Katarína Staroňová
Comenius University, Institute of Public Policy, Faculty Member
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Research Interests: Sociology, Policy Analysis/Policy Studies, Knowledge Management, Tacit Knowledge, Sociology of Knowledge, and 9 moreEvidence Based Practice, Sociology Of Scientific Knowledge, Policy learning, Social learning, Public Policy Analysis, Knowledge, Social Science Research Network, Technocracy, and Knowledge management in public sector
Research Interests: Public Administration, Political Parties, Political Science, Politics, Central and Eastern Europe, and 15 moreMinisters, Executive Politics, Social Science Research Network, Bureaucracy, Party Politics, Civil Service, Public Policy and Administration, Politicization, Political patronage, Patronage, Slovakia, Civil Servants, Senior Civil Servants, Council of Ministers, and Public Administration and Civil Society
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Research Interests: Business and Legislation
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English Abstract: It has long been acknowledged that to promote better or „smart“ policies, evidence based policy making or more knowledge and information should be brought to decision makers. Regulatory impact assessment (RIA) is seen as... more
English Abstract: It has long been acknowledged that to promote better or „smart“ policies, evidence based policy making or more knowledge and information should be brought to decision makers. Regulatory impact assessment (RIA) is seen as a tool to increase evidence based policy making and as such it should be integrated into decision-making procedures on a wide range of issues. But this technical-instrumental model of problem-solving has many times only little to do with every-day policy making. Within a comparative framework, this article analysis the formal RIA procedures in nine CEE countries and suggests four models of RIA institutionalization – that is technical-instrumental, strategic, symbolic and non-use. The research shows that while the RIA has been strengthened in recent years and some of the countries have made effort to reform their policy processes to fully implement RIA, some of the procedures have been poorly implemented, and RIA still plays a small (if any) role in decision making. Thus, this article suggests how comparative empirical research can be usefully organized, by enriching the literature on knowledge utilization and RIA.
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In the last decade regulatory reforms have focused increasingly on efforts to improve regulatory quality. As part of that development policymakers have been encouraged to consider fiscal, socio-economic and administrative effects of... more
In the last decade regulatory reforms have focused increasingly on efforts to improve regulatory quality. As part of that development policymakers have been encouraged to consider fiscal, socio-economic and administrative effects of proposed legislation when making policy choices. The Central and East European EU member states have adopted regulatory impact analysis (RIA) mechanisms but so far there has been little analysis of their implementation. This article first compares the manner in which RIAs have been institutionalised in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia. Second, it explores how differences in institutionalisation have affected RIA performance. The paper concludes that there are marked differences in the RIA quality across Central and Eastern Europe, notably as a consequence of national differences in institutional and administrative contexts and capacities.
Research Interests: Political Science, Czech, Central and Eastern Europe, Institutions, Social Science Research Network, and 9 moreLegislation, Regulatory Impact Assesment, Institutionalisation, Capacity, Public Administration and Policy, Regulatory Impact Assessment, Member States, Regulatory Impact Analysis, and Public Policy
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This paper argues that the role of informal institutions is central to understanding the politicization in Central and Eastern Europe generally and specifically in the formation of senior civil service (SCS) system. We focus on three... more
This paper argues that the role of informal institutions is central to understanding the politicization in Central and Eastern Europe generally and specifically in the formation of senior civil service (SCS) system. We focus on three diverse CEE countries in our analysis: Estonia, Hungary and Slovakia. Our analysis is based on the framework elaborated by Helmke & Levitsky, of informal institutions and focuses on "competing" informal institution of discretionary power of politicians in personnel SCS decisions. We argue that turning to "substitutive" informal institutions were critical in forming professional SCS in Estonia, while relying solely on formal institutions (i.e. law making) in Hungary and Slovakia evidently failed to create a professional formal SCS. We identify factors that in this region may promulgate professionalization. We also test the applicability of Helmke Levitsky framework and suggest some ways to expand its applicability.
Research Interests: Public Administration, Political Science, Institution, Central and Eastern Europe, Institutionalism, and 11 moreInstitutions, Business and Management, Civil Service, Professionalization, Politicization, Patronage, Informal Institutions, Public Administration and Policy, Senior Civil Servants, Formal System, and service Business
The article examines the proposition that the characteristics of ministerial advisers are shaped by specific settings of the politicization of ministerial administration. Four types of politicization settings are identified, resulting... more
The article examines the proposition that the characteristics of ministerial advisers are shaped by specific settings of the politicization of ministerial administration. Four types of politicization settings are identified, resulting from variation in the scope of formal political appointments and appointments into bureaucracy. Using data from an original expert survey and semi‐structured expert interviews, the contribution analyses eleven cases from Central and Eastern Europe. It documents that the functional differentiation of advisers from other administrative actors, and their political and policymaking roles, are conditioned by the politicization settings in which they operate. The political roles of advisers are most pronounced where they do not face other formal political appointees, and appointments into bureaucracy are low. Policymaking roles are strongest where formal political appointees manage high politics, and bureaucratic appointments are limited. The article also identifies “invisible” advisers as a new type of player unknown in established Western bureaucracies.
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Research Interests: Political Science, Politics, Czech, Urban And Regional Planning, Czech Republic, and 11 moreCentral and Eastern Europe, Demonstrative, Social Science Research Network, Legislation, Comparative Analysis, Regulatory Impact Assesment, Pilot study, Institutional Arrangement, Regulatory Impact Assessment, Legislature, and ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND MANAGEMENT
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PurposeThe purpose of this article is to examine whether the incentivizing type of performance appraisal (typical of New Public Management) has indeed been superseded by a post-New Public Management (NPM), developmental type of... more
PurposeThe purpose of this article is to examine whether the incentivizing type of performance appraisal (typical of New Public Management) has indeed been superseded by a post-New Public Management (NPM), developmental type of performance appraisal in European Civil Services.Design/methodology/approachThe literature review lead to a unidimensional, twofold typology: incentivizing (NPM) and developmental (post-NPM) performance appraisal. The empirical basis of the research is two surveys conducted among top civil servants in 18 European countries.FindingsFirst, there are crucial discrepancies between performance appraisal systems in contemporary European central government administrations and current theorizing on performance appraisal. Contrary to our expectations developed on the basis of the latter, “developmental” and “incentivizing” do not seem to be two distinct types of performance appraisal; rather, they are two independent dimensions, defining altogether four different types of performance appraisal systems.Practical implicationsThe authors results give orientation to policymakers and public service managers to engage in designing or applying performance appraisal systems, in particular by identifying assailable presumptions underlying many present-time reform trends.Social implicationsCitizens and communities are direct stakeholders in the development of public service performance appraisal both as possible or actual employees of public service organizations and as recipients of public services.Originality/valueThe paper proposes a new fourfold typology of performance appraisal systems: incentivizing, developmental, symbolic and want-it-all.
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ABSTRACT
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This paper studies two processes of civil service reform in Slovakia during the period of 2014–2015 in order to reflect on the involvement of an ‘outsider‐academic’ and her strategies to achieve policy impact. The context of such... more
This paper studies two processes of civil service reform in Slovakia during the period of 2014–2015 in order to reflect on the involvement of an ‘outsider‐academic’ and her strategies to achieve policy impact. The context of such involvement are multi‐level processes permeated by political interests and poor on evidence, which favour strategic interests, bargaining and political pressure and contestation (the mode of ‘powering’) and a mode of legal‐based ‘puzzling’ as opposed to a conceptual, intellectual search for solutions friendly towards outside academics—and achieving only incremental results. We theorise on the success of these strategies (including helping serendipity, throwing ideas to see what sticks, mobilising allies, anchoring a non‐binding concept, and finding and developing long‐term connections) and sketch analogies and differences between the position of an outsider‐academic and a policy entrepreneur. We rely on auto‐ethnographic data and documentation of the work of the committees involved and their outputs.
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Civil Servants and Globalization brings together insights on how globalization influences senior civil servants, with a focus on MENA countries. This book builds a typology of civil servants’ responses to globalization: traditional,... more
Civil Servants and Globalization brings together insights on how globalization influences senior civil servants, with a focus on MENA countries. This book builds a typology of civil servants’ responses to globalization: traditional, professional, engaged, and rebel types of civil servants. The response model proposed by the authors uses bureaucratic accountability and socialization as two critical parameters. The approach is tested on three dimensions of globalization – the global push for performance, engagement through development support, and global open government movement – in four focus countries from the MENA region – Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, and Tunisia. Based on new data gathered through vignette techniques and in-depth interviews with senior civil servants, this book offers new insights on how globalization affects civil servants and what factors determine, enhance, or reduce its impact. Among the key findings are the following: First, civil servants across countries have become more professional and are more likely to utilize evidence-based approaches to persuade politicians to safeguard national interest. The emphasis on performance and accountability (via international performance indicator systems) is a disrupter of and accelerator towards performance management and evidence-based policy making, leading to the emergence of the engaged and, in some cases, rebel types of civil servant. Second, deepened direct engagement with international actors contributes to the socialization of international norms, and contributes to a shift towards civil service professionalization. Finally, there is overall agreement on values associated with indices across the countries, though less so with transparency and participation. Thus, while the global movement towards open government has the strong potential to influence civil servants and civil service systems, a shift towards the internalization of more inclusive and transparent decision making has not yet occurred in the countries under review. On this aspect, a more traditional response type continues to predominate.
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Civil service reforms in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the last decade have focused on various tools that would increase professionalization and depoliticize civil service. Different countries have undertaken different trajectories... more
Civil service reforms in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the last decade have focused on various tools that would increase professionalization and depoliticize civil service. Different countries have undertaken different trajectories of reforms, starting gradually with a regime change in Hungary or rapidly - mainly under pressure from the EU - in Slovakia. While there have been some policy successes and institutional improvements, these achievements have tended to be ad hoc and dependent on individuals, not on a solidly performing system. Thus, the overall reform goal of an unpoliticized professional civil service recruited and remunerated by way of a merit system, has not been achieved satisfactorily. This article deals with civil service reforms undertaken in Slovakia and Hungary and argues that regardless of the different reform modi chosen, politicization of the civil service still remains due to the dynamics of transition.
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This study focuses on comprehending the nature of innovation processes in a transition country. The case study is taken from the area of social services provision, notably in a residential home for the elderly in Slovakia. The transition... more
This study focuses on comprehending the nature of innovation processes in a transition country. The case study is taken from the area of social services provision, notably in a residential home for the elderly in Slovakia. The transition from communism to a market oriented democracy brought about changes in the beliefs and the overall organization of a society that were based on a uniform standard model of bureaucracy. Do these changes encourage entrepreneurship and innovative thinking? This chapter reflects on empirical material collected in Slovakia in 2004 in an organization providing direct services to its clients as well as. The research methodology selected was to map the development of an innovation within the context of the public sector, and to examine the factors that stimulate, drive, facilitate, resist and disseminate innovation ion a case study taken from the area of social services.
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When the information on rewards to high public officials, both political and top career civil servants in Slovakia together with full information on local government officials’ salaries and bonuses were made publicly available from... more
When the information on rewards to high public officials, both political and top career civil servants in Slovakia together with full information on local government officials’ salaries and bonuses were made publicly available from January 2006 through Free Access to Information Law, it seemed as a historical moment which was the culmination of the debate on the transparency of high public officials rewards. As the transition into modern democracy in the past fifteen years has led to many questions and problems connected with transparency, accountability and trust towards the public posts, both political and apolitical, this amendment was to be seen as part of a bigger reform that has focused particularly on re-defining accountability systems to provide a number of specific safeguards against the misuse of power by either politicians or civil servants, including reward system for public officials. This paper focuses on the analysis of the formal and informal mechanisms of rewarding the performance and work of the high public officials in Slovakia since the gain of independent sovereign statehood in January 1993. The main question is whether the institutional arrangements in rewarding of public officials brought about accountability mechanisms as hoped at the beginning of the transition era.
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Do roku 1989 bola bytová politika centralizovaná a štát zabezpečoval bývanie pre všetkých obyvateľov – štát centrálne zabezpečoval výstavbu, rôznymi spôsobmi dotoval všetky druhy bývania (predovšetkým dotovaním cien služieb spojených s... more
Do roku 1989 bola bytová politika centralizovaná a štát zabezpečoval bývanie pre všetkých obyvateľov – štát centrálne zabezpečoval výstavbu, rôznymi spôsobmi dotoval všetky druhy bývania (predovšetkým dotovaním cien služieb spojených s bývaním, ako napríklad cien energií, vody atď.), prevádzkoval bytový fond, najmä štátnych a družstevných bytov, a prevládal centralizovaný administratívny systém prerozdeľovania bytov. Po páde komunistického režimu sa bytová výstavba na Slovensku transformovala z prídelového systému na trhový, ktorý vychádza z toho, že byty sú tovarom a rozdeľujú sa na základe cien ponuky a dopytu. Cieľom predkladanej publikácie je zmapovať situáciu poskytovaného sociálneho bývania mestami a tiež poukázať na túto problematiku. Východiskovým bodom tohto mapovania je snaha pochopiť, ako vlastne mestá SR vnímajú sociálne bývanie, čo pod ním chápu a kto je cieľovou skupinou pre poskytovanie sociálneho bývania. Predkladaná štúdia tiež mapuje procesy poskytovania, manažovania a alokovania sociálneho bývania cieľovým skupinám.
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The publication introduces five original case studies from the Slovak setting, developed by the authors based on their own research, real experience and data, and forming the core of the individual chapters. Each chapter consists of an... more
The publication introduces five original case studies from the Slovak setting, developed by the authors based on their own research, real experience and data, and forming the core of the individual chapters. Each chapter consists of an abstract presenting the case study’s basic decision-making dilemma and background, the case study itself, questions for students at the conclusion, and instructions for the teacher that provide recommended usage and theoretical framework, including study literature.
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This comparative study on the individual performance appraisal systems in the EU member states, the European Commission and associated countries was conducted under the Slovak EU Presidency in 2016 and EUPAN. It comes 10 years after the... more
This comparative study on the individual performance appraisal systems in the EU member states, the European Commission and associated countries was conducted under the Slovak EU Presidency in 2016 and EUPAN. It comes 10 years after the review of the performance appraisal under the German EU Presidency in 2007 (Demmke 2007). Since then, classic performance appraisals were reviewed very critically, by both academics and practitioners, asking for considering the contextual factors in the set up of the overall performance appraisal systems. Some experts (e.g. Antonioni 1994) argue that rather than throwing out the entire performance appraisal systems and process, we should try to improve it. And many of the EU member countries did exactly that. Thus, in the past decades the performance appraisal research has examined the effects of the social context (e.g. Levy, William 2004) within which the performance appraisal operates, motivational basis of the civil servants (e.g. Perry, J.L., Hondeghem, A. and Wise, L.R., 2010), work approaches of millennials (e.g. Twenge, J.M. and Campbell, S.M., 2012), perceptions of fairness (e.g. Choon, Emli 2012) and most importantly the various uses of information from the performance appraisal (e.g. Moynihan, Pandey 2010). This has widespread implications for practical application. And since performance appraisals play an important role in individual careers of civil servants and public organisations, it is important to understand the process and design of the instrument in individual EU member states and the European Commission vis-à-vis the latest developments in performance appraisal research.
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Novelou zákona o sudcoch účinnou od 1.1.2012 sa otvorilo verejnosti a stransparentnilo výberové konanie na sudcov a predsedov súdou. Nasledujúca štúdia analyzuje výberové konania v období 1.1.2012-31.12.2012 pomocou textovej analýzy... more
Novelou zákona o sudcoch účinnou od 1.1.2012 sa otvorilo verejnosti a stransparentnilo výberové konanie na sudcov a predsedov súdou. Nasledujúca štúdia analyzuje výberové konania v období 1.1.2012-31.12.2012 pomocou textovej analýzy formálnych dokumentov, ktoré vznikli ich vytvorením samotnými členmi výberových komisií. Ide o tzv. zápisnice a hodnotiace hárky.
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This paper argues that the role of informal institutions is central to understanding the politicization in Central and Eastern Europe generally and specifically in the formation of senior civil service (SCS) system. We focus on three... more
This paper argues that the role of informal institutions is central to understanding the politicization in Central and Eastern Europe generally and specifically in the formation of senior civil service (SCS) system. We focus on three diverse CEE countries in our analysis: Estonia, Hungary and Slovakia. Our analysis is based on the framework elaborated by Helmke & Levitsky, of informal institutions and focuses on "competing" informal institution of discretionary power of politicians in personnel SCS decisions. We argue that turning to "substitutive" informal institutions were critical in forming professional SCS in Estonia, while relying solely on formal institutions (i.e. law making) in Hungary and Slovakia evidently failed to create a professional formal SCS. We identify factors that in this region may promulgate professionalization. We also test the applicability of Helmke Levitsky framework and suggest some ways to expand its applicability.
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This study examines the transparency of the regulatory framework under which ministerial advisors exist within the politicized context of a Central and Eastern European perspective. We compare profi les and career paths of ministerial... more
This study examines the transparency of the regulatory framework under which ministerial advisors exist within the politicized context of a Central and Eastern European perspective. We compare profi les and career paths of ministerial advisers under five different types of coalition governments and examine if variance across government types can be explained by type of party-established vs. new parties. Empirically, the article draws on a cohort of 162 ministerial advisers in Slovakia across five governments from 2010 to 2020. We arrive at multiple findings. Firstly, we suggest the limitation in the availability and reporting of data is an important fi nding as it highlights accountability gaps and lack of government transparency irrespective of the party in power. Secondly, within the low regulatory environment, ministers appoint multiple types of staff including both formal "visible" ministerial advisers and "invisible" ministerial agents that, if one could accurately measure, would likely demonstrate that the ministerial advisory system is more inflated than we currently present. The ad-hoc nature of the advisory system also creates fluctuations in the size of the ministerial adviser cohort across governments and across different ministries. Th is would also help to explain the next finding, which is that, contrary to the experience in many countries, the overall size of the advisor population does not grow, probably because executive politicians have other avenues of appointing advisory agents. Fourthly, the advisers have a fairly equal distribution of prior employment from both the public sector and the private sector, but we do see some evidence of more established political parties preferring to recruit from the public sector and newer parties preferring to recruit from the private sector. Lastly, the appointment process appears to be highly controlled by individual ministers , suggesting personal ties are essential (link between ministerial and advisor education) and party-political criteria are a low consideration. The research is conducted using a biographical approach in which freedom of information requests and open source data is scrapped and then triangulated via a dozen interviews with current and former advisers. It argues that regulation is weak, lacking public scrutiny , which provides loopholes for employing ministerial agents in informal ways that could create, at worst, the opportunity for corrupt behavior, or at least, lead to poor practices in good governance. Th erefore, future research should focus on both the formal "visible" and informal "invisible" ways that ministers recruit their advisory agents, how their agents function, and whether existing regulatory measures create a transparent and accountable governance framework.