{"title":"\"Politicization of Public Administration in Romania and its Consequences for Governance in Turbulent Times\"","authors":"Liviu Radu, Bianca Veronica Radu","doi":"10.24193/tras.si2023.8","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The article aims to analyze the level of politicization of civil service in Romania, its goals, and consequences. We adopted a rather narrow perspective on politicization and we concentrated mainly on analyzing the recruitment, promotion, and dismissal of civil servants based on political criteria. The research findings were used to discuss the consequences of politicization on the governance of public institutions during turbulent times. In this regard, we conducted an email-based survey of the civil servants. The majority of the sample was composed of graduates of public administration programs at four major universities in Romania, who work in public institutions. We collected the data between May and November 2023 and we obtained 211 valid questionnaires. We found that appointments based on political criteria lower the work motivation of public employees, and increase the level of incompetence and instability of public institutions. The most affected are public employees in management positions, those who have longer work experience in the public sector, and those who work in public institutions that are part of central administration. Therefore, frequent changes based on political criteria lower the capacity of public institutions to respond to disruptive events by generating a loss of expertise, instability, and discontinuity in policy implementation. However, turbulent times require flexibility and adaptation to unexpected and unpredictable events, and political appointees might be more responsive and cooperative.","PeriodicalId":45832,"journal":{"name":"Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences","volume":"41 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.24193/tras.si2023.8","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The article aims to analyze the level of politicization of civil service in Romania, its goals, and consequences. We adopted a rather narrow perspective on politicization and we concentrated mainly on analyzing the recruitment, promotion, and dismissal of civil servants based on political criteria. The research findings were used to discuss the consequences of politicization on the governance of public institutions during turbulent times. In this regard, we conducted an email-based survey of the civil servants. The majority of the sample was composed of graduates of public administration programs at four major universities in Romania, who work in public institutions. We collected the data between May and November 2023 and we obtained 211 valid questionnaires. We found that appointments based on political criteria lower the work motivation of public employees, and increase the level of incompetence and instability of public institutions. The most affected are public employees in management positions, those who have longer work experience in the public sector, and those who work in public institutions that are part of central administration. Therefore, frequent changes based on political criteria lower the capacity of public institutions to respond to disruptive events by generating a loss of expertise, instability, and discontinuity in policy implementation. However, turbulent times require flexibility and adaptation to unexpected and unpredictable events, and political appointees might be more responsive and cooperative.
期刊介绍:
TRAS represents a collective effort initiated by an international group aimed at boosting the research in the field of public administration in a country where during the communist regime there was no tradition in this sense. TRAS represents a unique source of specialized analysis of the ex-communist space, of the transition processes to democracy, of the reform of public administration, and of comparative analysis of administrative systems. The general topic covered by the articles in the Review is administrative sciences. As a result of an interdisciplinary, modern approach, the articles cover the following specific themes: Public management, public policy, administrative law, public policy analysis, regional development, community development, public finances, urban planning, program evaluation in public administration, ethics, comparative administrative systems, etc. TRAS encourages the authors to submit articles that are based on empirical research. From the standpoint of the topic covered, TRAS is lined up with the trends followed by other international journals in the field of public administration. All articles submitted to the Transylvanian Review of Administrative Sciences have to present a clear connection to the field of administrative sciences and the research (both theoretical and empirical) should be conducted from this perspective. Interdisciplinary topics related to organizational theory, sustainable development and CSR, international relations, etc. can be considered for publication, however the research needs to address relevant issues from the perspective of the public sector. Articles which use highly specialized econometrics models as well as studies addressing macro-economic topics will not be considered for evaluation. The decision on whether a certain topic falls within the interest of TRAS belongs to the editors and it is not connected with the overall quality of the work submitted.