Politicization beyond the Merit-system Façade. The Intricate Relationship between Formal and Informal Institutions of the Senior Civil Service Systems in Central and Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that the role of informal institutions is central to understanding the politicization in Central and Eastern Europe generally and specifically in the formation of senior civil service (SCS) system. We focus on three diverse CEE countries in our analysis: Estonia, Hungary, and Slovakia. Our analysis is based on the framework elaborated by Helmke & Levitsky, of informal institutions and focuses on “competing” informal institution of discretionary power of politicians in personnel SCS decisions. We argue that turning to “substitutive” informal institutions was critical in forming professional SCS in Estonia while relying solely on formal institutions (i.e., law making) in Hungary and Slovakia evidently failed to create a professional formal SCS. We identify factors that in this region may promulgate professionalization. We also test the applicability of the Helmke Levitsky framework and suggest some ways to expand its applicability.

KEYWORDS:

• Politicization
• senior civil service
• discretionary decision-making
• Central and Eastern Europe
• informal institutions
• formal institutions

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.This article was accepted under the editorship of Ali Farazmand

Notes

1. Abbreviations used in the paper are as follows: CS – civil service, both as a body of civil servants and as a system of civil service, depending on the context; SCS senior civil service (both as a body and as a system); CEE – Central and Eastern Europe (in this paper the so-called post-communist countries that are members of the European Union); EU European Union.

2. This is manifested in the outcome of the selections. For instance, about one fifth of the SCS appointed in 2002 had less than five years’ experience in the public sector, including someone who had just finished university. About one tenth had no managerial experience. Based on self-reporting, the overwhelming majority of the SCS did not speak any foreign language above intermediate level. In 2002, 13% could not use any word-processor, 38% no spreadsheet, and 57% no presentation software. (Data obtained from the semi-public SCS database of the time.)

3. Handling change and dynamics is generally a challenge for neo-institutionalist analysis (Lowndes & Roberts, 2013a, pp. 111–116; Peters, 2019, pp. 211–212).

4. This type of effectiveness may be identical to Helmke and Levitsky’s usage of the term “efficiency.” However, they do not define what exactly they mean by that. In a much wider context (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2012) argue that inclusive institutions have a sustainable positive effect on societies’ welfare, whereas extractive institutions assure privileges for the elite irrespective of, or on the account of, the majority of the society. The latter may be quite incessant despite their negative overall effects. It is easy to identify non-merit CS practices such as nepotism, clientelism, and favoritism with extractive arrangements.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Nemzeti Kutatási, Fejlesztési és Innovaciós Alap [FK 129018]; Vedecká Grantová Agentúra MŠVVaŠ SR a SAV [V-19-027-00].