institutions, many politicians believed
that the market alone had the power to destroy the old-fashioned structures
of the centrally planned economy and authoritarian politics of the Communist
past. In other countries, the inherited patterns of tough centralized
control hindered most of the effort to replace them with efficient
regulatory structures facilitating and compatible with the market economy
and political democracy. Both approaches paved the way to corruption. It is
only after a series of bitter experiences in the political and
administrative practice of central and eastern European countries, that the
awareness of their inadequacies is now widespread.

Without doubt, the role of public policy and administration is now much more
valued than at the beginning of the 90s. However, there is still a lot of
hesitation and confusion concerning the relevant scope and appropriate
methods of administrative regulation in political practice. In addition,
central and eastern European countries face serious problems in respect to
the shaping of future governmental activities and balancing them with
pressures to have results here and now. That is why cognitive, educative and
the practical task of enhancing the capacities to govern has been selected
as the main theme of the 2003 NISPAcee Annual Conference.

Prof. Yehezkel Dror from the Hebrew University, Israel, will be the
Conference keynote speaker. His presentation will be based on his new Report
to the Club of Rome The Capacity to Govern (for those interested in the
book, information about it as well as a nine-page abstract of the book
written by Prof. Kuklinski, University of Warsaw, Poland and a nine-page
summary of the book written by Prof. Argyriades, UN Consultant is available
on the NISPAcee homepage, or upon request from the Secretariat)

Panel discussion: The Role of Education in Enhancing Capacities to Govern

Schools and institutes of public policy and public administration have the
eminent task of educating not only future politicians and top civil
servants, but also citizens, in order to prepare them for the challenging
tasks they will be exposed to in the future in order to enhance capacities
to govern. This is true both for universities and for in-service training
institutes. How should they adapt their curricula? Is there a need to
introduce special courses, modules and/or teaching methods?


MAIN TOPICS OF THE CONFERENCE:

I. Improving Links between the Political System, Public Policy Institutions,
Public Administration and the Media

Public administration depends both on the quality of the political system
and public policy capacities to generate appropriate goals, develop options,
prepare estimates of certain situations, identify the problems and suggest
the relevant regulatory mechanisms. Many features of the political system
influence the capacities of both politics and public administration:
election procedures, the party system, the mix of representatives and
participatory and direct democracy etc. Public policy may serve as an
important guiding instrument for public administration. What matters is the
ability of public policy institutions to offer sufficient help for strategic
choices as well as their advisory capacities for many operational tasks to
be solved by public administrative bodies. The rising role of the media in
agenda setting and developing communication patterns between the political
and administrative elite and the public should also be taken into
consideration.


II. Enhancing the Capacities of Central Governments
Contemporary central governments face considerable challenges, which were
unknown in the past. On the one hand, globalization processes limit their
operational space, undermine their revenue and generate new social, economic
and security threats. In addition, an important part of their previous
competencies is being shifted either to local government or to the private
(commercial as well as civic) sector. On the other hand, unprecedented new
opportunities emerge to central governments from globalization processes.
This defines a qualitatively new situation necessitating their substantial
redesign: strengthening the capacity to take - despite uncertainty and
inconceivability - the future into account; implementation of regulatory
reforms including the shift from direct to indirect methods of regulation;
new forms of inter-sectoral coordination; management of research and
development and creation of a knowledge society; establishing institutions
and mechanisms able to deal with emergency situations; building capacities
to support international collaboration, especially vis-a-vis the European
Union enlargement, and more.

  III. Enhancing the Capacities of Regional and Local Governments
The implementation of the subsidiarity principle opens new horizons for
regional and local governments. Innovative approaches are needed to cover
the new governmental functions of regions and municipalities. What matters
are: the ways in which regional and local governments can negotiate and
collaborate with their central government, with each other and with regional
and local governments from abroad; the potential for the operation of
consultative frameworks between the representation of employers, employees
and regional governments; the new patterns of collaboration between regional
and local governments and the commercial and civic sector. Also important is
the capacity in central government to facilitate regional and local
governments while guiding them and exercising appropriate supervision.

CALL FOR PAPERS on the Main Conference Theme:
Proposals for papers for the above mentioned topics of the Conference are
invited. These papers are expected to be action-oriented, with the emphasis
on recommendations based on the evaluation of present and expected
situations and the problems and needs in a long-range perspective. The
Conference organizers would welcome any suggestions of issues and
participants for the panel discussion. In both cases, the Conference
Organizational Committee will be responsible for the final selection of
papers to be presented at the Conference and this will be based on the
academic quality of proposals.


WORKING GROUPS

I. Working Group on Politico-Administrative Relations

Coordinators:
Bernadette Connaughton ,University of Limerick, Ireland, e-mail:
[email protected]
Georg Sootla, Tallinn University of Educational Sciences) e-mail:
[email protected]
B. Guy Peters (University of Pittsburgh) e-mail: [email protected]

Background
The permanent Working Group on Politico-Administrative Relations was created
at the 1998 NISPAcee conference in Prague. For its future development and
the forthcoming 11th Annual NISPAcee conference in Bucharest, 2003, the
group aims to broaden the conceptual dimension of its research focus.

To date the group has analysed the roles of the principal actors in the
public policy process - politicians and civil servants - generally through
the application of 'Western models' for categorisation and comparative
assessment of politico-administrative relations in the region. One of the
key lessons learned in the employment of these studies is the difficulty of
satisfactorily applying models of politico-administrative theory that are
conceived in the West in CEE states. Hence, for the forthcoming year it is
proposed that the group orient its focus away from the application of
abstract and descriptive models and concentrate on analysing empirical
evidence through case study methodology.

Call for papers

The study of the traditional dichotomy of politico-administrative relations
in CEE states will be widened to incorporate and analyse the process of
modernising governance in the region.
The contemporary focus on governance can be understood in part as a response
to the challenge of governing complex and fragmented societies, and the
difficulties faced by the state in attempting to solve complex and
intractable social problems through direct forms of intervention. Governance
has become an umbrella concept for a wide variety of empirical phenomena
about governing. Governance highlights the role of the state in 'steering'
action within complex social systems (Kooiman, 1993). It signifies a set of
elusive but potentially deeply significant shifts in the way in which
government seeks to govern (Pierre and Peters, 2000), primarily in involving
a wider array of social actors in making and implementing policy.

In addition to the traditional focus on relations between the principal
actors - politicians and civil servants, the concept of governance implies
the presence, impact of, necessity and contribution of a variety of other
actors in the policy-making arena. It may be argued that in the case of
Central and Eastern Europe the development of channels, access and the
legitimate roles of these actors are weak. This, in turn, impacts negatively
upon the institutionalisation of public policies in CEE countries and
capacities to govern, given that traditional devices of political, as well
as administrative, responsibility and accountability do not optimally work
in the region. Broadening the conceptual focus of the working group, and
encompassing the plurality of interdependent institutions and actors in the
policy making process may significantly contribute to the analysis of how
new patterns of governance are being formed in CEE states. This change
retains our focus on the interactions of politics and administration, but
motivates us to examine a wider range of political phenomena and actors.

The central aim of the proposed studies is the analysis of basic channels
and forms of government - society interaction (consultations, participation,
feedback, impact, capture, manipulation etc.) in the policy process and the
diverse and multiple stakeholders who, in various roles and with differing
levels of intensity, are involved in such interaction. The development of a
typology or models of these channels, forms and stakeholders is not being
proposed at present but rather to firstly attempt to identify several
crucial variables, and some configurations of interaction among the actors
involved in governance.

For example, we will attempt to identify:
  - variables that support and hinder different forms of interaction
  - the role of politicians/ civil servants in developing/ restraining these
interactions and balancing them
  - changes in the mechanisms of accountability with the emergence of new
inputs and impacts etc.

Those variables will be examined in the context of particular
state/territorial specificities (e.g. political culture) and the degree of
inclusiveness of various stakeholders that characterize both states and
particular policy areas. We will also be interested in identifying the
actors involved in the governance process and mapping their patterns of
interaction.

At this initial stage of development papers should be approached through a
case study analysis of key policy areas which will also demonstrate the
differences and variation in national approaches to policy making, as well
as differences among the policy areas. The selected areas are:

Sectoral:
  (a) social/welfare
  (b) economic
  (c) environment
 Integrative:
  (a) defence (process of approaching to the NATO)
  (b) EU affairs (accession process)
  (c) taxation

Interesting proposals from other areas will also be considered for
inclusion. A research protocol will be prepared and circulated to those
interested in preparing a national case study. The protocol will be
available at the end of July 2002 and only papers written in conjunction
with the protocol framework will be included in the programme.


II. Working Group on Public Sector Quality

Coordinators:
Elke Loeffler, Bristol Business School, Bristol, UK, e-mail:
[email protected]

The coordinator of the WG invites contributions on its 2003 theme "Measuring
the quality of life and the quality of governance processes"

The objective of this fourth meeting is to identify new approaches towards
quality measurement which go beyond improving the quality of service
delivery. From a wider governance perspective, an excellent public agency
needs to be more than an excellent service provider. In particular, a public
agency must also be excellent in the way in which it discharges its
political and social responsibilities with its external stakeholders. For
example, in the case of garbage collection, excellent service provision will
not guarantee clean streets if citizens continue to drop litter. In the
fight to get clean streets, it may be rather more important to teach
children at school appropriate civic behaviour. In other words, "good local
governance" is more than "good local government".

In particular, public governance involves the following dimensions which
should be also reflected in the papers:

"Public governance assumes a multiple stakeholder scenario where collective
problems related to quality of life issues can no longer be solved only by
public authorities but require the co-operation of other players (citizens,
business, voluntary sector, media, etc.) - and in which it will sometimes be
the case that practices such as mediation, arbitration and self-regulation
may be even more effective than public action.
"Public governance deals with formal rules (constitutions, laws,
regulations) and informal rules (codes of ethics, customs, traditions) but
assumes that negotiation between stakeholders seeking to use their power can
alter the importance of these rules.
"Public governance no longer focuses only on market structures as steering
mechanisms, as in conventional "New Public Management" approaches, but also
considers hierarchical authority and co-operative networks as facilitating
structures in appropriate circumstances.
"Public governance does not reason only in terms of the logic of ends and
means, inputs and outputs, but recognises that the characteristics of the
key processes in society (transparency, integrity, honesty, etc.) are likely
to be valuable in themselves.
"Public governance is inherently political, concerned as it is with the
interplay of stakeholders seeking to exercise power over each other in order
to further their own interests - and therefore cannot be left to
managerialist or professional decision-making elites.
In particular, we would encourage interested authors to focus on one of the
following topics:
Measuring the quality of life at local and regional levels, including
quality of life issues such as economic development and jobs, leisure and
culture, environment, health and social care, etc. Papers should focus on
the measurement methodology used (in particular, the indicators used,
stakeholder involvement, etc.) but also analyse the effects of such quality
of life measurement (reactions by various stakeholders, use of the quality
of life data, future of quality of life measurements).
Measuring the quality of public governance processes, including issues such
as measuring the degree of transparency, honest and fair behaviour,
equalities of gender, race, religion, etc. in public decision-making
processes and implementation processes. The papers may focus on governance
processes involving external stakeholders (e.g. co-production of public
services with NGOs or citizens or public-private partnerships) or governance
processes within the public sector (e.g. managing accountability between a
public agency and its parent ministry or working in partnership with other
public agencies).
Assessing the effects of decentralising powers to local levels of government
on the quality of public governance: The key issue to be explored is whether
the devolution of powers to local levels of government has improved public
governance (e.g. in terms of higher degrees of stakeholder participation in
policy-making and service delivery, better balance of powers between
different levels of government) or whether the quality of public governance
has deteriorated as a result of decentralisation processes (e.g. lower
degrees of transparency as to who is accountable for what, slower
decision-making processes resulting in stalemate or protracted delays,
greater disparities in the level of equity achieved in public services or in
recruitment and promotion of staff in public organisations). Obviously there
has been a lot of capacity-building at local level in the context of
decentralisation. Consequently, we will be interested in papers which assess
the success of this capacity-building, either within local governments or
within other agencies which work at local level, or within the local
community itself.
We will give a very high priority to papers which are jointly authored by
academics and practitioners! We believe that there is a need for an
intensive dialogue and cooperation between different social sciences
disciplines, civil servants, elected politicians and representatives of
civil society in CEE (and also in Western European and other countries).
Papers should contain some empirical content. They also should be critical
and ideally should draw lessons about what works and what doesn't work. The
total length of the paper should not exceed 6000 words. The authors should
NOT use footnotes but quote all references in the text.


III. Working Group on Preventing Corruption in Public Administration

Joint NISPAcee/Council of Europe initiative
Coordinators:
Barbara Kudrycka, School of Public Administration, Bialystok, Poland, email:
[email protected]
Alexander Seger, Octopus Programme, Economic Crime Division, Council of
Europe, Strasbourg, France, email: [email protected]

Background and justification:
It is widely recognised that strategies against corruption are only
successful if they are comprehensive. Legal and law enforcement measures
need to be complemented by the involvement of the public as well as by
measures to prevent corruption within public administration systems.
Countries of central and eastern Europe have made progress in adjusting
their legislation with European standards and in strengthening their
capacities to investigate and prosecute corruption. However, special efforts
are required in the field of prevention, in particular with regard to
reducing risks and opportunities of corruption within public
administrations. At the same time, capacities to design and implement such
prevention measures are limited. Public administration training institutions
could make an impact in this respect by including corruption prevention
issues into the curricula.

Objective:
To strengthen capacities for the prevention of corruption within public
administrations by integrating prevention issues into the curricula of
public training institutions.

Output:
By December 2003, a research study will have been published containing at
least ten case studies on experience with the integration of anti-corruption
issues into the curricula of public administration institutions and/or
specific and practical recommendations for improvement.


IV. Working Group on Democratic Governance of Multiethnic Communities

Coordinators:
Petra Kovacs, LGI/OSI, Hungary ,e-mail: [email protected]
Jana Krimpe, Tallinn University of Educational Sciences, Estonia, e-mail:
[email protected]

The coordinators of the WG invites contributions on its 2003 theme:
"Enhancing the capacity of local governments to provide equitable access to
minorities".

Background
The Working Group (WG) on Governing Multiethnic Communities had its third
gathering at the 10th Annual Meeting of the NISPAcee. This year, working
sessions of the WG have been devoted to an in-depth analysis of new models
and methods of public service delivery from the point of view of ethnic
diversity. The aim of the WG is to assess and analyze public policies that
determine the access of minorities to public services.

The WG decided to continue its operations at the next NISPAcee conference.
Researchers will contribute to the conference with the topic: "Enhancing the
capacity of local governments to provide equitable access to minorities".
This topic will be based on research results of the working group to date.
During the next twelve months members of the research team will continue
their field research to identify key factors of successful practice in
providing equitable access to public services for minorities. By identifying
these key factors, the working group will contribute to promote policies of
equal opportunities and non-discrimination at the sub-national levels of
government. This issue has become a key priority for all governments in
Central and Eastern Europe in the process of European Integration.

CALL FOR PAPERS
Officials as well as citizens are often frustrated in their attempts to get
a clear picture on the performance of government's achievement in promoting
inclusive policies responsive to the needs of ethnically diverse
communities. Success stories or bad examples become reported by the media
sometimes. However, comprehensive information and analysis is rarely
available on the issue equity in public service delivery.

We are calling for policy studies to provide suggestions by which local
governments and their agencies or institutions might regularly assess their
performance or demonstrate progress. Interested individuals are invited to
join the Working Group's research team and to submit papers analyzing key
factors of successful practices in providing equitable access to public
services for minorities.

The aim of our inquiry is threefold. First, to provide governments and
public officials with suggestions on improving particular situations.
Second, to accelerate new policy actions in areas of service provision to
meet the need of minorities. Third, to enhance governments capacities to
manage ethnic diversity.

A preference will be given to papers based on empirical research (case
studies). Guidelines for writing papers will be available by the end of July
from the NISPAcee web.

For further information, please contact the coordinators:
Petra Kovacs (LGI/OSI) at [email protected], Jana Krimpe (Tallin University)
[email protected] or write to the email list of the working group
[email protected]


V. Working Group on Democratic Governance of Multiethnic Communities

Coordinator:
Zeljko Sevic, University of Greenwich, UK, e-mail: [email protected]

The NISPAcee invites interested scholars and practitioners to join the group
and research on the issues of building fiscal capacity of local governments.
In a post-modern society, people are more and more perceived as customers
and public services are to be run in their interest and the providers are
held accountable. In order to make the local government units accountable it
is necessary to link their work to some indicators and focus on the results
and the perceptions of the public. But, it has been noted that local
governments in fact want to be dependent on the central government, so that
the money is provided from the centre, but the local delivery is almost
entirely ensured through the work of locally selected firms. In order to
make local government more transparent and responsive to criticism, a new
topic is to be devised.

The precise topic has not yet been developed, but the final decision will be
made by the existing members of the group in Summer 2002 when a detailed
research protocol will be developed together with a list of references with
which all potential future members should familiarise themselves. The Group
once again is focusing on the burning policy issues and assumes to produce
works that clearly have policy relevance and can be used by policy-makers.
Although the topic is clearly primarily a public finance one, the Group
would welcome new members who could expand its pool of comparative
knowledge. In other words, different methodological approaches will be
encouraged, as long as they are not completely against the endorsed research
protocol.

Interesting prospective members should contact the Group Co-ordinator, Dr
Zeljko Sevic, in the University of Greenwich Business School at
[email protected], in the beginning of September when a new research
protocol will be devised.


VI. Working Group on e-Government

Coordinator:
Theodore Tsekos, Director, United Nations Thessaloniki Centre, email:
[email protected]
Vassilios Peristeras Information Technology Consultant United Nations
Thessaloniki Centre, email: [email protected]

The coordinator of the WG invites contributions on its 2003 theme: "Towards
integrated public policy for e-Government development"

E-Government has become a popular topic in countries all over the world,
regardless their development stage. Politicians and public officials, design
and support the implementation of e-Government. Though there is not one
single way for implementing e-Government. The public policy for e-Government
development (the management of e-Government) differs a lot, when moving from
one country to another.

In the Working Group, alternative approaches for developing an e-Government
policy will be identified and lessons-learnt by each country will be
presented. We would accept either theoretical papers addressing the issue of
the diversity of public policies for implementing e-Government, or practical
papers presenting country-specific public policy for e-Government.

Questions that could be addressed follows (indicative):
  - Centralized versus decentralized e-Government development.
  - The management of e-Government: structures, processes, resources.
  - National e-Government master plans: lessons-learnt and best practices.
  - National strategies for e-Government in CEE & CIS countries and
eEurope+.


Applications should be submitted to the NISPAcee Secretariat no later than
September 30, 2002 and should include:
- An abstract of a paper that is relevant to the Conference theme (maximum 2
pages), or a proposal for the panel discussion
- A completed application form (this will be available on the NISPAcee
homepage or from the NISPAcee Secretariat)
- Applicant's curriculum vitae.

Application documents should be in English and sent in an electronic form by
e-mail to Viera Wallnerova, NISPAcee Project manager (e-mail:
[email protected])