PurposeThe paper attempts to assess the impact of reforms of the last 25 years on Greek administration and more specifically on its Napoleonic features. Given that those have been reshaped by country specific socio‐political dynamics, the analysis starts by pointing out the Napoleonic features but also specific features its Greek variant. These form the context of reforms undertaken and determine their trajectories as well as their limitations.Design/methodology/approachThis paper examines four basic reform areas linked to important features of Napoleonic states: centrality of the state, centralised bureaucratic structures, labour relations in the public sector, and citizens‐administration relations. The rationale of reforms is discussed in relation to NPM trends but also to domestic challenges and priorities.FindingsThe significance of reforms undertaken varies. The state's presence in the economy has been significantly reduced and decentralisation reforms are more important politically than administratively. Citizens' rights and service delivery have been conceived rather as forms of democratisation and modernisation than as managerial reforms. Only recently labour relations in the public sector have been partly challenged while other reform aspects such as “agencification”, systematically by‐passing existing bureaucratic structures start to be part of the picture. Change has been incremental and followed pre‐established paths. The “Napoleonic” features of the state have not been seriously affected and reforms have hardly been reshaped by the new managerial paradigm. While the state remains the main reform actor and the law a typical policy instrument, a distinctive reform path emerges in Greece, as defined by the apparently contradictory rationale of a number of initiatives responding to old as much to new challenges.Originality/valueProvides a brief account of important aspects of the Greek variant of the Napoleonic state and the context of recent reforms. Features and limits of reforms are also discussed. Finally, a tentative assessment answers the central question of the paper.
In Greece, two distinct reform paths led to institutional building and economic managerial types of reform. These two reforms, with the exception of the period 1996–2004, when both institutional and economic reforms were attempted, did not attract the same degree of attention. Institutional reforms were more successful than attempts at managerial reforms; reform implementation on the other hand varies. Economic and managerial reforms can be observed with regard to economic competition, the opening up of the market, and reducing the size of public sector, all areas where pressure from the EU has been stronger. Decentralization reforms were more important politically than administratively. Citizens' rights and service delivery were conceived as reforms of democratization and modernization rather than as managerial reforms. ‘Agencification’ amounted to circumventing existing ministerial structures. Change was incremental, and reforms were minimally guided by the New Public Management paradigm, because of little emphasis on changes imbued by managerial and economic values. Reform dynamics benefited not only from outside pressures but also from the operation of internal, ‘modernizing’ forces.
The experience of Greece under the macro-economic adjustment programmes represents an intriguing case of the impact of external conditionality on the process of implementing domestic structural reform. After discussing the concept of reform capacity, the article looks into the specifics of its interaction with policy conditionality, in order to elaborate to what extent external constraint unleashes or hinders reform potential. In doing so, the article shows that it is necessary to take into account the nature of the reform agenda and the impact of strong external leverage on the capacity of the domestic political system to translate requirements into reforms. It concludes that external pressure through policy conditionality has moved things forward. However, its in-built side-effects hardly allowed to change the pattern of political operation, while they inversely affected political and therefore reform sustainability. The wider implications of this case study point to the need for going beyond assumptions regarding reform incentives to look into the reality of domestic reform dynamics.
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