Aid-Supported Public Service Reform and Capacity Development in Post-Communist Albania

Abstract

The national politico-administrative context plays a significant role in the transfer of policy from international (aid) organizations to recipient countries. In this regard, this article attempts to identify and explain some of the intervening variables facilitating the relationship between two actors in the policy transfer process, donors and bureaucrats through the case of administrative reform and capacity development in post-communist Albania, focusing on recent years. Broadly and flexibly drawing on some of the theoretical underpinnings of Dolowitz and Marsh (1996)policy transfer conceptual framework as well as the Europeanization theory, the article seeks to provide a greater understanding of the respective roles of those actors and the dynamics of their interaction. Thus, through an analysis of the national political and bureaucratic context, reasons for non-transfer, i.e., perceived failure of administrative reform, are presented in light of the politics of EU accession and conditionality mechanisms used to incentivize the process.

Keywords:

• international aid
• administrative reform
• capacity building
• Albania

Notes

¹Instruments of Pre-Accession, EC Directorate General for Enlargement.

²Public Administration Reform Strategy.

³Support for Improvement in Government and Management (a joint EU-OECD initiative).

⁴Komisioni i Shërbimit Civil (Albanian translation).

⁵Official sources indicate that unemployment rate in Albania as of 2010 was 13.5 percent Source: Albanian Institute of Statistics (INSTAT).

⁶Integrated Planning System.