Volume 11 (2018): Issue 2 (December 2018)

The paper deals with the problem of systemic corruption in public procurement and, on the example of the Czech Republic, defines its risks, the role of informal structures and the way of failure of public institutions. Th e paper proposes the new methodological possibilities of exploration of systemic corruption and empirically verifies its signs on examples of bid rigging, illegal and non-standard ways of tendering by Czech ministries and in some court cases.

This paper presents the first findings of research that focused on the use of social media by Slovak regional towns. Social media, namely Facebook, are considered a powerful tool for various public administration activities that do not relate only to informing citizens, but also having them participate in decision-making and municipality governance. Th e paper points out the ways of social media usage by selected municipalities. Th e research was carried out in the months of February and March 2018 using a special tool for analyzing Facebook pages called Quintly and a questionnaire survey among the employees of the municipalities. Th e results indicate that municipalities use Facebook mainly for ex-ante informing and for asking citizens to vote in various competitions that can help the local government to gain funding for some public services. Calling for participation in decision-making is very limited. Th e paper also shows a comparative perspective that can be used by municipalities but also by other local or even national governments to work further with Facebook and adopt a social media use strategy.

The European Union gives universities an important place to participate in research and development in the country. The basic research and teaching process of higher education institutions is gradually becoming more and more scientific, and the importance of science and research is growing. Th e growing importance of R&D for universities also increases the importance of public support in this area. Slovakia was eligible for support from the structural funds by joining the EU. In the period 2007 - 2013, universities have had the highest increase in science and research spending due to the use of these resources. However, it is a question of the extent to which this form of public support has contributed to the field of research and development of higher education institutions and whether there has been a real increase in their research and development activities. We examine the effectiveness of the support granted to public universities from the European Union Structural Funds on the basis of measurable indicators of granted projects and the impact of outputs on their scientific research potential in the regions of Slovakia. The results of the analysis highlighted the high level of public support for university infrastructure projects at the expense of support with a focus on intellectual property creation and patents. The discussion is focused on whether the funds allocated in this way were effective in relation to the objectives of the Operational Program Research and Development 2007 - 2013 and thus contributed to an increase of scientific and research potential at higher education institutions in the regions in Slovakia.

This paper aims to analyze the development of the rule of law and its key characteristics as a principle within public governance model (PGM) research. In the study, we analyzed two main EU cultural and geographical subgroups, selected old and new EU member states, in order to identify the main convergences and differences characteristic of the respective clusters. With the accession to the European Union, these acceding countries were to transfer EU law into national law and reform their governance models accordingly. The aim of the research was achieved by following an original methodology, encompassing 431 relevant scientific papers from the Scopus database. Th e known QDA Miner 5.0.11 soft ware package was selected as the main tool for the analysis. Th e research questions were aimed at covering: (i) the role of the rule of law as one of the key governance principles in relation to the countries’ historical legacy and different governance models, (ii) the relationship between the rule of law and other governance principles and (iii) opportunities for further research within the two selected geographical subgroups. The results, concerning the first research question, reveal a greater frequency of papers per year about the relevant PGM studies focusing on the old EU member states. Likely, due to a broader socio-administrative tradition within these countries, law-related topics are better covered. As regards the relationship between the rule of law and other governance principles, we have shown that the rule of law as a principle is importantly related to effective governance and PA reforms and must not be taken as an antipode to efficiency. In new EU MS, i.e. Central and East Europe (CEE), in particular the rule of law in administrative relations is also one of the salient elements of the on-going transitional development compared to the old Western democracies. However, within the processes of privatization, globalization and marketization, the rule of law is challenged; even with PAR that might undermine the core principles of democratic governance. While demanding further research, encompassing specific socio-economic needs of individual public administrations and an evaluation of legal and related highly important reform preconditions proves vital for tomorrow’s public administration, more effectively and efficiently coping with the needs of the modern society.

Inter-municipal cooperation (IMC) in the Czech Republic is common and flexible and is generally viewed as a means to reduce problems related to the highly fragmented local government structure. The paper utilizes financial and accounting data of public entities to evaluate the character and magnitude of inter-municipal cooperation in the Czech Republic. It concludes that the extent of public services provided based on the service contracts or through institutionalized forms of IMC is quite limited and that the majority of the IMC is somewhat informal and soft , e.g. exchange of experience and ad-hoc projects.

Performance evaluation of the government agencies seems to be one of the most important issues in modern public administration. The countries with developed economies introduced various performance evaluation models. Th e developing countries also implement instruments to evaluate the government agencies performance. Unlike countries with developed institutional environments, the developing ones very often import evaluation models that have been proven in other countries. In that context, our research aimed to understand how the performance evaluation models work in countries with a developing institutional environment. The fact is that the performance evaluation of the government agencies shows certain results which present it in a positive way to the public. Unfortunately, these survey results do not adequately cover difficulties and obstacles that appear in the performance evaluation introduction process. In this regard, the perception of the evaluation system by the first-hand (civil servants), as well as the end entities (NGO representatives) of how the introduction of the evaluation institute contributes to improving the effectiveness of government agencies need to be analyzed. This article presents an analysis of the impact performance evaluation on performance in government agencies of Kazakhstan through interviews with civil servants (insiders), as they are aware of administrative changes, and representatives of NGO that closely interact with government agencies, so they can really assess the effect of changes. Data collected by quantitative and qualitive methods, such as legislative analysis, mass survey, in-depth interviews of civil servants and NGOs, and focus groups. The authors took into account all the limitations that are typical for surveys of civil servants in countries with a developing institutional environment (e.g. Nemec et al. 2011). In general, the research results provide a wider understanding of the effectiveness of institutional changes when embedding NPM tools into the administrative reforms through a “top-down approach” in emerging economies. The results show that the implementation of a new institution (performance evaluation) into the existing structure of formal institutions of the government agencies was accomplished. It was found that implanting a new institution caused, to some extent, a short-term “shock” to the government agencies, as there since previously there were no objective criteria for evaluating their activity. At the same time, performance evaluation is still not unincorporated into the internal management system in government agencies. It is perceived as a redundant imputed data transfer function for external evaluators. For this reason, top management of government agencies does not involve all staff in the process of evaluating and discussing its results. However, employees show interest in participating in these processes. All this once again confirms that the post-Soviet countries are still in networks of past heritage, namely they preserve a centralized bureaucratic system controlled from above.

Available data on internet use by citizens indicate that participation in social networking represented one of the most common online activities in the EU-28 in 2016. Social media have been perceived as new tools that can enhance participation and inclusion of citizens and other important stakeholders in public decision-making for several years. According to available literature, the use of social media may also drive innovation in public service delivery and government operations. Research on the use of social media by Czech public authorities is rather limited and is still in its beginnings. Th e paper outlines results of web-based analysis that focused on the use of Facebook (FB) by Czech regions. Findings on practices of 13 regions (i.e. all regions in Czechia, excluding Prague for its specifics) are presented. They clearly indicate that FB is used particularly as a one-way communication channel only for some kinds of information, rather than an instrument for including citizens into public deliberations. This is in compliance with research on practices in developed as well as in transition countries. Data also show rather heterogeneous practices related to types of information that are published on FB profiles of Czech regions.

The role of evidence in policy-making is one of the most researched topics in public policy and public administration. However, surprisingly little research has been done on how public officials actually use evidence in everyday life practice. Moreover, these studies have been limited to countries that have been influenced by the evidence-based policy movement (EBP). Little is known about how the evidence is conceptualized and utilized in other countries which have not been so strongly influenced by EBP movement. This paper addresses this gap. Using a large-N survey on the Czech ministerial officials and in-depth interviews with them, we explore what is understood under the term of “evidence”, what kind of evidence is used and preferred by public officials and why. In doing so, we use four theoretical perspectives on the use of evidence. We show that despite the long-established tradition of using research in policy-making the importance of research evidence in the Czech Republic is far from being taken for granted. On the contrary, the immediate and personal experience is often preferred over the research findings. The exception to that are census-like statistical data and comparative data published by international organizations. We find some support for the two-communities metaphor, though these communities are not defined by their socio-demographic characteristics, but rather by their internal discourse and understanding of evidence.