Viewees at the Various Administrative Institutions in Romania Who Shared Their Time and Expertise with Me

Home , European Civil Service, Government of Romania, Land reform in Romania

CIVIL SERVICE REFORM AND THE

QUALITY OF GOVERNANCE IN ROMANIA

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of the Ohio State University

Katja Michalak, M.A.

*****

The Ohio State University 2008

Dissertation Committee:

Professor, Goldie Shabad, Adviser Approved by

Professor Richard Gunther

Professor Marcus Kurtz ______

Advisor Political Science Graduate Program

Katja Michalak

2008

ABSTRACT

Romania’s society has experienced radical political, social and economic changes since the fall of Ceausescu’s dictatorial regime in 1989, concurrent with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This research delves into the causes of changes in Romania’s bureaucracy that are both internal and EU-membership-induced, and thus external to

Romania, and assesses the extent to which it has experienced the consequent changes in its quality of governance. Of special interest are the causes of inter-ministerial variation in civil service reform, as captured by EU-membership conditionality, political partisanship, and the initial characteristics of the specific ministry. The Ministries of

Foreign Affairs; Education, Research and Youth; European Integration; and Agriculture and Rural Development are exhaustively examined from this perspective. Conclusions are deduced regarding the consequent improvement, or lack thereof, in the quality of governance in Romania.

The primary causal finding is that in Romania initial characteristics mattered for civil service reform legislation, but not for its implementation. More specifically, the more decentralized the ministry was, the lesser was the extent of realized reform.

Additionally, the greater the personnel-turnover rate, the more pronounced was the implementation of reform. Also, a higher extent of external intervention, particularly in

ii terms of EU invasiveness, taking the form of supply of EU funds, technocratic personnel, and supervision, led to the realization of more ministerial reform. As for political partisanship, which is a country-wide issue that potentially affects all ministries, a cross- country comparison between Bulgaria and Romania revealed that the type of party in power, whether post-communist or liberal, is a significant determinant of when the reform law was adopted, but had little impact on its implementation.

The prediction, based on the theoretical model, that the Ministry of Education and

Agriculture should realize the least improvement in the quality of governance, whereas

Foreign Affairs and European Integration should realize the most, concurs with the observed facts of relative implementation success in the different ministries.

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Dedicated to Diego

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my dissertation committee for the excellent advice with regard

to this dissertation, professional guidance, and encouraging support that motivated me

throughout my doctoral work. The constant balance between intellectual stimulation and

the necessary push provided a very fruitful work environment that gave me strength and

the belief in my academic potential. Professor Goldie Shabad, the chair of my dissertation

committee, influenced my decision to join the doctoral program in Political Science after I

visited the department on a one year Fulbright scholarship. I am very grateful that she

guided me through the entire Ph.D. program, and supported my enthusiasm for East

European politics. Professor Richard Gunther also provided enormous intellectual support,

without which the completion of this project would have proven rather difficult. I thank

Professor Kurtz for the stimulating discussions and encouraging ideas throughout my stay

at the Ohio State University. He brought my intellectual focus outside the domain of

Political Science and his practical comments of how to operate in the world of academia

helped me enormously.

I have benefitted much from the comments and suggestions from William Liddle,

Irfan Noorudin, Tom Nelson, and Ted Hopf. I have also profited from the help I received from Alexander F. Stephan, Irene I. Delic, Reinhard Wesel, Petr Kopecky, Ferdinand

Müller-Rommel, Steven Roper and Volker Linneweber. I especially wish to thank Karl-

Heinz Fritzsche who constantly encouraged me and showed strong interest in my work and scholarly progress. I also wish to thank the administration at the Political Science

Department of the Ohio State University, especially for the great efficiency exhibited by

Wayne DeYoung and Diana Camella.

The dissertation would not have been enriched by empirical research without financial support from various sides, including the Fulbright Commission, German

Academic Exchange Service, European Consortium for Political Research, Tinker

Research Grant, Phyllis Krumm Memorial International Scholarship, Office of

International Education, and Mershon Center for International Security Studies, to all of which I am grateful. The Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of

Luneburg, Germany provided me with an outstanding research environment and resources, but made virtually no demands on my time. I wish to express my gratitude to the Political

Science Department at OSU for the financial support during my entire stay in Columbus.

This project could not have been completed without the strong support of the Romanian

Academic Society, the Institute for Public Policy Research, Vlad Hetieganu, and the numerous interviewees at the various administrative institutions in Romania who shared their time and expertise with me.

My gratitude goes to Gerald Pech, who gave me the most useful advice and enormous support that is crucial for finishing any doctoral work. I thank him for his patience. vi

Moreover, my special thankfulness goes to Nadeem Naqvi, for his love and impatience.

Precisely his impatience is what led to the most successful piece of thoughts in cutting- edge situations. I also wish to thank my friends in Magdeburg, Germany and Columbus,

USA, including Christiane Meyer, Kristina and Bruno Rotter, Tomas Schulz, Antje

Guenther, Konstantin Voessing, Anna Shadley and Srdjan Vucetic who believed in me, and supported me throughout my ups and downs.

Most of all, I must express my gratitude to my family for their emotional support during my entire study. My grandmother, Irmtraud Michalak always believed in me. My father, Hein Michalak, provided me with constant inputs and stimulating challenges that were always, what I believed, beyond the scope of possibility, but at the end, the most motivating thoughts. I thank my mother, Dagmar Gerecke, for her constant belief in me and my ability to set new goals in life. She motivated me during this project, and precisely this motivation gave her strength to start pursuing her own doctoral work in Philosophy. I am proud of her for having successfully defended her dissertation at the University of

Bamberg, Germany, especially by beating me by a month.

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VITA

February 28, 1978…………… Born – Halberstadt, Germany

1997………………………… B.A. Political Science, Political Science (Major), Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany

1999………………………… M.A. Slavic and East European Studies, The Ohio State University

2000………………………… M.A. Political Science, The Ohio State University

2003………………………… M.A. Political Science and Psychology, Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany

2000-2007…………………… Research and Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University

PUBLICATIONS

Research Publication

“The Lisbon Treaty and its implications for the future of the European integration project” (chapter) In: “Citizens Europe? Reflections on the Implications of the Reform Treaty”. BECSA - Bulgarian European Community Studies Association in cooperation with Trans- European Policy Study Association (TESPA). PHARE Publication, May 2008.

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: Political Science viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page Abstract……………………………………………………………. iii Dedication……………………………………………………….… iv Acknowledgments……………………………………………….... v Vita………………………………………………………………... viii Table of Content…………………………………………………... ix List of Tables……………………………………………………… xiv List of Figures…………………………………………………….. xvi

Chapters:

1. Introduction………………………………………………… … 1

1.1 Introduction……….………………………………………. 1 1.2 Problems in Romania’s Civil Service…………………….. 9 1.3 The Conceptual Model...………………………………….. 12 1.4 Methodology…………………………………………...…. 14 1.5 Introducing the Case Studies……………………………… 15 1.5.1 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs………………… 15 1.5.2 The Ministry of Education…….………………… 15 1.5.3 The Ministry of Agriculture…...………………… 16 1.5.4 The Ministry of European Integration…………… 17 1.6 Structure…….…………………………………………….. 17

2. The Romanian Experience …………………………………… 19

2.1 Introduction……….………………………………………. 19 2.2 Characterizing Romania’s Pre-Transition Era……………. 20 2.3 The Problems of the Romanian bureaucracy...…………… 26 2.3.1 Problem of Corruption………………………….. 27 2.3.2 Problem of Secrecy and Confidentiality……….. 28 2.3.3 Politicization of the Bureaucracy……………… 29 2.3.4 Professionalized Bureaucracy…………………... 30 2.3.5 Initiation versus Implementation……………….. 32 2.4 Major Milestones of Civil Service Reform………………. 34 ix

2.4.1 Pre-1999 Context……………………………….. 35 2.4.2 Post-1999 Context……………………………… 38 2.5 Government Action……………………….………………. 42 2.6 Conclusion………………………………………………... 46

3. Theory, Dependent Variable, and Model ………………….. … 49

3.1 Introduction……….………………………………………. 49 3.2 Defining Civil Service and Civil Service Reform………… 50 3.2.1 Civil Service...…………….…………………….. 50 3.2.2 Civil Service Reform……………………………. 52 3.3 Civil Service Reform in the East European Context……… 53 3.3.1 Weberian Model of Bureaucracy versus New Public Management…….………………………… 53 3.3.2 The Weberian Model and NPM in the East European Context….…………………………………... 55 3.3.3 Patronage and Civil Service Reform…………….. 58 3.3.4 Politicization and Civil Service Reform…………. 60 3.4 Measuring ‘Civil Service Reform’………………………… 62 3.4.1 Operationalization: Internal Components……….. 64 3.4.1.1 Meritocracy and Promotion……………. 64 3.4.1.2 Post-Reform Turnover Rate……………. 67 3.4.2 Operationalization: External Components………. 70 3.4.2.1 Autonomy from Capture by Civil Society Actors…………………………………………… 70 3.4.2.2 Interaction between Bureaucracy and ‘Political Leadership’.…………………….……. 71 3.4.3 Aggregating over the Differences of Civil Service Reform…………………………………………………. 78 3.5 Measuring the variation across ministries…………………… 80 3.5.1 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs………………….. 81 3.5.2 The Ministry of Education……………………….. 83 3.5.3 The Ministry of Agriculture………………………. 83 3.5.4 The Ministry of European Integration……………. 84 3.6 Summary and Discussion Results…………………………… 84

4. Independent Variables and Hypotheses and Operationalization.. 86

4.1 Introduction……….………………………………………… 86 4.2 Defining the Independent Variables………………………… 87 4.2.1 Initial Characteristics of the Ministry……………… 87 4.2.1.1 Nature of Ministry: Persistence of pre-transition structures.…………………………. 87 4.2.1.2 Nature of Ministry: Number of Personnel and Decentralization……………………………… 90 4.2.2 External Monitoring………………………………… 93 4.2.2.1 Impact of EU Conditionality……………… 95 4.2.3 Post-transition Partisanship of Government…………. 100 4.2.3.1 Political Partisanship: Overview………….. 101 4.2.4 Tendencies of Political Development………………… 105 4.3 Summary and Overview Hypotheses…………………………… 106 4.3.1 Independent Variables………………………………... 109 4.3.2 Predictions of the Hypotheses….…………………….. 109 4.3.3 Collected Supportive Data……………………………. 111 4.4 Conclusion……………………………………………………… 112 4.5 Excursion: Socio-Economic Context as an Alternative Explanation 112

5. Initial Characteristics of Ministry: Persistence of Pre-Transition Structures, Personnel & Decentralization…………………………………………… 115

5.1 Introduction……….………………………………………………… 115 5.2 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs….…………………………………. 117 5.2.1 Persistence of Pre-Transition Structures……………………… 117 5.2.2 Number of Personnel and Degree of Decentralization……….. 120 5.3 The Ministry of Education………...………………………………… 121 5.3.1 Persistence of Pre-Transition Structures………………………. 121 5.3.2 Number of Personnel and Degree of Decentralization……….. 124 5.4 The Ministry of Agriculture………………………………………… 125 5.4.1 Persistence of Pre-Transition Structures……………………….. 127 5.4.2 Number of Personnel and Degree of Decentralization………… 129 5.5 The Ministry of European Integration………………………………... 130 5.5.1 Persistence of Pre-Transition Structures……………………….. 131 5.5.2 Number of Personnel and Degree of Decentralization………… 132 5.6 Summary….…………………………………………………………. 133 xi

6. Monitoring: EU Conditionality………………...………………………... 136

6.1 Introduction……….………………………………………………….. 136 6.2 Empirical Findings: An Overview…………………………………… 137 6.2.1 EU Influence: Financial, Technical and Organizational Assistance...... 140 6.3 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs.....………………………………….. 144 6.4 The Ministry of European Integration……………………………….. 147 6.5 The Ministry of Education…………………………………………… 151 6.6 The Ministry of Agriculture………………………………………….. 153 6.7 Summary……………………………………………………………… 154 6.8 Conclusion……………………………………………………………. 155

7. Political Partisanship…………..………………………………………… 158

7.1 Introduction……….…………………………………………………. 158 7.2 Empirical Findings: An Overview…………………………………... 160 7.2.1 Introducing the Romanian Case……………………………….. 163 7.2.2 Introducing the Bulgarian Case………………………………... 165 7.3 Analysis……………………………………………………………… 168 7.3.1 Liberal Parties………………………………………….……… 168 7.3.2 Post-Communist Parties……………………………………….. 169 7.4 Political Partisanship: Quality of Governance………………………. 172 7.5 Conclusion…………………………………………………………… 174

8. Conclusion: Implications for the Quality of Governance……………….. 176

8.1 Introduction……….…………………………………………………. 176 8.2 Empirical Findings…………………………………. ……………….. 177 8.2.1 Administrative Capacity and Romania’s Struggle for better Governance………………………………………………………….. 177 8.3 Findings: Initial Characteristics, External Monitoring and Political Partisanship………………………………………………………….. 179 8.4 Theoretical Conclusions…………………………………………….. 180 8.5 Future Research Avenues…………………………………………….. 182

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9. Appendices……………………………………………………………… 186

A. Overview of Romania’s and Bulgaria’s EU integration development. 186 B. Overview of Romania’s Civil Service Reform development………… 188 C. World Governance Indicators……………………………….………... 190 D. Freedom House Score 1990-2001 in Romania and Bulgaria………… 192 E. Interview List and Code……..………………………………………... 194 F. Questionnaire (Sample Sheet)………………………………………… 196 G. Interview with bureaucrats (Sample Sheet)…………………………... 198 H. Romanian Adjustment Program (PAL 1 to PAL 3)…………………... 202 I. Overview Individual Ministry: Ministry of Foreign Affairs…………... 204 J. Chronology: Romanian-EU Relation………………………………….. 206 K. Overview of the in-depth interviews and surveys conducted in each Ministry ……………………………………………………… 210

10. Bibliography…………………………………………………………...... 212

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LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

2.1 Salaries by Type of Employer, 1994………………………………… 31

2.2 Overview of Monitoring Indicators (Sigma Report 2004)…………. 64

3.1 Overview Operationalization Dependent Variable………………….. 79

3.2 Partial Ordering of Civil Service Reform…………………………… 79

3.3 Variation on the Dependent Variable……………………………….. 81

4.1 Overview of Operationalization of the Independent Variable……… 106

4.2 Variation on the Independent Variable………………………………. 109

4.3 Overview of the Predicted Effect of the Hypotheses…………………. 111

5.1 Number of Staff in Pre-Reform Period……………………………….. 116

7.1 Romanian Election Outcome: Incumbent and challenger elites……. 165

7. 2 Bulgarian Election Outcome: Incumbent and challenger elites……. 168

7.3 Overview: Post-Communist Party versus Liberal Party…………….. 171

A1 Overview of Romania’s and Bulgaria’s EU integration process…….. 187

A2 Overview of Romania’s Civil Service Reform Development……….. 189

A3 World Governance Indicators (World Bank 2004)………………….. 191

A4 Freedom House Score 1990-2001 in Romania and Bulgaria………… 193 xiv

A5 Romanian Adjustment Program (PAL 1 to PAL 3)………………….. 203

A6 Chronology of Romania-EU Relation………………………………… 207

A7 Overview of the in-depth interviews and surveys conducted in each Ministry ………………………………………………………… 211

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

3.1 Component turnover rate….…………….…………………………… 68

4.1 Clientelistic Networks and Capture……..…………………………… 90

4.2 Causal Relationship: Cause and Effect………………………………. 107

4.3 Cause-Effect Diagram Overview..…………………………………… 108

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The goal of civil service reform is the improvement of quality of governance.

Following the transition from communist regimes, East European countries have

attempted to various degrees to initiate and implement civil service reform projects.

Often, and this is in particular true of Romania, such efforts have been precipitated by the

European Union, which has sought an overhaul of their administrative systems as a

precondition for European Union entry. In Romania such reform has exhibited a

spasmodic pattern ever since the beginning of the post-communism period. In jumps and

starts, this continues to be the case to date and, as this research argues, the reform

progress has failed to materialize in many segments of the Romanian bureaucracy. Max

Weber would turn in his grave were he to contrast the present character of the Romanian

bureaucracy with his specification of what it ought to be. Indeed, he would have shared

T. S. Elliot’s view, ‘I think we are in rats' alley\Where the dead men lost their bones,’ (T.

S. Elliot 1922: 116). For, the road to reform of public administrations in Romania is

littered with the dead remnants of feeble attempts, chewed up by corrupt civil servants

and organized crime. Indeed, corruption is repeatedly named as the major issue which 1

plagues the Romanian state institutions and which is of grave concern to decision makers

in the European Union, the Romanian media, and to the Romanian public at large. The

Romanian bureaucracy has experienced some civil service reform. It is, however, far

from Weber’s conception of the ideal, and its degree varies across different sections of

the administration. The purpose of this research is to examine the nature, extent and

ministerial variation of such reform in Romania.

In a report on monitoring the status of administrative reform in Romania, published

on 23 July 2008, the European Commission spells out deficits in many areas of the public

administration, relating to the judiciary but also to the state bureaucracy at large. In

particular, it admonishes incomplete implementation of a reliable administrative legal

framework and weaknesses in lawmaking which themselves point to an ineffectual use of

the public administration. On the first issue, it is remarked that overall accountability is

weak. For example, general legislation on administrative procedures is lacking and clear

rules and procedures are replaced by different ad hoc procedures regulating specific decisions, generally not satisfying the common European standards. Decisions are commonly only taken at the highest level. An envisaged Code of Administrative

Procedures has yet to be adopted. At this time, judicial review of administrative decisions is largely ineffectual.

Regarding lawmaking, there are further indications of an unclear demarcation line between administrative and political spheres which weighs negatively on the quality of laws. Legislation is generally developed by political advisers, rather than professional civil servants. Proposed legislation is sent to parliament without assessment of economic

2 and social impacts, implementability, or the administrative capacity to enforce it. Article

114 of the constitution allows governments to issue ordinances and emergency ordinances in exceptional cases. Recourse to these ordinances has become a routine practice. It is frequent that these emergency ordinances are used to solve a particular problem of a government client, even if they happen to be inconsistent with general laws.

In fact, it has long been known that the Romanian bureaucracy is not apolitical. Nor indeed is it free from patronage, clientalism, or capture by political influence or by civil society actors. Not until 1999 did the Romanian legislature pass a law prohibiting civil servants from holding a second affiliation beyond the Romanian bureaucratic system, such as active political party membership or private sector connection. The European

Union report urges that the fight against corruption needs to be "depoliticized and

Romania must affirm its unequivocal commitment to fight against high level corruption."

To deal with unclear demarcation lines, civil services reform has to address the issue of (1) autonomy from political control. Furthermore, to deal with particular problems of the inner workings of post-communist state administrations, civil service reform has to increasingly adopt (2) meritocracy as the basis of recruitment and promotion, and press for (3) greater autonomy from civil society actors. Furthermore, it has to aim at a greater effectiveness of the civil service and help in attracting a young and active work force.

This research argues, that a good measure of achievement of this objective - taking into account the rather stagnant pay structure in the public sector - is actually a (4) high turnover rate after reform implementation. Based on these four components, this research constructs a measure of the success of reform implementation. This is an indirect measure

3 of the extent of reform success, so that there is no red line which demarcates a completely successful reform implementation. However, this research finds clear indication of variation in reform success across different administrative structures. It gives, therefore, a measure of the extent to which reform implementation did not occur in those administrative structures which scored less than the highest achiever, which this research revealed to be the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Taking a broader picture of the concrete steps which Romania has undertaken to reform its administration since the adoption of the civil-service-reform plan of 1999, fairly little has actually been achieved in terms of satisfying European Union targets, as the aforementioned report indicates. To get a complete picture of the overall reform progress, attention has to be also directed at comparing the Ceausescu-era structure with the one that came into existence after the transition, though before the adoption of the civil service reform law.

An important question is: what precisely is it that explains the variation in civil service reform undertaken by Eastern European governments in response to the significant political, social, and economic upheavals that have occurred over the past two decades? While most governments in Eastern Europe have attempted some reform of the bureaucratic structures they inherited from their communist past, the actual record demonstrates very diverse progress in which some countries, such as Poland and

Hungary, have made significant strides in reforming their administration and individual ministries while others, such as Romania and Bulgaria, have lagged far behind in the implementation of their reform agenda. The focus of this investigation is primarily on the

Romanian experience. Instead of an international comparison, it focuses on differences in

reform achievement at the level of different ministries. This approach has the advantage

that it concentrates on reform implementation and its determinants, as opposed to reform

initiation at the legislative level - which applies to different ministries across the board.

While good governance and civil service reforms have become the buzz words in

Western policy research circles and the political establishments of post-communist and

third-world countries, and the concepts involved have attracted strong interest on the part

of economists, public administration observers, and international organizations that

provide financial support for development (Abed and Sayeev 2002), there still remains

conceptual and analytical confusion about what constitutes effective governance and, more importantly, what constitutes reform of civil service, strictly from the point of view of policy implementation , rather than merely adoption of unimplemented legislation .

To analyze reform success and its determinants, the concept of quality of governance needs precise specification. Precise content must also be assigned to the concept of improvement of quality of governance. Analogously, the concept of civil service and the concept of its reform also need to be assigned precise contents. This research provides a detailed operationalization of the components of success of civil service reform in

Chapter 3 and elaborates on the issue of deriving an indicator of aggregate civil service reform from these components.

Romania became part of the European Union (EU, hereafter) in January 2007. So did Bulgaria. Romania’s first attempt to initiate civil service reform occurred only in

1999 – a full decade after the initial transition to democracy – and actual effective

5 revisions did not occur till 2003. The Sigma-Report on Romania (2006) shows that a framework for assessment for the public service and administrative reforms was not even established until 2005. It is a significant matter that a report on the status of reform in

Bulgaria, adopted by the European Commission on the same date as it promulgated the report on Romania, imposes sanctions by withholding EU support to the tune of €610 million (approximately $1bn) during 2008, unless by October 2008 Bulgaria ‘make[s] the commitment to cleanse its administration and ensure that the generous support it receives from the EU actually reaches its citizens and is not siphoned off by corrupt officials, operating together with organized crime’. (EC Report on Bulgaria, July 23, 2008)

Romania has the biggest bureaucratic apparatus in Southeastern Europe, with the largest number of ministries compared to all other countries in the region. Romania, thus, presents an interesting and informative starting point for studying administrative reform in a newly-emerging democracy. This investigation has useful implications for other countries in the region with a somewhat similar past, such as Bulgaria. Comparison of

Romania with Bulgaria is, therefore, of particular interest.

To understand the propellants of, and hurdles to civil service reform, it is important to account for sub-regional differences in Eastern Europe. Hesse et al. (2000) argue that there are ‘sub-regional idiosyncrasies that stand out in Eastern Europe’, characterizing the public administrative reform situation as ‘effectiveness plus jeopardy’ (Hesse, Hood and

Peters 2000: 17). In fact, the East European countries cannot be portrayed as homogeneous in their civil service reforms, but are rather diverse in their level of progress. As noted, whereas Poland and Hungary are beyond the completion, as in

implementation, of civil service reforms of their administration and ministries, Romania

and Bulgaria are largely at the stage of adoption of legislation, and thus are taking their

first steps of implementing their reform agenda. Based on such diverse experience,

Dimitrova (2002) divides the East European cases into three different groups according to

their starting point of civil service reform: early reformers (1989-1993), partial reformers

(1993-1997) and rhetorical reformers (after 1997). The basis of this categorization,

however, is the point-in-time that civil service reform legislation was passed, not when it

was actually implemented – a clear shortcoming of the approach in terms of measuring

operational procedural effectiveness.

Hungary is regarded as the front runner in Eastern Europe in that it passed civil service legislation shortly after the change of regime in 1990 and 1992 and has subsequently embarked on a path of continuous civil service reform, leading to several amendments of the original legislation, which went hand-in-hand with actual implementation. In contrast to Hungary, most East-Central European governments have adopted formal-legal frameworks governing the civil service only towards the end of the

1990s and thereafter. Poland, Lithuania and Latvia had adopted civil service laws in the mid 1990s but failed to implement them and, therefore, went on to adopt revised laws in

1998, 1999 and 2000 respectively. Among the other countries that have adopted civil service laws, Estonia adopted its first Act of Parliament in 1995, Bulgaria and Romania in 1999, Slovakia in 2001, and Slovenia and the Czech Republic in 2002.

Furthermore, Grzymala-Busse (2003) argues that political party competition, together with a critical opposition during the transition process, explains variation in state

7 polarization among the East European countries. According to her, state polarization is

‘controlled and exploited by political parties, rather than by an apolitical administration and formalized rules’ (Grzymala-Busse 2003: 2). The findings reported here challenge

Grzymala-Busses’s view that a country can be portrayed as monolithic regarding civil service reform. Instead, the monolithic view turns out to be misleading, especially when comparing progress of reform at the level of different ministries. Thus, this leaves room for a more disaggregated examination of civil service reform within a country, which is precisely the goal of this investigation.

With regard to the impact of the pre-transition regime type, Kitschelt (1999) examines the contemporary quality of governance in four East European countries and reemphasizes the importance of historical legacy in studying the post-transition political structures. He classifies the East European countries according to their past regime communist rule (such as patrimonial communism, national-accommodative and bureaucratic-authoritative), and provides a deeper insight into their impact on the different political party system and the nature of political alignment in Eastern Europe.

While Kitschelt’s analysis shows variations between the East European countries based on initial conditions, from the standpoint of implementation it provides little guidance regarding the phenomenon of intra-national variation of the political structure, such as the reform in distinct ministries.

This investigation concentrates on the ‘procedure and regulation oriented’ definition of civil service reform, and pays particular attention to the successful implementation of civil service laws rather than mere promulgation of legislation. Thus the analysis

undertaken here is implementation-oriented, and inter alia must take account of procedural issues, in addition to the final outcomes of reform. Undoubtedly, this constitutes a blending of consequentialism and instrumentalism as an essential feature of this investigation of the reform, seen as a process , instead of only a comparison between the initial and final statuses. The methodological approach taken here must not be construed to imply that the final, consequent outcomes are not important , but merely that giving limited or no consideration to processes of reform is a danger that must be avoided in any comprehensive analysis of East European, indeed any, civil service reform examination. Therefore, it is proposed here that different patterns of civil service reform should be studied by examining at least three main concepts, distinguishing between

‘internal’ (1) meritocratic procedures, and ‘external’ factors (2) the autonomy of the bureaucracy from political influence, and (3) the autonomy from capture by civil society actors.

1.2 PROBLEMS IN ROMANIA’S CIVIL SERVICE

The Romanian bureaucracy is fraught with rather serious problems of both an internal and external character. The dictatorial nature of Romanian pre-transition history notwithstanding, which is a significant matter in its own right, valuable insight is gained by elucidating the country-specific administrative problems that preexisted before the transition to consolidated democracy. Some salient features are listed below.

It was not until 1999 that any change, however little, occurred in the state administration structures or indeed in the administrative practices of the Romanian

bureaucracy. Pre-transition practices continued to have a very substantial lingering effect

on the post-transition period, with virtually no civil service reform. The turnover rate of

personnel remained stagnant overall, although some ministries expanded whereas others

contracted. As a consequence, there are some pre-transition era bureaucrats who remain

in power today, making a lingering effect of old clientelistic networks likely.

Furthermore, the low turn-over rate creates significant difficulties in the

professionalization of ministerial staff, insofar as new, young professionals do not get

inducted into the ministry in question.

Moreover, the ties between bureaucrats and politicians present another problem to civil service administration in Romania to date, and this tends to blur the line of demarcation that was meant to separate bureaucrats from politicians. Autonomy from political control is effectively absent. A related problem of corruption also continues to exist due to a lack of clear demarcation between the administrative and private spheres of

Romanian bureaucracy. Corruption also comes with patronage. Symbiotic interaction between politicians and bureaucrats shows that there is a problem insofar as there is lack of autonomy of civil servants from political control.

There was also the problem of wage compression that was rather serious, and it has become exacerbated over time, since the fall of communism. In fact, the ratio of the highest- to lowest-paid employees was 4.5 in 1991, and because of across-the-board cost of living adjustments, the ratio had fallen to 3.7 by 1994, thereby further reducing the incentive for talented young professionals to join the Romanian civil service, (Nunberg

1999: 76).

Most significantly, there is lack of transparency in the implementation of the Civil

Service Reform promulgated in 1999, which has remained almost completely

unimplemented. In spite of the requirement in the law that an independent agency must

be set up for its implementation, the agency was not established until 2000, and it has

remained operationally ineffective to date, thereby hampering the implementation of such

legislation in Romania. Essentially, the agency lacked the teeth required for enforcement

of the salient features of the 1999 reform law. Moreover, the recruitment of civil servants

continues to be based on political influence and lacks sufficient transparency. There is

wide latitude in discretion enjoyed by the high-level civil servants who continue to hire

and promote unprofessional staff, and exhibit arbitrary and capricious behavior in

promotion and salary determination of civil service staff. This was borne out both by the

interviews that I conducted, and on the basis of anonymous responses to the

questionnaires used in this investigation.

Corrupt practices of civil service staff in Romania remain a major problem. Some

(former) members have been convicted of offenses involving organized crime, the activities of which continue to haunt the country. The 2008 monitoring report of the EC has charged Romania with the task of solving in a speedy manner a large number of unsolved mafia killings since the fall of communism, at the risk of facing EU funding withdrawal that has already been imposed on Bulgaria, effective October 2008.

Thus there have been, and continue to be serious, nation-wide, problems of highly inadequate civil service reform in Romania. This is, without doubt, a non-trivial issue that warrants serious political scientific examination.

1.3 THE CONCEPTUAL MODEL

Rather than attempt to classify a country’s experience with reform as a whole, this research argues that civil service reform is best seen as a disaggregated process that exhibits varying degrees of reform in distinct segments of the bureaucratic system within a single country. Three important points are worth noting in this context. First , it is not necessary at all that different ministries within a given country must exhibit the same pattern or rate of change as a consequence of exogenous influences, particularly from the

EU in the East European context. Second, while change is a purely descriptive matter of what actually happens, reform , by its very nature, is a value-laden concept that refers to a change that constitutes improvement or progress, in the sense of change for the better, not worse, and thus is a necessarily a value-laden or normative concept. The content of this normative concept of reform must be specified with precision and given sharply defined boundaries, so that “better” is understood on well-specified ethical criteria, or for whom, otherwise the framework of discourse, or model, will prove analytically weak. Third, here the distinct issues of both passage of civil service law and its implementation constitute essential elements that may not, in general, be identically influenced by either external or internal causes of reform.

Disaggregation of the bureaucratic system ministry-by-ministry and an assessment of a single ministry’s reform process, as distinguished from that of another ministry’s experience, on the basis of precise, well-specified criteria of progress, allow for a deeper understanding of the heterogeneous patterns of civil service reform within a single country. Why, for example, do some ministries such as that of Foreign Affairs undergo

rapid civil service reform, while others such as Agriculture remain largely untouched?

This question cannot even be raised without disaggregation of the reform process.

It is worth emphasizing that measuring reform progress can be undertaken using

several distinct criteria. It is argued here that it is useful to consider civil service reform

as having three main components: (1) measurable increased autonomy of the bureaucracy

from political control, (2) operational measurement of reliance on meritocratic criteria for

hiring and promotion , and (3) clearly identifiable increased autonomy from capture by civil society actors. Here, civil service reform is thus given a multi-criteria, multidimensional basis. In the methodological approach adopted, the experience of Romania in reforming each of its four Ministries of (i) Foreign Affairs, (ii) Education, Research and Youth, (iii) Agriculture and Rural Development, and (iv) European Integration, since

1990, is assessed on these three criteria.

While the three criteria mentioned above are the components of the dependent variable, namely, the extent of civil service reform, the chapters in this research are divided along the lines of the three independent variables. These are (I) the initial characteristics of the ministry – a purely internal factor, and the other two are external factors, namely, (II) external monitoring, and (III) political partisanship.

With respect to the independent variables, internal factors influencing civil service reform are fundamentally pre-reform characteristics such as previous replacement of incumbents, and the nature of the respective ministry such as the number of personnel and degree of decentralization; this is analyzed as the first independent variable in

Chapter 5. Moreover, there are influences on civil service reform external to the ministry,

dealing exclusively with EU monitoring in the case of Romania, which is the second

independent variable, examined in Chapter 6. Political partisanship, also an external

factor, that actually requires a cross-country comparison between Romania and another

country, Bulgaria in this research, is the third independent variable, which could account

for ministerial reform, and this is taken up in Chapter 7.

1.4 METHODOLOGY

This present work is based on qualitative research, primarily in-depth interviews and

semi-structured questionnaires and surveys, which include both multiple choice responses

and open-ended responses. These standard interview techniques are applied across the

four Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Education, European Integration and Agriculture.

Very substantial archival research, especially on the documentation of civil service laws,

and a description of the problems of public administration specific to Romania are

outlined in Chapter 2.

Anonymity was preserved during the audio taped interviews at the express request of

the interviewees, which, in turn, contributed to greater objectivity of the primary

information gathered for this research. The survey on the general hiring and firing criteria within the ministry were also filled out anonymously upon interviewees’ request, in order to guarantee a high level of candor. This request proved essential especially for examining possible patronage and clientelistic practices within the ministry that could violate the merit-based civil service code. A total of 52 personal in-depth interviews were conducted. While 20 anonymous surveys were submitted to each of the four ministries,

14 the response rate varied from the highest from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to fewer from the Ministry of European Integration, to less from the Ministry of Education, and the least, approximately 10 responses, from the Ministry of Agriculture. These primary- data formed the basis of much of the results reported here. Written anonymous responses were more detailed and exhaustive, so that surveys, questionnaires and personal interviews provided surprisingly little additional information, despite a high turn-out response ratio.

1.5 INTRODUCING THE CASE STUDIES

1.5.1 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs

This Ministry is the least clientelistic due to an unusually professionalized staff. This highly professional staff has been brought in after the transition. A strong autonomy from state politicians, and low capture by civil society actors, are the main features of this institution. It is also one of the few ministries where entrance exams were initiated at a very early stage of the transition. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs holds control over very few divisible rewards to hand out to clients. In the Romanian context, it is one of the ministries where civil service reform exhibited greatest success in terms of implementation.

1.5.2 The Ministry of Education

Romania’s Ministry of Education, on the other hand, is both the biggest employer and spender among all major employment and spending ministries in South-Eastern

Europe. This ministry holds massive resources and a very large number of employees are

on its payroll 1. The overall number of civil servants is higher than in the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs and overall it can be said that the civil service bureaucracy is less

professionalized than in the Ministry of Foreign affairs. Another important point is the

question of whether the extent of centralization or decentralization plays an important

role. Here, it is important to observe whether there exists much variation between the

national and local levels.

1.5.3 The Ministry of Agriculture

This ministry can be compared to the Ministry of Education as a major employment and spending ministry. Noticeable here is that most Southeast European countries are highly agricultural societies, with the exception of Bulgaria 2, and therefore this ministry, especially in Romania, plays an important role for the citizen. The argument here is that rural post-communist societies have never reached the stage of fully modernized societies, and their governments have never reached the impartiality, impersonality and fairness that presumably characterize modern bureaucracies. The Ministry of Agriculture has a large number of civil servants, as well as a high number of non-professionalized and non-replaced civil servants. However, in comparing the Ministries of Education and

Agriculture, the latter is, in fact, less reformed.

1 While counting the number of employees it seems at the first glance that the ministry of education has fewer employees than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. However, on combining the national and local level civil servants – the Ministry of Education has vastly higher number of employees. 2 Agriculture contributes only 8% to both GDP and employed on 8% of the labor force in 2006. 16

1.5.4 The Ministry of European Integration

The last institution included in this research is the Ministry of European Integration, which is purely post-transitional and non-permanent, but expected to show a close interaction between politicians and civil servants. Despite the civil servants being highly professionalized, they experience little autonomy from the central authority. They are appointed by the central authority, and work constantly under their close supervision.

However, meritocratic procedures exist rather than being simply rules on paper. Another expectation of this institution is that it experiences low autonomy from capture by civil society players due to a possible strong interest of business cycles in the privatization process.

1.6 STRUCTURE

Chapter 2 gives an overview of the problems of the bureaucracy that are specific to

Romania, and describes the development of civil service reform in Romania from the pre- transition period to date. Chapter 3 details the theoretical framework, the dependent variable, and the conceptual model. Chapter 4 explains the independent variables, hypotheses and discusses alternative explanations. Chapter 5 focuses on internal factors influencing civil service reform, viz., pre-reform characteristics of a ministry such as turnover, personnel and decentralization. Chapter 6 deals with EU monitoring, and

Chapter 7 with political partisanship. Concluding remarks, including broader implications of the theory developed here for the quality of governance, and avenues for further exploration are contained in Chapter 8.

The Appendixes contain the information on an exhaustive listing of the civil service laws based the archival documents, interviews and data.

CHAPTER 2

THE ROMANIAN EXPERIENCE

2.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter concentrates more in-depth on the post-transition period to the first civil service initiation in 1999. However, for a sufficiently deep understanding of this process, the present chapter also provides an overview of both the state of the bureaucracy and the development of administrative reforms in Romania, starting with a description of the pre-transition era before 1989 and its possible impact on the post- transition period. It presents the empirical findings on law-making progress and implementation attempts with references to the main components that are entailed in the definition of civil service reform, such as meritocratic procedures, and the shift of bureaucracy to a greater autonomy from political influence and from capture by civil society. This overview is considered of great importance to this research, because it examines the development of civil service reform with greater emphasis on issues such as initiation vis-à-vis implementation , government actions , and monitoring indicators. At the same time it provides a more comprehensive picture of the major milestones of initiation and possible implementation steps of the Romanian civil service reform. Data are provided on a rather specific basis in order to show the main reform steps, whereas 19

Appendix B contains the complete overview with the Law citations together with a more

detailed description of civil service reform changes.

This chapter is structured as follows. First, it provides a more detailed overview of the problems of the Romanian bureaucracy, especially the state of the bureaucracy under Ceausescu, and in particular on post-transition period with regard to the civil service system, referring mainly to the problem of secrecy, politicization and implementation. The second part concentrates on the major milestones within the context of civil service reform progress since its first (partially successful) steps in 1991, to the more recent major adjustments in 2004. The last part of this chapter presents an evaluation of the major reform steps, taking into consideration the indicators of civil service reform defined in Chapter 3. The third part, discusses particular government actions with regard to civil service reform, as well as possible monitoring steps undertaken accordingly.

2.2 CHARACTERIZING ROMANIA’S PRE-TRANSITION ERA

‘Man becomes free in the socialist system not because he is outside the action of social law, but because by understanding their imperative need, (he) acts in their spirit for the conscious construction of society. Therefore the freedom of the individual is not in contradiction with the general demands and interests of society, but, on the contrary, serves these interests. Therefore, when it happens that the general interests are disregarded, society is entitled to take the necessary measures so that these interests….should not be prejudiced’, (Nicolai Ceausescu; 1968). 3

3 The growing restiveness of intellectuals, evident especially in the Writer’s Congress of 1968, did not meet the Party leader’s approval. In this year Ceausescu realized that cultural production had become too independent of Party guidance, (Verdery 1996). This statement was his reaction. 20

Romania’s pre-transition society was characterized by a non-democratic regime.

Among the nondemocratic regimes, a few are based on personal rule with loyalty to the

ruler derived not from tradition, ideology, personal mission, or charismatic qualities, but

from a mixture of meting out punishment or bestowing rewards to collaborators. 4

According to Linz and Stepan’s (1996) definition, four non-democratic regimes

exist: Authoritarianism, Totalitarianism, Post-totalitarianism and Sultanism. The

difference between these regimes lies in their ruler’s overall conception of politics, the

structure of power, and the ruler’s relation to the social structure and economy.

According to Huntington (1991), some dictatorships, like that of Ceausescu, exemplified Weber’s model of sultanistic regime characterized by patronage, nepotism, cronyism and corruption. In a sultanistic regime, the ruler exercises power without restraints, at his discretion. Norms and bureaucratic relations are subverted constantly by the personal and arbitrary decisions of the ruler. The ruler directly chooses the individuals for his staff. The staff consists of individuals who would not enjoy any prestige or esteem in a society on their own account. Most of them are members of the ruler’s family. In the case of Romania, his wife, Elena Ceausescu, was included in the Permanent Bureau of the

Party, while his three brothers were placed in key government positions, and his son Nico became a member of the Central Committee - an overall process, known as ‘party familiarization’. Friends, cronies, business associates, and individuals directly involved in the use of violence to sustain the regime are typically, and were, in fact, part and parcel of the Ceausescu regime.

4The term ‘sultanistic’ is derived from the use by Max Weber in Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich, Economy and Society . 21

The mode of demise of such rulers, the motivation and identity of their opponents, and the longer-term consequences of their replacement, tend to differ from the more established and impersonal, predictable, bureaucratic authoritarian regimes (Linz and

Stepan 1996: 110). Moreover, in sultanistic regimes we find an institutional structure in which no institutionalized rule of law exists, and the ruler acts only according to his own unchecked discretion.

Referring to Gunther et al. (2006), in the South European context, ‘certain sectors and subunits of the state have been substantially transformed than others ... and institutional legacies inherited from the authoritarian and preauthoritarian periods of the past have served as important obstacles to change’ (Gunther et al. 2006: 6).

In the Southeast European context, in order to study the institutional legacy that might have impacted on bureaucratic changes in post-transition time, this research examines the pre-transition Romanian bureaucratic state. Here the question arises of how the pre-transition bureaucratic structure affected the post-transition democratization process and the bureaucratic administration in particular.

The Bureaucratic State under Ceausescu

According to Linz and Stephan (1996), ‘sultanistic regimes are unlikely to institute liberalizing reforms on their own that lead to a democratization process, as might occur in an authoritarian regime’, (Linz and Stephan 1996: 37).

One of the major organizational obstacles is Ceausescu’s bureaucratic system, filled

with cronies and family members. Before exploring the organizational obstacles, one

might ask how useful it actually is to look at organizational obstacles within an

undemocratic system, and their potential negative impact on the democratization process.

It could be argued that since a dictatorship is so unpredictable, we are able to find an

internal dynamic upon which the main actors intent on democratization can rely and use

to their advantage.

In Romania, Ceausescu made the rules, and he also decided how his political apparatus was structured. Norms and bureaucratic relations were constantly subverted by the personal and arbitrary decisions of the ruler. His environment can be defined as uncertain, arbitrary and capricious, because the regulations are based on his own subjective decisions instead of the rule of law. Ceausescu reduced his own uncertainty through the process of personalization of politics. Ceausescu’s Romania is characterized as a classic sultanistic regime, with a weak bureaucratic apparatus, but a very strong personalistic form of rule.

With regard to bureaucratic structure and decision-making power, Ceausescu exercised total control over policy decision- making, dismissals and recruitment of the personnel. He determined the political agenda in terms of the official ideology, which was reinterpreted by him.

In reference to the relationship between bureaucrats and politicians, Ceausescu consolidated his control not only by creating new bureaucratic structures, but also by frequent rotation of officials between party and state bureaucracies and between national

and local posts. The main goal for introducing the rotation was that it enabled Ceausescu

to remove potential rivals to his authority before they could develop a power base. By

attributing all the country's public policy problems to inept and dishonest bureaucrats’

intent on sabotaging his policies, Ceausescu was able to successfully undertake such

rotation measures that he deemed necessary.

Moreover, Ceausescu had called for administrative streamlining by eliminating the duplication of party and government functions. His solution was to assign responsibility for a given public policy activity to a single individual, and to hold that person accountable if the policy was not effectively administered.

Moreover, the emergence of national (party-controlled) economic coordinating councils provided Ceausescu, who after 1967 held the dual titles of general secretary of the Communist Party and president of the Council of State, the means to dominate the economic bureaucracy. In this regard, ‘Ceausescu chaired the Supreme Council of

Economic and Social Development, which approved state economic plans – authority constitutionally granted to the Grand National Assembly’; real policy-making power shifted to the ‘Supreme Council's permanent bureau – also chaired by Ceausescu’.5

In order to evaluate a bureaucrat’s performance, Ceausescu introduced a salary

reform, linking manager’s incomes to the performance of the economic unit under their

supervision. To maintain their incomes, officials falsified performance reports. As a

result, aggregate production figures were grossly inflated, and annual and five-year plan

targets based on these figures became increasingly unrealistic.

5 Information at ‘Administration and Control’ (US Library of Congress Online) at: http://countrystudies.us/romania/52.htm. 24

In the context of salary-based system and seniority based-system, Ceausescu

developed a tied salary-budget system. Because wages and salaries were tied to plan

fulfillment and severe penalties were levied for shortfalls, managers concealed surplus

operating reserves to ensure production in the event of unforeseen bottlenecks. This

practice made accurate inventories impossible to track, resulting in inefficient use of

resources. 6

The possible lingering impact

It can be said that structuring and re-structuring the administrative bureaucracy in the light of the possible lingering impact of the bureaucratic structure, the early years of post-transition Romania were marked by personalistic political party structure, rather than a pre-existing political party structure, as in the Soviet style communist party. Pre- inherited political and bureaucratic structures were very weak, especially given the facts that the main political and bureaucratic posts were filled by family members.

Given the fact that high-level bureaucrats constantly rotated in their posts between the national and local-level governments, a persistent problem that impacted the post- transition time in Romania was the absence of, and thus a strong need for, professionalization, especially at the top level bureaucratic apparatus.

6 Information at ‘Administrative Hierarchy’ (US Library of Congress Online) at: http://countrystudies.us/romania/52.htm. 25

2.3 PROBLEMS OF THE ROMANIAN BUREAUCRACY

The post-transition Romanian bureaucracy represents a nexus of old inherited structures from the past and new administration initiations and implementations in post- transition time. Until 1999, the state administration structures and administrative practices remained largely untouched. Throughout the 1990’s the Romanian state administration was characterized by the persistence of old (pre-transition) structures. This is indicated by retention of personnel from the earlier era, and virtually no new hiring of the civil service bureaucracy. In 1995, Romanian had 130, 344 civil servants; by 2000, there was a decrease of 30 percent in the total number of the civil servants. The decline in these numbers shows that pre-existing employees were shed, but new hiring did not occur. The overall decrease, however, varied considerably across ministries. As reported in chapter 5, there was an especially strong decrease the number of bureaucrats in the

Ministry of Agriculture.

The pre-1999 period can be described as a time period in which no significant administrative changes, including merit-based changes, occurred. This phenomenon that showed a strong resistance to reform was accompanied by the fact that until 1996 a strong post-communist political party governed Romania. Especially towards the late

1990’s, the international community (EU) expressed a need for reform, such as systematic changes in its administrative bureaucracy.

2.3.1 Problem of Corruption

On July 23, 2008, the European Commission, in a report on monitoring the status of administrative reform in Romania concludes:

“A continuing effort needs to be made to develop administrative capacity. Serious staff shortages in the public ministry may call for emergency measures such as a temporary re-assignment of posts. Some elements of the recruitment procedure need to be improved to attract suitably qualified recruits. The National Integrity Agency will now have to demonstrate its operational capacity to effectively sanction unjustified assets and to verify incompatibilities and conflicts of interest. It has to show that it can build a strong track record in terms of cases and sanctions. Consistency and coherence in the preparation of laws and in their application needs to be ensured. There is a need for public consultation in the preparation of laws. Recourse to emergency ordinances should be reduced. More effort needs to go into applying the law consistently and uniformly . The fight against corruption needs to be de-politicized and Romania must affirm its unequivocal commitment to fight against high-level corruption. Independent investigation of former ministers and members of Parliament by the judicial authorities must be allowed to proceed in order to restore public confidence in the fight against corruption and in respect for the rule of law.”

The Romanian bureaucracy is fraught with rather serious problems of corruption.

The lack of overall transparency, and therefore the lack of clear line of demarcation

between politicians and civil servants, present a major problem of the Romanian

bureaucracy. Autonomy from political control is effectively absent. Corruption also

comes with patronage. The European Union reacted to the high level of administrative

corruption with an overall threat to cut funds for the following year, if Romania does not

solve its administrative transparency problems.

2.3.2 Problem of Secrecy and Confidentiality

Defining the Romanian administration, it can be said that it is largely based on the inherited system of ‘secrecy confidentiality’. Civil service bureaucrats are obliged to maintain confidentiality, as described in the Civil Service Law 161/2003, and they incur disciplinary consequences if they do not observe this obligation (articles 44 and 70). The problem of confidentiality is inherited from the previous Ceausescu regime (Law

23/1971) on the Protection of State Secrets. This protection defined the level of confidentiality of information and state secrecy, including the protection of the internal regulation of each ministry. The problem occurred that in the Romanian Constitution of

1991 this law (23/1971) was not sufficiently adapted to the requirements of the democratic state, and only in 2002 it was finally repealed by Law 182/2002 on the protection of classified information. However, several fundamental rights are still negatively affected by this legislation, particularly the freedom of expression and uncovering corruption. It can, therefore, be said that Romania’s administrative environment needs to be more transparent, and Law 544/2001 on Free Access to

Information of Public Interest (Official Gazette 23 October 2001) presents the first initial step that established some regulations, but it is very restrictive. This law stipulates that

‘public information is freely accessible except when it refers to classified information listed in article 12-1 of this law’ (Law 544/2001). Classified information relates to national defense, security and public order, personal data, authorities’ debates, and political and economic interest of Romania. However, the main problem is that (article

12-2) the decisions to apply measures to keep classified information secret depend on the

authority holding the information. This problem is two-fold; on the one hand, authorities

and higher level bureaucrats have the authority to withhold information regarding the

interaction with political appointees, and on the other hand, the legislation, such as Civil

Service Law 16/1996 on the National Archives, and Law 182/2002 on the protection of

classified information, is highly inconsistent. As a result, the implementation process of

Law 544/2001 is stagnant and therefore highly problematic. It leads to a situation in

which bureaucrats are very reluctant to provide information, and ‘generally opt for the

negative solution in view of the possibility of facing disciplinary penalties’ (SAR 2003:

16).

2.3.3 Politicization of the Bureaucracy

In particular, as pointed out in the introduction, the problems of the Romanian bureaucracy range from the persistence of the bureaucrats from pre-transition period, including a blurred line of demarcation between bureaucrats and politicians, to an overall incomplete implementation process of the civil service law of 1999.

One of the biggest problems to which the civil service law of 1999 was responding is a high degree of politicization of the bureaucracy reaching up to 15 years past the transition state. The main problem for the Romanian bureaucracy is that even political actors and the civil service bureaucrats realize the existence of political intrusion in the ministries. Over the time period of the 1990’s, the problem of low accountability and political dependence of civil servants marked the overall characteristics of the

Romanian bureaucracy. For example, the European Commission responded to the issue

29 starting with the first candidate accession negotiation in the late 1990’s referring for example, to the necessity of introducing a program of human resources management and an increase in training sessions of the civil servants bureaucrats. The European

Commission recommendations focused on the main concern that Romania had the highest corruption score of all applicant countries as measured by Transparency

International (2000), and the worst governance score as measured by Freedom House-

Nations in Transit. The European Commission wrote in its 2000 Report that ‘nothing will prevent further legislation of being as disregarded as the current one is, and training for civil servants and politicians are superfluous as it has been in the past decade, if promotion in the state and local bureaucracy continues to have no connection with merit whatsoever, and performance, rather than loyalty, is not rewarded’ (European

Commission Report 2000: 13). Therefore, the low level of accountability and the blurred line of demarcation between the bureaucrats and politicians define the Romanian bureaucracy of the 1990’s, with a weak state characteristics that affects substantially the overall implementation capacity of the government.

2.3.4 Professionalized Bureaucracy

Another main problem of the Romanian bureaucracy is to create a professional civil service. The Romanian administration depends, providing professional training, on the existing civil servants out of existing cadres. This task is essential because attracting, retaining and developing new professional civil servants have been one of Romania’s main problems during the civil service reform. The biggest problem is that financial

attractiveness of highly professional young civil servants lies mainly outside the control

of the Romanian bureaucracy. It is the Romanian state’s responsibility to recruit and keep

the young professionals. The following Table 2.1 shows that public servants’ salaries

(currency: Lei) cannot compete with salaries in the private and state-owned commercial

sectors, especially at the senior managerial level. It can be said that directors-general in

the public service earned dramatically less than directors in all three types of companies.

The strongest attractions for young civil service professionals are consulting offers, partly

initiated by the European Union.

Position Public Regies State Private Service autonomes Commercial Commercial Company Company General n.a. 290,006 496,668 950,000 Manager Economist I n.a. 164,708 288,793 400,000 Computer n.a. 173,183 278,793 340,000 Analyst Judicial n.a. 176,360 276,048 600,000 counselor Director 233,900 n.a. n.a. n.a. general Advisor 180,260 n.a. n.a. n.a. specialist

Table 2.1: Salaries by Type of Employer, 1994 (Source: World Bank 1994).

With regard to the young professionals it can be said that government pay and employment policies have been stagnant. Serious problems that the Romanian bureaucracy faces are low and compressed pay, and a major lack in the information management and forward planning of the personnel. Moreover, the World Bank found

that ‘links between the public service performance and fiscal or budgetary management

have been negligible’ (Nunberg 1999: 92).

2.3.5 Initiation versus Implementation

In order to have reached the successful policy-making initiation of Law 188/1999, many obstacles had to be overcome in Romania’s efforts to create a professional, politically-neutral civil service that is managed on the basis of merit rather than political loyalty. Efforts to implement the civil service law, however, have been less than successful. In detecting those shortcomings, the Romanian government incorporated a package of anti-corruption laws forwarded to the legislature under emergency procedures in March 2003. This Title introduced substantial revisions to Law 188/1999. Here the

Romanian government benefited significantly from international advice (particularly from the SIGMA organization) in the preparation of both the 1999 civil service law and its 2003 revision.

However, significant flaws still remain in the post-2003 period, such as the

proposed revisions mandate in 2004, which presents a distinct set of rules and procedures

to govern major personnel actions (meritocracy: appointment and dismissal) for ‘high

civil servants’. 7 These rules and procedures, while explicitly aimed at ensuring that the

Romanian civil service is managed as a professional, politically neutral system, did not achieve that objective.

7 High-level civil servants include the top three layers of the civil service; e.g., the General Secretary, Deputy General Secretary and Director General within each Ministry, the Prefect, Deputy Prefect and Director General within the Prefecture. 32

The Sigma 2004 Report states that ‘a careful review of both the challenges that have plagued the Government’s civil service reform efforts to date and ways in which the legal framework governing management of the civil service have failed to fully address those challenges is needed’ (SIGMA Report 2004: 6).

With regard to the initiation of meritocracy as a part of the civil service law

188/1999, careful reviews are needed of both pay and employment management issues for ensuring that Romania’s civil servants receive appropriate training in both general and specific human capital skills that is required for effective management and policy analysis.

Moreover, the civil service Law 188/1999 emphasizes training sessions and education programs as a major milestone of reform. This strategy for providing civil service training aims to provide civil servants with the capacity to analyze strategic policy options and the trade-offs they pose. Training sessions present an excellent analysis point of how, on the one hand, civil service law does not necessarily imply implementation, and on the other hand, strong variation among different ministries in

Romania. Whereas in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs more than two-thirds of the bureaucrats were exposed to training programs, the proportion in the Ministry of

Agriculture lies below one-third (Source: Survey 2005). Moreover, the turn-over rate is significantly higher in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs than in the Ministries of Education or Agriculture for example, and many newly hired personnel, especially in the post 2003 period, were already exposed to a major training session, as an overall requirement of the civil service entrance exam.

Romania’s effort to create a civil service that is managed on the basis of professionalism and merit include major objectives such as (1) to develop a professional, politically neutral civil service, managed on the basis of merit, rather than political loyalty, and (2) to modify compensation arrangements to enhance pay and employment management effectiveness, increase transparency, and reduce abuse. These objectives present the main concerns on both the initial civil service law 188/1999, and in its revised version in 2003.

2.4 MAJOR MILESTONES OF CIVIL SERVICE REFORM

This section presents the major milestones of civil service reform with a more in- depth description of the different regulations and adjustments over time. The starting point is as early as 1991, where minor administrative reform components have been part of the overall transition and consolidation process. In general, the consolidation phase includes institutional and administrative development, but does not provide specific reference to the initiation of civil service reform. The scope of this overview ranges mainly up to 2004, where major adjustments to the civil service law have been made.

However, since this research relies mainly on archival work, minor reform changes in recent years might have been overlooked to the extent that such changes may not have been documented yet. With regard to the major milestones of civil service reform, the main division can be made – before and after 1999, when the first civil service reform law was passed in the Romanian legislature.

2.4.1 Pre-1999 Context

The first post-transition laws that refer to administrative adjustments as part of institutional development are Law 14/1991 and Law 154/1992 that focus on the pay system in the budgetary sector of the bureaucracy. Both laws define the salary components and regulate the salaries of public employees and elected officials.

Five years later, in 1996, Law 115/1996 was passed that regulates the ‘declaration and control of assets of dignitaries’ (basically elected politicians), magistrates, public servants and persons in leadership positions. It presents at the same time the first anti- corruption law in the Romanian bureaucracy, including the obligation of public officials to declare their personal wealth. This affected the declaration and control of the fortune of dignitaries, magistrates, public servants and persons with leadership positions. Further, it also entails other internal regulations of different ministries or central and local administrative units or institutions. Hence, Law 115/1996 constitutes the first starting point of reform change that focuses on bureaucratic autonomy , and also includes regulations that hinder the possible development of clientelistic network structures

(possible side payments to the bureaucrats) on which intra-ministerial corruption can develop.

Moreover, for the first time, in 1997, special consideration was given to separate ministries and their civil service bureaucracy, such as Law 128/1997 for the Public

Education Employees in the Ministry of Education. Here, it states the legal provisions defining the status of teaching staff, the social protection for an unemployment period

(Law 65/1997 and UGO 35/1997); and the social protection of unemployed workers and

their professional reinstatement.

Without having initiated the civil service law, the Law 86/1997 introduced rather limited meritocratic procedures. It addresses the necessity of changes in the merit-based system, as well as states changes on the retirement pay of the state social insurance and social assistance. Further, Law 775/1998 presents a more elaborate procedure for the evaluation of individual professional performances of public servants and sets training as an important annual assessment criterion. Without precisely naming it ‘meritocratic procedures’, this presents a preliminary version to the first civil service law that focuses far more on merit-based system.

Moreover, Law 154/1998 (Articles 2 and 3) introduced a system that establishes the basic pay within the budgetary sector (published in OM no.266/16.07.1998). It makes a clear distinction between persons permanently employed with an individual labor contract within the budgetary sector (so called public civil servants) and persons elected or appointed in a public dignitary position. For clarification, a public dignitary position

(political civil servants) is directly assumed through elections or indirectly through appointment. Hence, the public servant position is held by a person employed under an individual labor contract. The current study pays special importance to this distinction, because the major focal point of this research is public civil servants. Even though the

Law 154/1998 states that public civil servants are permanently employed, their current hiring procedures and contracts do not explicitly refer to life-time appointment. Scholars in the area of clientelistic networks and administrative corruption perceive this issue as

essential, since life-time appointments provide a different basis for administrative

corruption than contract-based public servants.

In addition, a major milestone of civil service reform is the establishment of the

Department for Central Public Administration Reform in 1998 (Law 976/1998) which is subordinated to the Prime Minister. The goal of this department is, on the one hand, to promote civil service reform, and on the other, to modernize the central public administration. This department is responsible for the ‘preparation, co-ordination, organization and evaluation of strategies for administrative reform’ (SAR Report 2004:

1). Moreover, this Law claims that this department presents the first independent institution that supervises civil service reform. Its autonomy from political control, however, can be questioned, since it is directly linked to the Prime Minister. Political partisanship and the impact of the political party in power is examined in Chapter 7, where it directly questions the link between civil service reform initiation and the possible negative impact of politicians, such as the role of the incumbent political party.

Finally, in 1998 and 1999, the Romanian parliament introduced a system

(Equalization Grants System) for financial support, set to ensure that all local governmental ministries receive a minimum of resources to perform their basic elements of administrative reform. This initiation was given strong support by the European Union, since it promotes decentralization, and application of administrative reform to local-level governments – an issue that has been overlooked for the most part. However, given the different nature of the ministries with regard to their size and capability to delegate to the local-level government, a disproportionate distribution of funds was inevitable. For

example, the Ministry of Agriculture can delegate tasks to the district level far more than

can the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No substantial revision of the Equalization Grants

System has been passed to date.

2.4.2 Post-1999 Context

The establishment of ‘effective Human Resource Management Information Systems is a key initiative’ adopted by the Government of Romania under its Public

Administration Reform Program. Here, the National Agency for Civil Servants (NACS) is mandated (Articles 21 and 22 of Law 188/1999) with responsibilities to develop and monitor such systems for the civil service bureaucracy, such as to support the

‘formulation of strategies, policies and to monitor the implementation of legislation’.

Further, article 22 states that ‘personnel information, human resource planning, wage bill forecasting and establishment control systems are also required to provide the costing and forecasting data needed to assist NACS, government institutions and line managers make decisions regarding pay, staffing levels, training, career planning, transfers, recruitment, promotion and selection’ (Law 188/1999: Article 22).

The development of an effective Human Recourse Management Information System presents at the same time the starting point of the first comprehensive civil service reform law enacted by the Romanian parliament. Even though components of the civil service reform had been taken place to date, the 1999 Law (188) on civil service and its amendments provides the legal framework for the selection and functions of civil servants (Prolong 2003). Here it is essential to note that Romania adopted this Civil

Service Statute Act as a condition for starting the negotiations with the European Union.

Not surprisingly, this civil service law was adopted just in time for Romania to be allowed to start EU negotiations at Helsinki in 1999. At the same time, it presented ‘no obstacle against a politically motivated reshuffle of the public sector when a new government came to power’ (SAR Policy Warning Report 2003: 44).

The Law 188/1999 (published in the Official Gazette on 28 June 2000 and brought into force 30 days later) represents the main regulation on the civil service; for example, it forbids civil servants to take outside employment in any organization engaged in for- profit activities. The problem, however, in this case is the lack of proper enforcement since Article 57 of the 1999 Law ‘allows civil servants to undertake activities in private trading companies provided there is no connection with their public duties’ (Prolong

2003: 493).

Furthermore, the precise scope of the Romanian civil service bureaucracy is defined by Articles 1 and 2 (amended by Law 161/2003). It states that civil servants are those employed, according to the procedures established in this law, in central state and municipal administrations to perform activities involving the exercise of public powers’

(SIGMA Report 2004: 3).

Since the initiation of the Civil Service Law 1999, constant updates have been added that show strong compliance to the European Union accession criteria, such as Law

114/1999 and Law 78/2000 on anti-corruption issues. Law 78/2000, for example, forbids persons holding public office ‘to make use of their positions, responsibilities, or duties in order to obtain, for themselves or for others, money, goods, or any other unjustified

39 advantages’ (78/2000). The problem here, however, is that it fails to properly define any form of corruption. Moreover, Law 215/2001 concentrates on the Local Public

Administration, and complies with the EU criteria for more decentralization. Here, the most significant change is the provision in Article 17 that allows the use of ethnic minority languages for administrative purposes in localities where at least 20 percent of the population belong to the same ethnic group. This new Law 215 also increases the responsibilities and authority of local councils and mayors. Local administrations have their own budgets and enjoy the right to impose and collect local taxes. Here, local budgets include also capital revenues, proceeds from the state budget, and transfers from the state budget.

Furthermore, as mentioned above, with regard to transparency and accountability, the

Romanian parliament in 2001 adopted the Law on Access to Public Information (Law

544/2001). This was perhaps the most reformist of all civil service law passed. It was established under considerable pressure from domestic and international NGOs. Adoption of the Law 544/20001, was difficult because ‘it compels reluctant public institutions to make available to the public any requested documents that are not considered classified information’ (Prolong 2003: 498).

The existence of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was used during interviews, and the freedom of information act will also be used as a determinant of quality of governance in Chapter 8. The FOIA (subsequently passed by the Chamber of Deputies), is the first valuable accountability bill, as it compels government agencies to publish ex officio activity reports from the previous year, including an account on expenditures. This

has the ‘potential to dramatically reduce discretionary spending, to increase internal

communication within government agencies and generate a rise in public trust’ (SAR

Policy Warning Report 2001: 13).

Moreover, the Ordinance 5/2002 was introduced in 2002. It forbids elected officials

and civil servants from serving as managers, administrators, or board members or in other

prominent positions in private companies’. The ordinance applies to the president,

ministers, service ministers, magistrates, and directors of agencies and national

commissions (Law 05/2002).

In 2002, the Romanian parliament approved the establishment of the National

Institute for Administration, which is subordinated to the Ministry of Public

Administration. The institute will provide intensive training for new recruits as well as continuous education for existing civil servants. The institute will also be responsible for managing a network of eight regional centers which will provide training for local officials and civil servants. It was charged with preparing and implementing a national training strategy for the 2002–2003 academic year (Prolong 2003: 489).

With regard to the National Institute for Administration (INA), it experienced major revisions in 2002. The National Institute for Administration (INA) was improved and scaled up, particularly since the new law of the civil service creates a legal obligation for every civil servant to attend at least seven days of professional training per year.

Moreover, a program for young professionals was initiated that aimed to recruit 500 young people educated abroad and place them on a fast-track career of ‘Eurocouncilors’ in ministries and central government agencies (SAR Policy Warning Report 2003: 43).

Moreover, Law GD 1209/03 on Civil Servants’ Career focuses on promotion and the performance appraisal scheme seems to be founded on better legal grounds with the enactment of Law 161/2003 than was the case under the 1999 Civil Service Law. The basic principles established in primary legislation have been developed through secondary legislation (GD 209/2003). Here, it responds to the earlier criterion of the merit-based system that was established in 1998.

Finally, the Law 07/2004 (Sigma Report) 8 redefines the ‘new civil service’ and states that ‘the new Civil Service Law requires that the Office of the Prefect will become a professional ‘high civil servant’, with all the limitations and protections of such a position, and it creates a legal obligation for every civil servant to attend at least seven days of professional training per year (SAR Policy Warning Report 2003: 43).

2.5 GOVRNMENT ACTION

This following section examines the government’s role and responsibility during the civil service reform. A question arises whether it presents the actual status quo or the aimed role of the government during the reform process. So, what exactly did the

Romanian government do?

During the initial state of developing the 1999 civil service law, the Romanian government conducted an official review in order to establish a ‘professional, politically neutral civil service under Law 188/1999 and, based on that assessment, prepared a

‘strategy and action plan for civil service reform’ (CSR), which 'addresses key

8 Public Service and Administration Framework Assessment: Romania, p. 3 (File: 2004/07 Sigma Report). 42 weaknesses in the CSR effort to date and which includes monitorable milestones, with strategy, action plan and milestones’ (Sigma Report 2004: 9). According to the Sigma

Report, this plan addresses the following strategies: (1) focusing the civil service on policy analysis functions, through capacity building; (2) ensuring an appropriate set of checks and balances in the management of the civil service; (3) ensuring both compliance and performance accountability of civil servants; and (4) providing greater managerial autonomy within the public administration, conditional on satisfaction of minimum standards of compliance and performance accountability’ (Sigma Report 2004: 10).

This strategy and action plan presents the first out of three major strategy plans

(PAL 1-3) that basically intend to present the major reform milestones, starting from the initiation strategy plan (PAL1) to implementation strategy plan (PAL3).

Furthermore, the European Union provided assistance as ‘support to the Drafting

Process of the Public Administration Reform Strategy’ (reference no. RO 0106.06), which was complemented by assistance from the British Department of International

Development (DFID). However, in response to international assistance, the Romanian government should fulfill the following criteria: (1) a review of the legal framework covering civil servants (The assistance is being provided by the EU’s RO 0106.06

“twinning light” project); (2) a review of pay and employment management within the central administration, based on that assessment, prepares an options paper identifying two or three alternative strategic options for reform of the civil service salary structure

43 over a 3-5 year period 9; and (3) the government should develop a strategy plan for ensuring adequate training of civil servants in both general human capital skills 10 , as well as Romania-specific human capital skills 11 .

Moving beyond the initial starting point of the civil service reform in 1999, major consideration has been given already to the effort of implementation. Here, the government is expected to show active steps in fulfilling these tasks. (PAL 2) For example, the Sigma report 2004 shows that overall the Romanian government meets the

PAL 2 milestones for implementation 12 of both the civil service reform plan, and the employment management reform plan.

9 ‘The options paper would consider all elements of remuneration; i.e., basic salary, seniority supplement, job position supplement, grade supplement, bonuses and any other forms of remuneration. It would rank each of the 2-3 strategic options on at least the following criteria: (i) competitiveness of total remuneration by type of position; (ii) wage bill sustainability (i.e., fiscal feasibility); (iii) transparency of total remuneration; (iv) the extent to which the salary structure holds out the prospect for an individual to achieve remuneration growth over time if he or she performs well and continually enhances his or her professional capacities; (v) differentiation in remuneration across civil servants reflects differences in position demands (responsibilities, functions) and human capital requirements (skills, knowledge, experience)’ (SIGMA Report 07/2004: 19). 10 ‘In particular, (i) management skills (such as strategic planning, management by objectives, tools for motivating staff, etc.), (ii) policy analysis skills (e.g., impact analysis, benefit-cost analysis, evaluation research, policy modeling, etc.), and (iii) information technology skills’ (SIGMA Report 07/2004: 19). 11 ‘E.g., training on the Law on Civil Servants and its secondary legislation, on other legal responsibilities of civil servants (e.g., requirements of the Freedom of Information Act, the Decisional Transparency Law, etc.), administrative procedures’ (SIGMA Report 07/2004: 19) 12 ‘Government meets PAL2 milestones for implementation of both CSR plan and pay and employment management reform plan. The EU’s Project no. RO-0106.04 for “Design and Implement Mechanism for the Full Application of the Civil Servants Statute” (1.0 million Euro) should provide TA for this, as will DFID. Government forwards to Parliament amendments to the Civil Servants Law (CS Law), reflecting findings of the review of the CS legal framework and satisfactory to the Bank. The EU’s RO 0106.06 “twinning light” project, as well as DFID’s long term adviser should provide TA for this. The Bank is prepared to provide advice as well. Government issues secondary legislation required for effective implementation of amended CS Law. The EU’s Project no. RO-0106.04 for “Design and Implement Mechanism for the Full Application of the Civil Servants Statute” (1.0 million Euro) should provide TA for this, as will DFID. Government adopts a 3-5 year pay and employment management reform strategy addressing the following objectives: (i) competitiveness; (ii) fiscal sustainability; (iii) transparency of actual remuneration; (iv) supportive of career growth for civil servants who perform well and continually improve their human capital skills; and (v) matching of remuneration to work demands and human capital requirements. The EU’s Project no. RO-0106.04 for “Design and Implement Mechanism for the Full Application of the Civil Servants Statute” (1.0 million Euro) should provide TA for this, as will DFID. The 44

With regard to the next step (PAL3), the government has to meet the criteria of

PAL 3 milestones for implementation of both the civil service reform plan and pay and

employment management reform plan. Also here, technical assistance, most likely

international assistance, will be required. It shows that not only during the initiation

phase, but also during civil service reform implementation, international technical

assistance is expected by the EU.

The implementation strategy plans (PAL 2-3) show quite clearly that the major

source of funding came from the European Union, such as EU projects to support

institutional development in Eastern Europe, on the one hand, and direct EU funding as a

part of the pre-accession support for Romania, as well as Bulgaria. In response to the

international assistance, the government is required to constantly update and publish

quarterly and annually newly developed measurements for the full set of monitoring

indicators on civil service management practices. This requirement entails monitoring,

both on the national and supra-national level of government. The monitoring indicators

are as follows:

Bank is prepared to provide advice as well. Government implements revised civil service salary structure, consistent with its 3-5 year pay and employment management reform strategy, effective during 2005 budget year. The EU’s Project no. RO-0106.04 for “Design and Implement Mechanism for the Full Application of the Civil Servants Statute” (1.0 million Euro) should provide TA for this, as will DFID. Government establishes baseline measurements for full set of core monitoring indicators and updates previously benchmarked indicators on civil service management practices. The EU’s Project no. RO-0106.04 for “Design and Implement Mechanism for the Full Application of the Civil Servants Statute” (1.0 million Euro) should provide TA for this, as will DFID’ (Sigma report 2004: 18).

1. Fraction of civil servants recruited and selected through transparent, competitive procedures increases over time. 2. Spikes in quarterly civil service turnover rates shortly after a change in political leadership decline over time. 3. Incidence of annual personnel performance evaluations for civil servants rises over time. 4. Summary statistics on annual civil servants’ performance evaluations suggest that, over time, they are doing a better job of sorting civil servants on the basis of their performance. 5. A civil service career becomes more attractive, as measured by average number of qualified candidates per advertised civil service position. 6. The reputation of the civil service gradually improves over time, as measured by surveys of households, businesses and public employees. 7. The non-discretionary fraction of remuneration paid (i) general civil servants and (ii) special civil servants, rises over time. 8. Incidence of over-graded positions falls over time (based on annual independent assessments of a random sample of positions). 9. Civil service compensation becomes more competitive over time, as measured by surveys of public and private sector remuneration for prototype positions.

Table 2.2 Overview of Monitoring Indicators (Sigma Report 2004: 18)

2.6 CONCLUSION

In conclusion it can be said that Law 188/1999 has been extensively amended by

Law 161/2003, which was passed on 31 March 2003 and published in the Official

Gazette on 21 April 2003. The Law on the Civil Servant Statute was republished in the

Official Gazette on 22 March 2004. This law 161/2003 was passed under the procedure

foreseen in Article 113-1 of the Constitution, a provision that was inspired by Article 49-

3 of the Constitution of the French Republic of 1958. According to this article,’ the

government assumes responsibility before Parliament, which ‘is compelled, in a joint

session of both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, to either endorse the

government’s bill without amendment or reject it in block. In the event that the bill is

rejected by Parliament, the government is obliged to resign, as in a censure motion’

(Article 49-3). The government’s decision to use this constitutional procedure to adopt,

among others, the Civil Service Law and the legal regime of incompatibilities and

conflict of interest of all public officials, raised much public controversy.

Moreover, the Venice Commission’s Opinion of 18 March 2003 on the proposed amendments to the Romanian Constitution signaled that this procedure was detrimental to the normal distribution of powers and to the prerogatives of the Romanian Parliament.

According to Article 58-1 of the Romanian Constitution, Parliament is the ‘supreme representative body of the Romanian people and the sole legislative authority of the country’. The procedure used for passing the Civil Service Law might represent a drawback in the future, as the establishment of a civil service as an institution of the state would require a much wider political consensus if this institution is to be sustained for a long period of time. The procedure for passing the Civil Service Law might put at risk the sustainability of the construction of the civil service in Romania Law 161/2003 is a collection of different pieces of legislation – also known as the ‘Anti-Corruption

Package’ – grouped under the title of ‘Law on Certain Steps for Assuring Transparency in Performing High Official Positions, Public and Business Positions, for Preventing and

Sanctioning Corruption’ (Title III of Book II of this Law 161/2003), ‘Regulations regarding Public Positions and Public Servants Modification and Completion of Law

188/1999 on the Status of Public Servants’, together with Title IV of Book I on ‘Conflict

47 of Interest and Status of Incompatibilities in Performing High Official and Public

Positions’, now shape the primary civil service legislation in Romania. However, a major problem occurred when the 2004 Civil Service Law effectively reversed the provision of

2003 Freedom of Information Act by giving broad discretion to the bureaucrats regarding what was deemed confidential information, versus what was deemed public information.

Further, government re-shuffling restructured the organization of ministries in

Romania from 24 to 14. Many of the removed ministries, however, survived as central government institutions, in order to streamline government. In fact, four are the primary interest of this research.

The most specific feature of legislation in the twenty-first century, to date, remains Law 544/2001, which was, unfortunately voided effectively by the Law on State

Secrets and Classified Information, reversing an important reform towards greater transparency.

CHAPTER 3

THEORY

3.1 INTRODUCTION

Although the first ten years following the transition were characterized by significant institutional reform in Eastern European countries, restructuring of the civil service lagged behind other areas of reform. Especially in the later stage of the transition process, many East European states attempted to reform their civil service bureaucracies, but we know little about the determinants of success of such reform. Rather than attempt to classify a country’s experience with reform as a whole, this research argues that civil service reform must be disaggregated within a country. This affords a better understanding of what explains heterogeneous patterns of civil service reform and its implementation across ministries in a single country. Chapter 1 presented the main research question of why do some ministries undergo rapid civil service reform, and others remain largely untouched? This chapter defines civil service reform through its three main components: (1) meritocracy; increased autonomy of the bureaucracy from (2) political control, as well as from (3) capture by civil society actors. It elaborates on each component, and provides empirical evidence on the original variation on the dependent variable that presents the starting point of this research. 49

This chapter concentrates on a conceptual model conducive to an exploration of

‘civil service reform’. The first part discusses the distinction between ‘civil service’ and

‘civil service reform’, and to what degree both concepts are mutually related to one another, and whether civil service reform can be studied without defining civil service.

This chapter points to the process-oriented reform, and this distinction is sees as the essential distinction between both concepts. While defining civil service reform in particular, this part includes a discussion on the difference between the Weberian model of bureaucracy vis-à-vis the New Public Management approach, elaborated on the conceptual level and within the East European context. Patronage and politicization will be discussed in their relationship to the successful civil service reform. Moreover, the concept civil service reform will be described in its measurements, such as autonomy from political control and civil society actors, and meritocratic procedures. Those measurements will be shown in the operationalization steps that will follow the components of the civil service reform.

3.2 DEFINING CIVIL SERVICE AND CIVIL SERVICE REFORM

3.2.1 Civil Service

In the literature, the civil service responds mainly to the Weberian rational understanding of the civil service bureaucracy, where bureaucrats are seen as apolitical, law-oriented and procedure-oriented, and ‘above partisanship’. Weber’s model is considered in the literature as the ‘old European model’ that refuses to allow the civil servant an active role in policy making. Weber sets forth high standards of the legal authority, and states that the bureaucratic administration is ‘capable of attaining the 50 highest degree of efficiency and is, in this sense, formally the most rational known means of carrying out imperative control over human beings’ (Weber 1947: 337). Hence, Weber perceives the civil service bureaucracy as a line of demarcation from political leadership.

Also, Aberbach et al. (1981) distinguish between the concepts of the ‘classical’ and

‘political’ civil servants, in which the former concept clearly separates the roles and tasks between both groups, and the latter one perceives civil servants ‘as much as policymaking as their political masters,’ (Peters: 2001:3).

Further, Weber defines civil service as de-political, or as mentioned above, as ‘above partisanship’. This characteristic is attributed to the fact that bureaucrats act rationally.

However, the literature responds to this issue that bureaucrats cannot always act rationally, given certain environmental circumstances, as described for example by

Grindle (1977). Grindle argues that ‘bureaucrats act rationally, but in Mexican, not

German terms’ (Grindle 1977: 6), meaning that the social context in which a bureaucracy is embedded plays a major role in defining bureaucrats’ actions, and whether bureaucrats act rationally. While including cultural and institutional components in defining a bureaucrats rationality, Grindle presumably changes the content of the concept of

‘bureaucratic rationality’, and thus opens up the possibilities of what alternative conceptions of ‘bureaucratic rationality’ could be. As argued in Chapter 1, an important distinction to be made is between what a rational bureaucracy ought to be, versus what it actually is – a distinction between a normative and a descriptive concept.

Similarly, Dogan and Rose (1971) argue that ‘the functionaries of the public administration are not simply neutral or corrupt rule applicators, but are also active and interested participants in policy formulation and rule making’ (Grindle 1977: 6). 51 3.2.2 Civil Service Reform

While the concept of a "civil service" is a purely static concept of a phenomenon at a single point in time, civil service reform is a process that occurs over a period of time.

One might argue that analyzing the status quo of civil service would provide sufficient ground for understanding the ‘end points’ on a continuum on which civil service reform occurs. However, merely studying the Weberian model of civil service, and the bureaucrat’s rationale within an institution, serves to exclude issues of reform in the first place, because it only characterizes what a bureaucracy is. Therefore, this chapter outlines different theories of civil service reform, and how the present research contributes to the existing literature on East European civil service reform, in particular, and to the conceptual basis of this process in general.

This research aims at defining the concept of civil service reform as a phenomenon with a time dimension. The most traditional connection is that civil service reform describes a shift in the civil service, referring to the ‘substitution of business principles and methods for political means in the conduct of the civil service, such as the merit system’. Perceiving the merit system as only one component of civil service reform, the literature presents an endless array of options with regard to the entailed regulations and meritocratic procedures. Portraying the vast amount of literature on civil service reform in a comparative perspective, most scholars refer to meritocracy as the ‘holy trinity of public administration’ that consists of personnel, programs and budget.

First, special focus is given here to the question as to what degree the current

literature on civil service reform includes procedure and regulation, and to what extent it

constitutes a comprehensive, process-inclusive definition of civil service reform, to be 52 distinguished from a purely consequentialist, culminative-outcome oriented definition?

Does the ‘Weberian’ or ‘New Public Management’ (NPM) strategy of civil service reform move beyond the adoption of civil service laws, and consider law implementation as well? The answer, evidently, is an unambiguous “no”.

Second, it is argued here that bureaucratic change concentrates primarily on the process-inclusive outcome definition of civil service reform, as captured in a consequential evaluation of a comprehensive outcome (Sen 2000). Seen in this light,

reform requires a successful law implementation process . Third, this chapter concentrates

on the idiosyncratic challenges to implementing civil service reforms in Eastern Europe.

It is crucial to understand that lessons from different patterns of civil service reform in

mainly Western Europe and Latin America are valuable, but not necessarily directly

applicable to an understanding of the process of civil service reform in all East European

countries, a case in point being Romania and Bulgaria. Indeed, it can be argued that the

particular circumstances are so enormously different in these two countries that, for a

sufficiently comprehensive understanding, a different conceptual framework is called for.

Developing this model lies at the heart of this research.

3.3 CIVIL SERVICE REFORM IN THE EAST ERUOPEAN CONTEXT

3.3.1 Weberian Model of Bureaucracy Versus New Public Management

With regard to bureaucratic efficiency in law implementation, the present research

adopts essential components from two distinct positions in comparative politics, which

are often seen by scholars as standing in opposition to each other. One position, the

Weberian or “classical”, views civil service in the governance tradition, emphasizing the 53 role of civil servants as legitimate guardians of the state. The other, the ‘new public management’ tradition, emphasizes the role of civil servants as efficient managers. Both perspectives of civil servants present the starting point of understanding initial reforms of the civil service.

Institutional reform from the perspective of the New Public Management approach

(NPM) is influenced by the assumptions of two main approaches – public choice theory

(Downs 1957, 1967; Niskanen 1971) and Neo-Taylorism (Flynn 1990); referring to a

combination of internal and external explanations of administrative performance. In the

West European context, the New Public Management model is represented in four main

different versions: UK/Irish; Nordic/Dutch; German; and French. Institutional reform of

the New Public Management is influenced by the assumptions of two main approaches –

public choice theory (Downs 1957, 1967; Niskanen 1971) and Neo-Taylorism (Flynn

1990); referring to a combination of internal and external explanations of administrative

performance. Neo-Taylorism focuses on the internal organization of the bureaucracy and

analysis of managerial aspects of political control. Neo-Taylorism focuses on the

individual performance of ministers, and has greater immediacy in its political

implications. Here, neo-Taylorism responds to the notion that politicians often perform

badly at management and too weakly as leaders (Terry and Kramer 1983; Flynn 1990).

The model adopted here draws from Weber the autonomy (1) from political

influence, and (2) from civil society actors, as two components of the dependent variable,

and takes (3) meritocracy as the third component of the dependent variable from the

NPM literature. As such, in the model developed here, there appears to be no conflict

between the two positions: classical and NPM. Instead, this new model unifies in one 54 framework the significant characteristics in terms of which the extent of civil service reform is examined. This is the nature of the relationship between the classical, NPM and the model presented in this research. In the following section, the applicability of the

Weberian model and the NPM in the context of East European public services reform is discussed.

3.3.2 The Weberian Model and NPM in the East European context

Weber (1947) posits that there are two directions in which reform could move: a rational rule-based bureaucratic system or a patrimonial-clientelistic system marred by corruption. Accordingly, this research establishes these two ideal types as the two ends of a continuum, and presents different patterns of civil service reforms that ensue within this continuum. As such, the continuum presents different patterns ranging from an unsuccessful to a successful civil service reform. However, the starting point of originating into those two ends of the continuum is unclear, and presents a status quo from where to proceed to an application to the East European transition bureaucracies is rather difficult. The Weberian understanding of civil service reform refers to an idealized representation of bureaucracy, in particular to the relationship between politics and public administration that is explored more in-depth presently while illustrating the autonomy of bureaucracy from political influence. Further, the classical model assumes that there is a fundamental difference between the public and private sectors and that ‘this difference should be reflected in organizational structures and employment conditions’ (Verheijen

1999: 408). In the West European context, the main distinction is based upon the ‘way relations between politics and administration were organized’, in recruitment and 55 promotion systems, as well as the ‘way the employment relations were regulated’

(Verheijen 1999: 417).

However, portraying the East European public administration, less difference

between the public and private sphere exists with respect to the conditions of

employment, especially during the immediate post-transition time, since the privatization

process started as late as 1996. The Western model of administrative changes portrays its

main aims in ‘high levels of job security; systematic grading with promotion based on

seniority and merit, and a high degree of self-management by the state bureaucracy’,

whereas the East European administrative changes primarily focus on two simultaneous

changes: the bureaucratic transition from the state apparatus model, as well as making the

bureaucracy more autonomous and efficient by the implementation of civil service

reforms. While the West European models of civil service reform are ‘in constant search

for’ a more efficient bureaucracy, in the East European context, the search for a more

efficient bureaucracy does not necessarily have to go along with the overall process of

consolidating the bureaucracy. Still, the most successful case of administrative change in

Eastern Europe, Hungary, experienced several adjustments to its administrative reform.

Summarily it can be said that the Central and East European administrations do not

conform to the classical model. The East European public administration suffers mainly

from ‘self-management by the public administration’ and the lack of a clear line of

demarcation of political interference.

Two main methods of NPM also prove fruitful when applied to the East European

context: The neo-Taylorian approach lends itself to the examination of civil service

reform in terms of internal reorganization. When analyzing the causes of different reform 56 outcomes, it makes sense to use the main assumption of public choice theory which states that bureaucratic and political action can be explained as choices by rational actors.

Naschold and Bogumil (1998) point out that various reform concepts may be in accordance with the NPM approach, ranging from radical, market-oriented, centralized to incremental and decentralized reforms. Here, it has to be asked what more precisely the implications of NPM are and whether the approach can be applied to the East European context, in which case one has to analyze the focal areas of NPM reforms. Further, Liegl

(2001) distinguishes three areas and states that the main [first] aim is the ‘re-structuring and re-engineering of the internal administrative structures’, secondly ‘the development of market-oriented strategies within the public sector’, and lastly ‘the emphasis on mechanisms guaranteeing customer satisfaction’ (Liegl 2001: 74).

This research, however, argues that the NPM model has the effect of ‘blurring’ the differences between the public and private sectors by too readily accepting criteria for private sector performance as guiding principles for public administrators. This is a particular problem in the context of Southeastern Europe given the late economic development in this area. In this respect, this study does not find the NPM assumption helpful that organization structures and management styles which are successful in the private sector can be translated to the public sector without any adaptation. This view is reinforced because of the comparatively late start of the privatization process in

Southeastern Europe.

Indeed, Peters (1995) argues that the two main challenges to changes in public

administration in Eastern Europe are the rapid separation of politics from public

57 administration; and the process of ‘catching-up’ with managerial and institutional development (Peters 1995: 167).

3.3.3 Patronage and Civil Service Reform

Moving beyond the two-category distinction of civil service reform strategies, the

extensive literature on administrative reform (especially in the Latin American context)

suggests that the initiation and implementation of civil service reform cannot be

examined without the linkage to political patronage. Referring to Schmitter’s (1995)

understanding of a fruitful comparison between the ‘South’ and the ‘East,’ the

relationship between public administration and corruption in the Latin American context

can be adopted and compared to the East European post-transition political context. In

defining civil service reform and portraying bureaucratic rules and regulations in the

post-transition period, Geddes (1994), for example, argues that civil service reform is

defined as ‘meritocratic hiring and advancement; insulating agencies from patronage

appointments, and establishing discretionary funding’ (Geddes 1994: 56). She argues that

when civil service is unreformed, the bureaucracy operates as a tool for politicians to

bestow patronage and gain votes and allies within the bureaucracy (Geddes 1994). The

main direction that Geddes takes is that an unreformed civil service lends itself to the

personal interest of bureaucrats, and the bureaucracy remains riddled with incompetent

personnel that are in fear of losing their jobs. Hence, a successful civil service reform can

only occur when politicians have the incentives to terminate clientelistic practices and

institute civil service and meritocratic reform. Here, the present study goes along the line

of Geddes’ argument and suggests that an effective civil service reform can only occur 58 when the incentives for the agents are restructured, as posited in the internal reorganization approach taken by the NPM model.

With regard to patronage as an obstacle to reform in the East European context,

Grzymala-Busse (2003) dismisses the notion of development of clientelism in the East

European context, arguing that opportunity structure and organized networks which could

serve as delivery mechanisms for benefits and personal benefits are absent in those

countries. In stark contrast to that observation, this research finds that the lingering

impact of pre-transition characteristics is not to be underestimated, and thus agrees with

Kitschelt’s (1999) position on the matter. Even if East European countries do not have

organized networks through which clientelistic practices can develop, there still exists the

possibility of the continuation of networks from pre-transition time and, therefore,

politicians’ incentive structures would continue to be maintained. Through the focal point

of a single East European country (the case of Romania 13 ), this research concentrates on the variation among the disaggregated level rather than the entire state level itself.

In the Hungarian context, however, Voss (2001) argues that ‘there is no lingering sentiment for the ancient regime. The bureaucrats rate their professional autonomy and politically neutral position highly enough’ (Voss 2001: 92). Though this may be true for

Hungary, it is difficult to argue that the notion that politicians’ incentive structure can be examined through their personal subjective ratings for all East European countries. A possible hypothesized answer to Voss’s notion is that Hungarian pre-transition characteristics of ministries were less personalistic and faced a stronger critical

13 As mentioned earlier – the Bulgarian case is considered as a second possible option. 59 opposition during transition time. Finally, there could be existing networks even without any ‘lingering sentiment for the ancient regime’.

Hence, it can be said that this research defines civil service reform mainly as

procedural changes in the autonomy and meritocracy of the institution. This research

distances itself from the Weberian model, where civil servants are represented as pure

masters of the institutions, carrying out orders rationally and without any personal

incentives.

3.3.4 Politicization and Civil Service Reform

Looking at the ‘classical’ definition of civil service reform and comparing it to the current public administration in Eastern Europe, the character of public administration in this region is ‘far removed from Western theoretical models’ (Anusiewicz 2001:83). In this context, Anusiewicz (2001) claims that ‘specific characteristics of the previous regime and bureaucracies… [make] the task of defining the limits, prerogatives, and structure of the emerging civil services in Post-communist countries particularly difficult’

(2001:83). Comparing the concept of civil service reform between the West 14 and the

East European context, it becomes apparent that civil service reform in Eastern Europe mainly aims at establishing a professional and de-politicized civil service at the central government level. The strong focus on de-politicization is a rather unique aspect of post- communist civil service reform highly desirable, though fully achieved rarely.

14 With regard to the degree of politicization of the public administration, Sotiropolous (2006: 2) distinguishes between the ‘South European’ countries on the one hand, and ‘rest of Western Europe’ on the other. He focuses primarily on timing and the level politicization on local level government. 60 It is important to note that in the East European context, the first decade after the transition has been long enough to complete some important tasks of institutional reform.

However, institutional reform did not always include civil service reform in the first phase. Especially in the later stage of transition, civil service reforms in Eastern Europe, which was meant to reduce the opportunity for ministers to exercise political discretion over personnel policy, exhibited variation in the extent to which the adoption, implementation and revision of civil service legislation occurred. Nevertheless, it should also be noted that the initiation of civil service reform does not necessarily entail a successful de-politicization. It is rather puzzling as to what explains the strong continuation of politicization of personnel policy in much of Eastern Europe.

Furthermore, Burns (1987) argues that, in the Chinese context, ‘civil services tend to be heavily influenced by the political and social environment in which they operate’

(Burns 1987: 47). He states that the West, after decades of experience with ‘independent’ civil service]... ‘politicians have attempted to create more responsive bureaucracies, a move which has led to their increasing politicization’.

The model adopted here identifies the ‘de-politicization’ process of the bureaucracy as an important motivation behind public services reform in Eastern Europe. However, the empirical research on civil service developments in Eastern Europe so far finds little evidence that adoption of civil service legislation spurs the creation of a professional, de- politicized civil service. Verheijen et al. (2001) argue that ‘civil service laws have seldom been the expected catalysts for the stabilization, de-politicization and professionalization of the central administration’ (Verheijen et al. 2001: 29). Similarly, the World Bank has attempted to evaluate the performance of East-Central European civil services in the 61 context of European Union accession with reference to international best practice, and concluded that real progress is evident when it comes to ‘credible efforts to delineate the basic legal and institutional foundation for a professional, de-politicized civil service.

[However, the] study's findings reinforce the impression from previous analyses ... that administrative development in Central and Eastern Europe, has been incipient or intermittent [and that] considerable distance still needs to be traveled to achieve sound international practice’ (Nunberg 2000: 7).

3.4 MEASURING ‘CIVIL SERVICE REFORM’

In this context, the present research uses, simultaneously, (1) the prevalence of

meritocratic procedures, (2) the turnover rate of personnel at the end of the reform

process, (3) the bureaucracy's autonomy from political influence, and (4) the degree of

capture by social actors in the competition for budget allocation as the content of a multi-

dimensional concept of measuring outcome of civil service reform. Hence, the present

study, instead of dealing with one dimension at a time, takes the conceptual basis of

reform in a more comprehensive manner than has been the case in the literature thus far

as, for example, in Huber et. al. (2002), particularly by seeing it as the organizational

restructuring of the civil service at the ministerial level, referring mainly to bureaucratic

initiation and implementation of civil service reform.

For the most part of this study, civil service laws represent the background which

creates the need for implementation of civil service reform (see Chapter 2). Because the

laws are the same for all ministries, they themselves are not a component of the

dependent variable. A different approach is taken only in chapter 7 were law initiation is 62 problematized in a cross-country comparison. Implementation success of civil service reform is measured using quantitative or quantitative data. The discussion so far has established what the desirable achievements of civil services reform are, particularly in an East European context. Because the underlying variable “implementation success” is not directly measurable, this chapter discusses how the reform targets can be used to obtain an idealized construct of “civil service reform success”. Once the components of this construct are known, one can address the problem of constructing appropriate and measurable indicators. The following table lists components of the idealized construct

“civil service reform success” and relates them to quantitative or quantifiable measures obtained from the interviews. As the following discussion indicates, several questions did provide an inconclusive indicator of relative civil service reform success. For example the question about family members in the same ministry, aimed at indicating the prevalence of meritocratic procedures, produced no variation across ministries. In addition, responses were in the negative, pointing to a possible problem with honesty in reporting.

The construction of the measures is aimed at providing four different indictors of an underlying qualitative aspect – civil service reform success – each of which has the property of being comparable across different ministries. When trying to construct an overall indicator of civil service reform success one encounters the deeper problem of aggregating different indicators. Those problems are discussed in detail in section 3.4.4.

Basically, the discussion shows that all that can be obtained without constructing an index by arbitrarily attaching weights to the different measures, is a qualitative comparison of overall reform success in the different ministries. 63

Components of Civil Measurement Service Reform Success Meritocracy • Share of staff which shows awareness off the existence of Freedom of Information Act 2001 or Civil Service Code (1999) • Share of staff which knows where to access above document • Share of staff which has been formally introduced to above document.

Post reform turn- • New hirings' share of overall staff at the ministry over rate measured by share of staff passing civil service entrance exam since introduction

Autonomy from • Mode of a measure of contact frequency for each person civil society actors • Share of staff responding that they have been offered a bribe

Autonomy from • Mode of a measure of contact frequency for each person political control

Table 3.1: Overview Operationalization Dependent Variable

3.4.1 Operationalization: Internal Components

3.4.1.1 Meritocracy and Promotion

Because of the particular problems surrounding patronage in the civil service in post-

communist states, this research includes as a component the successful introduction of

rational practices and procedures in the area of personnel recruitment and promotion. The

Weberian model (1947) states that ‘candidates are selected on the basis of technical

qualifications ... and tested by examination or guaranteed by diplomas certifying

technical training or both’, (Weber 1947: 17). Furthermore, promotion is based

‘according to the seniority or to the achievements’ (Weber 1947: 18). The Weberian

model also allows for non-rational pressure to be operative in the personnel system. 64 Presence of a ‘Weberian’ component such as inspiration would suggest that a successful civil service reform be connected to an autonomous recruitment policy.

Further, the empirics show that civil service reform concentrated mainly ‘to restore the merit principle to a system which has grown into a bureaucratic maze’ (Campbell

1978: 99). The main justification for concentrating primarily on the merit-based system was to provide greater management flexibility and better rewards for better performance without compromising job security. Here, the present research goes along the line with the performance-based understanding of reforming the meritocratic system. However, a procedure-oriented analysis of meritocratic regulations also faces the problem that it guarantees the procedural rights of employees without making managers reluctant to initiate legitimate adverse actions. Moreover, in the East European transition, the salary system is of significance due to the attempt to ensure that civil service salaries are competitive with those in the private sector. 15

Ideally, a measure of both ‘recruitment’ and ‘promotion’ should be embodied in the concept of meritocracy and treated separately. The existing literature on ‘meritocracy’ often confounds the two distinct, though inter-related concepts into one category, and thus fails to distinguish the more dynamic concept of promotion from the one-time entry into an institution. Perceiving both distinctly, this study examined (1) recruitment and promotion patterns and procedures, (2) career patterns and (3) the ‘quality’ of the personnel, as the three main indicators of meritocracy. Including the ‘quality’ of the personnel, this research incorporates socio-economic determinants, referring to Hackett’s

15 The African experience of civil service reform, for example, suggests that a merit system works best if accompanied by an attractive salary and incentive package ‘which is able to attract and retain the best’ (Olowu 1999: 17). Changes in the salary-scale system will be employed as one measurement that is outlined in Chapter 5. 65 (1967) concern for the socio-economic status of the personnel. Hackett argues that it is important to measure how the personnel have entered the bureaucracy when family members are in the bureaucracy as well. Furthermore, the question was put to the respondents as to whether personnel have entered the bureaucracy either via family tradition, political patronage, or are in office from pre-transition time. In this context, some common questions are, for example, ‘who directs the recruitment criteria’ and

‘what are the criteria for promotion and hiring’.

While a diverse picture emerged about different patterns in different ministries

which is reported in detail in chapter 5, there proved to be limitations to the extent to

which qualitative answers were conducive to constructing an indicator of reform success

which is comparable across ministries. The variable which was found to provide an

objectively measurable indicator across the ministries is the degree of knowledge with

regard to the Civil Service Code Book or the Freedom of Information Act. Three

different questions where asked to assess the degree of familiarity ranging from simple

knowledge of one of the acts, via knowledge of where to access the act to having been

exposed to formal instruction on the document. The idea behind this measure is that as

reform measures are introduced information will spread of what is being introduced. In

terms of constructing a measure which is comparable across ministries the data provided

unambiguous answers, i.e. a ministry where more people were informed about the act is

also a ministry where more people knew about access or were formally trained.

66 3.4.1.2 Post-Reform Turnover Rate

With regard to the post-reform turnover rate, it is hypothesized that public services

reform will have two effects: It will result in higher qualification levels of existing staff

members because civil reform packages typically include training opportunities for staff,

for example in language and IT skills. Training on the job will improve the outside

options of the workforce, for example in the private sector. Under the conditions of civil

services reform it will also result in potential promotion. As none of the reform measures

in Romania aimed at an increase of pay in each position or even at an increase of pay

across positions, successful training will increase the skill of the labor force relative to

their pay. Therefore, one would conclude that successful implementation of training

program will raise the relative attractiveness of outside options and, therefore, result in an

increase in the turnover rate in the ministry.

Reform will also make the access to the civil service more competitive and result in

the entry of a labor force which has out-side options. The length of stay of such a labor

force within the civil service will be shorter than the length of stay of the pre-reform

incumbents. The effect of both developments will be an increase in the post-reform turn-

over rate. Therefore, successful implementation can be measured as an increase in the

turn-over rate due to reform.

While successful reform is causal to the turn-over rate, other factors affect the turn-

over rate as well so one has to isolate the effect of those factors on the turn-over rate.

This is not a conceptual problem, however, as long as there are measurable exogenous

factors to which those influences can be ascribed. Pre-reform expansion of a ministry

might result in the entry of a professionalized labor force into the ministry before the 67 onset of reform. Therefore, a high observed turnover rate could in part be attributed to the composition of the labor force independent of reform success. On the other hand, professionalization of the labor force could simultaneously affect the turn-over rate and reform implementation. For a highly trained and professionalized labor force it is a precondition to consider public office as a career choice that there exists a civil services law which sets out clear rules for work and promotion (see Hesse, 1998). Successful implementation is, therefore, to be expected where the job market pressure in the form of demand by potential applicants is strong. At the same time, a high turn-over rate can be an indicator of a highly professionalized work force whose members have a choice between a number of career options.

Figure 3.1 illustrates this interdependent relationship. Both reform success and turnover rate are dependent variables which are affected by the set of independent variables.

Figure 3.1: Component turnover rate 68 Ideally, one would like to measure the degree of professionalization by directly

measuring the educational level of staff at the time of entry. In the presence of labor

market pressure, the combined effect of reform implementation and high

professionalization on turn-over time might be a stabilization or even a decrease in turn-

over rate, because clear promotion rules might be seen by the professionalized labor force

as a reason for an extension of their stay. However, the employed method (interview) is

capable of dissecting these effects.

An operational definition of the turnover rate is the ratio of the number of staff that

had to be replaced in a given time period to the average number of staff. It expresses the

average risk of losing a member of staff in a given period of time. In a stationary labor

force it might be measured either by determining the number of staff leaving or the

number of new hires. Comparing the size of the ministries pre-reform in 1999 and post-

reform in 2008 shows that the assumption of a stationary labor force in the different

ministries is largely fulfilled. Therefore, assessing the share of new hires among staff is

an adequate measure of the turnover rate. This research reconstructs the number of new

hirings from the number of those employees in possession of a civil service exam. In all

ministries, new entrents had to pass the civil service entrance exam once it was

introduced in the ministry. Calculations were performed to adjust for different length of

observation periods. 16

16 See the discussion in 3.5.1. 69 3.4.2 Operationalization: External Components

3.4.2.1 Autonomy from Capture by Civil society Actors

Willis states that ‘to be ‘independent’, a bureaucratic agency must be both

‘autonomous’ and ‘insulated’’ (Willis 1995: 2). Furthermore, he argues that ‘autonomous bureaucrats can pursue policies that conflict with, or fail to support, the interest of such groups, such as media, non-political groups for example. Bureaucrats are insulated when they enjoy freedom from partisan or patronage pressure’ (Willis 1995: 3). The dimensions of autonomy, which this research looks into are, therefore, autonomy from political control and autonomy from capture by civil society actors. This section deals with the latter one.

Grindle (1977), in the Mexican context, examines the autonomy from capture by civil society actors as the isolation ‘from programmatic and organized influences of party or interest associations’ (Grindle 1977: 7). This research sees the ‘capture’ as an effort of small number of groups (such as lobbyists, media, or NGOs, among others) to shape the rules of the game to their advantage through illicit, non-transparent provision of private gains to public officials. Political parties are most of the time considered to be the mechanism for mobilization and communication, and are in control of the top bureuacratic elites. The relationship between bureaucrats and pressure groups is often not interdependent from the beginning, especially in the context of newly emerging democracies, where civil society defines its legal boundaries in order to protect the existence of a public sphere which is independent from the exercise of state power.

The present research seeks to examine the affiliation and background of bureaucrats, as well as their interactions and responsibility to civil society groups that are outside of 70 the bureaucracy. However, the challenge of measuring the institution’s autonomy from capture by civil society actors lies in whether the decision-making of civil servants is exposed to the influence of political groups.

In the interviews, the respondents had to give an estimate of the frequency of their

contacts with civil society actors. Possible answers were “daily”, “weekly”, “bi-weekly”

and “monthly” with the option to further specify whether it was “once” or “twice” daily

and so on. For the assessment of the ministry, the mode of the distribution of individual

answers was used.

3.4.2.2 Interaction between Bureaucracy and Political Leadership

When introducing the notion of civil service and civil service reform this research

has already problematized the tension between making the civil service independent from

political influence and, at the same time, making it more accountable and responsive to

the need of task fulfillment. In a democracy, both accountability and responsiveness is

defined in relation to the legislative and, therefore, political level. While in the Weberian

tradition, one would be most concerned about independence of the bureaucracy from

political influence, neo-Taylorism emphasizes the managerial problems going along with

task fulfillment.

This tension is reflected in the applied literature. Some of the previous research

focuses mainly on the structural component of the civil service. Peters (1995) defines

bureaucratic autonomy ‘as the formal exemption of an agency head from full political

supervision by the departmental minister’ (Peters 1995: 120). Grindle (1977) examines in

the Mexican context the autonomy of the bureaucracy as the ‘isolation from the pressure 71 of the legislative or judicial organs of the government’ (Grindle 1977: 6). In this context, a possible measure would be the freedom from patronage pressure, an approach which would be unfeasible in this research.

Most of the literature, starting with the early writing of Weber 17, focuses on the relationship between bureaucrats and politicians. Studying the relationship between both groups renders the line of demarcation rather unclear between insulating bureaucrats from political influences on the one hand, and establishing political accountability of the bureaucrats on the other. In the case of administrative systems in states which undergo the transition from dictatorship to democracy, it is the political will of the democratically elected parties to reshape the bureaucracy. As the experience of southern European former dictatorships suggests, this sets the political leadership as promoters of public services reform against the bureaucracy with its tendencies towards inertia (see

Sotiropoulos, 2006a). Seen from this perspective, the creation of bureaucratic autonomy would clearly impede successful reform implementation.

An alternative way to study bureaucratic autonomy is the analysis of the relationship between bureaucrats and politicians under the aspect of the degree of politicization of bureaucracy. Sotiropoulos (2006b), in the Greek context, argues that political party

affiliation of the bureaucrats affects the perception of bureaucrats and politicians, and it

indicates ‘who is on who’s side in intra-bureaucratic squabbles taking place in politicized

bureaucracies’, (Sotiropoulos 2006b: 350). A group of scholars (Aberbach, Putnam and

Rockman 1981) developed the concepts of ‘classical’ and ‘political’ civil servants.

17 Already Wilson (1887) in the United States was developing a concept of the separation of administration and politics. His ideas formed the basis for a good deal of the Anglo-Saxon conceptions about the proper role of civil service in government. 72 Aberbach et al. understand the ‘classical’ civil servant as the ‘Weberian’ type of civil servant, ‘with a clearly defined separation of roles and tasks between the two groups’

(Peters 2001: 3). The latter group of civil servants, however, ‘identifies their roles as being virtually as much policymaking as are those of their political ‘masters’, and also accept the need for greater political involvement by civil servants’ (Peters 2001:3). Most studies have been conducted in the setting of more mature, industrialized democracies.

Moreover, Peters (1987) describes the relationship between bureaucrats and politicians as a continuum; on the one end of that continuum the ‘formal Weberian separation of functions between the two sets of actors’ (Peters 2001: 5) – with the political leaders firmly in charge; and on the other end is the ‘bureaucratic government in which the technical expertise and command of information of the bureaucracy wins out over the amateur qualities of most political leaders’ (Peters 2001: 5).

This research pursues both lines of investigation. First, it examines of the rules,

procedures and structures of the bureaucracy and subsequently, based on the interviews,

it explores the relationship between bureaucrats and politicians.

Rules, Procedures and Structures

Introduction of rules and procedures in civil services reform laws are often aimed at

establishing a degree of autonomy from political control. For example, introduction of

meritocracy with formalized promotion procedures reduces the scope for ministerial

influence on those decisions. Such influence may be reflected in politically more

obedient behavior by the bureaucrat.

73 Therefore, one way of examining the politicization of the bureaucracy is the formal- legal framework. As Hesse (1998) argues, ‘[w]ithout a legal framework, provided by a comprehensive civil service law, it will be impossible to attract an elite into public services. Confidence ... will only be ensured if employment duties as well as rights are guaranteed and made enforceable’ (Hesse 1998: 176). This current research relies mainly on the procedure-oriented success of civil service reform and, therefore, portrays the legal framework as a necessary but not sufficient condition. Here, the institutional conditions for the de-politicization process of personnel policy can be analyzed ‘by employing the concept of formal political discretion’ (Meyer-Sahling 2006). This argument is based on the assumption that civil service legislation allows governments and their ministers more or fewer possibilities to influence personnel policy decisions, and is adopted from the literature that studies institutional arrangements for the political control of public bureaucracies on the basis of the new economics of organizations, in particular

‘transactions costs economics’ and ‘agency theory’ (Milgrom and Roberts 1992). In this context, special attention is paid to the behavior of bureaucratic agents, including control measures on bureaucratic decision-making, such as budget appropriations, personnel appointments etc.). Here, the main goal is to determine whether ‘democratically elected politicians do control their bureaucratic agents or whether delegation can be equated with an abdication of authority to the bureaucracy’ (see McCubbins and Schwartz 1984;

Calvert et al. 1987; McCubbins et al. 1989; Bawn 1997).

There is relatively little attention paid in the literature on new democracies in

Eastern Europe to the impact of institutional arrangements that govern the relationship between political principals and their bureaucratic agents in the ministry. The coincidence 74 of efforts to professionalize and de-politicize civil services and the continuing politicization of personnel policy raises questions with respect to the content of the civil service laws that have been adopted in post-communist Europe. Empirical research on administrative developments in post-communist Europe has so far provided several country-based surveys that open the ‘black box of national civil service systems’

(Nunberg 1999; Verheijen 1999; Baker 2002; Bossaert and Demmke 2003) and country- based studies of emerging politico-administrative relations at the central executive level

(Verheijen et al. 2001). However, in the context of civil service reform in East European, again little attention has been paid to the impact of newly established formal-legal frameworks governing post-communist civil services on personnel policy processes.

In the Romanian context, one of the innovations of civil services reform was to make forms of sidejobs which are politically sensitive, such as work as a political consultant, illegal. One would maintain, therefore, that a construct like civil service reform success should pick some indicators of an increase in autonomy from political control.

Christensen’s (2001) model of bureaucratic autonomy, for example, examines autonomy on three different dimensions - the structural, the financial, and the legal. Only partially can the success of reform implementation be measured along those dimensions. On the structural count, the actual creation of an oversight unit might take up not only resources but also time to make it work. 18 Legal realities, on the other hand, are created by laws just as financial realities are created by budget laws. It is, therefore, impossible to measure reform progress along those dimensions. Put in this context, it is unsurprising, that the

18 In order to improve judicial review of administrative decisions, a People’s Advocate (Ombudsman) was established in 1997 in Romania to intervene in cases of mal-administration. As of 2008, the institution still suffers from insufficient means and powers to carry out its tasks effectively. 75 answer to the question whether consultancy posts were held outside the civil service was invariably “no”.

An Interaction-Based Approach to Measuring Political Influence

Formal independence and political accountability are desirable outcomes of civil

service reform. One way of fostering accountability is agentification, i.e. the creation of

more-or-less-autonomous organizations from what were initially integrated ministerial

departments is a crucial and significant step of civil service reform. This approach was

originally used by Kemp (1994) with the intention of separating policy and

administration and making managers in the agencies more clearly responsible for putting

policies into effect. (Peters 2001: 6). While civil service reform throughout Western

Europe has seen steps towards decentralization of the administration, creating autonomy

could come at the cost of a loss of political control over the bureaucracy. In the context of

civil services reform such a loss of political control would have to be seen as particularly

problematic. In the case of post-war Italy, the lack of reform in the bureaucracy has been

directly attributed to a liberal political philosophy which focused on impartiality of the

administration. It was a consequence of this thinking that the public administration was

shielded from political influence, while ministers kept political responsibility for the

administration they oversaw (Sotiropoulos 2006a: p206). One can, therefore, hypothesize

that greater political control and greater political influence should help promoting public

services reform. On a purely practical level, political influence can be seen to work

towards reform in the Romanian case, as it has been observed that training sessions for

bureaucrats were often provided by political appointees. 76 Because the main tool employed in this research is the interview, it is well-placed to emphasize the interactive component and to measure actual political influence by the proxy of interaction with politicians and the political bureaucracy. In the interviews, the exposure of bureaucrats to political appointees was measured by the frequency of their contacts. Again, possible answers were “daily”, “weekly”, “bi-weekly” and “monthly” with the possibility to further specify “once” or “twice” daily and so on. The ministry was assessed according to the mode of the distribution of individual answers. Data pertaining to exposure at various levels of the ministry showed the expected pattern that exposure increases as one moves up the bureaucratic hierarchy. In that respect, few differences were found between the ministries.

Further analyzing the data reveals a pattern of exposure to political appointees across ministries which sees the highest value of the political contact indicator for the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the lowest value for the Ministry of Agriculture and is completely in line with the other measures of civil services reform success in the different ministries. One can consider this as confirmation that the political influence variable does indeed measure civil service reform success: Because successful implementation of civil services reform is the joint underlying cause, all indicators of reform should be highly correlated.

The observation is also suggestive of an explanation along the lines of self- interested politicians who are willing to exercise political influence to reform the ministry of foreign affairs which creates political benefits by its high outside visibility while they shy away from spending political capital in places such as the Ministry of Agriculture, the reform of which is likely to create political trouble with powerful interest groups. 77 For all those reasons, this research uses political influence as measured by the

frequency of contacts with political agents as a proxy of civil services reform success.

3.4.3 Aggregating Over the Different Dimensions of Civil Service Reform

An issue of some complexity arises as to whether reform in a ministry has in fact occurred, so that improvement in the quality of governance has materialized. If only one dimension is used, say bureaucratic autonomy from capture by civil society actors has increased, then the answer is an unambiguous yes. However, if more than one dimension is considered simultaneously, as is the case in this work, then in the Ministry of

Agriculture, for example, there could be a greater level of meritocracy on the one hand alongside greater capture on the other. Now it is not clear at all that an improvement in the quality of governance has resulted. This is an issue of significance in measurement, where lack of discernability regarding improvement in quality of governance is not an inadequacy of the political observer, but is, in fact, the inherent reality of the object of observation. In this case, all possible combinations of ministerial reform cannot actually constitute unambiguous improvement, because reform on one criterion but on not another makes the outcomes non-comparable when considering both criteria simultaneously.

Thus, whereas on each single dimension the ministerial reform can be ranked on a complete ordinal scale, when ranked on all three dimensions simultaneously, only a partial ordering of improvement in governance of distinct ministries may result. This possibility is illustrated in the table below.

78 Capture by civil society Post-reform turnover Implementation Meritocracy actors Rate success M1 M1 M1 M1

M2 M2 M2 M2

M3 M4 M3 M3 M4 M4 M3 M4

Table 3.2: Partial Ordering of Civil Service Reform (CSR)

In Table 3.2, on the meritocracy and post-reform turnover rate criteria, the reform in

ministry 3 ranks higher than that in ministry 4, indicating a complete ordering. However,

on the autonomy from capture criterion, ministry 4 ranks higher than ministry 3, which is

also a complete rank order. When it comes to the extent of civil service reform, defined in

this research on a three-dimensional basis, there is inherently a partial ordering only. This

is so because M1 ranks in the aggregate higher than M2, and both rank higher than M3

and M4, but M3 and M4 are inherently non-comparable. Hence we can assert that M1 has

exhibited the greatest extent of civil serve reform, while M4 and M3 have exhibited the

least, though the latter two are indistinguishable in terms of a comprehensive notion of

reform. Had it been the case, that M3 and M4 had scored equally well on capture, while

on all other counts M3 scored better than M4, a complete ordering would be possible.

This is because a draw in terms of capture does not contradict the higher ranking of M3

when the whole picture is taken into account.

The argument developed in this section provides a justification of qualitative

research, as indicated in Chapter 1, because not only is an interval scale of measurement

79 simply not applicable here, but even the numbering of rank order is potentially only partial.

3.5 Measuring the variation across Ministries

In order to examine civil service reform, it is essential to disaggregate between

multiple institutions where we expect variation in the patterns of civil service reform. 19

This present research examines civil service reform in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs

(MFA), Education, Research and Youth (ME), Agriculture and Rural Development

(MA), and European Integration (MEI). The Ministry of European Integration is included in this research to serve as an example of a post-transition ministerial institution because it presents an excellent case for studying the effect of civil service reform success in a setting that is completely unaffected by the possible lingering effect of the previous regime type, simply because it did not exist earlier. Specifically in the Romanian context, we find among these four institutions a great variation in the completion of civil service reform. The field study undertaken to uncover the variation among those four ministries was conducted during June and July 2004, and subsequent verification was obtained through interviews and a survey in 2005 and 2006.

The following table shows the variation of the measures of the dependent variable among different ministries, ranging from high to low, ‘high’ indicating full implementation success and ‘low’ meaning little success in the implementation of civil service reform. The following section explains in detail how these values were estimated.

19 The literature on administrative reforms in the Latin American context (Geddes 1994) indicates that while some institutions are reformed, others, due to politicians’ incentive structures, remain as marked with clientelism as ever. 80 Only qualitative statements are entered in the table to take account of the restrictions of the data. As explained in the previous section, only an ordinal comparison is possible and statements like “ministry A is twice as reformed as ministry B“ would be senseless. Still, it clearly emerges that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the most reformed ministry, scoring highest on all accounts except the political influence indicator which, as discussed, is excluded from the evaluation. Next comes the Ministry of European

Integration which scores lower on the meritocracy count and is hardly distinguishable otherwise. The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture fare worst, where the Ministry of Agriculture scores lowest on all counts except the political influence indicator.

Component Measure Ministry of Ministry of Ministry of Ministry of Foreign Education Agriculture European Affairs Integration 1. Meritocracy Very high Medium Low High

2. Post-reform turnover High Low Low Medium rate 3. Autonomy from civil High Low Low High society actors 4. Political influence High Medium Low Medium

Table 3.3: Variation on the Dependent Variable

3.5.1 The Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Structurally, the ministry shows signs of an early implementation of reform: The

compulsory civil service entrance exam was introduced as early as 2000. The highly

professionalized staff has been brought in after the transition. Partly due to the high level 81 of professionalization, the turn over rate is very high. This research calculates a proxy for staff turnover from the share of staff which has gone through the civil service entrance exam. In the case of the MFA, this is more than 80%. From these data for the five year period, one calculates an average yearly turnover of about 30%.20 This is almost certainly a lower bound: Averaging over a longer time period to calculate yearly turnover rates is biased against the ministry where this time period is longest.21 Also, in the non standardized part of the interview, it was indicated that the average duration of stay of highly qualified staff is as little as 9 months. As an additional aspect, the fact that the compulsory civil service entrance exam was first introduced in this ministry would indicate that the ministry found it beneficial to invest into modernizing the hiring procedure which can only mean that there was a regular need to hire. This reinforces the argument put forth in chapter 2 that pressures from the need to hire and pressures to press ahead with reform measures reinforce each other and result in faster implementation of reform. The meritocracy indicator is the highest for this ministry. More than 90% of staff had knowledge of accessibility of the civil service code book or the freedom of information act. The responses also indicated a low level of capture by civil society actors. The mode of the distribution of personal contacts showed one to two contacts with civil society actors per month. On the other hand, the political influence indicator showed a high contact indicator: Here, the mode of contacts was twice weekly.

20 The formula applied is (1-0.8) = (1-x) 5 where x is the yearly share of hires and 0.8 the share of hires in five year's time. The left-hand-side of this equation represents the share of survivors after five years and the right-hand-side represents the unknown yearly survival rate to the power of 5. 21 The 80% turnover rate in 5 years is compatible with a yearly turn over of roughly 30% where every member of staff has the same probability of leaving the job but it is also compatible with a yearly turnover rate of 80% where 20% of staff stay for the whole period and 80% of staff have to be replaced year after year. 82 3.5.2 The Ministry of Education

In the Ministry of Education the main implementation attempt started only in 2001. 22

Civil service entrance exams were only introduced in 2003. A share of about 20% of staff had passed the exam in the two years since it came into existence. From this, an average yearly turnover of about 10 % is estimated. The meritocracy indicator shows that less than 70% of staff have knowledge of accessibility of the civil service code book or the freedom of information act. The capture indicated 1-2 contacts in a week. Also, 73 % of the bureaucrats reported that they had been offered bribes. The political influence indicator showed about 1-2 weekly contacts with political appointees.

3.5.3 The Ministry of Agriculture

At the time of the interview, the Ministry of Agriculture had been running the civil service entrance exam only for about a year. Less than 10 % of bureaucrats had passed the exam, indicating a yearly turnover rate of less than 10%. Only about 50% of bureaucrats have knowledge of accessibility of the civil services code book or the freedom of information act, mainly due to a push to undergo staff extensive training courses in the year before the interviews took place. The capture indicator is highest with a mode of 1-2 contacts a week. At the same time, the political influence indicator is low with only about one contact per month.

22 The Press Office of the ministry reports that, starting with 2001, the governmental strategy for reforming the central public administration was implemented. (Nr. 17426/28.06.2004) 83 3.5.4 The Ministry of European Integration

The civil service entrance exam in that ministry was introduced in 2001, shortly after

the ministry was created in 2000. While it might seem that a newly created ministry is

necessarily the one where reform implementation is complete, this research indicates that

this is actually not the case. Most of the staff was transferred from other ministries such

that neither the targets professionalization nor the prevalence of meritocratic procedures

are necessarily achieved to their fullest extent. Staff turnover in the ministry since

introduction of the exam is 40 % which points to a yearly average of about 12 %. Here

again the caveat applies that due to averaging over a longer period of time this is rather a

lower estimate of the yearly turnover rate. Fewer than 90% of bureaucrats have

knowledge of civil code handbook or freedom of information act accessibility. The

capture indicator shows a mode of 1-2 contacts per month while the autonomy indicator

shows a mode of 1-2 contacts per week.

3.6 SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

This research clearly finds the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to be the most

reformed ministry among the four with the Ministry of European Integration ranked

second, the Ministry of Education third and the Ministry of Agriculture ranked last in

terms of implementation success.

As discussed, the calculation of the yearly post-reform turnover rate might raise problems in terms of comparability because it is biased against the ministry where the turnover data was obtained for a relatively longer period. However, the distribution of the data was such, that even with the bias the ministries which had introduced the civil 84 service exam earlier came out on top. A correlation between early introduction and high turnover is unsurprising, because pressures would have prevailed in ministries with a high turnover rate to modernize their hiring practices earlier. The timing of the introduction of the civil service exam might also be used as a yardstick to verify the reliability of the measure constructed in this research. The timing of such an event clearly indicates some narrow implementation achievement. The exam was very early introduced in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry for European Integration, its introduction was lagging in the Ministry of Education and came only belatedly to the

Ministry of Agriculture.

85 CHAPTER 4

INDEPENDENT VARIABLES AND HYPOTHESES

4.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter introduces the main independent variables and establishes hypotheses based on them. The first set of variables allows a characterization of the different ministries in pre-reform time. The components on which I focus are: (a) persistence of old structures, (b) number of personnel and decentralization. Furthermore, it is hypothesizes that external monitoring will have an effect on reform implementation.

Lastly, the effect of the post-transition partisanship of the government is taken into account. All but the last variable show considerable variation across the different ministries. Hypotheses 1.1, 1.2 and 2 make predictions on the relative performance of ministries based on those variables. Because partisanship is constant for all Romanian ministries, hypothesis 3 makes a prediction on the effect of partisanship in a cross- country comparison with Bulgaria. This chapter gives a discussion of the theoretical considerations behind the selection of the independent variables and a detailed description of how they are measured. A summary and overview of the hypotheses follows in section 4.3.

4.2 DEFINING THE INDEPENDENT VARIABLES

4.2.1 Initial Characteristics of the Ministry

Internal factors which characterize the nature of a ministry with a likely effect on

reform success are the prevalence of clientelistic networks involving the transparency of

administration, and the size and the depth of the bureaucratic apparatus. The size and

depth of the bureaucratic apparatus are likely to affect the cost of implementing reform

but could also be an indicator of the influence of civil society actors such as unions. The

former gives an indication of the degree to which bureaucrats and politicians responsible

for implementing the reform have an interest in resisting it. Civil service reform, by

pushing for greater transparency in general, and meritocratic practices in particular,

threatens to undermine clientelistic network structures. On the other hand, a larger budget

size, a substantial share of which are transfer payments, is likely to add to the strength of

such vested interests that are present in the clientistic networks, which would work

against reform efforts.

4.2.1.1 Nature of Ministry: Persistence of Pre-Transition Structures

The first hypothesis concerns the persistence of the old nomenklatura in their

positions. It states that those institutions experience a faster initiation and implementation

of civil service reform in which there are relatively fewer representatives of the old

nomenklatura . Clientelistic networks within the ministry are likely to result in resistance to reform. The persistence of the old nomenklatura will not only have an impact on the existence and strength of clientelistic networks before reform, but it is also likely to cause

87 capture by interest groups before the reform and be, consequently, correlated with the degree of capture by interest groups after reform.

The latter relationship has the potential to cause problems in determining the effect

of persistence on reform success: Persistence is predicted to simultaneously increase

capture before reform – thereby affecting the capture variable after reform – and to affect

reform success, thereby reducing capture after reform. Capture after reform is the

indicator which enters our measure of reform success. These relationships are presented

in Figure 4.1. One way of dealing with the problem is to separately measure the success

of reform as the change – i.e. a reduction – in capture following reform. Because data

obtained in this research only reflects an observation at one particular point in time, it

does not permit such a manipulation. An alternative way of dealing with the problem is to

rely on alternative measures of the implementation success such as post-reform turn-over

rate or the meritocracy indicator. Indeed, because all three indicators are highly correlated

and the dependent variable is only measured in terms of a ministry's rank, the component

capture can be dropped without changing the structural content of the model at all.

The persistence of old structures in the ministry variable is likely to interact with

another independent variable, the political partisanship. Not only will partisanship (i.e.

post-communist parties in power) have an effect but also a closely related factor: the

intensity of political competition. Intensity of political competition in Romania which

may be measured as the turnover rate of the political leadership, has been especially low.

Political competition will affect the stability of networks which involve bureaucracy and

industry on one side and politicians on the other. A consequence of intense political

88 competition will be to diminish the return to lobbying activities of private industry lobbyists (Cassing 2000: 166). Naturally, the effect of political competition is simultaneously present at all ministries, although this research separately analyzes the effect of political competition in a cross-country comparison (see hypothesis H3.1). As discussed there and in chapter 6, Romania is characterized by a relatively late political take-over by liberal parties and late privatization. These are precisely the factors which contribute to the stability of pre-reform networks which encompass political, industrial and bureaucratic players and make for lasting clientelistic networks 23 . Given the

conducive political environment, the predicted effect of persistent of “old timers” in the

public administration is late initiation and greater resistance in the reform implementation

process.

H1.1. : The smaller the share of staff members from pre-transition time, the more

likely that successful implementation of civil service reform will occur.

The reason why this hypothesis is formulated in terms of shares instead of absolute

numbers is that with shrinking shares, staff members from pre-transition time play a less

important role in post-transition time. This makes it less likely that politicians’ and

bureaucrats’ behavior will be determined by clientelistic networks which existed under

old, communist-time structures. Using the share instead of the absolute number of “old-

timers” as an independent variable removes any ambiguity of how down-scaling of staff

numbers has to be evaluated in terms of the implied persistence of old structures.

23 On corporatistic structures under the Soviet system see Ziegler (1986).

Different ministries have experienced downsizing while other ministries have experienced expansion. Downsized ministries typically show little sign of replacing old staff while the share of old staff will be smaller for expanding ministries even if no staff is actually replaced. The hypothesis rests on the assumption, that old structures will become less important, as the staff supporting them become relatively fewer.

Figure 4.1 Clientelistic Networks and Capture

In the interviews, the question was put to the respondents as to “how many bureaucrats (staff) have been in your ministry before the transition”, i.e. before 1990. In this research this number is used to compute the comparable share of old timers before the onset of reform in 1999. In the following it is argued why the data obtained in the interviews is a good proxy of pre-reform shares even though some turnover occurred during the reform period and the latter is actually used as a proxy for reform success. 90

Firstly, steps to downsize the ministries or to expand certain ministries were largely taken and completed before the onset of reform. During the reform period itself staff numbers were roughly constant and measures to lay-off staff were not part of the reform package.

A special policy measure during the reform period affecting the number of old timers applied only in the Ministry of Education. Secondly, bureaucrats with a long tenure at the ministry are likely to be the least competitive in the job market. Consequently, but with the exception of the Ministry of Education 24 , any reduction in numbers of “old timers” during the reform period has to occur largely through natural fluctuation. In that case, one would expect that across ministries any reduction is roughly proportional to the number of “old timers” before the onset of reform. The share of old timers after the reform is, therefore, the best available indicator for the share of old timers before the onset of reform.

4.2.1.2 Nature of Ministry: Number of Personnel and Decentralization

The second hypothesis states that the size and the nature of the ministry matters for civil service reform. The argument is that the larger the number of employees, the greater the control over divisible awards, and the larger the number of staff members, the more will be the resistance to reform. Size is likely to interact with decentralization as this will increase bureaucratic maze and make reform progress more difficult to achieve due to purely logistical problems. 25

24 See chapter 5 for the construction of a surrogate measure. 25 Decentralization is also highly correlated with number of staff in the sample which this research analysis: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the one with the lowest staff number and the highest level of centralization while the Ministry of Education is the most decentralized and also has the highest staff numbers. 91

The degree of unionization is another factor through which greater staff numbers directly impact on the resistance to reform. Union influence typically grows over- proportionally in relation to staff size and is especially strong where it is supported by a corporatist culture (Baumgartner et al. 1989). As unions are naturally representing the interests of insiders to the system, it is more likely that a high degree of unionization will facilitate resistance to the reform process. However, care is needed when applying insights from Western countries to Eastern European corporatist culture. Analyzing the closeness of administrative and civil society networks in Bulgaria by Ganev (2008) reveals that union leaders tend to be relatively isolated from other players. But the picture which Ganev paints is even more complex because the general perception is that union leaders are influential. Apart from the degree of Unionization, the collective bargaining structure in an industry could have an impact on bargaining power (Katz 1993) and, therefore, on the extent by which unions can block reform.

Decentralization of the administration, it is often argued, will result in a reduction in corruptive practices due to greater accountability at the local level. Mello and Barenstein

(2002) show that their data mainly supports the claim but warn of capture of administration at the local level.

The consequence for public services reform is that if corruptive practices are reduced with decentralization, then a more decentralized administration would have less incentive to resist reform implementation. On the other hand, the effect of decentralization on corruption itself might be reversed in the presence of capture at lower levels. Also, in a more decentralized administration there will be greater opportunities for obstruction

92 precisely because of the reduction in central control. Whereas the overall effect of decentralization on successful implementation of public services reform is theoretically uncertain because of conflicting forces, the hypothesis in this study is that that the predominant effect of decentralization will be to increase resistance to reform.

Hypothesis 1.2 The larger the number of employees and the greater the degree of decentralization, the less likely the ministry will experience a fast and completed civil services reform.

The employee numbers were taken to be the total number of those employed in the

central ministry and its subsidiaries. Because of the different nature of the organization,

diplomatic staff were not included in the numbers of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Decentralization was measured as the share of staff employed at the sub-national level.

4.2.2 External Monitoring

Another hypothesis is that external monitoring process of ministries, when

conducted from outside of the country, has a decisive impact on the initiation and

implementation of civil service reform. Here the hypothesis states that ‘those ministries

that are under close external monitoring are more likely to experience a completed civil

service reform than others’. Hence, external monitoring can hinder clientelistic practices

as well as promote the progress of administrative reform in a country (which is essential

for possible EU accession). Sachs (1994) argues ‘those East European countries that want

to join the EE, looked for the bureaucratic model of the invisible hand’ (Sachs 1994: 6).

In this context, this research argues that on the one hand variation among ministries in

93 one country can be explained by external pressure placed on them to reform. Most archival data show that Romania’s aim for EU membership drove the initiation of civil service reform. High incentives for politicians to initiate civil service reform have carried out under EU pressure (and pressure from the opposition party).

Conventional wisdom has it that ‘EU enlargement has been the most successful instrument so far to spread stability and democracy which has helped to transform

Central and Eastern Europe into consolidated democracies’ (Schimmelpfennig et al.

2005: 2). Here EU Conditionality is defined as the mechanism that includes (1) a set of

political, legal, social and economic requirements or norms of the EU that accession

candidates or member states must satisfy, (2) a timetable by which they must be

implemented, (3) periodic reporting to the EU as to what extent the benchmarks have

been realized, (4) financial resources and technical assistance provided by the EU to

support these endeavors, and (5) the sanction imposed on these countries if they fail to

meet the specified requirements. 26 Such norms may specify a target level for a country’s

democratic development or make specific regulations and conditions, such as the

initiation and implementation of administrative reform.

As Anastasakis et al.’s (2003) correctly point out, ‘Conditionality is the EU’s most

powerful instrument for dealing with the candidate and potential candidate countries in

post-communist Europe. In the Balkans, EU conditionality is a multidimensional and

multi-purpose instrument, geared towards reconciliation, reconstruction and reform. It is

26 Such a wider definition is appropriate particularly in the Romanian case where the EU monitoring process continued after accession. 94 regional, sub-regional, bilateral and project-specific and relates to economic, political, social and security-related criteria’ (Anastasakis et al. 2003: 3).

Seen in this light, EU enlargement could be regarded as a process which helps the transformation of the countries involved, induces stability, engenders prosperity, and promotes democracy, human rights and the rule of law across Europe (referring to the

Copenhagen Criteria). In the same strain, the European Security Strategy (2003) states that ‘our task is to promote a ring of well governed countries to the East of the European

Union and on the borders of the Mediterranean with whom we can enjoy close and cooperative relations’ (European Security Strategy 2003: 2). Extending this argument with regard to the positive impact on civil service reform, it would then follow that the

EU has inspired reforms in the candidate and potential candidate countries through the power of EU conditionality.

4.2.2.1 Impact of EU Conditionality

This section deals with the theoretical argument of how the European Union might

have an impact on (Romania’s) administrative reform – a process called Europeanization.

As Ferry (2003) argues, quite correctly, ‘the intensification of accession negotiations with

the EU and the prospect of EU membership in the near future provided the reform with

significant momentum and helped shape that eventual reform package’ (Ferry 2003: 1).

This link contributes to the recent literature on the influence of the European Union on

the process of administrative reform in the 2007 accession countries (Europeanization).

Until recently, the literature on Europeanization has focused on the impact of the EU on

95 systems of governance in member states. Moving beyond, however, and concentrating on the impact of EU conditionality, such as ‘meeting the detailed requirements and rules based on EU founding treaties contained in the acquis communautaire ’ (Ferry 2003: 1) provides a new research interest in the current literature that is understudied in the East

European context. Here the study on Romania concentrates on the interaction between the influence of the European Commission and the domestic factors (such as civil service reform) in shaping the outcome of pre-accession reforms.

Moreover, the current literature on ‘EU influence’ distinguishes among different types of external stimuli and pressures on domestic public-policy making process

(Bugdahn 2007). Political Scientists juxtapose among different modes of external influence, for example, ‘emulation’, ‘harmonization’ and ‘penetration’ (Bennett 1988);

‘push and pull’ factors (Majone 1991); ‘coercive’, ‘normative’ and ‘mimetic mechanisms’ (DiMaggio and Powell 1991); ‘voluntary transfer’ (Dolowitz and Marsh

2000); and ‘imposition’ and ‘attractiveness’ (Olsen 2003). These studies are extremely illuminating in so far as they provide an interesting insight into various modes of promoting policy transfer from member states to the EU level, and vice versa. They, however, fail to disaggregate on the national (or even local) government level. Further, these studies provide very little insight into why some institutions are more reformed, i.e. engage in more policy transfer implementations, than others.

Coming back to the terminology, Europeanization refers to the adoption of EU rules by transition countries, which is perceived as ‘the most massive institutional rule transfer in recent history’ (Schimmelpfennig et al. 2005). Their study presents one of the most

96 sophisticated studies that tests for EU conditionality using the World Bank Governance

Indicators (WBGI). However, their study does not include control variables like EU membership, nor do they search for potential variation on the ministerial level. The work presented here remedies this shortcoming.

The current research concurs with the notion that membership in the European

Union, and therefore its adherence to accession criteria, matters for its development. The

recent literature has acknowledged this significance. Way and Levitsky (2007), for

example, explain the institutional divide between the democratic Central and

Southeastern Europe and the autocratic CIS by potential membership in the EU.

Similarly, Pop-Elches (2007) states that ‘post-communist democratization has been faster

and less prone to reversals in the countries where for geographic, historical, cultural, and

economic reasons the promise of deep integration with Western Europe was the strongest

at the outset of the transition’ (Schimmelpfennig et al. 2005: 3).

Moreover, Drautzburg et al. (2008) show that ‘EU Basic Exposure’, ‘Liberalization’,

and ‘Western Influence’ are statistically significant determinants of institutional

development in transition countries. 27 They compare several external and internal determinants of institutional change on the aggregated national level and find that the EU shows the strongest external influence on domestic policy-making process.

Here, this research supports the claimed impact of EU conditionality on domestic politics, and argues more precisely that in pre-accession time the European Commission can influence policy development. However, building on Drautzburg et al., this research

27 Determinants of Institutional Development in Transition Countries, 1996-2003. EU Basic: 1.410***; Liberalization: 1.473***; and Western: 3.566***, (p < 0.01). 97 extends this argument to the ministerial level and disaggregates within a single country.

Therefore, the main focal point of this Chapter is not the initiation – which is covered in

Chapter 7 – but rather with the question of why the civil service implementation process varies among ministries which are all subject to the same civil service Law 1999/2003.

Pessimistic View on Europeanization

After having outlined the possible positive impact of EU conditionality on domestic

politics, such as administrative reforms, the following sections provides a brief overview

of the pessimistic argument of Europeanization that has dominated the literature

throughout the 1990’s. Here, this current research on Romanian administrative reforms

enforces this new trend that Europeanization can have a strong positive and motivating

impact on domestic policy changes, even though it might vary among ministries.

The pessimistic argument about Europeanization points that there exists an

asymmetrical power between the European Union and the East European candidate

states. This argument holds from 2000 until 2004 for the ECE States, as well as during

the pre-2007 accession period for Romania and Bulgaria. Here, Grabbe (2003) supports

the argument that ‘Europeanization predicts institutional convergences in ECE’ (see

O’Dwyer 2006: 220). This argument states that the ‘EU exercises the powerful

instrument of conditionality through the requirement that the candidate countries

implement the acquis communautaire prior to accession’ (see O’Dwyer 2006: 220).

Moreover, it can be said that through such policies the EU socializes East European

political elites to embrace European policy norms (see Laffan 2001). This process, called

98 cognitive-sociological convergence, is described by a Czech politician who complained of ‘the political, intellectual and economic elite who are Euro-corrupted, funded by Euro- grants, Euro-funds and Euro-programs’ (Zahradil 2003: 2). 28

Within the context of possible limits of Europeanization, scholars who have begun to point out the limits of Europeanization used regional governance reform as a policy case for testing the Europeanization thesis. They showed that the practice of regional governance reform in ECE has proven ‘much more elastic than the Europeanization hypothesis’s prediction of convergence would suggest’ (O’Dwyer 2006: 221). O’Dwyer

(2003) contradicts the strong impact of Europeanization on determining institutional outcomes, and supports the thesis that the coalitional politics of the government enacts them. Whereas O’Dwyer underlines that ‘the Europeanization hypothesis is correct in maintaining that this is not a purely domestic political story’, however ‘the variation in outcomes suggests its limited success’ (O’Dwyer 2006: 222). Further, O’Dwyer contends that the EU can be portrayed as a useful pretext for reforms which allows domestic forces, however, mainly governing party coalitions, to shape regional institutions in their own interests.

The present research argues that even in the context of variation of political parties and coalitions that were in power in Romania between 1999 and 2006, the EU impact remained stable throughout, once the initial administrative reform process had started in 1999. Hence, once the threshold of initiating administrative reforms had been overcome, the variation of different political ideologies as part of the governing party

28 Quoted in Green, Peter. 2003. 99 coalitions did not play a primary role in the strength of impact which the EU had on domestic policy reforms, as is explained in Chapter 7.

Further, external monitoring by international organizations, such as the European

Union, the World Bank and IMF, push most of the time for civil service reforms and systematic changes of the administration. From an international perspective, the main impetus for civil service reforms is integration into NATO and the European Union.

H2: The greater the intensity of external monitoring of a ministry, the greater the success in implementation of civil service reform

In this research, external monitoring is measured as contact frequency with EU observers and EU consultants. The question has been put to respondents about how often they have such contact with possible answers being “daily”, “weekly”, “bi-weekly”,

“monthly” with the additional specification of “once” or “twice” daily, and so on. The ministry was assessed by the mode of the distribution of individual frequencies.

4.2.3 Post-Transition Partisanship of Government

The last hypothesis maintains that when a post-communist party remains in power, the incumbent bureaucrats are able to continue to extract resources from the state and thus build in advantages for themselves. In the East European context, the main distinction is between liberal political parties and the post-communist parties. The speculation is that when post-communist parties are in power the extent of civil service reforms appear slower than when liberal political parties are in power. Under this hypothesis this research does not expect to find variation between the four ministries.

100

Rather, it provides a rationale for the starting point of the process of civil service reform when looking at a two-country comparison involving Romania and Bulgaria. Since

Romania’s transition from a governing post-communist party to a liberal political party occurred much later than in Bulgaria, according to this hypothesis one would expect a delayed initiation and possibly slower implementation of civil service reform in the

Romanian case.

4.2.3.1 Political Partisanship: Overview

This part examines the effect of having a post-communist political party in power and the effect of a subsequent switch to a liberal political party. Scholars have disagreed over what such a switch actually entails, with some arguing that a different political ideology in power has significant effects while others perceive the switch simply as a turn-over at the top-level government, with little impact on the civil service bureaucracy.

Here, as part of replacing bureaucrats, a bulk of the East European research

(Williams et. al. 2005) concentrate on lustration – the vetting of public officials in Central

Europe for links to the communist-era security service. The demands for lustration in

Eastern Europe (especially in Central Eastern Europe) were translated into legislation at different times and vary significantly in the range of offices affected and the sanctions imposed. Examining timing of lustration could potentially be seen as an example of whether a liberal political party in power actually matters for replacing bureaucrats and the support of civil service reform in general.

101

Moreover, Fiorina (2002) states that ‘the spread of civil service (later reinforced by the rise of public sector unionization) removed most public sector jobs from party control, and the growth of the welfare state made government benefits a matter of entitlement not political payoffs’ (Fiorina 2002: 94).

So what exactly is the point of a liberal political party in power making a difference?

To see where the problem lies, one may want to consider a ‘driver-car’ situation, in

which drivers switch but the car remains the same – metaphor for bureaucracy. One

might even argue that a new political party, such as a liberal political party ascending to

power, will bring their steering wheel along, and is actually able to replace the old one.

Does it imply that a new car is built? The answer is ‘No’. Does it imply that a new

government is capable of replacing all the automotive parts with new ones? Here again,

the answer is’ No’. And is it actually desirable to ‘replace’ a whole bureaucracy? Here

again, the answer is an unambiguous ‘No’. Not only would it turn into one of the most

inefficient enterprises, it would also require ‘replaceable’ and ‘adequately trained’

substitutes that would be ‘apolitical’ in addition. Not one democratic society in Western

Europe would be able to accomplish this enterprise. So to what extent can a wish to

reform the civil service be ascribed to the liberal party? Certainly not a wish to replace

the bureaucracy in its entirety. In fact, it is crucial to preserve the essential functions of a

ministry, and to retain the progressive members of the bureaucracy who are open to new

and transparent ways of conducting tasks, especially those at the lower levels. However,

some turnover at a higher level, especially of those with vested interests would be

desirable.

102

Indeed, the bureaucracy in post-revolution Romania can be described as ‘stagnant’ and, according to Pasti (1997), it allowed politicians to find a ‘scapegoat’ for their own failures. The main problem at the starting point of the transition was that the first steps taken by the political group NCNSF  the first post-revolution organized political opposition  was to command the administration, ministries and the other central government institutions to provide continuity of service. The first elected new government did the same by ‘basing its activity on the functioning, even if approximate, of the former administration’ (Pasti 1997: 131). Pasti describes this process as the ‘re-re- creation of the pre-revolution administration system…and the whole mechanism of ruling the society’. Transformation of any institution, including ministries, is a time-consuming process. It is not surprising, therefore, that the earliest parties that came to power primarily utilized the existing administrative structures. Reforms followed, but not simultaneously in all administrative units within a country.

Two different arguments explain why a post-communist party should have an interest in civil services reform. As Niskanen (1971) has argued, bureaucrats, due to information advantages, have considerable leeway in pursuing their own personal goals.

Roemer and Rosenthal (1978) have demonstrated how bureaucrats can manipulate the agenda such that they offer choices of public service provision which are designed to meet their own personal interests and which effectively leave the public with some reversion level of task fulfillment by the bureaucracy. Both approaches show that there is scope for diverting any surplus from administrative activities towards the interests of the bureaucrats. With repeated interaction in established networks involving politicians and

103 bureaucrats, it is likely that any such surplus will be shared between the bureaucrats and the incumbent party.

An incoming liberal party government, not being part of the surplus sharing arrangements, will find it in its own best interest to curtail bureaucratic leeway.

Moreover, elements of the liberal party may actually have arisen as a reaction to rent- seeking behavior of the post-communist party. As the liberal party will find it harder to directly benefit from the diversion of such benefits, or has values that object to such rent- seeking activities. Thus, it will rather try to raise the extent of diversion of benefits that the bureaucracy provides to the wider public, thereby trying to get an electoral advantage.

Raising the reversion level is, in a sense, the purpose of civil service reform.

The other line of argument of why a liberal party has a stronger determination to press for public services reform has to do with its ideological predilection. In the absence of surplus appropriation, both a post-communist and a liberal party have an interest in a functioning and efficient administration. The liberal view, however, places individual choices and decisions at the center of its agenda for running a society. In particular, there have to be checks placed against any claim by the collective against private interests.

This implies that any action by the state is subject to legal constraints and that administrative decisions are bound by the rule of law (Hayek 1960). Civil service reform ensures that the same procedures of legality and non arbitrariness apply within the public sector as they apply in the relationship between the public sector and the wider public.

Seen in this light, privatization and civil services reform can be seen as springing from the same ideological source, and simultaneously.

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H3.1 Partisanship matters for the initiation of civil service reform: A post- communist party in power will result in a slower initiation of civil services reform. Civil service reform is likely to occur once a liberal party is in government.

H3.2 If a post-communist party is in power, success of civil service reform will be slower.

The political partisanship variable measures whether a post-communist party is in power in any given year. It is a dummy variable which assumes the value “1” if in a year this is fulfilled and “0” otherwise.

4.2.4 Tendencies of political development

Romania’s development can be described as follows. The democratization indicator increased from 1997 (3.95) until 2000 (3.19), and decreased starting from 2001 (3.31).

From the political perspective this phenomenon can best be explained by a major shift of political partisanship between the two main political party ideologies. The democratic liberal political party (1996-2000, Constantinescu) lost power in 2000, and the post- communist political party (Iliescu) regained power in 2000/2001. In addition, adherence to the Rule of Law also started to decrease in 2001. The impact of the post-communist party can be described as follows in 2001, ‘The ruling party is the heir of the former

Communist Party…that occasionally keeps Romania stuck in old ‘command and control’ solutions that have been proven unworkable elsewhere’ (Nations in Transit Report 2002:

4).

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Bulgaria, on the contrary, experienced an ongoing increase 29 of democratization level starting from 1997 (3.5) to 1999 (3.31) to 2003 (3.0). A major explanation for its contrasting political development is the early shift from the post-communist political party (Bulgarian Socialist Party) to the liberal party (UDF), without any significant return of the post-communist party, until recently, however only as part of a coalition, with considerable less political influence. The research presented here takes into account the characteristics of the post-communist party in power that has a major negative impact on the initiation and possibly on implementation of reforms, and on the overall political development process.

4.3 SUMMARY AND OVERVIEW OF HYPOTHESES

The following table summarizes the operationalization of the independent variables used in the hypotheses, as discussed in this chapter:

Independent Measurement variable Persistence of old Share of bureaucrats (staff) who have been in the ministry networks before the transition Number of personnel Staff numbers in central ministries and subsidiaries Decentralization Share of staff working at the subnational level EU monitoring Mode of a measure of contact frequency with EU consultants and observers Political partisanship Dummy for a post-communist party in power in any given year

Table 4.1: Overview Operationalization of the Independent Variable

29 The increase in the quality of governance in indicated through the decrease of the number. The highest level of the quality of government is 1, on a 1 to 7 point scale. 106

The schematic Figure 4.2 below describes in summary form the cause-effect relationships posited in the work presented here.

Effect Extent of Civil Service Reform (autonomy, meritocracy, and no capture) ↑ Cause (3) Post-transition partisanship (2) External monitoring (1) Initial characteristics of ministry in pre-reform time (persistence, personnel and decentralization )

Figure 4.2 Causal Relationships: Cause and Effect

According to hypotheses 1.1 to 3.2 stated above, different values for the independent

variables will result in different degree of reform success in the different ministries.

The model utilized in this research, however, is more comprehensive. Schematically breaking further down these different influences, leads us to the following extensive cause-effect diagram:

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Figure 4.3 Cause-Effect Diagram Overview

Legend: The independent variables are the causes, on the left. The dependent variable is the extent of civil service reform, which has three components, on the right: meritocracy, autonomy from politicians, and autonomy from civil service actors. Each ministry is affected by the independent variables: initial characteristics (internal factor), and political partisanship and external monitoring (both external factors). Effects are expressed for each ministry in terms of changes in the three components of the dependent variable.

Figure 4.3 represents an overview of the effect structure of the independent on the

dependent variables as they work through effectual relationships in the different

ministries.

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4.3.1 Independent Variables

This section highlights the disaggregation of the reform process by four distinct

ministries. The following table compares the values which we assign to the different

independent variables. The political partisan variable plays no role for explaining the

differences between the ministries and is omitted. The relative magnitude of the value of

the independent variable is expressed using the labeling of “high,” “medium,” and “low”

and in places “very high” or “very low”. For the interpretation of these labels one has to

keep in mind that this model measures causes and effects on an ordinal scale.

Measures of the independent variables Measure Ministry of Ministry of Ministry of Ministry of Foreign Education Agriculture European Affairs Integration 1.1 Persistence of old Very low Medium/Low High Low structures 1.2.a Number of personnel Medium High High Medium

1.2.b Decentralization Low High Medium Low 2. EU monitoring High Medium Low Very high 3. Political Partisanship (see chapter 7)

Table 4.2: Variation on the Independent Variable

4.3.2 Predictions of the Hypotheses

The following table 4.5 summarizes the predictions of the hypotheses for the different ministries which are obtained by inserting the values of the independent 109 variables. The symbols (++), (+), (0) and (-) signify a predicted different strength of the effect on the dependent variable “implementation success”. Again, given the ordinal framework used these symbols should be interpreted that a (+) signifies a greater effect in the direction of successful reform than (0) and a (-) a smaller effect in the direction of successful reform than a (0).

For example, the table shows that the very low persistence indicator observed in the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs should have a significant impact on the progress of civil service reform in the that ministry. Because on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs a more positive effect is exercised by all four independent variables than on the ministry of either

Education or Agriculture, it is expected to be at a different stage of progress of civil service reform. Once they are examined, possible alternative independent variables are presented. 30

30 Alternative Independent Variables: (1) Democratization: O ne alternative independent variable that this research examines is the degree of democratization. The argument is that a high degree of democratization leads to a stronger pressure to reform bureaucracy. Local government and the civil society may be the driving force of administrative reform. Entrepreneurial attitudes and varied practical solutions of public management may come from below and positively affect the top. ( 2) Leadership Skills: Leadership Skills: The role of human agency. One question is whether the personality of a president and/or a minister can have an impact on the initiation and implementation of civil service reform? Does the president have the power to appoint and dismiss the head of government ministries and agencies? Does the president possess an array of legal instruments and prerogatives that permitted them to intervene directly in the administration of an agency? Presidents’ active support and protection is required. Furthermore, Weber’s leadership style argument will be presented here. However, measurements of variation in leadership styles/ personalities are rather questionable. 110

Predicted effect on civil service reform success Measure Ministry of Ministry of Ministry of Ministry of Foreign Education Agriculture European Affairs Integration 1.1 Persistence of old (++) (0) (-) (+) structures 1.2.a Number of personnell (0) (-) (-) (0)

1.2.b Decentralization (+) (-) (0) (+) 2. EU monitoring (+) (0) (-) (++) 3. Political Partisanship / / / / (no prediction)

Table 4.3: Overview of the Predicted Effect of the Hypotheses

4.3.3 Collected Supportive Data

Within the realm of meritocratic procedures, the main focal point is professional

training courses, rather than employment of new personnel. Both the European Union and

the national level government stressed the importance of the training sessions as a major

milestone of civil service reform. Hence, this study finds the existence and accessibility

of those professional training sessions as a possible measure of administrative reform.

Data on implemented training programmes shows the highest number in the Ministry

of Foreign Affairs and of European Integration, mainly at the high- and medium-level

bureaucracy. By contrast, the Ministry of Agriculture ranks lowest.

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4.4 CONLCUSION

In conclusion, pertaining to Eastern Europe, this research goes along with the procedure and regulation oriented’ definition of civil service reform, and concentrates on the successful implementation of civil service laws rather than the timing of its initial adoption or a measure obtained by a legal analysis. There is no suggestion here that the final consequent outcomes are not valuable, but merely that giving limited play to processes of reformation is a danger that must be avoided in any comprehensive analysis of East European, indeed any, civil service reform.

Moreover, significant deficiencies are necessarily introduced by using an approach that gives exclusive consideration to socio-economic development as an explanation of political development and civil service reform. Indeed, the exclusion of external and internal influences identified in the present research (such as initial characteristics or external monitoring of the distinct ministries, which considerably deepens the understanding of the observed inter-ministerial reform variation within a country), would only provide an unsatisfactorily narrow framework for a comprehensive examination of civil service reform.

4.5 EXCURSION: SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONTEXT AS AN ALTERNATIVE

EXPLANATION

The present analysis does not invalidate Lipset’s (1959) ‘Social Prerequisites’ of democracy, which argues that there exists a strong empirical relationship between economic development and democratic politics. It is not bizarre to argue that the

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initiation of the civil service reform is influenced by the socio- economic development of the country in question. However, there is a significant deficiency in an approach that exclusively considers socio-economic development as an explanation of political development, including civil service reform. Indeed, the exclusion of all external and internal influences identified in the present research, especially initial characteristics and external monitoring of the distinct ministries, which considerably illuminate the observation of inter-ministerial variation of reform within a single country, unnecessarily impoverishes the analytical foundations upon which a comprehensive examination of civil service reform is based.

For Lipset, income (GDP) constitutes the ultimate cause of democracy, which is brought about by changes in society, such as growth of the middle class, industrialization, and an increasing level of education. Lipset refers to Weber who argues that ‘modern democracy in its clearest forms can only occur under the unique conditions of capitalist industrialization’ (Lipset 1959: 73). Furthermore, Lipset (1959) argues that countries that experience a higher degree in wealth, industrialization, urbanization and education, are also more democratic than countries that experience a lower degree of economic development.

The present work measures economic development through income growth as realized by GDP per capita , urbanization, and education. This is a more comprehensive

approach that relies on the modernization hypothesis, rather than solely on economic

development. In the overall ranking of economic indicators (conducted by the World

Bank), Bulgaria is ranked 52 nd and Romania 125 th . This enormous difference is mainly

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due to Romania’s high inflation rate and the overall negative GDP growth rate during

2004 – 2006. Even with the higher amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the last

decade and the taking effect of debt relief measures, Romania’s economy could not

recover to show progress as in the Bulgarian case. By comparing only the GDP per capita for the two cases it would be difficult to gain an accurate and complete picture of administrative reform differences between the countries (both with a per capita GDP of

$11,400 in 2006 in PPP). That is why paying attention to additional variables such as education and urbanization is valuable in the context of administrative reform.

Another essential factor is the initial starting point of the privatization process, which is accounted for neither by Weber nor Lipset. In fact, while Bulgaria adopted the gradual therapy 31 (economic strategy) as early as 1992-1993, which entails the transition

from the centrally planned economy to market liberalization, Romania’s first steps of

privatization did not start until 1996. Privatization, quite apart from socio-economic

development, is likely to increase pressure for starting the administrative reform process.

While Bulgaria’s privatization process was for its most part completed in 2004, in

Romania only 60 percent of its economy was privatized.

31 All East European countries (except for Poland and Russia) adopted the gradual economic therapy, in contrast to the shock therapy. The gradual economic strategy implies that the economy will be transformed to a free market economy through a gradual process. The shock therapy, on the contrary, uses the Big Bang effect, where everything will be shifted in once. The advantage of the gradual therapy is that the negative effects are not as dramatic, but the overall duration of economic transition will take longer. If citizens’ satisfaction is linked to the state of the economy, this might be an explanatory factor for the strong support for post-communist political parties throughout Eastern Europe. 114

CHAPTER 5

INITIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MINISTRY:

PERSISTENCE OF PRE-TRANSITION STRUCTURES, PERSONNEL

& DECENTRALIZATION

5.1. INTRODUCTION

This is the first of three consecutive chapters that test the major hypotheses introduced in Chapter 3. It examines the internal factors’ influence on civil service reform. The two main hypotheses state that the smaller the persistence of pre-transition structures – measured as a smaller share of “old timers” among staff – and the smaller the

'depth' of the administration's structure – measured by a smaller number of personnel and a lower degree of decentralization – the greater is the success of reform implementation.

The structure of this chapter proceeds along the line of the four main cases, starting out with the Ministry of European Integration, Foreign Affairs, Education, and Agriculture.

In terms of staff numbers, all four ministries had undergone quite dramatic change in the time following the transition as the following table shows.

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Ministry 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 Foreign 1058 1732 1830 1700 1845 1845 Affairs Education 254 411 411 353 380 356 Agriculture 1438 1492 1158 1082 936 845

Table 5.1: Number of staff in pre-reform period

The main winner in terms of an increase in staff numbers was the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs in relative terms as well as absolute numbers. The larger part of this increase, however, is due to the enlargement of the diplomatic section abroad, which is not included in this study. 32 The Ministry of Education – only numbers for the national

level are reported in the table – was growing strongly, although at a smaller rate. The

Ministry of Agriculture, on the other hand, was shrinking. The shrinking is to be mainly

explained by a shift in needs with the transition from a central planning to a market

oriented economic system. Shedding of staff in the ministry occurred mainly through

natural fluctuation and early retirement. No data is presented for the Ministry of

European integration which was founded only in 2000. Upon its founding, a large share

of staff – about 40 % – was brought in from other ministries, such that even for this

ministry the “persistence of old structures” variable – defined as the share of old timers

among staff – is different from zero.

The distinct growth patterns in the ministries affect their value of the “persistence of old structures” variable in different ways. In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the share of

32 The data shows that today there are a maximum of 2.150 positions within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (excluding dignitaries), out of which 640 are in the MFA Headquarters (excluding dignitaries and the minister’s cabinet). 116 old timers is 16% while it is 62 % in the Ministry of Agriculture. The Ministry of

European integration is in between with 39% old timers. As discussed in section 5.3, the

Ministry of Education poses some problem in assessing the structural variable as of 1999.

It is estimated that the share of old timers in 1999 is as high as 48% but it has significantly decreased during the reform period due to a policy measure.

5.2. THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

5.2.1 Persistence of Pre-Transition Structures

Hypophesis H1.1. states that the fewer the share of old nomenklatura among staff, the less likely it is that politicians and top level civil servants who bear responsibility for civil service reform implementation are guided by clientelistic networks. While staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was growing substantially, growth was less pronounced at the central ministry which is the subject of this study (see Footnote 29 above). The shrinking of the share of old timers which is reflected in the low indicator of the persistence variable can only be partially subscribed to growth at the ministry.

Interviewees expressed the view that it was the high visibility of the Ministry of Foreign

Affairs abroad, which was responsible for a push to bring in new staff, particularly at the top-level, directly after the transition.

The interviews revealed that the labor force in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is particularly well-trained and professionalized. Increased professionalization is a desired endpoint of reform which is picked up by the component “post-reform turnover”. During the interviews, data on educational achievement was not systematically gathered.

However, the pattern which came across as the typical career path for those who entered 117 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was that they came with a Masters or MBA degree, and used the ministry as a take-off point to enter the labor market. A high entry qualification is complemented by an internal qualification and training measures. This explains the high turnover rate. Drawing on the earlier discussion, success at attracting highly qualified personnel and successful internal qualification measures results in an increase in turnover if pay does not keep up with the increased qualification levels of the labor force in the ministry. In effect, the short duration in the ministry is explained by high alternative salaries in private industry, often outside of Romania, and many top-level operatives accept lucrative offers primarily in EU institutions abroad. Destinations frequently mentioned by respondents were London and Brussels.

The interviews suggest that the high turnover rate is not only the result of civil service reform but is also due to the characteristics of the work-force and their particular labor market conditions. In the theoretical discussion of the turnover-rate component it was pointed out that labor market conditions for highly professionalized personnel could result in pressure to implement public service reform. More to the point, civil service laws and modern practice is a requirement to attract a highly professionalized work force.

So, while a high turnover rate can be seen as an indirect indicator of a highly professionalized labor force, account should be taken of its interdependence by directly

assessing the degree of professionalization of the labor force.

With regard to the turnover rate itself, one would predict that successful reform with

highly professionalized civil servants stabilizes or even slightly decreases the high

turnover rate. Overall, respondents expressed contentment with the work environment.

However, in the absence of an accommodating policy on pay increases, the Ministry of 118 Foreign Affairs regularly loses a large number of first- and second-level experts. 33

Because these experts are vital for implementing policies including further reform measures, this loss of civil servants has the potential to threaten reform in the future. It is yet to be seen how the adoption of the state law on salaries in the public sector in 2006 is going to resolve these issues.

Other measures of successful implementation are the prevalence of meritocratic procedures, the presence of political influence and a decrease in capture by civil society actors. Meritocratic procedures are established to a very high degree. Interviews showed a high awareness of these measures. Furthermore, the contact indicator shows a high level of political influence, which can be taken as a proxy of the political importance which is attached to the ministry.

Because of the high turnover rate in the ministry, capture in the sense of maintaining stable networks with outside agents is factually nearly impossible. Under this aspect, there is clearly no lingering effect of old structures which could negatively affect civil service reform. On the other hand, because the capture indicator does not measure the intensity but only the frequency of contacts, the turnover rate does not necessarily preclude any value for the indicator. As it turned out, the indicator assumes a low value for interaction with civil society actors. Maybe this should not be too surprising, because in general special interest groups play a smaller role in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs than in the other ministries. Therefore, one has to be careful in drawing conclusions about a reduction in capture brought about by civil service reform, since a low exposure to civil

33 When calculating numbers from the cases of contract terminations to which the respondents referred, this research finds an average stay of administrative personnel at the top-level of as little as nine months. 119 society actors could be a structural feature of the ministry itself. This research examines reform success by using simultaneously measures along four dimensions.

With regard to Hypothesis One it can be said that reform implementation in the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been successful on all accounts and that such a result was to be expected under this hypothesis given the scale by which old structures were cut back.

5.2.2 Number of Personnel and Degree of Decentralization

Hypothesis H.1.2 states that the larger the number of employees and the greater the degree of decentralization, the less likely it is that successful reform occurs. If one excludes foreign civil servants, i.e. overseas personnel, who are not directly affected by the reform measures, the number of employees in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is small but comparable to the Ministry of European integration . Looking only at the national office, any decentralized features are missing. The level of unionization is also negligible, which is to be expected given the high professionalization of staff.

Physical compactness of the ministry has undoubtedly facilitated the implementation of reform measures such as the standardized entrance exam. As an intermediate result, one can state that the experience of the ministry is in line with the prediction of hypothesis 1.2.

120 5.3. THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

Looking especially at the Ministry of Education, one has to distinguish between the national and local level government, referring in particular to the different sizes of staff and budget at the various levels. While here the focus is mainly on the ministerial

(national) level, one also has to consider the local level, given the general EU trend to strengthen local-level government. From the perspective of the citizens, implementation of civil service reform which stops at the ministerial level would be of little consequence to the working of the educational service. Therefore, a complete analysis of the reform process has to look at the entire administration of the educational system.

5.3.1 Persistence of Pre-Transition Structures

In the case of the Ministry of Education, the persistency variable cannot be consistently estimated because during the reform period a major policy shift had occurred: In response to EU pressure to increase transparency and curb corruption there has been an attempt to replace staff from the pre-transition period. At the time of the interview, out of 350 employees that work at the national level bureaucracy, the number of the employees hired before 1989 who still worked within the ministry was 24 which gives a persistency measure of about 6%. 34 At the local level, however, the persistence rate is 48%. Because 60% of staff work at the local level, the average value for persistence in the ministry at the time of the interview is 32%. Hypothesis 1.2, however, refers to pre-reform structures. It is reasonable to use the persistence rate at the local level

34 Ministry of Education and Research, Nr. 17426/28.06.2004. The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) response Nr. 17426/28.07.2004. 121 as an estimator for the overall persistence rate in the absence of the policy measure which affected the national office. Because this research uses an ordinal framework, minor inexactitudes as to the precise number have little effect on its results. The major impact of the policy measure, on the other hand, occurred during 2002. If the hypothesis of an effect of structural variables is true, then the radical change of the variable during the reform period will still have an impact on reform success. Therefore, this research considers alternative assumptions on the value of the persistence variable in order to give a confidence range for the results. The two scenarios are a persistence rate of 48% and of

32% - which is at the same level as in the Ministry of European integration.

While at least formally practices of probity in the execution of public office have been achieved, 35 attitudes expressed in the interviews are largely consistent with accommodating a certain degree of politicization of the administration, particular at head- teacher level: many respondents expressed the view that ideology ought not to preclude head-teachers from serving in the system. Politicization is likely to result in resistance to reform.

Staff turnover post-reform is still rather low. What contributes to this situation is the

fact that teachers-administrators cannot easily shift to labor market alternatives in the

private sector. Meritocratic elements have been introduced by law such as new entrance

exams and new promotion criteria. 36

35 For example, a ‘person who holds a position as member of the Government is not allowed to issue an administrative act, a judicial act or to play a part in taking a decision during the exercising of his/her public position, which could bring a material profit to him/her, to her husband/his wife or to any other first degree relatives. In case of conflict of interests, the public servant has to immediately inform the hierarchical superior on this matter’ (S/MEDU/2004). 36 Promotion criteria within the public institutions are mentioned in Government’s Emergency Ordinance nr. 123/2003, Article 7. Moreover, the responses also show that for complaints on hierarchical 122 The allocation of budgetary funds across school districts and school types shows inequities which are indicative of interference by particular special interest-groups being served. Such interference from special-interest groups may occur at the political or bureaucratic level. This finding, therefore, may point to capture as well as lack of insulation from political influence. One issue which has regularly been raised in the past is the scarce endowment allocated to kindergartens relative to other educational units. 37

Using the indicator of implementation success, the Ministry of Education is less

successfully reformed compared to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Regarding the

meritocracy count, reform appears to have been only slightly less successful than at the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs. According to the post-reform turnover count, reform at the

Ministry of Education has done significantly worse. However, this finding has to be at

least partially attributed to particular aspects of the labor markets which are relevant to

the bureaucrats in the two ministries: operatives in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs face

good outside options and have a high demand for reform, whereas, teacher-administrators

at the lower level of the educational administrative system have few outside options in

their field of specialization.

level, a public servant can address a complaint to the superior according to the law provisions (I/MEDU/2004/2005). 37 Prime Minister Calin Popescu-Tariceanu as cited in a press release (Government of Romania, Press office, 07.08.2007). 123 5.3.2 Number of Personnel and Degree of decentralization

The other main factor that makes the educational administration stand out is its high staff numbers. In total there are 400,000 employees in the education sector in Romania.

Of the administrative staff, 60% are employed at the local level. 38

The theoretical discussion pointed out that greater staff numbers are likely to result in a higher degree of unionization with greater power of the unions to block reform.

In the case of Romania, there are four teachers unions 39 potentially affecting decisions in the educational system. In the case of teachers unions, where co-ordination is a prerequisite for effective collective action, decentralization of collective bargaining power results in a decrease in the total bargaining power of employees.

Looking at the administration in its entirety, the educational administrative system is the most decentralized of all the ministries in the present research. Local school headmasters have administrative functions in addition to their teaching role and count as the most local representatives of the administrative system.

In the theoretical discussion it was claimed that decentralization itself has a negative effect on implementation, even though this research left open the possibility of the effect going in the opposite direction. The main arguments regarding its effect rested on the effect of decentralization on corruptive practices and greater resistance to reform. This research found that the former argument may point in either direction, with pre-reform capture at the local level fostering corruption while greater accountability would tend to

38 The main ministry of Education and Research located in Bucharest has 350 employees. 39 The Federation of National Education (Federa Ńia Educa Ńiei Na Ńionale, FEN), the Federation of Free Trade Unions in Education (Federa Ńia Sindicatelor Libere din Înv ăŃă mânt, FSLI), the Spiru Haret Federation (Federa Ńia Spiru Haret) and the National Federation Alma Mater (Federa Ńia Na Ńional ă Sindical ă Alma Mater, Federatia Alma Mater). The treaties between the teachers union and the Ministry of Education and Research under RO0405101N, RO0405101N and RO0503101N. 124 diminish corruption. The resistance to reform is greater with a decentralized administration due to reduced central control, and is magnified with larger staff numbers.

A systemic problem is the allocation of funds towards the local level that gives incentives for maintaining internal administrative networks. Of significance is also the scope for corruptive practices in the interaction with local industry in procurement decisions. Construction is procured at the local level with funds allocated from the central budget to the local budgets. 40 Corruption in the educational sector is rife at the local level:

73% of the respondents from within this category stated that in the past they received offers of bribes.

The Ministry of Education shows greater scope for resistance to reform than the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is due to a greater persistency measure, and a greater size, along with greater decentralization. The hypotheses which predict a lesser extent of civil services reform are supported by the findings of this research.

5.4 THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE

The Ministry of Agriculture has the largest size and stands out by the high share of old nomenklatura. In its case, it is to be suspected that the lingering effect of old structures as indicated by the persistence indicator is magnified by the particular features of the ministry which make it more vulnerable to the influence of pressure groups than other ministries. The ministry has a large budget with most of it directed to transfer payments to farmers. In most countries, farmers represent a powerful interest group

40 In 2007, the Romanian government approved the allocation of the sum of 58,361 mio. lei from the State to Local budgets. (See Christian Adomnitei Minister of Education, Research and Youth, Press office / 20.06. 2007). 125 which often undertakes considerable lobbying efforts. While lobbying activities may aim at different policy measures, such as protection from competition (Magee et al. 1989), many regulatory measures in the agricultural sector go along with the payment of subsidies. Its large transfer budget makes the Ministry of Agriculture a likely target of lobbying activities, a conjecture which is supported by the evidence of this research showing a high indicator value for capture by civil society actors. In Western democracies, it is common that lobbyists directly target the political decision makers such as legislators and politically appointed civil servants. 41 In this regard, the Romanian

experience shows a different pattern with very little indication of interaction between

political appointees and bureaucrats in the ministry. In the case of Romania, the size of

the agricultural budget is not an immediate result of lobbying efforts; rather much of the

budget is determined by the framework of the EU agricultural policy. However,

distribution of the benefits allows for some discretion on the side of bureaucrats.

Examples are soft criteria for eligibility for vouchers such as for seed and fertilizers.

Adoption of EU legislation added elements of preferential treatment such as a preferential

credit system, which fosters the scope for appropriation by vested interests. Distribution

procedures allowing for discretionary decisions could support corruptive practices and

clientelistic networks (Cartwright 2001). Only at the lowest level of the agricultural

administration is there no evidence of such networks. There, the interviews showed no

indication of frequent contact between low-level bureaucrats and farmers 42 . Overall,

41 For the US, Lopez (2001) finds a positive relationship between campaign contributions and agricultural subsidies. 42 Benefits such as vouchers get distributed by the relevant mayor’s office. 126 however, there are indications of substantial incidence of corruption with many of the anonymously asked respondents reporting having been offered bribes.

5.4.1 Persistence of old structures

Hypothesis 1.1 predicts small reform success in the ministry due to its high share of old timers. The ministry clearly fits the predicted pattern. The value of the persistence indicator at the Ministry of Agriculture is extremely low. The ministry was unaffected by early attempts to lay off high-ranked administrators, in contrast with other ministries such as the Ministry of Education. Effectively, it is only in the case of political civil servants whose appointments are directly linked to the government in power where there is any significant turnover.

Here, it is argued that the ministry is characterized by lingering networks and that

the kind of interactions which it supports make it desirable for all those involved with the

ministerial bureaucracy to continue in the observed practices. This can explain

widespread resistance to reform and a low score on the reform indicator.

While in most Western countries there is a strong relationship between organizations of farmers and government embedded in a corporatist network which includes the

Ministry of Agriculture and farmer’ lobbyists, the picture is different in EU accession countries such as Romania. The corporatist culture which was supported in the pre- transition state was one which involved the central bureaucracy and collectivized agricultural units. Large scale privatization started only in 1996 and resulted in a dual structure of the agricultural sector with a large number of semi-subsistence small-holders on the one hand, and large scale agricultural enterprises on the other. While small- 127 holdings were often formed around pre-socialist boundaries, the large sized-units were typically set up as reformed state and collectivized farms with the only difference that they are now privately owned (Cartwright 2001). Networks from pre-transition times had some role to play in the distribution of land in the transition process. During the first round of auctioning, during which many large units were transferred into private ownership, the post-communist party was still in power (until 1996). Being well- connected brought the possibility of buying land without having to go through a formal auctioning procedure. One of the much-reported cases at the time was the purchase of parts of the Baneasa forest by politicians of Bucharest. 43

Privatization is one of the main jurisdictions of the Ministry of Agriculture with certificates of ownership allocated by the Land Reform Commission which forms part of the ministry. Therefore, there is a strong indication that established networks between bureaucratic and political players and vested interests have informed and guided bureaucratic action after the transition.

The value of the political interaction indicator in the ministry of agriculture is particularly low. This research maintained that the exercise of political influence is necessary to transform the bureaucracy in transition states and that the absence of such influence is an indicator of low reform success. There are various reasons why the political leadership would be unwilling to spend political capital on reforming the ministry of agriculture: Only in the early stages of privatization would the ministry have to play any active role. While in a country, where 29% of the labor force is engaged in

43 For example, the former Major Bucharest, and the former Transportation Minister Miron Mtitrea, available at: (www.roportal.ro.en/news/article-714.htm). 128 agriculture, political decisions have to accommodate farming interests, it is not clear that playing an active political role serves those interests better than some form of business as usual. This is likely to remain true if the ministry's main function – to hand out subsidies

– is taking place under the auspices of the European Union rather than the Romanian government. In summary, this argument would suggest that there is little interest in reform either on the side of the administration or the side of its political masters.

Trying to measure reform success using the indicator variable, the Ministry of

Agriculture is doing poorly on all counts. Prevalence of meritocratic procedures could only be incompletely measured because only very few respondents were recent applicants who had to go through a formal application procedure. Turnover rate remains low.

Training programs appear only to address the needs at higher administrative levels. In the interviews (I/MAG/2005/2006), many low level staff complained about insufficient training to actually fulfill their tasks. It was also stated that the EU money which is earmarked for training measures only reaches staff at relatively high levels of the bureaucratic hierarchy. 44

5.4.2 Number of Personnel and Degree of Decentralization

In terms of decentralization and staff numbers, i.e. Hypothesis H.1.2, the Ministry of

Agriculture structure shows less "depth" than the Ministry of Education. As such this

should contribute to a greater reform success. Still, the evidence is of a less successful

civil service reform in the Ministry of Agriculture. Comparison with the Ministry of

44 As often observed in public expenditure programs, ‘money sticks where it hits’ (Marshall 1989: 4). 129 Education gives some insights. First of all, it appears that both ministries share some reluctance to reform which is not seen at either the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the

Ministry of European Integration. Giving a broad interpretation of the results of this research, the ministries fall into two groups with the larger ministries coming out as the more sluggish reformers. This appears to give some support to the first part of hypothesis

1.2, relating to staff numbers. Secondly, in the Ministry of Education there has been some push towards reform at the central level. While there have been observations of some reform success following those deliberate policy measures, overall indication of success remains low at the Ministry of Education. One explanation which can be offered for this result, is that the high degree of decentralization makes it less likely to reform, holding it back in the same as the Ministry for Agriculture.

5.5 The Ministry of European Integration

The Ministry of European Integration presents a special case, since it is a purely post-transitional and non-permanent ministry (2000 to 2007). Because there is no lingering effect of its nature from the pre-reform era, simply because it did not exist then, this study aims to isolate the degree of civil service reform from its establishment in 2000 in its response to civil service reform adjustments in 2003 and 2004. The Ministry of

European Integration was restructured into the Ministry of Development, Public Works and Housing in 2008. Because it serves as a reference point for measuring the effect of internal factors, and because its case highlights some practical issues in administrative reform, its discussion is a useful starting point.

130 5.5.1 Persistence of Pre-Transition Structures

One striking conclusion is that the Ministry of European Integration, despite being

small, centralized and having no lingering effects from the pre-reform period, is not the

most successful in reform implementation. In terms of its persistence indicator it fairs

worse than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, mainly due to a transfer of staff from other

ministries upon its foundation. Accordingly, the observation is in line with hypothesis 1.1

which suggests a negative effect of the persistence indicator on reform success.

One recurring theme of the findings of this study is the close interaction between

politicians and civil servants, and the effect of this interaction on reform implementation.

Despite the fact that the top level civil servants in the ministry are highly

professionalized, they experience little autonomy from the central authority. These

bureaucrats are appointed by the central authority and work constantly under their close

supervision. Since the ministry was established after the civil service law was passed in

1999, one would expect the ministry to apply meritocratic procedures. However, most

noticeable is the fact that in the case of high-level civil servants, meritocratic procedures

did not apply during the establishment of the ministry. This is because most high-level

civil servants were transferred from other ministries (or were “leased” for a defined

period of time). While political interaction as such does not explain reform success –

indeed, the indicator shows an even higher value in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – its

interaction with persistence of old structures might explain why the ministries have

developed differently and why in the Ministry of European Integration reform success is

rather low.

131 Interviews showed (I/MEI/2005/2006) that most of the low and medium-ranked

bureaucrats were “leased” from other ministries without a civil servants entrance exam

(or were employed on temporary contracts). High-level bureaucrats, however, came

directly from other high-level ministry positions and most of them returned to their prior

ministry in 2008. 45 None of the three top level bureaucratic positions was officially exposed to the newly introduced meritocratic procedures. Overall, the selection criteria for filling most appointments were education, skills and experience. So, while meritocratic procedures were not followed, they did end up being operational, and were not just simply rules on paper, because education, skills and experience were criteria used for recruitment of these bureaucrats.

Another interesting aspect is that this ministry experienced low autonomy from capture by civil society players due to a possibly strong interest of business circles in the privatization process. Given the close interaction with the political civil servants, there is particular attention to be paid to the potential for corrupt practices which might arise from this close interaction.

5.5.2 Number of Personnel and Degree of Decentralization

In terms of size and decentralization the ministry is comparable to the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs. The main difference is between the former and the ministries of education and agriculture which show much less reform success, thereby supporting hypothesis 1.2. Because of their similarity in size and decentralization, the comparison

45 Another option are outside job opportunities outside Romania, as will be discussed later on. 132 between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European integration allows to draw conclusions on the separate effect of the persistence variable.

5.6 SUMMARY

It is safe to assert that the indicators of the initial characteristics of the ministry, such as the persistence indicator, personnel number and decentralization show considerable variation among the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Education, Agriculture, and European

Integration. Here, this research produces results which are in line with those found by

Cotter et al. (1984) in the American context where, they argue, ‘standard indicators such as budget, number of offices and size of staffs’ explain the ‘shape of an institution’ and help to evaluate its performance. Ultimately, the goal of evaluating the extent of civil services reform success through the initial characteristics of the ministry is to give an estimate for good quality of bureaucracy. Chapter 8 further develops those ideas.

Hypothesis 1.1 is supported by this research. In particular, there is a clear inverse relationship between the persistency indicator and the implementation success measure, i.e. the lower the share of staff from pre-transition time the greater is the measure of reform success. This pattern is unambiguous when taking into account the higher estimate of the structural variable for the Ministry of Education. If one considers the compulsory decrease of the share of old timers during the reform period at the national central office of the Ministry of Education, its lower performance as compared to the

Ministry of European integration needs to be explained. Such an explanation can be given by taking into account its different size and decentralized structure, as stated in hypothesis 1.2. With regard to hypothesis 1.1, the fact that some reform achievements, 133 such as the introduction of the entrance exam, occured following the shedding of staff does certainly not contradict the hypothesis either, even though it can also be taken as evidence that outside pressure works.

Regarding hypothesis 1.2, interpreting the results of this research suggests that the

ministries fall into two groups with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and of European

integration forming the group of fast reformers and the Ministries of Education and of

Agriculture coming out as the sluggish reformers. This suggests, that the joint

characeristics of these two ministries – large size and decentralized structure – are the

main candidates for an explanation of this observation. In addition, it was argued that its

high degree of decentralization explains why the Ministry of Education remains relatively

little reformed despite active policy measures to facilitate reform.

Therefore, the joint prediction of hypotheses 1.1 and 1.2 describes well the observed

pattern of reform success in the different ministries. In particular hypothesis 1.1 gives a

good explanation of the differences within the separate groups of fast and sluggish

reformers by highlighting the effect of the persistence of old network structures. These

are stronger in the Ministry of Agriculture than in the Ministry of Education – following

shedding of staff there – and they are stronger in the Ministry of Education than in the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This last result, in particular, was not expected when this

research was initiated, because the Ministry of European integration is a newly founded

ministry. But closer inspection gives an explanation for this result: The fact that much of

its staff was temporarily transferred from other ministries results in considerably higher

persistence value than in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. To see the ministry reforming

more slowly than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggests that the conjecture that 134 networks from elsewhere have been transplanted into the ministry cannot be easily dismissed.

135 CHAPTER 6

MONITORING: EU CONDITIONALITY

6.1. INTRODUCTION

This chapter responds to the second main hypothesis stated in Chapter 4 of whether

external monitoring, such as by the European Union, has an impact on the initiation and

subsequent implementation of civil service reform in ministries in Romania. As

mentioned before, the hypothesis states that those ministries that are under close external

monitoring are likely to experience a more exhaustive civil service reform than others.

This research states that a pattern, ranging from the least reformed Ministry of

Agriculture to the most reformed Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which supports this

hypothesis, is indeed observable. External monitoring can hinder clientelistic practices as

well as promote the progress of administrative reform that is essential for a country’s

possible EU accession. Because Romania entered the European Union in January 2007,

the main scope of this analysis lies in the pre-2007 time period. However, the European

Union set very clear guidelines about Romania’s fulfillment benchmarks of

implementation of administrative reforms even after its accession to the EU. Here, the

study of post-accession civil service reform provides an interesting research comparison

supplementary to that in the pre-accession phase, because possible changes of the

136 external monitoring effects can also be revealed. If EU conditionality presents a strong determinant of the civil service reform implementation process, then one would expect a possible ‘slowdown’ of the implementation process in the post-2007 period. 46

Within the context of analyzing the impact of EU conditionality, this chapter

defines the direction of causality between domestic politics and external monitoring.

Here, the question arises whether domestic politics responds to external monitoring or

whether domestic politics, such as administrative reforms, are shaped independently. This

research argues that the external monitoring process, such as the ‘closeness’ to EU

supervision, has an impact on changes in domestic politics, such as civil service reform.

Examining EU supervision falls within the argument that the Southeast European

countries are undergoing an overall process of Europeanization of which administrative

reform presents a part. The process of Europeanization started with the first accession

negotiation in the mid 1990's 47 to the EU entry in 2007. Whereas the general assumption states that the Europeanization process affects the country as a whole, this research, on the contrary, finds considerable variation on the ministerial level within a single country.

6.2 EMPIRICAL FINDINGS: AN OVERVIEW

Whereas, interviews and surveys have been conducted across the four ministries, this chapter concentrates primarily on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European

Integration due to the more completed development of civil service reform. The main aim

46 This argument has been empirically tested among the 2004 EU candidates, and scholars (Meyer- Sahling 2006) found that in the Polish case, civil service reform has never been fully implemented. 47 European Neighborhood Policy Action Plan (1993); Europe Agreement Additional Protocol (1995); Membership Strong Notice (1997); Accession Negotiation Begins (2000); Accession Negotiation Ends (2004); Membership (2007). 137 is to explain why these two ministries exhibit more completed civil service reform, and whether the outcome can be attributed to European conditionality. However, the Ministry of Agriculture and Education are examined as well, in order to account for their low degree of reform implementation.

In general, it can be said that examination of the process of civil service reform in

Romania indicates a slow 48 civil service reform. As mentioned in Chapter 4, only in 1999 did Romania establish an ‘independent’ agency of civil servants, which did not come to fruition until 2000/01. The Romanian constitution contains special references to civil servants and public employment. The interception report on the ‘Design and Implement

Mechanism for The Full Application of The Civil Servant Statute Law’ (2004) states that the civil servants statute is an ‘organic law’ placed in a constitutional hierarchy immediately after the Constitution and before ‘ordinary’ laws. This hierarchical setting underscores the significance given by constitutional texts to the civil service system and efforts to integrate civil service laws into the legal system, which would also strengthen the authority of state bodies, though it still proves to be insufficient.

This research finds that Romania’s ambition to join the EU and the NATO is the main force that is the root cause of the initiation of vigorous civil service reforms. 49

However, little attention has been paid to variation among different institutions. Most of the national and international reports50  including the report of the European presidency 

48 Romania experienced the slowest initiation and implementation of civil service reform in comparison to the other East European candidates and members. 49 While searching for a status quo of civil service reforms, most of the Romanian reports refer to the fulfillment of European standards. While interviewing civil servants most of the time references were made to the European administrative procedure laws. 50 The Council of European Union, Romanian Institute for Public Policy (IPP) and SAR (Romanian Academic Society). 138 treat the process of Romania’s civil service reform as a whole. Further, the European focus lies on the decentralization of government; but at present little attention has been paid to the local-national level comparison of administrative change. The main initiation of reforming the local public administration was specified only in 2004 in the 07/2004 legal code which describes the promotion, evaluation and salary criteria of the bureaucracy. Furthermore, some ministries  such as the Ministry of Education  started

with their main initiation of administrative change first on the local, not national, level.

However, one has to question whether local-level bureaucracy can face the same extent

of EU exposure as the national-level bureaucracy does. Here it is especially interesting to

examine the Ministry of Education, which is, as indicated before, a considerably

decentralized ministry. Indeed, surveys and interviews show that the main exposure in

terms of language and technical assistance, as well as staff development occurred on the

national-level government.

In general it can be said that the European Union greatly supported the focus on

training and staff development instead of replacing the civil service bureaucracy 51 . Civil

service reform laws, such as promotion criteria, by themselves would be likely to be

ineffective, since they require an underpinning of sound administrative guidance and

appropriate training. With respect to the distinction between lawmaking and actual

implementation, the area of ‘training development’ must be included as well.

51 A failed attempt of re-placing the civil service bureaucracy has been pointed out in Chapter 5. 139 6.2.1 EU Influence: Financial, Technical and Organizational Assistance

Interviews indicate that the most significant inefficiency of merit-based procedures is the lack of a ‘practical guide on recruitment, promotion and selection.’ Most of the interviews with high- and medium-ranked bureaucrats (I/2003/2004/2005) revealed a perceived need for a ‘Practical Guide’ tool by which everyone involved in a recruitment can find the ways of proceeding not only regarding the more detailed process but also in regard to the practical means for evaluation and selection of the candidates

(I/2003/2004/2005). In a survey (2004) of local-level bureaucrats, 85% of the medium- level and 74% of the low-level bureaucrats stated that they require more training in order to carry out their professional task accurately. 52 Furthermore, local-level bureaucrats were asked about the criteria for the selection of professional training programs. Here, 43% stated that ‘recommendations and nominations’ are the most important criteria for participating in a professional training program, whereas only 3% replied that ‘time at job’ matters. 53

In addition, most of the conducted interviews show that Romania’s aim for EU

membership drove the initiation of civil service reform. High incentives for politicians to

initiate civil service reform were carried out under EU pressure and pressure from the

opposition party. Interviews (I/2005) suggest that the pressure of the opposition party was

stronger when the post-communist party was in power, which lasted until 1996. At this

point one has to bear in mind that the greater share of bureaucrats interviewed provided

information about affiliation with a liberal political party.

52 Barometrul functiei publice in Romania, 2004, p. 24. 53 Barometrul functiei publice in Romania, 2004, p. 26. 140 Within the realm of meritocratic procedures, the main focal point is professional

training courses rather than employment of new personnel. Both the European Union and

the national level government stressed the importance of the training sessions as a major

milestone of civil service reform. Hence, this research identifies the existence and

accessibility to those professional training sessions as a possible measurement of

administrative reform.

In fact, most of the training programs are EU-funded projects and are often designed

for special top-level bureaucratic positions in specified ministries. For example, the EU

aimed (No. 3.2.2.2RO-01.06.02) to develop an operational national administrative

institute which is capable of educating competent civil servants (INA 2002-04 Project).

Starting more rigorously in 2004, the EU’s main goal was to educate trainers, organize

seminars for central and local civil servants, and elaborate a strategy for training the local

public administration in European Affairs and Project Management. These EU strategies

clearly focused on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, as well as to

a certain degree at the top-level civil servants in the Ministry of Education 54 . One

important note is that one might question the EU exposure of the Ministry of European

Integration, since the main justification for the existence of this ministry lies within the

context of the European Union itself. However, as mentioned before, the Ministry of

European Integration was established in 2000 and did not adopt all the 1999 Civil Service

Law regulations. Furthermore, like all the other ministries it faced the new civil service

law adjustments in 2003. Hence, the justification for examining the EU exposure of the

54 Referring solely to those ministries that are examined in this research. 141 Ministry of European Integration lies in examining organizational changes that are defined as the main components of civil service reform.

In addition, the EU (No. 3.2.2.3R0-01.06.03) created a corps of professional public managers within the civil service, in order to create and to manage a training program

(the Young Professionals) especially for young civil servants. The main goal of this program was to train and educate new civil servants with an expertise that could be compared to the appointed political civil servants. This drive for a more developed professionalized civil service bureaucracy was one of the initial goals of the European

Union since Romania’s official candidate status.

Moreover, most of the EU’s effort to support meritocratic procedures in Romania was predominantly in the areas that the EU perceived to be major policy concerns. In order to specifically promote ‘European policy,’ the EU created Programme

Implementation Units (PIUs) in 2003, with the goal of retaining competent staff in different ministries designated by the European Commission to be of greater concern.

These staff members consist of approximately 450 people in various ministries who are profiting from the same statutes as their colleagues in the ministry. The disproportional placement of the 450 civil servants among the ministries, with the highest placement number in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and European Integration reflect an unequal exposure to the EU monitoring and therefore technical and organizational assistance. If one would merely measure a ministry’s EU exposure by the direct contact with those 450 assistants, then the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had a clear advantage over the others.

142 The EU concluded that in Romania there exists the need to establish a career path

especially for this type of personnel, taking into account the special competences

necessary in relation to foreign languages and project management.

Further, the exposure of bureaucrats to training programmes and the Practical Guide

vary by institution and level within the bureaucracy. Data on implemented training

programmes show (S/MFA/MEDU/MEI/2005/2006) the highest amount of enforced

training programmes in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, mainly

for the high- and medium-level bureaucracy, and by contrast, the Ministry of Agriculture

ranks lowest. A questionnaire (Q/MFA/MEDU/MDG/2005) was utilized that asked

bureaucrats about their exposure and awareness of training programs and possible

promotion criteria. The results show that only one out of six bureaucrats in the Ministry

of Agriculture admitted being exposed to language, information technology, or policy

training programs since 1996. On the contrary, the results from the questionnaire from

the Ministry of Foreign Affairs show that one out of two bureaucrats confirmed their

participation in EU funded training programs since their hiring at the ministry. Moreover,

the EU (PHARE project RO 9804.05.01 (2001-2002)) created a Civil Servants Database

to reflect the information needs of CSNA. 55 In this context, questions regarding the

‘awareness’ of the CSNA data base and ‘hours per training unit’ by EU-funded projects, were asked in each ministry. The outcome shows that higher-lever civil servants from the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Integration, and Education were introduced and exposed to the new Civil Servants Database. Especially in the Ministry of Foreign

55 The CSNA was equipped with the necessary hardware and standard software (servers, workstations, database software, office automation software) for hosting, maintaining and utilizing the database. 143 Affairs, civil servants could submit up-dates to the Database, which shows an active involvement in keeping the bureaucracy as transparent as possible.

Apart from the EU, other outside factors have an impact on civil services reform in

Romania. Such positive impact with regard to the civil service sector has been exercised by the World Bank’s conditionality for the Romanian Programmatic Adjustment Loan

(PAL 1) launched in May 2004. It includes the following: (1) the government reaches agreement with the Bank on a provisional set of monitoring indicators on civil service management practices; (2) the World Bank pushed the CSNA (Civil Service National

Agency) to mobilize technical assistance to develop capacity to monitor and publish quarterly indicators on Civil Service management practices, consistent with an action plan acceptable to the Bank; and (3) the Bank demands a ‘Practical Guide’ to regulate transparent, competitive, merit-based recruitment and selection procedures for the

Directors and Deputy Directors within the Central Administration that is acceptable to the

Bank. Responses to the ‘Practical Guide’ and bureaucrats' awareness of the Practical

Guide included into the main part of the interview conducted in the ministries. An interesting note is that both the European Union and the World Bank agree over the fact that Romania needs to implement this ‘Practical Guide’ in order to guarantee a transparent civil service implementation process.

6.3. THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

In the following a more detailed discussion is given of the specific areas in which

EU conditionality has made itself felt in the different ministries. In the context of meritocratic procedures, such as diplomatic career opportunities, the Ministry of Foreign 144 Affairs regularly organizes competitive entry examinations for open vacancies designed to facilitate a strict selection of persons endowed with diplomatic aptitudes. The main hiring and firing criteria are stated as ‘social and communication abilities, fluency and logic in both written and oral expression, resistance to work under pressure, discipline in the professional activity and the ambition and motivation’ (I/MFA/2005). With regard to political autonomy policies, the education of members in the diplomatic and consular body of Romania must meet specific requirements, according to the provisions in the

Law regarding the Status of the Diplomatic and Consular Body. Criteria for the bureaucrats are among others: (1) promoting and protecting the interests of the state and of the Romanian citizens within the context of foreign relationships; observing the state secret and the professional secret, according to the stipulations of the law, or to guarantee confidentiality regarding the facts, information or documents he/she may come across throughout the professional activity; proving a flawless professional and moral attitude under any circumstances and fulfilling the office duties with dignity and responsibility.

Also, with career opportunities within the institution, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

presents a very successful case of civil service reform implementation. Due to its strong

external monitoring by the European Union’s technical and financial assistance, it shows

the highest amount of organized training sessions, including professional training courses

for young diplomats within the Diplomatic Academy, an institution for diplomatic

training and improvement. In addition, it has the highest number of intensive foreign

145 languages courses organized, (mainly English, French and Spanish). An interview with a high-level bureaucrat (B1) 56 showed that there exist

‘regular specialized improvement courses organized by the Diplomatic Academy in view of promotion to higher diplomatic ranks or to positions in the Romanian missions abroad, as well as training and specialized scholarships abroad’.

With reference to the awareness and exposure of the overall hiring and promotion criteria, the general admission standards include five major conditions, such as (1) background, (2) language requirements, (3) citizenship, (4) juridical status and (5) other conditions. Interestingly, these conditions are constantly under adjustment to conform to the European policy regulations. An interview with a bureaucrat (B2) 57 confirmed the overall conditions applied to the current hiring settings, such as

‘(1) The candidates must hold a license diploma granted by an acknowledges academic institution with a minimum average of 8 (one a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the best); (2) The candidates must be proficient in two foreign languages of which at least one widely spoken (English, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Arabic); (3) The candidates must have exclusively Romanian citizenship and permanent residence in Romania; (4) The candidates must be familiar with all civil and political rights stipulated by law and must not have a criminal record; the male candidates must have performed the military service, as regulated by the law of the military service; and (5) The candidates must provide evidence of their psychical aptitudes required in the diplomatic activity’ (B2).

In summary, it can be said of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that all bureaucratic levels of the ministry had exposure to the EU-funded training session in order to improve

56 Bureaucrat (B1): Ministry of Foreign Affairs, higher-level bureaucracy, personal interview, anonymous, 25.08.2005. 57 Bureaucrat (B2): Ministry of Foreign Affairs, higher-level bureaucracy, personal interview, anonymous, 26.08.2005. 146 the ‘quality’ of the civil service. Those training sessions included primarily language, computer and organizational assistance. Whereas the main emphasis was to train the civil servants in Bucharest, a small portion of the higher- and medium-level bureaucracy also received training abroad, such as in Brussels. However, it has to be mentioned here that due to the high turnover rate, especially at the top level bureaucracy, the new professionalized civil servants already had obtained ‘professional’ training, in which case, a measurement of the amount of exposure to training sessions becomes invalid. This research measures primarily training session as a possible EU-funded monitoring process, in which case a civil servant did not receive comparable training sessions beforehand.

The problem, however, is that some higher-level bureaucrats received EU-funded before entering the ministry, as a part of the overall entrance exam.

6.4 THE MINISTRY OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

As pointed out earlier, the Ministry of European Integration is a purely post- transitional and non-permanent institution, and all interviews were conducted in the time period between 2000 and 2006. During the interview, a bureaucrat (B3) was asked regarding the meritocratic procedures for civil servants, and whether bureaucrats are aware where this information can be found and accessed. The bureaucrat responded that:

‘The recruitment and selection process of civil servants is governed by Law 188/1999 republished and the Government Decision 1209/2003. According to the provisions of Law 188/1999 republished, a civil servant position can be filled through: promotion, transfer, reallocation, and recruitment’ (B3).

147 Concerning the recruitment process, the bureaucrat (B3) stated that in order to be assigned a position of civil servant within the Ministry of European Integration the candidate must promote a selection contest. For that, the potential candidate must comply with specific conditions and eligibility criteria, established by the provisions of Article 50 and Article 51 of Civil Service Law no.188/1999 republished. In addition, other conditions may be established, according to the job description requirements (e.g. good knowledge of English). Several bureaucrats pointed out that all this information accompanied by the topics and the relevant bibliography for the contest is published in an announcement: (1) in the Official Journal of Romania, part. III; and (2) on the MEI web site and at the ministry headquarters. The bureaucrat (B3) also confirmed that the selection contest consisted of three major phases, such as the administrative compliance and eligibility check, the written examination (language, knowledge, other relevant tests by case), and the personal interview. Especially in the later time period, 2003, newly hired civil servants faced special EU-funded testing-sessions (PHARE Project 2004-05) that introduced the civil servants to the major guidelines of the new civil service organizational setup.

As one might expect, the EU-exposure of the civil servants in the Ministry of

European Integration is very high. However, this research does not necessarily test for exposure to EU-policies, but rather to EU-funded assistance to reform and implement the civil service bureaucracy. All of the 35 bureaucrats interviewed (of which 14 are in-depth interviews) throughout the three interview periods at the Ministry of European

Integration confirmed (anonymously as well as without anonymity) that during training sessions with the European Union they were informed about the ‘firing procedures and 148 criteria regarding civil servants’, referring to the Law 188/1999 (see Appendix C). This civil service law also specifies the firing conditions and the means that applies to the situation in which a civil servant is no longer employee of the public institution:

‘By the effect of law (eg. complying with the pensions criteria established by the law of pensions); by written agreement of the employer and the employee; by dismissal/firing, and by resignation’ (B4, B5 and B6). 58

More specifically, to measure the impact of EU conditionality the following question was asked: What major public administrative reforms occurred in the previous 1-2 years

(2005/2006) in the Ministry of European Integration, as a major milestone for EU entry?

The response was as follows:

‘In December 2004 the accession negotiations were closed and in April 2005 the Accession Treaty was signed. In this context, a part of the functions of the Ministry of European Integration has changed and there was a need for redefining the role of Ministry of European Integration. For that, the Ministry was reorganized trough Government Decision 243/2006. As a consequence of the reorganisation of the Ministry, new structures and departments were created’. 59

Moreover, the role and responsibilities of the counsellors for European integration, employees of the Ministry of European Integration, was adjusted to the needs of the reform of the public administration by Emergency Government Ordinance 106/2006.

According to the provisions of this normative act, the counsellors for European

58 Conducted personal interviews in the Ministry of European Integration (2005 and 2006). 59 The new structure includes the following: Managing Authority for the Regional Operational Programme, National Support Unit for Interregional Programme, Managing Authority for the New Neighbourhood Instrument, Cross border Cooperation Regional Offices, Territorial Units of Ministry of European Integration’ (B5).

149 integration became counsellors for European affairs and there were transferred to the public institutions in which they currently perform their activity. Moreover, in December

2006, a change in the internal structure of the ministry took place, by transferring the personnel of two departments of MEI (General Directorate Evaluation and Accession

Preparation and General Directorate Harmonization with the aquis communitaire ) to a new institutional structure created under the subordination of the Prime Minister – the

Department for European Affairs, dealing with coordination, at the national level, of the

European affairs.

In reference to the question, whether there were any significant adjustments/reforms in the area of civil service/public administration in your Ministry? , the following answer was given:

‘In order to increase the administrative capacity and to ensure the necessary personnel to manage the European funds allocated to Romania, according to the provisions of Emergency Government Ordinance 1/2006, a number of 152 civil servants positions were allocated to Ministry of European Integration for which the Ministry organized selection contests. For increasing the financial motivation of the civil servants directly involved in managing European funds, their salaries were increased with a percentage by 75%, in accordance with the procedure and the rules established by Government Decision 170/2005’ (B10).

With reference to the response of Bureaucrat (B10), a significant step in

implementing the administrative reform at the MEI level consists in hiring public

managers, who are civil servants with special status, whose responsibilities involve

elaborating strategies, policies and internal procedures in order to improve the

150 institutional management and increase the administrative capacity of the Ministry of

European Integration.

In summary, the Ministry of European Integration can be said to have experienced

substantial reform even though it presents a pure non-transitional and non-permanent

ministry, and it can thus be included into the analysis of the scope of EU monitoring

supervision. In fact, given its policy area, one might expect a very close supervision by

the European Union and, therefore, one may question what need there is for the

discussion of monitoring of this particular ministry. In fact, under the narrow aspect of

monitoring, the Ministry of European Integration is to be treated just as any other

ministry.

Furthermore, an observation of some interest is that even though the Ministry of

European Integration was established only in 2000, it did not fully apply the civil service

law 188/1999 that has been initiated a year before. It shows that the problem of

implementing the civil service law cannot be attributed solely to institutions that

governed a particular ministry in the pre-reform period. It can be said that the problem

lies in its implementation, rather than initiation.

6.5 THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

As mentioned in Chapter 4, one of the first acts in the overall consolidation process

in Romania was to abolish institutions of regional government. Most of the regional

institutions were ill-conceived and were seen as tools of Communist Party influence. By

the mid-1990’s, however, ‘the question of regional governance’ was being reopened, ‘as

a set of international influences favoring regional self-government and subsidiarity was 151 coming to bear on ECE governments through the European Union’ (O’Dwyer 2006:

220). The new concentration on regional governance reform, especially starting from the early 2000, has been portrayed as a requirement within the larger process of

Europeanization.

In this respect, the Ministry of Education presents an interesting research case. As

pointed out in Chapter 5, the Ministry of Education is a strongly decentralized institution,

and most civil servants work at the local-level government. However, examining the EU-

funded projects in the Ministry of Education, it shows that the main target groups are the

national level bureaucrats (especially the higher-level bureaucrats) and the teachers. Little

attention has been paid to the guidance and training sessions for the local-level

bureaucracy. Since the Ministry of Education is the only decentralized institution of the

empirical cases examined in this research, one can observe the disadvantage to EU-

funded projects quite visibly. While the European Union acknowledges the fact that the

local level bureaucracy needs to be supported more strongly, the direct EU-funded

projects fail to include specifically designed training session for the local-level

bureaucracy.

Opening the discussion whether EU-funded training sessions can actually enhance administrative capacity and, therefore, government efficiency and whether it can achieve similar success on the local as on the national-level bureaucracy presents an interesting research question, but given the limited cases of decentralized institutions in this research, it is not within the scope of this analysis.

152 6.6 THE MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE

This research has stated that the Ministry of Agriculture presents the least reformed

civil service bureaucracy, although without being the most decentralized. With regard to

EU conditionality, the question arises whether its lack of civil service reform

implementation can be attributed to a possible lack of EU supervision. First of all it can

be said that the Ministry of Agriculture experienced the least interaction with the Euro-

councilors that were sent to Romania. The problem, however, can be presented as two-

fold. On the one hand, there existed little EU initiation, such as civil servant training

sessions in the Ministry of Agriculture; on the other hand, the initial personnel were also

not sufficiently ‘equipped’ to take on EU projects. The lack of a foreign language

competence (mainly English), became a major obstacle to successful training

applications, for example in the area of ‘civil service management’. The focus of

providing language sessions to the Ministry of Agriculture became an opportunity which

was seized to a certain extent by higher-level bureaucracy, but left lower-level

bureaucracy almost untouched.

However, given the large extent of EU agricultural policies, such as CAP, that

needed to be implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture, one would expect that at all

levels of bureaucracy civil servants obtain a minimal level of language competence. This

language competence is not yet there. It must be noted, however, that it is possible to hire

Romanians who understand EU requirements and are capable of communicating with the

low-level bureaucrats in the Ministry of Agriculture, quite effectively, the nature and

scope of civil serve reform implementation. This approach appears to have been

overlooked by the monitoring professionals. 153 There is another significant issue relating to the limited reform of the Ministry of

Agriculture in response to EU monitoring, that is related to the size of the Romanian agrarian sector. The primary products of Romanian agriculture are wheat, corn, barley, sugar beets, sunflower seed, potatoes, grapes, eggs and sheep. While this sector contributed only 7.9% of value added to GDP in 2006, 29.7% of the labor force was employed in agriculture. Contrasted with Bulgaria, for example, where both output and employment in agriculture were 8% during the same period, Romania had more than three times the agrarian employment. This significantly higher agricultural employment translates into a huge voting bloc, a much more powerful farm lobby, a more influential agriculture minister, and inter alia a culture of the agriculture ministry which is substantially more resistant to change. Clearly, if Bulgaria and Romania, both 2007 accession candidates, were to receive similar proportionate exposure to EU monitoring influence, one should expect, due to the greater agrarian structural counter-balance in

Romania, that significantly less ministerial change should occur, which is precisely what one observes.

6.7 SUMMARY

Given the strong EU supervision in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and European

Integration, this research finds that EU monitoring and EU conditionality had a positive impact on civil service reform implementation progress. For example, due to the consistent EU-funded training sessions with the emphasis to ‘professionalize’ and

‘depoliticize’ the civil service bureaucracy, both ministries became more transparent with regard to their interaction with political civil servants than those in the Ministry of 154 Education and Agriculture. Moreover, due to the close monitoring process, the civil servants in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were under constant pressure to report improvements in the meritocratic system to the European Union. The monthly progress reports by the civil service bureaucracy pushed intra-ministerial changes. Therefore, it can be said that due to a close monitoring process, the implementation of civil service reform automatically followed, especially with Romania receiving candidate status in

2004.

An interesting question, however, is whether intra-ministerial administrative changes

occurred solely because of the EU monitoring process or whether it requires a minimal

criterion of an EU-oriented mindset of the civil servants, as it was given in the Ministry

of Foreign Affairs and European Integration. Given the constant exposure bureaucrats

had at all levels in the Ministry in Foreign Affairs, the acceptance of the need to

implement EU-guided policies is much greater than in those ministries where the EU-

exposure was much smaller, such as in the Ministry of Agriculture.

6.8 CONCLUSION

The main hypothesis that external monitoring by the European Union does indeed

have a definitive impact on the initiation and implementation of civil service reform is

analyzed here. In particular, the structural balance of the economy in terms of both

employment of the labor force and sectoral allocation of resources has very specific

consequences for the relative reform exhibited by distinct ministries in Romania. It is

important to take into account the relative size of the agricultural sector in Romania to

appreciate the limited nature of civil service reform in the agriculture ministry. 155 The significant employment-oriented agrarian sector in Romania also has implications for the relative structural balance of power of distinct ministries in Romania, as noted above. For instance, relative to the Foreign Affairs, Education and European

Integration Ministries, the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture and minister are more powerful, and indeed showed much slower bureaucratic turnover, despite exposure to EU monitoring influence. As long as the Romanian economy remains substantially agrarian, with approximately one-third employment in the agricultural sector, and correspondingly lower employment in the manufacturing and services sectors, its Ministry of Agriculture will remain more powerful and simultaneously more resilient to change, than would be the Foreign Affairs or European Integration Ministries.

While the Ministry of Education has exhibited less change than the Foreign Affairs and European Integration Ministries, the reason for this is very different compared to the resistance to reform of the Ministry of Agriculture. The Ministry of Education is the weakest in terms of its share of resource allocation and relative power balance. Whereas it is amenable to change due to external influence, if adequately monitored, its ability to change from within is considerably less. A policy implication is that if one wishes to see greater improvement in bureaucratic performance of the Ministry of Education, raising

EU monitoring by the same degree across the board is likely to have a greater success in the Ministry of Education than it would have in Agriculture.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the greatest bureaucratic changes due to EU influence appear in the Foreign Affairs and European Integration Ministries, less in the

Ministry of Education, and the least in the Ministry of Agriculture. It is also no coincidence that the scandals pertaining to misappropriation of EU funds have occurred 156 in the Ministry of Agriculture, and not in the other ministries. Again, it cannot be overemphasized that to bring forth similar bureaucratic reform in all ministries, EU monitoring would have to be differentially distributed, with more stringent monitoring focused on the Ministry of Agriculture.

157 CHAPTER 7

POLITICAL PARTISANSHIP

7.1 INTRODUCTION

The last two hypotheses of this research state that the characteristics of the political party in power affect the initiation and the extent of civil services reform process. In the East European context, the main distinction occurs between a liberal political party and the post-communist party. Liberal parties are defined as parties which formed in the post-transitional period, often institutionalizing around blocks which had formed during the transition with an agenda aimed at implementation of market-oriented reform. Post-communist political parties, on the other hand, present a type of continuation of the former communist political party into the post-transition period. The strength of the lingering effect of the communist structure, such as the persistence of old bureaucratic structures, in post-transition time varies across the East European cases.

Scholars of comparative politics argue that the type of the previous regime type as well as the mode of transition matters for explaining the strength of the post-communist political party (Linz and Stepan 1996; Kitschelt 1999). In cases, such as Romania, where the previous regime is classified as ‘strong’ and ‘highly personalistic’, one expects the post- communist party to have a prolonged negative impact on the post-transition period,

158 whereas, for example, in the case of Hungary, where the previous regime was much

‘softer’, even founded on a type of political pluralism, the lingering effect on post-

transition period should be expected to be weaker, referring to less resistance to political

development. In this context, pre-transition Hungary was characterized as a bureaucratic-

authoritarian regime, where a limited degree of pluralism already existed before the

transition.

This research hypothesizes that when a post-communist party is in power, civil service reform will be initiated belatedly and will proceed more slowly than when a liberal political party is in power. The reason for this is that when a post-communist party remains in power, they are able to continue to extract resources from the state, and have little interest in breaking up the networks and practices which enabled them to do so in the past. This hypothesis does not expect to find variation among the four ministries, because initiation largely amounts to adoption of national legislation, which will be the same for all ministries. With regard to the implementation process, however, the political variable may interact with other variables such as the magnitude of political benefits which can be extracted from the different ministries in the form of rent seeking. Yet, measurability problems and a limited number of observations do not allow further investigation of this issue.

This research carefully distinguishes between the effects of political partisanship, in particular of the post-communist parties, on initiation versus implementation. In order to test the hypotheses it focuses on a two-country comparison of Romania and Bulgaria, specifically by identifying the different times at which switching from the post- communist party to a liberal party occurred in the post-transition period. Romania’s 159 transition from a governing post-communist party to a liberal political party occurred much later (first in 1996, and repeatedly as late as 2004) than in Bulgaria (first in 1991, and repeatedly in 1997). Therefore, this research expects a slower initiation and implementation of civil service reform in the Romanian case. In Bulgaria, by comparison, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) was removed from power at an earlier stage, but after eight years was back in government, but only as a member of a coalition with two other parties – the National Movement Simeon the Second (NDSV) and the Movement for

Rights and Freedoms (DPS). In the Bulgarian case, this study examines whether the post- communist return to power has had an impact on the successful implementation process of the civil service law which had been initiated at an earlier stage. Therefore, examining the Romanian and Bulgarian cases together allows us to test whether a post-communist party in power matters for successful initiation or implementation of the reform process.

To recapitulate, the conjectures developed in Chapter 4 are the following: H3.1

Partisanship matters for the initiation of civil service reform: A post-communist party in power will result in a delayed initiation of civil services reform. Civil service reform is likely to occur once a liberal party is in government. H3.2 If a post-communist party is in power, success of civil service reform will be slower.

7.2 EMPIRICAL FINDINGS: AN OVERVIEW

This research compares Romania and Bulgaria in the post-transition period. As a measure of overall achievement in the progress towards democracy and the rule of law this research uses the Freedom House rankings (see Appendices C and D), which measures achievements in both countries on a discreet scale ranging from 1 to 10 point 160 scale, with ‘1’ being most ‘free’ and ‘10’ being most ‘unfree’. In addition to the overall

placement of each country, by year, on the scale, the dynamic process and the pace of

development will be essential as well for distinguishing between both countries. Freedom

House evaluated the political process of democratization (electoral law) over time, and

found in Bulgaria a constant increase in the indicator of electoral process, the prevalence

of free and fair elections, since 1997. 60 Romania, on the contrary, improved until 2000

(2.75), and the electoral process worsened starting from 2000 back to 3.0 in 2004. 61 In fact, it could be argued that the Romanian political system, contrasted with Bulgaria, tended toward a dominant-power model until 2004 than toward a consolidated democratic one. However, with the recent political developments in Romania since the shift to a liberal political party in 2004, ‘old incumbent’ structures may yet be replaced.

Moreover, the World Government Index shows that Bulgaria’s speed of development occurred much faster than in Romania. While Bulgaria started to jump below point 4 on the scale 62 already in 1992, Romania’s political development (below 4

on the scale) only started after 1996. The different categories can be divided into two

main frameworks, (1) government and (2) society. The category ‘government’ would

entail the constitutional, legislative and judicial framework, corruption, governance and

the electoral process. The context ‘society’ includes Independent Media and Civil

Society. This division is crucial, because in the context of ‘Society’ Romania shows a

faster development process than Bulgaria. In almost in all other categories, Romania is

60 Bulgaria: 1997: 3.25; 1998: 2.75; 1999-2000: 2.25; 2001: 2.00; and 2002: 2.0. 61 Romania: 1997: 3.25; 1998: 3.25; 1999-2000: 2.75; 2001: 3.0; and 2002: 3.0. 62 With “1” being most free, and “6” most unfree. 161 lagging behind Bulgaria, but in the category Civil Society and the Independent Media,

Romania showed already in 2000 a faster development process than Bulgaria.

Romania’s development can be described as follows. The democratization

indicator showed improvement from 1994 (3.95) until 2000 (3.19), and then decreased

starting from 2001 (3.31). The strong improvement of quality of governance could be

explained by the first shift to a liberal political party in 1996, and the possible worsening

of the quality of governance in 2001 by the switch back to the post-communist party in

2000.

More precisely, the democratic liberal political party (1996–2000,

Constantinescu) lost power in 2000, and the post-communist political party (2000- 2004,

Iliescu) regained power in 2000. In addition, the rule of law also started to decrease in

2001. The impact of the post-communist party can be described as follows in 2001, ‘The ruling party is the heir of the former Communist Party…that occasionally keeps Romania stuck in old ‘command and control’ solutions that have been proven unworkable elsewhere’ (Nations in Transit 2002: 4).

Bulgaria, on the contrary, experienced an ongoing increase 63 of democratization level starting from 1994 (3.5) to 1999 (3.31) to 2003 (3.0). A major explanation for its contrasting political development is the early shift from the post-communist political party (Bulgarian Socialist Party) to the liberal party (UDF), and no major return of the post-communist party occurred until 2005. Here, one can argue that the post-communist party in power has a major impact on the initiation and implementation of reforms, and

63 The increase in the quality of governance in indicated through the decrease of the number. The highest level of the quality of government is 1, on a 1 to 7 point scale. 162 on the overall political development process. With regard to the successful reform

process in Bulgaria, two interpretations may be offered: (1) being only part of a coalition

government, the Bulgarian Socialist Party yields insufficient power to resist development,

(2) after its initiation the process of democratization becomes self-sustaining. Assuming

that the same cause-effect relationships govern both countries, the Romanian experience

suggests that the process of overall democratization does not become self-sustaining but

that it is the insufficient punch of the post-communist party in Bulgaria which is

responsible for the observation. Furthermore, on the overall Democracy Rank 64 (2004),

Bulgaria is placed 35 th and Romania 66 th .

While concentrating on the distinction of liberal vis-à-vis post-communist political party in power, a justification has to follow by which means partisanship has an impact on political development. Some scholars argue that the theory of ‘political replacement’ contradicts the view that a post-communist party might hinder political democratic development.

7.2.1 Introducing the Romanian Case

In an East European comparison, the Romanian political system has always been more competitive compared to other EU accession countries, in which Romania shows the most belated political swing in the region as late as 1996 as well as it presents the

64 The Democracy Rank is defined as follows: The resulting World Audit corruption scores all lie between 0 and 100 (lower being more favourable). The purpose of the equation is to facilitate comparison between the CPI score, which lies between 0 and 10 before the use of the equation (a higher score being more favourable), and the Press Freedom score , which lies between 0 and 100 (lower being more favourable). (Source: ‘Freedom House’ 2004 and ‘Nations in Transit’ 2004). 163 only country in the EU accession process to have had three post-communist governments

out of four cabinet terms after 1989.

The breakdown of the communist regime in Romania was followed by a process

of institutional and legislative reconfigurations. While political parties were seeking to

establish their own organization, nothing had been done to reform the administrative

apparatus. This led to an outcome in which the institutionalization of political parties

remained dependent on the functionaries in the state legislative and executive branch.

Moreover, post-transition Romania political party development was marked by

the strong presence of Ion Iliescu, and continuation of the post-communist party (Social

Democratic Party (PSD)) until 1996, and its returning to power in 2000. 65 For the

Romanian case, it can be said, that the post-communist party had a dominant persistence in Romania’s political scene until 2004. Only in 2003, with the a creation of an alliance of the two main liberal political parties developed, and therefore a strong counterpart to strong and persisting post-communist party established, the post-communist party of

Romania was counterbalanced by other political parties. The liberal political party alliance consists of the Democrats (PD, led by Traian Basescu) and Liberals (PNL, led by

Teodor Stolojan.

65 Ion Iliescu was elected President of Romania for eleven years in three terms, from 1990 to 1992, 1992 to 1996, and 2000 to 2004 65 . Policies in post-transition Romania were predominantly influenced by the party, with the only exception being the time period between 1996 and 2000 when a liberal president, Emil Constantinescu, was in power. From 2004, the liberal Trajan Basescu of the Democratic Party was elected.

164 % 1990 1992 1996 2000 2004 Post-communist party 67.02 28 21 37 Split (PSD – Social Democratic Party) Liberal political party 7.06 20 30 5 36.8

Table 7.1: Romanian Election Outcome: Incumbent and challenger elites

The role of the political party in civil service bureaucracy

For the time period between 1990 and 2000, political parties have been entirely

involved in appointing (political) civil servants. Interviews with political appointees show

that the key element for allocating civil servants was not party membership, but rather, a

privileged relationship established with the minister in office. This led to a persistence of

clientelistic networks until 2000. This time period is defined by political party dominance

in a personalistic manner.

However, with the start of the implementation of civil service reform and the

creation of a category of specialized personnel at the level of political parties created a

difference kind of patronage in Romania. Here new networks could not rely on old pre-

transition networks anymore, and a new type of corruption developed.

7.2.2 Introducing the Bulgarian Case

The Bulgarian case 66 presents a very different picture compared to the Romanian case. The early years after the transition (1990 to 1994) were marked by a liberal political

66 Bulgaria elects on national level the head of state – president – and the legislature. The president is elected for a five year term by the people. The legislature (Narodno Sabranie) has 240 members, elected for a four year term by PR vote in multi-seat constituencies with a 4% threshold. 165 party being in power (Union of the Democratic Forces (UDF), and the Bulgarian Socialist

Party (BSP) being in opposition.

The Bulgarian Socialist Party can be described as a union, dominated by the

Bulgarian Socialist Party - the successor of the Bulgarian Communist Party – on the left, and the SDS – a coalition of 11 center-right parties – on the right side of the political spectrum. The Bulgarian post-communist party is more liberal than the Romanian post- communist party, in some measure because it was a part of a coalition government, for a period of time, and therefore the subsequent switch to a liberal political party power in

Bulgaria occurred faster than in the Romanian counter-case.

The liberal political party (UDF), on the other hand, was founded in 1989 as a union of eleven political organizations in opposition to the Communist government. The following years, the UDF incorporated six additional parties, and in February 1997, the

UDF was transformed into a single unified party – the United Democratic Forces. In its relationship to the Bulgarian Socialist Party, it can be said that throughout the fifteen years following the Bulgarian transition, the liberal party constantly challenged the

Bulgarian post-communist party, and for most of the time also dominated it. The consequences show that Bulgaria did not experience a persistence of old pre-transition structures in post-transition period. Instead, the Bulgarian Socialist Party only regained power in form of a collation government with two other parties: National Movement

Simeon the Second (NDSV) and the Movement for Rights and Freedom (DSP) which were the incumbents until June 2005 67 .

67 2005 Bulgarian National Election Outcome: BSP 30.95%, NDSV 19.88%, DPS 12.81%, ATAKA 8.14%, ODS 7.68%, DSB 6.44%, BNS 5.19%, Others 5.85%. 166 The “Red Sweep” Argument

After returning to power in 2001 as a part of a coalition government, the

Bulgarian Socialist Party was eager to reward its leaders and members and ‘assume control of various state and semi state institutions’ (Spirova 2006: 2). The Bulgarian

Socialist Party tried to get its people into positions of power, facing a constant struggle of competing on the one hand with coalition partners, who were eager to maintain their positions in power, and on the other hand, and competing also with the Union of the

Democratic Forces, who dominated the political scene for four years, especially with regard to undertaking the most crucial civil service reform. Due to such strides made in civil service reform by the Union of the Democratic forces, in attempting to come back to power, the Bulgarian Socialist party had enormous difficulties controlling the administrative apparatus. This phenomenon can be explained as two-fold: both, being only a member of a greater alliance, and facing the reform implementations that were undertaken by the Union of Democratic Forces, hindered a possible development of post- communist network structures.

Spirova describes the replacement of the Bulgarian Socialist party in 1991 (also in

1997) as the ‘red sweep’, referring to the process of “sweeping (throwing out) of state employees and replacing them with people loyal to the new party in government”

(Spirova 2006: 2). The term has previously been used to describe the practices of the

Union of Democratic Forces (SDS) government (the ‘blue sweep’ of 1997) and the

NDSV (the ‘yellow sweep’ of 2001). Among the three leading political parties, the BSP

167 was the party that ‘was the main driving force of the replacement of personnel until 2001’

(Spirova, 2006: 2).

Year Post-communist party Liberal Political Party

1990 BSP 49 % UDF 36 % 1991 BSP 33 % UDF 34 % 1994 BSP 43.5 % UDF 24.2 % 1997 BSP 22.1 % UDF 52.3 % (coalition with Bulgarian Social democratic Party) 2001 BSP 17.1 % Simeaon II 43 % (Coalition for Bulgaria alliance, UDF 18 % Communist Party of Bulgaria 68 ) 2005 BSP 33.98 % (Coalition for Bulgaria National Movement Simeon II 21.8 % alliance, with the National Movement for Movement for Rights and Freedom 14.1 % Rights and Freedoms and the United UDF 8.4 % Labor Bloc)

Table 7. 2: Bulgarian Election Outcome: Incumbent and challenger elites

7.3 ANALYSIS

7.3.1 Liberal Parties

This part seeks to analyze whether the ‘red sweep’ or ‘external monitoring’ such as

EU Conditionality can explain the success of civil service reform initiation or

implementation. In this context, Dimitrova (2002) argues that the EU accession had a

major impact on policy-making in Bulgaria, because ‘adjustment of the administrative

structure had been made part of the conditions for EU entry’ (see Shirova, 2006: 8).

Whereas political and economic reforms started at an earlier time, civil service reforms

were first attempted in 1995, which can be attributed to the positive impact of the UDF in

68 The Communist Party of Bulgaria (Alexander Paunov) was founded in 1996, and is part of the Coalition for Bulgaria. 168 power since 1991. The first crucial five years after the transition were marked with the

UDF’s advocate for of drastic reforms in government structure, the media, foreign policy, and the economy, where a two-phase “shock-therapy” reform proposal was offered that led to a somewhat free market economy.

Here, it can be argued that the liberal political party in power and the politicians’ incentives to ‘renew’ the personnel had a positive impact on the initiation of civil service reform. Even though it might not have been called civil service reform in the mid 1990’s, the effort of the Bulgarian liberal party was much stronger, in contrast to the case in

Romania, where few attempts had been made to replace the personnel until 1996.

Moreover, during the first five years in the post-transition period, the UDF blamed the previous communist regime for Bulgaria’s agricultural crisis, in which mainly rural areas of Bulgaria remained in control of Zhivkovite BSP politicians, in which many

Bulgarian peasants faced the problems of privatizing the old collective system. This research argues that the strong peasant support for the Bulgarian Socialist Party in 1994 can mainly be attributed to the negative short-term consequences of privatizing the old collective system, in which the peasants felt secured, rather than the strong dominance of the persisting communist structures. As a consequence, in the 1994 election, the

Bulgarian Socialist party won 211 of the 400 seats at the National Assembly, predominantly determined by the rural area vote.

7.3.2 The Post-Communist Party

Since being reinstated to power in 1998, the Bulgarian Socialist Party received the largest share of the vote in the 2005 election. Further, there are two types of positions that 169 political parties could fill or replace after coming to power – (1) positions in the state

executive (state institutions) and (2) positions in various organizations, companies or

other semi-state institutions. Positions in state institutions are, for example, political

positions, civil positions, or labor code positions. On the other hand, positions in semi-

state institutions are, among others, in the economy, health sector and media.

Moreover, a major milestone in the development of civil service reform is the Law on

the State Administration (LSA) and the Law on the Civil Servant (LCS). Both laws

represent the two bodies of legislation that aim ‘to ensure the continuity of governance in

Bulgaria’ (Spirova 2006: 8). Both laws were passed by parliament in 1998 and 1999,

respectively, and were seen as crucial for the increased efficiency and de-politicization of

the Bulgarian Civil Service. The law on the state administration defines the basic

structure and principles of the Bulgarian executives, such as the hierarchy of the

positions, as well as to ensure vertical and horizontal coherence. (Velinova et al, 2001).

The law on civil servant institutes the category of civil servants and defines their function

and mechanisms for their selection and dismissal.

In this context, the question arises, as to whether appointments in the state administration are made on political ground. According to the Bulgarian Prime Minister

Stanishev (BSP), the ‘sweep’ in the state administration was not as broad as the media makes it out to be. He argued (in a parliamentary question hour devoted to the problem of the ‘red sweep), that ‘only 9 of the agency heads (political positions) had been replaced and a total of only 130 of the 37,000 civil servants had been fired’ (Kapital 2006). In his address to the 46 th Congress of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, Stanishev stated that a state

170 ‘should not be run with politically loyal staff but with professional people’ (Stanishev

2005).

If the post-communist party is in power for a longer time period, one would

suspect more clientelistic practices. However, what is the connection between post-

communist party, such as the Iliescu party, and patronage? With regard to measuring

bureaucrat’s autonomy from political or civil society actors’ influence, does cover, to a

limited extent, party patronage. As Geddes (1994) has noted ‘in the real world, there is no

way to measure the amount of patronage’ (Geddes 1994: 3). As a result, scholars

(O’Dwyer 2004; Grzymyla-Busse 2003; Kopecky 2006) often employ proxy indicators to

measure the level of patronage, such as (1) growth in the size of state administration, (2)

changes in budget allocations and (3) indexes of corruption, among others.

Year ‘90 ‘91 ‘92 ‘93 ‘94 ‘95 ‘96 ‘97 ‘98 ‘99 ‘00 ‘01 ‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07

RO PC PC PC PC PC PC L L L L L PC PC PC PC L L L

CSR A A A I I I I I I

BG PC L L L L PC PC PC L L L L L PCC PCC PCC PCC PCC

CSR A A A A A I I I I I I I I I

Table 7.3: Overview 69 Post-Communist Party versus Liberal Party

The Table 7.3 provides a comparative overview of the civil service reform

adoption and implementation processes in Romania and Bulgaria. It indicates quite

69 “L” (Liberal Party), “PC” (Post-Communist Party), “A” (Civil Service Reform Adaption) , “I” (Civil service Reform Law Implementation Starts), PCC (Post-Communist in Coalition).

171 clearly that civil service reform law adoption, contrasted with implementation, started

earlier in Bulgaria as a response to the liberal political party in power in 1991. This table

underlies the overall argument of this chapter that a liberal political party in power

correlates to the first civil service reform adoption process. But once civil service reform

started in Bulgaria and Romania, the return to power of the post-communist party has

little or no negative impact on the civil service reform process; it might prolong a full

implementation state, but the over reform process is not hindered or reversed.

In the Bulgarian case, even with the Bulgarian Socialist Party coming back to

power in 2002/2003, it had no adverse impact on the civil service implementation process

that started in 1999. Overall, civil service reform adoption started in 1994, and developed

more progressively 1999 onwards.

In the Romanian case, the civil service reform law was adopted only in 1999, when the first liberal political party (Constantinescu) came to power. Despite the post- communist party regaining power in 2000, they were unable to reverse the adoption process. In fact, it was in 2002 that the first significant steps of civil service reform implementation took place.

7.4 POLITICAL PARTISANSHIP: QUALITY OF GOVERNANCE

The argument can be made that those ministries that experience a faster implementation of political progress are also the ones where there is a higher replacement of the ‘old nomenklatura ’. When the post-communist leader remains in power (as Iliescu

did), the post-communist party continues to extract resources from the state and thus

build in advantages for itself. 172 In this context, the question arises under which circumstances the post-communist

party will have a positive impact on the quality of the political process, and on the overall

quality of democracy? Here, the argument could be made that when post-communist

political parties are in power, especially ‘statism’, ‘centralism’, and ‘political clientelism’

tend to appear as the most ‘expedient means’ of achieving its goals. Furthermore, this

research states that when post-communist parties are in power, the extent of political

progress, such as civil service law implementation and support of administrative change,

appears slower than when liberal political parties are in power.

Here the two-country comparison of Romania and Bulgaria shows that Romania’s

transition from a governing post-communist party to a liberal political party occurred

much later in time than in Bulgaria, because there was a delayed initiation and slower

implementation of civil service reform in Romania.

It can be said for Eastern Europe in general that a tendency for strong support for the post-communist party can be found. In a five case comparison, the Lazarsfeld society

(2001), for example, found that the percentage of people viewing the former communist regimes favorably is higher in Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Romania than in the

Czech Republic and Poland throughout the 1990’s. Generally, democracy is favored more than the previous regime, with the only exception being Hungary. Lazarsfeld (2001) links the strong support for the post-communist part to the negative effects of economic transition, and argues against the argument that the degree of acceptance of reform in civil society can predominantly be linked to citizen’s support for the old regime.

173 7.5 CONCLUSION

Examining the cases of Romania and Bulgaria allows for testing whether a post- communist party in power matters for successful initiation or implementation process.

Investigating the empirics, the late switch from a post-communist party to a liberal party could explain the late initiation effort of civil service reform. Yet, the rather unsuccessful implementation experience in Romania cannot be entirely explained by political orientation of the government. Romania has experienced a liberal political party

(Basescu) since 2004, and the switch from the post-communist party (Iliescu) to the liberal party (Basescu) in 2004 resulted in no major improvement with regard to the implementation process. Even though the Civil Service Law was improved considerably, the implementation process did not show significant signs of change, at least not as much as expected by the EU.

The same argument, in reverse, holds for the Bulgarian case. With the Bulgarian

Socialist Party coming back to power in 2005 in a coalition government, the findings of this study do not find a decline of the implementation process since 2005.

Civil service reform implementation shows a different pattern than does the overall democratization process. While overall democratization as measured by the

Freedom House index showed a decline after the return of the Iliescu party (PSD) in

Romania, the success of civil service reform or the lack thereof was largely unaffected by the return of the Iliescu party as well as by the subsequent reemergence of the liberal party in government. This difference in pattern is confirmed when comparing the

Romanian to the Bulgarian case.

174 The comparison between Romania and Bulgaria, with respect to the type of political party in power, reveals that a major point of divergence occurs in the timing of civil service reform initiation, which occurred earlier in Bulgaria than in Romania, and which could be attributed to the early switch from the post-communist party to the liberal party. This study confirms Hypothesis 3.1. The success of implementation, on the other hand, appears to be largely unaffected by the type of political party in power, so that

Hypothesis 3.2 is rejected.

175 CHAPTER 8

CONCLUSION: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE QUALITY OF GOVERNANCE

8.1 Introduction

In the context of civil service, good governance is achieved by the fullest implementation of reform in order to attain maximal administrative capacity, for impartial, transparent and expedient discharge of bureaucratic duties as required by law.

Of course, there are other aspects of good governance, for example, rule of law as constrained by jurisdiction rather than arbitrariness with respect to legislative procedures, which is included in the list of The World Bank (2004) Governance Indicators, as mentioned in Chapter 1. The focus here, though, is exclusively on enhancement of administrative capacity, as it derives from civil service reform. In this particular sense, the specific reference here is to the improvement in the quality of governance in Romania from 1990 to date.

This chapter is structured, in sequence, by spelling out the specific empirical

findings, and general theoretical conclusions including avenues for future research.

176 8.2 EMPIRICAL FINDINGS

8.2.1 Administrative Capacity and Romania’s Struggle for Better Governance

The years between 2003 and 2006 were marred by obstacles that proved to be obstacles to European accession, because of poor policy-making capacity and poor administration of implementation. Neither the incumbent nor the opposition parties were efficient at proposing strategies, which explains why EU’s negotiations with Romania slowed down. The Romanian Academic Society has argued that there was greater reliance on ordinances because of the parliament’s ineffectiveness. Due to the large number of MP’s, only a small number of leaders had access to the representatives of the international community which was one cause of ineffectiveness. As shown in Chapter 6, bureaucrats especially in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had the greatest access to the international community, followed only by the Ministry of European Integration which, by its very constitutive nature, was effectively a bridge between the EU and the

Romanian government. Only a small number of policy materials were produced to promote reform and hence speed up the process of integration. A low level of administrative capacity and its impact on the relatively poor quality of governance was the consequence.

What is known as the ‘dead law’ situation in Latin America appears to have arisen in several Eastern European countries, where the laws are on the books, but simply not implemented. In fact, of all 2004 and 2007 accession countries, only Hungary and

Estonia fully implemented civil service reform laws. Romania is no exception to this rule, where many EU-induced laws that were enacted remain dead.

177 For example, according to the law, Romanians must put cans in the can bin and the paper in the paper bin, but there is an administrative failure in that the government fails to enforce the measure, and vast numbers of Romanians, including the bureaucrats, persist in not sorting their trash. In the realm of administrative capacity, the question arises as to how far Romania is from the Weberian ideal? Indications are that Romania is still quite far from it, in that the bureaucratic administration is still not ‘capable of attaining the highest degree of efficiency and is, in this sense, formally the most rational known means of carrying out imperative control over human beings’ (Weber 1947: 337).

The extent of administrative capacity can also be judged by examining the extent of implementation of The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), as presented in Chapter 4.

The FOIA was passed in 2001, but again the question arises whether the law was actually implemented. In 2004 the Romanian Academic Society surveyed 500 public institutions from 96 localities, and checked how the main requirements of the law were fulfilled in the legal timeframe. FOIA requires that access to public information by public authorities should be granted on request. Implementation is considerably lower in rural areas than in urban areas. The survey reveals that the level of compliance with FOIA decreases in cities with less than 100,000 population, and drops seriously in rural areas. With regard to the FOIA law requirement that ‘each institution must produce and make available ex officio a list of documents of public interest’, the survey shows that the list was available in far fewer institutions (about a third of the total). Also interviews conducted in the

Ministry of Agriculture and Education show that on average only 16% of the bureaucrats could actually show the list of public documents.

178 The problem of implementing the FOIA is only one out of numerous, though very

significant, cases and as such an illustrative example of the extremely limited administrative capacity in Romania. Indeed, in 2004, and again two years later, more than

80% of the total agencies failed to meet the level of required implementation.

8.3 FINDINGS: INITIAL CHARACTERISTICS, EXTERNAL MONITORING AND POLTIICAL PARTISANSHIP

To summarize the empirical findings, it should be noted that, with respect to the initial characteristics of a ministry, the Ministry of Education shows greater scope for obstruction of reform than the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This is due to a lower pre- reform turnover rate and a greater number of personnel in the ministry along with greater decentralization. Moreover, turnover at the Ministry of Agriculture was extremely low, and was also unaffected by early attempts to lay off high-ranked administrators, a phenomenon observed in other ministries such as the Ministry of Education. Effectively, it is only in the case of political civil servants, whose appointment is directly linked to the government in power, where there is any significant turnover due to change of the incumbent party. Further, the indicators of the initial characteristics of the ministry, such as pre-reform turnover, personnel number and decentralization show considerable variation among the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Education, Agriculture and European

Integration.

With regard to external monitoring, this research finds that EU monitoring and EU conditionality had a positive impact on civil service reform implementation progress. For example, due to the consistent EU-funded training sessions with the emphasis on

179 professionalizing and depoliticizing the civil service bureaucracy, both the Ministries of

Foreign Affairs and of European Integration became more transparent with regard to their interaction with political civil servants than in the cases of the Ministries of Education and of Agriculture.

In the context of political partisanship, this research finds that in comparing

Romania and Bulgaria, the major point of divergence is the timing of civil service reform initiation, which occurred earlier in Bulgaria than in Romania and which is attributable to the earlier switch from the post-communist party to the liberal party. Unlike initiation of reform, the claim of implementation being influenced by political partisanship is soundly rejected.

8.4 THEORETICAL CONCLUSIONS

There are some broad, general conclusions than can also be derived from the empirical findings of the examination of the process of civil service reform, and thus its determinants for the improvement in the quality of governance in Romania.

Every East European country comes with its initial conditions, including those that pertain to its bureaucratic structure. All socio-economic and political systems have some characteristics of inertia, and this character is what keeps the systems from undergoing rapid change of the bureaucratic structure. Eastern Europe has, however, experienced radical change as a consequence of the collapse of communism in Europe.

There are powerful forces in existence in each of these countries that tend to resist reform, and, at the same time, there are forces that favor reform. No bureaucracy is

180 completely independent of capture from politicians or from civil society actors – it is merely a matter of degrees of independence.

But reform in the post-transition period is inevitable. In a newly established democracy, the citizenry demands it, and as the process of democratization progresses in these countries, the politicians have to comply. The bureaucrats thus have to change the manner of conducting administrative tasks with greater transparency and impartiality than they were accustomed to, even though they are subject to capture from both politicians and civil society actors.

In addition to the demands by the citizenry for administrative reform, during democratization, undertaken to improve the quality of governance, Eastern European countries have the unique feature that they would rather identify with, and belong to, the club of ‘modern and rich’ Western European members, which are called the European

Union. For it would be a loss to be disassociated from the Center, the EU, and be around the periphery, as is currently the case with Albania or Moldova. This is purely an issue of identification with those countries that are regarded as ‘successful’ rather than being identified with the ‘unsuccessful’. This reflects a force for administrative reform from within the Eastern European countries.

The second significant force for civil service reform, and improvement in the quality of governance, comes from EU’s desire to include its Eastern neighbors into a greater union, so to expand its EU’s political and economic power, and to reduce the incidence of conflict in the region. This is an external force that comes from abroard and that also seeks to bring about civil service reform, and thereby improvement in the quality of governance. These two powerful forces interact to determine the final outcome with 181 respect to the extent of civil service reform. There are those actors who have an incentive

to reform, and will push for it, while those who stand to lose from it will resist it.

So, what has been learned? In the context of civil service reform, the overall implementation process can be compared to the driver-car example, as explained earlier.

If the car represents a ministry, and the political party in power is the driver, then merely changing drivers does not make the car more efficient, nor does it improve the quality of its environment, where the environment represents the administrative system, in which the car is driven. An additional, external push, however, such as from the EU, and the capability or characteristic of the car to accept new parts, as in the initial conditions of the ministry, is precisely what determines the extent of civil service reform.

8.5 FUTURE RESEARCH AVENUE

What next? Time period 2007 to 2013

What can be said about Romania’s EU monitoring process, which continues after

January 2007, in spite of the fact that Romania has joined the European Union? EU

conditionality made itself felt in the post-accession period with specific requirements

among which administrative capacity presents one main component. The ‘2007-2013

National Strategic Reference Framework Project’ 70 describes the priorities of the

70 ‘DRAFT ORDINANCE for the amendment and completion of the Government Ordinance no. 79 from August 28, 2003 on the control and recovery of EU funds, as well as of the related co-financing funds, inappropriately used. The normative act expands the control and recovery mechanism to structural and national co-financing funds too. These new regulations aim at the correct use of European funds. If, at the final evaluation of Operational Programmes, which the European Commission makes at the end of budgetary period, irregularities are being noticed in funds’ allocation, the invested sums, non- compliant 182 National Development Plan and the development priorities at European level. For

example, this plan shows that over the 2007-2013 period, Romania will benefit from

financial support by the EU amounting to about 19.7 billion EUR, ‘only from Structural

and Cohesion Funds, with a view to reducing the development gaps separating it from the

old EU member states’ (Government Ordinance 2003: No. 79). The ‘Sectoral Operational

Programs Projects’ (SOPP), concentrating on transports, human resources development,

technical assistance, and environment, will continue to operate with special emphasis on

‘rehabilitation and development of transport and environment infrastructure, regional

development, boost of administrative capacity, including the one relative to EU funds

management, and human resources development’ (Government Ordinance 2003: No. 79).

The Romanian Press release of January 31, 2007 indicates quite clearly that the main

focus lies on the civil service bureaucracy, which has not been fully reformed until the

EU entry in January 2007. Here, the SOPP concentrates directly on the ‘rise of salaries of

some budgetary 71 personnel categories’ especially for the teaching and contractual

personnel, and civil servants with special status from the penitentiary administration

system.

Moreover, in order to enhance and continue EU-funded assistance in the post-

accession time, the SOPP includes specific criteria on the regulation and clarification of

with European rules will have to be returned by Romania to Commission’ (Press Release, Romanian Government, January 31, 2007). 71 ‘On January 17, 2007, the Government approved a memorandum by which, in 2007, the salary increments for the budgetary sector personnel will be granted in a differentiated way on personnel categories, in three phases. The first phase would be enforced as of January, the second in April, and the third in October. For it to take effect, there should be promoted normative acts according to procedures, on salary increments for all budgetary sector employees’ categories. On last week’s meeting, two ordinances on the civil servants and legal auxiliary personnel’s salaries were passed’ (Press Release, Romanian Government, January 31, 2007). 183 the institutional circuit of the EU non-refundable financial assistance management. Here,

the main goal is to avoid dysfunctions in the implementation process. With regard to the

‘quality of the personnel’ itself, special attention is paid to the continuation of the

Government Ordinance No. 65/1994, which focuses on the organization of the activity of

accountable expertise and authorized accountants. 72 Hence, those SOPP criteria show quite clearly that the EU is directly targeting the administrative system that has been neglected during the main fulfillment of the Copenhagen Criteria and other accession criteria. However, while special focus is on specific areas in the administrative sector, such as the penitentiary system, or the local-level government, very little attention has been paid to administrative adjustments at the level of ministerial bureaucracy.

In conclusion, it can be said that it would be challenging to examine whether EU’s proposed recommendation to Romania in the post-2007 period with regard to the continuing effort to implement civil service reform will be successfully fulfilled. Among the suggested recommendations is that a legal framework, which governs the civil service, needs to be amended in order to provide the legal basis for a professional civil service. The European Union stresses the point that that a new legal framework needs to be coupled with a central management capacity, endowed with sufficient authority and resources to implement the law and common standards. In this regard it would be challenging to compare the Romanian case to other EU accession states, such as Poland and Hungary, and to determine why the speed and success rate they were able to achieve

72 ‘The access to the accounting expert profession will not be conditioned by the length in specialty as one of the amendments of the normative act stipulates. The length in specialty conditionality is removed since a three year probation period is needed further to the access exam’ (Press Release, Romanian Government, January 31, 2007). 184 in meeting EU recommendations, once they entered the EU was much faster than the

Romanian experience has exhibited today.

185

APPENDIX A

Overview of Romania’s and Bulgaria’s EU integration development

186

Bulgaria Romania

The European Council recalled that all of The European Council noted with the satisfaction the outstanding chapters in the accession that progress made by Romania in implementing the negotiations with Bulgaria had been acquis and commitments entered into as regards, in provisionally closed earlier in 2004. it welcomed particular, Justice and Home Affairs and Competition, the successful completion of these negotiations has made it possible to close formally all of the with Bulgaria on 14 December 2004 and outstanding chapters with the candidate on 14 accordingly looked forward to welcoming it as a December 2004 and accordingly looked forward to member from January 2007. welcoming it as a potential member from January 2007. Taking due note of the relevant assessments and recommendations by the Taking due note of the relevant assessments and Commission, the European Council considered recommendations by the Commission, the European that Bulgaria will be able to assume all the Council considered that Romania will be able to obligations of membership at the envisaged time assume all the obligations of membership at the of its accession, provided that it continues its envisaged time of its accession, provided that it efforts to that end and completes in a successful continues its efforts to that end and completes in a and timely way all necessary reforms and successful and timely way all necessary reforms and commitments undertaken in all areas of the commitments undertaken in all areas of the acquis, in acquis. Safeguard clauses will provide for particular the important commitments regarding Justice measures to address serious problems that may and Home Affairs, Competition and Environment. arise before accession or in the three years after Safeguard clauses will provide for measures to address accession. serious problems that may arise before accession or in the three years after accession, in particular in the areas The European Union will continue to of Justice and Home Affairs and Competition as well monitor closely Bulgaria’s preparations and as Environment. achievements, including the effective implementation of the commitments undertaken The European Union will continue to monitor in all areas of the acquis and in particular Justice closely Romania’s preparations and achievements, and Home Affairs; to this end the Commission including the effective implementation of the will continue to submit annual reports on commitments undertaken in all areas of the acquis and Bulgaria’s progress towards accession, together in particular Justice and Home Affairs, Competition with recommendations if appropriate. and Environment; to this end the Commission will continue to submit annual reports on Romania’s Anticipating the successful completion by progress towards accession, together with Bulgaria of its preparations for accession to the recommendations if appropriate. Union, the European Council called for the finalization of the Accession Treaty with Anticipating the successful completion by Bulgaria and Romania with a view to its signing Romania of its preparations for accession to the Union, in April 2005 on the occasion of the meeting of the European Council called for the finalization of the the General Affairs and External Relations Accession Treaty with Bulgaria and Romania with a Council, provided the European Parliament has view to its signing in April 2005 on the occasion of the given its assent. meeting of the General Affairs and External Relations Council, provided the European Parliament has given its assent.

Table A1.Overview of Romania’s and Bulgaria’s EU integration process

187

APPENDIX B

Overview of Romania’s Civil Service Reform Development

188

Year Law Description/Content

Labor Law 83/1995 Declaration and control of assets of “dignitaries” (basically elected 1995 politicians), magistrates, public servants and persons in “leadership positions”

Law 80/1995 1995 (Status of military Legal provisions defining the status of military staff personnel)

Law 133/1995 Civil servants social package: regarding a weekly break, paid leave and other 1995 holidays

An Anti-Corruption Law...on the obligation of public officials to declare their 1996 Law 115/1996 personal wealth.

1996 Law 90/1996 Labor protection

Law 128/1997 (Public 1997 Legal provisions defining the status of teaching staff Education Employees) Law 65/1997 and UGO Regarding social protection of unemployed workers and their professional 1997 9/1997 reinstatement Law 199/1997 1997 Regulates the Public Administrations sector 1997 UGO no.35/1997 Social protection of unemployed workers Retirement pay of state social insurance, Social 1997 Law 86/1997 Assistance Approval of the methodology for establishing Law (GD) 775/1998 1998 basic pay limitations and for the evaluation of individual professional

performances of public servants sets training Law 189/1998 (Local Regulates the Public Administrations 1998 Public Finance) Sector, Regulates local public finances Department for Central Public Administration Reform (preparation, co- 1998 Law (GD) 976/1998 ordination, organization and evaluation of strategies for administrative reform) Law 16/1998 Status of 1998 Legal provisions defining the status of Customs Staff customs staff Law154/1998 Articles 2 1998 Basic pay within the budgetary sector and the indemnity pay of persons and 3 Equalization Grants System of financial transfers set to ensure that all local governments have a 1998 System (1998-1999) minimum of resources to perform their basic functions First civil service law, (merit-based), anti-corruption law, and legal provisions 1999 La 115/1999 defining the status of public servants 2001 Law 544/2001 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2002 Ordinance 05/2002 Merit-based system, and hiring criteria 2003 INA 2003 Report Mandatory training sessions for civil servants Law 161/2003 (New Civil 2003 Amendment to Law 188/1999. Merit system regulation. Service Law) Screening incumbents in posts classified as civil service 2003 Order 218/2003 Positions 2004 Law 07/2004 Applying Law 166/2003 to both civil servants and politicians

Table A2. Overview of Romania’s Civil Service Reform Development

189

APPENDIX C

World Governance Indicators (World Bank 2004)

190

Country/ Year CLJF CO GOV IM CS EP Average

Romania 1997 4.25 N/A 4.25 4.25 3.75 3.25 3.95

Bulgaria 1997 4.25 N/A 4.25 3.75 4.0 3.25 3.9

Romania 1998 4.25 N/A 4.00 4.00 3.75 3.25 3.85

Bulgaria 1998 3.75 N/A 4.00 3.5 3.75 2.75 3.55

Romania 99-00 4.25 4.25 3.5 3,5 3.0 2.75 3.54

Bulgaria 99-00 3.5 4.75 3.75 3.5 3.75 2.25 3.58

Romania 2001 4.25 4.5 3.75 3.5 3,0 3 3.66

Bulgaria 2001 3.5 4.75 3.5 3.25 3,5 2 3.45

Romania 2002 4.25 4.75 3.75 3.5 3,0 3 3.70

Bulgaria 2002 3.5 4.5 3.5 3.25 3.25 2 3.66

Romania 2003 4.25 4.5 3.75 2.75 2.75 2.75 3.45

Bulgaria 2003 3.5 4.25 3.75 3.5 3.25 2 3.37

Romania 2004 4.25 4.5 3.75 2.5 2.5 2.75 3.37

Bulgaria 2004 3.25 4.25 3.75 3.5 3.0 1.75 3.25

Table A3. World Governance Indicators (World Bank 2004).

191

APPENDIX D

Freedom House Score 1990-2001 in Romania and Bulgaria

192

Year Bulgaria Romania Political Civil Political Civil 1989-90 7 7 7 7

1990-91 3 4 6 5

1991-92 2 3 5 5

1992-93 2 2 4 4

1993-94 2 3 2 3

1994-95 2 3 2 2

1995-96 2 3 2 2

1996-97 2 3 2 2

1997-98 2 3 2 2

1998-99 2 3 2 2

1999-00 2 3 2 2

2000-01 2 3 2 2

2001-02 2 3 2 2

2002-03 2 3 2 2

2003-04 2 3 3 2

Table A4. Freedom House Score 1990-2001 in Romania and Bulgaria

193

APPENDIX E

Interview list and Code

194

I: Interview

S: Survey

Q: Questionnaire

MA: Ministry of Agriculture

MEDU: Ministry of Education

MFA: Ministry of Foreign Affairs

MEI: Ministry of European Integration

Code (sample) I/MA/10/06/2004: Interview conducted with bureaucrat in the Ministry of Agriculture on October 6 th , 2004.

195

APPENDIX F

Questionnaire (Sample Sheet)

196

1. Please provide a brief overview of the staff in your Ministry. (date 2006/2007) How many civil servants are staffed in your Ministry? How many ‘political appointees’ are appointed to your Ministry? What are the main hiring/firing criteria for civil servants? Where can this information be found/accessed?

2. What major public administrative reforms occurred in the previous 1-2 years (2005/2006) in the Ministry of European Integration, as a major milestone for EU entry?

3. Where there any significant adjustments/reforms in the area of civil service/public administration in your Ministry?

4. Please provide relevant sources/information about the autonomy of the Ministry of European Integration from political institutions. How would you describe the relationship between your Ministry and the political machinery? (any specific information would be appreciated)

5. Please provide relevant sources/information about the autonomy of the Ministry of European Integration from civil society members. How would you describe the relationship between your Ministry and civil society groups, e.g. business associations, media associations or NGO’s? (any specific information would be appreciated)

197

APPENDIX G

Interview with bureaucrats (Sample Sheet)

198

In-depth Interview (Sample): 1. High-level Bureaucrat at the Ministry of European Integration: September 2006, and February 2007) –Questionnaire A.1.

Answer # 1. Within the Ministry of European Integration there are 411 civil servants positions out of which: 327 – occupied positions, 61- vacancies and 23- temporary vacancies).

In the present there are two main political appointees– the Minister and a State Secretary (also there is one unfilled State Secretary position, to be appointed in the following month). Each high-level political appointee has its own cabinet, formed by persons employed on contractual basis (currently 6 persons are working within the two cabinets).

The recruitment and selection process of civil servants is governed by Law 188/1999 republished and the Government Decision 1209/2003. According to the provisions of Law 188/1999 republished, a civil servant position can be occupied through: promotion, transfer, reallocation, recruitment

Concerning the recruitment process , in order to be assigned a position of civil servant within the ministry or any other public institution, the candidate must promote a selection contest . For that, the potential candidate must comply with specific conditions and eligibility criteria, established by the provisions of art. 50 and art. 51 of Law no.188/1999 republished. In addition other conditions may be established, according to the job description requirements (eg. good knowledge of English). All this information, accompanied by the topics and the relevant bibliography for the contest, is published in an announcement for contest : • in the Official Journal of Romania, part. III • on the MEI web site and at the Ministry headquarters

The contest announcement includes the following information: • information concerning the vacancy, and time and place of the contest • the specific conditions and the selection criteria • types of examinations (written examination, interview, practical tests); • place and deadline for submission of application files • content of the application file: application form, supporting documents • contact address and telephone numbers of the Ministry

The selection contest consists of 3 phases : • Administrative compliance and eligibility check • Written examination (language, knowledge, other relevant tests by case) • Interview

199

The firing procedure and criteria regarding civil servants is established by Law 188/1999 republished. This law specifies the conditions and the means that applies to the situation in which a civil servant is no longer employee of the public institution, in our case a Ministry: • by the effect of law (eg. complying with the pensions criteria established by the law of pensions) • by written agreement of the employer and the employee • by dismissal/firing • by resignation.

Answer # 2. In December 2004 the accession negotiations were closed and in April 2005 the Accession Treaty was signed. In this context, a part of the functions of the Ministry of European Integration has changed and there was a need for redefining role of Ministry of European Integration. For that, the Ministry was reorganized trough Government Decision 243/2006. As a consequence of the reorganisation of the Ministry, new structures and departments were created: • Managing Authority for the Regional Operational Programme • National Support Unit for Interreg Programme • Managing Authority for the New Neighbourhood Instrument • Cross border Cooperation Regional Offices • Territorial Units of Ministry of European Integration

The role and responsibilities of the counsellors for European integration, employees of Ministry of European Integration, was adjusted to the needs of the reform of the public administration by Emergency Government Ordinance 106/2006. According to the provisions of this normative act, the counsellors for European integration became counsellors for European affairs and there were transferred to the public institutions in which they currently perform their activity. In December 2006, a change in the internal structure of the Ministry took place, by transferring the personnel of two departments of MEI (General Directorate Evaluation and Accession Preparation and General Directorate Harmonization with the Aquis Communitaire) to a new institutional structure created under the subordination of the Prime Minister- the Department for European Affairs, dealing with coordination, at national level, of the European affairs.

Answer # 3.

In order to increase the administrative capacity and to ensure the necessary personnel to manage the European funds allocated to Romania, according to the provisions of Emergency Government Ordinance 1/2006, a number of 152 civil servants positions were allocated to Ministry of European Integration for which the Ministry organized selection contests. 200

For increasing the financial motivation of the civil servants directly involved in managing European funds, their salaries were increased with a percentage of 75%, in accordance with the procedure and the rules established by Government Decision 170/2005. A significant step in implementing the administrative reform at the MEI level consists in hiring public managers, which are civil servants with special status, whose responsibilities involve elaborating strategies, policies and internal procedures in order to improve the institutional management and increase the administrative capacity of the Ministry.

Answer # 4.

The Ministry of European Integration is part of the Romanian Government, but it is run by a political person. The Minister is a political person and he/she acts as such. For the attribution of the Ministry of European Integration and detailed information, please refer to the following address: http://www.mie.ro/index.php?p=69

Answer # 5.

One of the major attributions of this Ministry was to communicate to citizens EU issues in a critical period: final steps on the road to accession to the EU. At the beginning of the current minister’s mandate, representatives of the main NGOs were invited for a debate on how to communicate Europe to Romanians. From the beginning, we have understood that our communication effort would be incomplete without the NGO input. Thus, whenever a new segment of the whole communication campaign was developed, we tried (and usually succeeded) to involve civil society organizations, be it NGOs, media groups or the business community. To give u a specific example: small scale corruption was a highlight in the monitoring reports Romania received from the EU commission. Thus, we decided that one way to tackle this issue would be through an information and awareness raising campaign. The partnership in this less-conventional communication effort ranged from three main ministries (EU Integration, Justice and Home Affairs), to youth NGOs, legal firms, advocacy groups and even an underground hip hoper

201

APPENDIX H

Romanian Adjustment Program (PAL 1 to PAL 3)

202

Objective PAL 1 PAL 2 PAL 3 Desired Outcome I. CORE PUBLIC SECTOR I.2 Civil Service Develop a (1)ANFP mobilizes (1) Government (1) Achievement of (1) A more professional, stable, technical assistance finalizes agreement the PAL2-agreed meritocratic, transparent, unbiased to priorities CSR with the Bank on a percentage of core depoliticized civil and efficient civil indicators agreed core set of civil service service service. with the Bank and monitoring indicators management identify the systems and the percentage of monitoring and resources those indicators that indicators. required to collect must show (2) Adoption of the data and provide improvement by amendments to the quarterly and annual PAL 3. Civil Servants Law monitoring reports. (2) CS management (CS Law), information reporting satisfactory to the systems established. Bank, reflecting findings of the review of the CS implementation. Enhance pay and (1) Launch of (1)Adoption and (1) Achievement of (1)Fiscal employment comprehensive launch of PAL3 milestones for sustainability of the management review of pay, implementation of a implementation of wage bill effectiveness and grading and 4-7 year pay and pay, grading and (2) Attractiveness of increase employment employment employment CS career transparency. management within management reform management reform the central strategy acceptable plan. (3) Transparency in administration. to the Bank, which salary setting addresses, inter alia, restructuring of CS salaries. (2) Law on CS Salary Setting acceptable to the Bank forwarded to Parliament

Table A5. Romanian Adjustment Program (PAL 1 to PAL 3)

203

APPENDIX I

Overview Individual Ministry: Ministry of Foreign Affairs (A1/S/328)

(Sample Sheet)

204

The budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is administrated by the Department of Logistic and Financial management. The value of the budget was between 2001 and 2004 as following:

Year Budget MFA (Billions – lei Percentage from the state – Romanian currency) budget 2001 1 935 0.85% 2002 2 600 0.87% 2003 2 842 0.86% 2004 3 226 0.90%

Regarding your question about the complaints on hierarchical level, within the MFA, for solving possible problems, public servants have to address firstly directly the hierarchical superior.

Regarding the institutionalized strategy of reform, we mention that MFA has constantly followed its adaptation to the new requirements and priorities of the Romanian foreign policy. Therefore, MFA adapted its structure and activity to the priorities of Romania in its effort of joining NATO and EU.

There were set up within MFA new departments specialized in areas, which correspond to the guiding principles of our foreign policy; also, the personnel of this institution was renewed in proportion of over 95%.

MFA continues now the implementation of its reform strategy, taking into account the new requirements and challenges: ••• Strengthening Romania’s missions near EU and NATO; ••• Strengthening Romania’s missions in conflict and post-conflict areas (e.g. Iraq); ••• Extending the cooperation within the European Council and UN, by supporting the democratic processes in Romania, the consolidation of the state and the respect of the fundamental human rights; ••• Strengthening the consular activity, by opening new consulates, introducing the visa- online system, extending the area of activity of the consulates for a better approach to the problems that Romanian citizens have abroad in the context of the Schengen facilities; ••• The extending of the economic cooperation by a more intense participation of Romania to the activities of the international economic organizations • Regarding the number of the employees that have work contracts with the MFA signed before 1989, we communicate you there are still 300 employees in this situation.

205

APPENDIX J

Chronology of Romania –EU relations

(Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

206

February 1, Signing of the Agreement for Romania’s Association to the European Union 1993 (European Agreement) February 1, Coming in force of the EU Association Agreement (European Agreement) 1995 June 1995 Romania presents the official application for EU membership July 1997 The European Commission presents the "Opinion on Romania’s official application for membership" November The European Commission presents the first Report on Romania’s progress 1998 towards the fulfillment of accession criteria December The European Council in Helsinki decides to open accession negotiations with 1999 Romania (alongside six other candidate states) February The Romania-EU Intergovernmental Conference. The negotiation process of 2000 Romania’s accession to the European Union is launched officially December The European Council in Copenhagen expresses support for the objective of 2002 Romania’s EU accession in 2007 June 2003 The European Council in Thessaloniki expresses support for the close of Romania’s accession negotiations in 2004 December The European Council in Brussels establishes the schedule for Romania’s 2003 accession to the European Union – completion of negotiations in 2004, signing of the Accession Treaty as soon as possible in 2005 and effective accession to the European Union in January 2007. In its conclusions, the European Council asserts that Romania and Bulgaria’s accession represents the common goal of the European Union with 25 members. For the first time, a document of the European Council states the objective of signing the Common accession Treaty with Romania and Bulgaria in 2005, as well as the European Union’s support for this plan. June 2004 The European Council in Brussels reconfirms Romania’s accession schedule in the intervals marked by the 2004-2005-2007 milestones October On October 6, 2004, the European Commission presents the annual report on 2004 Romania for 2004, as well as the Strategy Document concerning the perspectives of the enlargement process. December Concluding of accession negotiations from the technical point of view within the 14, 2004 Ministerial Accession Conference December The Brussels European Council (16-17 December 2004) confirms the 2004 conclusion of accession negotiations with Romania and reaffirms the accession timetable: April 2005 – Signing the Accession Treaty; 1st January 2007 – EU accession. April 13, Romania receives the Assent of the European Parliament for the signing of 2005 the Accession Treaty. According to the procedure (art. 49 TEU), the European democratic forum has voted on 13th April in the plenary session, on the basis of the Progress Report initiated by the EP rapporteur for Romania, Pierre Moscovici. The result of the vote in plenary was: assent – 497 votes for, 93 against and 71 abstentions. Moscovici report: 564 vote for, 59 against and 41 abstentions. April 25, Signing in Luxemburg of the Accession Treaty to the European Union of 2005 Romania and Bulgaria,

Continued

Table A6. Chronology of Romania-EU Relation.

207

Table A6 continued

June 16-17, First European Council in which Romania participates in her new capacity as 2005 observer June 21, Ratification of the Accession Treaty by Slovakia 2005 September Ratification of the Accession Treaty by Hungary 26, 2005 September Ratification of the Accession Treaty by Slovenia 29, 2005 October 25, European Commission issues the Comprehensive Monitoring Report on 2005 Romania, together with the Composite Paper for Romania and Bulgaria. The documents confirm the important progress in the internal preparation and indicate the measures to be undertaken in order to enable accession on the 1st January 2007 October 27, Ratification of the Accession Treaty by the Republic of Cyprus 2005 November 2, Ratification of the Accession Treaty by Greece 2005 November Ratification of the Accession Treaty by Estonia 16, 2005 December 6, Ratification of the Accession Treaty by the Czech Republic 2005 December Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by Spain 14, 2005 January Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by Malta 24, 2006 January Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by Latvia 26, 2006 February 16, Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by United Kingdom 2006 March 8, Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by Portugal 2006 March 30, Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by Poland 2006 May 9, 2006 Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by Sweden May 11, 2006 Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by Austria May 16, 2006 European Commission issues the Monitoring Report on Romania and Bulgaria. June 13, Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by the Netherlands 2006 June 19, Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by Finland 2006 June 21, Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by Ireland 2006

Continued

208

Table A6 continued

June 29, Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by Luxemburg 2006 September European Commission issues its last Monitoring Report on Romania and 26, 2006 Bulgaria, confirming January 1 st 2007 as the accession date for the two countries.

October 3, Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by France 2006 October 13, Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by Belgium 2006 March 30, Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by Lithuania 2006 November Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by Denmark 21, 2006 November Ratification of the Accession Treaty to the EU by Germany 24, 2006 December The European Council of 14-15 December in Brussells confirms the accession 2006 of Romania to the EU on 1st January 2007 January 1, Romania becomes full-fledged Member of the European Union 2007

209

APPENDIX K

Overview of the in-depth interviews and surveys conducted in each ministry

210

Level of Ministry of Ministry of Ministry of Ministry of Total bureaucracy Foreign European Education Agriculture Number of Affairs Integration Interviews per level of bureaucracy High-level 7 6 6 4 23 Medium-level 6 6 3 3 18 Low-level 3 2 5 1 11 Total Number 16 14 14 8 52 per ministry 2000-2006 Number of 20 20 20 20 Total survey number of submitted to surveys the ministry submitted: (anonymous) 80 2005/2006 Surveys 19 17 15 11 Total returned number of surveys received: 62

Table A7. Overview of the in-depth interviews and surveys conducted in each ministry.

Note : A total number of 52 in-depth interviews have been conducted as part of this research, in a time period between 2000 and 2006. The total number of interviews is highest among the high-level bureaucrats among all four ministries (N=23), and smallest among the low-level bureaucrats (N=11) among all four ministries. There is also variation in the number of interviews conducted among the ministries themselves, where a total of 16 interviews have been conducted in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; 14 each in the Ministries of European Integration and of Education; and 11 in the Ministry of Agriculture. In the case of Ministry of European Integration, a total of 34 interviews have been conducted, including those of political civil servants. During the interview, bureaucrats were asked to self-place into one of the following categories: (1) high- level; (2) medium-level; and (3) low-level bureaucrats. Bureaucrats were provided with a list of examples of bureaucratic positions. Examples of ‘high-level’ bureaucrats are: director general and assistant managers; examples of ‘medium-level’ bureaucrats are: computer analysts and assistant advisors; and examples of ‘low-level’ bureaucrats are: secretaries and temporary personnel. The self-placement of the bureaucrats is consistent with the existing categorization of the World Bank Research on State Administration in Eastern Europe (1994). 211

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