Change in administrative attitude in Civil Service of Armenia

Abstract

Transition countries found themselves in an inquiring situation of having too much and too little bureaucracy at the same time. On the one hand they have inherited the legacy of the enormous bureaucratic apparatus of their communist past. On the other hand there was an acute shortage of bureaucracy in its original positive meaning: a modern civil service, which is professional, independent of political parties, transparent, impartial, responsible and accountable for design and implementation of state policy. Whereas governments may change frequently, career civil servants remain, accumulate experience and skills, and guarantee continuity of the state. To establish such effective and responsible civil service is one of the main tasks of public administration reform. The purpose of this study is to show to what extent Armenia succeeded in implementing those reforms or, in other words, whether Armenian bureaucrats resemble the state-socialist type or European type. In addition, the findings are compared with those concerning Czech Republic to contribute to better understanding of the place of Armenian bureaucrats from the international perspective. This research is a replication of the study conducted by John A. Scherpereel in four ministries of Czech Republic and Slovakia in 2002. The questionnaire is constructed around six ideal characteristics of the state-socialist administrative space (SSAS) and European administrative space (EAS). The findings of this study show that in general Armenian ministerial personnel is in the interstitial, ambiguous space between state-socialist and European ideals as the Czech ministerial personnel. However, there are differences, the possible explanation to which may be the fact that comparing with the Czech Republic Armenia is a small country. Further, there is a difference in values that should guide the behavior of public employee, and the unemployment rate in Armenia is higher than in Czech Republic. Also, it can be assumed that Armenian bureaucrats perceive job in public administration as prestigious because they have high expectations in terms of promotion outside. And finally, the fact that the survey was conducted among bureaucrats that have high positions creates certain bias. However, in spite of all possible explanations concerning the differences between the “location” of the ministerial personnel of the Czech Republic and Armenia between SSAS and EAS, the findings yet cast doubt on the appropriateness of methodology. Perhaps, further research is needed to address the issue of administrative space in more detail.