<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>In the Slovak Republic, a number of internal ministerial advisory bodies, intended to provide high-quality analyses and evidence based policy making for national policy, have been established over the last two years. We have studied how the rational technocratic model of scientific policy advice as a specific mode of governing, acted out through these new institutional sites of expertise, survives in a highly politicised environment of the Slovak public administration. Central to our study was the reconstruction of an intersubjective account central to the work of organising on which the analytical centres and their staff, as well as their patrons, participate. Complementary to this, we focused on intersubjectively shared elements of the analysts’ community and subculture within the dominant CEE public administration culture. The vision of governing with expertise shared by analytical centres rests on the principles of transparency, orientation on professional merit (primarily econometric, analytical skills), voluntarism, conflict avoidance, political opportunism and institutional autonomy. Analytical centres identify themselves as a distinct professional group – in fact, they form a distinct organisational subculture around traits such as demographic characteristics (predominantly young males with economic or mathematical/IT background), symbols, hierarchies, working culture, humour, as well as artefacts. Analysts see their mission in the provision of impartial, objective analytical evidence for informed decision making, yet they negotiate the boundary between politics and expertise on a daily basis, and, as we found, in numerous aspects of analysts’ work politics cannot be entirely bracketed.</p></abstract>

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

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

Competence Centre for Administrative Sciences

University of Applied Science FH Campus Wien

Central European Journal of Public Policy

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

In the Slovak Republic, a number of internal ministerial advisory bodies, intended to provide high-quality analyses and evidence based policy making for...

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

Published Online: Aug 06, 2018

Page range: 1 - 16

Received: Feb 26, 2018

Accepted: Jun 04, 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/cejpp-2018-0004

Keywords
scientific policy advice, advisory bodies, evidence-based policy making, accounts of practice, civil service, Central and Eastern Europe

© 2018 Michal Sedlačko et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

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

Published Online: Aug 06, 2018

Page range: 1 - 16

Received: Feb 26, 2018

Accepted: Jun 04, 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/cejpp-2018-0004

Keywordsscientific policy advice, advisory bodies, evidence-based policy making, accounts of practice, civil service, Central and Eastern Europe

© 2018 Michal Sedlačko et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
scientific policy advice, advisory bodies, evidence-based policy making, accounts of practice, civil service, Central and Eastern Europe