Internal ministerial advisory bodies: An attempt to transform governing in the Slovak Republic

Abstract

In the Slovak Republic, a number of internal ministerial advisory bodies, intended to provide high-quality analyses and evidence based policy making for national policy, have been established over the last two years. We have studied how the rational technocratic model of scientific policy advice as a specific mode of governing, acted out through these new institutional sites of expertise, survives in a highly politicised environment of the Slovak public administration. Central to our study was the reconstruction of an intersubjective account central to the work of organising on which the analytical centres and their staff, as well as their patrons, participate. Complementary to this, we focused on intersubjectively shared elements of the analysts' community and subculture within the dominant CEE public administration culture. The vision of governing with expertise shared by analytical centres rests on the principles of transparency, orientation on professional merit (primarily econometric, analytical skills), voluntarism, conflict avoidance, political opportunism and institutional autonomy. Analytical centres identify themselves as a distinct professional group -in fact, they form a distinct organisational subculture around traits such as demographic characteristics (predominantly young males with economic or mathematical/IT background), symbols, hierarchies, working culture, humour, as well as artefacts. Analysts see their mission in the provision of impartial, objective analytical evidence for informed decision making, yet they negotiate the boundary between politics and expertise on a daily basis, and, as we found, in numerous aspects of analysts' work politics cannot be entirely bracketed.

Personal or Party Roots of Civil Service Patronage? Ministerial Change Effects on the Appointments of Top Civil Servants

“…In contrast, Peters (2013) points out that the so-called professional politicization may not inevitably decrease the capacity of bureaucracy. In fact, these personal political appointees may be at the same time professionals in their field who might simply be unavailable for permanent civil service (Sedlačko & Staroňová, 2018).…”

Arms-length influence: Public sector wage setting and export-led economic growth in Czechia and Slovakia

“…Moreover, in both countries, the lowest tariffs of public sector jobs systematically remain below the statutory minimum wage. This creates pressures to renegotiate collective agreements, or to pay the difference in form of a variable component and personal bonuses, mostly at government discretion (Sedlacko and Staronova, 2018). Each adjustment in the SMW thus activates bargaining in Slovakia, or additional government decisions for covering the difference in Czechia.…”

Evidence-based policy-making in normatively divided policy fields: European Institute for Gender Equality, Agency for Fundamental Rights and Slovak policies tackling violence against women

“…The pre-accession period fuelled the transformation of the public sector (Sedlačko and Staroňová, 2018). This was also the first period of governmental attempts at adopting the agenda of tackling gender inequality, contrasting starkly with the former regime's lack of interest in gender-based inequalities and a mere tokenistic preoccupation with issues of class (Cviková and Juráňová, 2009).…”

“…This was also the first period of governmental attempts at adopting the agenda of tackling gender inequality, contrasting starkly with the former regime's lack of interest in gender-based inequalities and a mere tokenistic preoccupation with issues of class (Cviková and Juráňová, 2009). In the spirit of the reforms, which sought the externalisation of policy advice from bureaucrats to other actors (Sedlačko and Staroňová, 2018), governmental advisory bodies were first created to foster cooperation with feminist and women's rights NGO actors (Očenášová, 2011). However, the pool of gender experts who could (and would be willing to) cooperate with the reformed administration was limited (Wöhrer, 2003).…”