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The European Union is interested in ensuring that each national administration offers comparable administrative capacity through quality of public services and professionalism from the civil servants. At the same time, the European states are characterised by long and varied institutional histories, with different trajectories in their evolution. That is why, public administration structures and regulations vary among the Member States and a set of common principles can guide them towards administrative convergence and performance. This paper aims to analyze the shared principles of a common European Administrative Space and also to address the link between these principles and the performance of public institutions from a managerial point of view. The study is based on review and analysis of academic research, government documents and personal perspectives, extracting and linking key findings from existing research and practice. The paper argues that managerial theories on performance are compatible with public administration organizations and some of the criteria are common to those promoted by the principles of the European Administrative Space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Abstract: This paper argues that the re-emergence of a universal service debate is a political reaction to the deregulation process and an attempt to force the role of the state and public services higher on the agenda at EU level. To this end, the concepts of ‘service public’ and ‘public services’ are explored in light of telecommunication deregulation and public service provision as expressed by the universal service obligation (USO) in France, Great Britain, Belgium and Norway. Attention is paid to the importance of securing general access to telecommunications. Findings suggest the legitimating effect of USO is greater than its practical effects, and that market, competition, and technology have largely addressed problems with universal access, equality, continuity and affordability, rather than regulations. Further, future regulations of universal service provision and ‘service public’ requirements will need to address concerns over citizens’ dislike of some effects of regional and national deregulation and liberalisation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Senior officials in public organizations have a variety of training needs. Yet, the reduction in training budget is often a primary means of improving budget balance. This contradiction calls for a comparative investigation into executive development. Focusing on eleven European administrative systems, the paper investigates (i) whether bureaucracies lead the way, or lag behind, in the development of specialized training programmes, (ii) whether there is a widespread understanding that specific topics are important for training, and (iii) whether senior officials vary in their perception of the usefulness of training for current posts and for promotion. Based on an institutional analysis, a mail survey and elite interviews with senior civil servants, the paper advances a three-fold argument. First, bureaucracies lead the way in the development of specialized training programmes. Second, senior officials want to prepare themselves for items of importance in the near-term future (for example the European Union), as well as to cover as many remote possibilities as they can (for example with management training) in the hope they will do better in any post, even though they cannot now predict what those posts will require of them. Third, although some types of executive development programmes turn out to work well, numerous others do not. The latter, however, are not always a waste of money because they are sometimes used as places to temporarily 'store' people or to 'get rid of people' that an individual agency does not want to have around anymore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with leadership capacity at national level to mobilise society to take up challenges. It uses empirical analysis to explain how, in a European context, this capacity covaries with the development of strategic state capabilities. The evidence is used to explore the conditions in which strategic state capabilities have a positive effect on the capacity of leadership to mobilise society. These conditions include factors related to the public: social capital, average subjective wellbeing (happiness), and political attitudes relating to government and democracy (having a voice that was listened to, public trust in the government, and the public's satisfaction with the working of democracy). It is suggested that strategically led governments with high levels of coordination in the civil service, with practices and abilities consistent with learning and agility, and with good engagement with, and good support from, the public and the organisations of civil society, tend to have national leadership elites that have a strong capacity for mobilization of society to take up challenges. In the conclusions it is stated that the democratic cultures of Europe may require more 'open government' and more inclusiveness so that their embryonic strategic states can better leverage information and resources of society, so that governments can offer more powerful societal leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The purpose of the paper is to report on the results of an inquiry into the possible reasons why many public service managers and leaders across six European countries report a loss of personal agency and suggests a possible pedagogic response to this. Design/methodology/approach — The nature of agency is explored with reference to theory, and the methodology for the study — heuristic action inquiry — is outlined. The paper argues that spaces within postgraduate education are needed to facilitate managers' critical reflection and working with anxiety, and the article goes on to outline how public services leadership programmes can seek to achieve this. Findings — The paper suggests that programmes need to work both with the cognitive and affective domains, and to find ways of exploring within the curriculum how managers may begin more to see their roles as potentially key actors in the policy-making process rather than as passive recipients of policy imperatives received from above. The loss of agency experienced by public servants in several European countries suggests that MPA programmes and the like need to work with students' anxieties in a contained way. Originality/value — Some trends within contemporary public services that lie behind anxiety and loss of agency are identified, including high emphasis on performance targets, centrally driven change, financial stringency, loss of professional and organisation identities, a perpetuation of a "private is best" governmental ideology, and contradictory accountability structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This research paper analyses the extent to which national systems are following ‘new pay’ trends, or whether there are still traditional features, which reflect the specificity of employment in the public sector and the psychological contracts of public servants. Design/methodology/approach - The data used in this paper was based on an online survey of six countries and was completed by pay experts in each case. Findings - Previous comparative research on civil service pay systems has focused mostly on specific aspects of pay but this paper looks at a wide range of pay characteristics. It finds that although there have been changes in pay systems in the six countries studied, the ‘new pay’ model has not been fully adopted and traditional reward systems are still strong, with the exception of Sweden and to a lesser extent the UK and Denmark. This is related to the importance that civil servants attach to their psychological contract in which equity and collectivism remain central values Originality/value - The paper demonstrates that cultural factors and psychological contracts are important in influencing both practices and attitudes towards change in reward systems across countries and that traditional identities of public service are still evident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is competency management a passing fad; is it a catch-all term to cover diverse national patterns of development or a symptom of wider changes within bureaucracies? As the papers published here suggest, it is more likely to be a passing fad in Europe than the USA. Competency management addresses rather different agendas in different countries and while it does not embrace as diverse a collection of activities as ‘new public management’, there is substantial range in the issues it does address. European experience suggests competency is more likely to be ephemeral and concerned with repackaging rather than bringing something substantially new to personnel management in the upper reaches of civil services. Without taking too rosy a view of US experience, there may be a stronger case for arguing that contemporary competency management approaches there have brought something new to a longer standing debate in public and private management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite inauspicious circumstances, the European Commission embarked on an ambitious programme of management reform in 2000, and in 2003 the reform Progress Review claimed that it had been implemented There is now a substantial body of literature examining the theory and practice of public management reform under different conditions. Using these models and an implementation matrix differentiating between types of reform action, this article analyses these claims. The findings suggest a considerable gap exists between reform rhetoric and the reality of its application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how people are made deportable through bureaucratic practices within European migration infrastructures. Drawing on months of ethnographic fieldwork in a deportation unit, the article focuses on the daily work of file practices. Bridging scholarship on street‐level bureaucrats and the materiality of paperwork, it traces how deportation files move along procedural trajectories, among case workers, databases, police, whiteboards, quota, subunits, embassies, and airlines. This shows how the relations gathered in file practices mobilize categories of populations, for example racialized or gendered. The research elaborates that the deportable subject is formed in a constellation of various populations, paradoxically given the legal call to individualize all deportees. Moreover, the populations themselves need to be made in file practices, too, unfolding a dual bureaucratic knowledge practice that shows the populations that are demarcated by state deportations to be intrinsically situated. [deportation, bureaucracy, file practices, population, Europe] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political parties worldwide seek to work with bureaucrats who are close to their programs, willing to cooperate, and concerted. On the other hand, there is a huge body of literature which argues that bureaucracy should be separate from politics and that it has to consist of public servants who are technically knowledgeable, expert, and also politically neutral. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe suffered from highly politicized public administrations under one-party regimes, and have struggled to separate their bureaucracies from politics since early 1990s. In view of the relation between politics and bureaucracy from the perspective of (de)politization, this paper looks into the changes that Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) have gone through after the institutionalization of multi-party regimes and tries to provide some generalizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital transformation has become a desire for states due to its real benefits to society. Public sector employees must prepare professionally to successfully implement digitisation projects of public services. In this context, the issue of digital skills of civil servants is a priority for the public administration. In this study, we performed a comparative analysis of institutions that provide professional training in the digital field for public sector employees. The purpose of this work is to analyse which are the models of good practices to follow when we talk about the digital transformation of public administrations in Europe. At the same time, the objective of the comparative analysis is to establish a set of priorities regarding the digital skills that must be pursued through the professional training processes of civil servants. The work offers interesting insights on how these institutions are sharing their responsibilities. The conclusions of this study can be useful to public institutions in Romania in order to improve digital transformation processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent public debates in several European countries have shown that public service medias' (PSM) public funding has become a topic of controversial discussion. Based on an online survey in France, Germany, and the UK, this study analyses how the willingness to pay (WTP) versus perceived dispensability of PSM relates to various factors identified in the current literature. Across the three countries, most respondents doubt that PSM are dispensable. However, if they determine the sum of the licence fee themselves, it would clearly be a smaller amount than it is currently. Assessment of the overall information quality of PSM and the assumed state or government influence thereon, have a significant influence on the WTP for PSM versus the perceived dispensability thereof. Understanding the factors driving and hindering WTP versus perceived dispensability is crucial, providing insights relevant to understanding PSM and public funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 2006 and 2011, a number of European public service broadcasting (PSB) organisations offered their website users the opportunity to create their own PSB homepage. The web customisation was conceived by the editors as a response to developments in commercial web services, particularly social networking and content aggregation services, but the customisation projects revealed tensions between the ideals of customer sovereignty and the editorial agenda-setting. This paper presents an overview of the PSB activities as well as reflections on the failure of the customisable PSB homepages. The analysis is based on interviews with the PSB editors involved in the projects and on studies of the interfaces and user comments. Commercial media customisation is discussed along with the PSB projects to identify similarities and differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

European countries have been continuously under the pressure to improve public balances and efficiency of public spending. Economic crisis which started during 2007 weakened public finances at the state and local level in countries all over the world. In Croatia local government budgets are still below the pre-crisis level in many local government units. This paper empirically examines efficiency of public expenditures at the regional level. Performance has been investigated by developing a composite indicator of output. Spending efficiency at the regional level was analysed using Data Envelopment Analysis methodology. Results suggest that there are large differences at the regional level in using resources to provide public services. The results show that the local government units in the least efficient county should on average decrease their expenses by 55 percent, while achieving the same performance to become efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Counter-terrorism officials in the USA and the UK responded to the events of 11 September 2001 and 7 July 2005 with an increasing resort to the use of 'intelligence-led policing' methods such as racial and religious profiling. Reliance on intelligence, to the effect that most people who commit a certain crime have a certain ethnicity, can lead to less favourable treatment of an individual with that ethnicity because of his membership in that group, not because of any act he is suspected or known to have committed. This paper explains the context in which intelligence-led policing flourishes, and how this discussion contributes to the profiling debate in both the USA and the UK, and then sets out two key contentions. First, we argue that Article 14 ECHR as applied under the UK Human Rights Act has a more protective, and less 'prosecutorial', conception of discrimination than has the US Equal Protection Clause, meaning that judges need not find a discriminatory motive to find that discrimination has occurred. Second, we contend that Article 14 provides the judiciary with the key tool of proportionality, which, when properly applied, makes it harder for discrimination to stand up to scrutiny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two European Union (EU) tools were adopted to enhance cooperation among Member States in the case of crises and emergencies (natural, industrial or man-made) occurring both inside and outside the EU borders: first, the EU has developed a new tool in the field of civil protection that has been managed by the Directorate General Environment of the European Commission under the label of the Community Civil Protection Mechanism since 2001. Second, the Emergency and Crisis Coordination Arrangements (CCA), under the responsibility of the European Council, have been developed since 2005. Using a sociological neo-institutionalist approach based on the concept of ‘divergent isomorphism’, the paper explains who and what the sources of EU integration process were leading to the coexistence of these two structures. Two case studies are presented using process tracing to demonstrate that two different pre-existing organizational models were copied to create the EU structures of crisis and emergency management: that of the Community Marine pollution framework for the Community Civil Protection Mechanism and that of NATO for the CCA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section introduces a series of articles on the extent that European perspectives on ethics and integrity in governance differ from those in North America, as of December 2005. They include an article which presents an overview of ethical issues in public service organizations in Europe, and an article which describes and assesses ethics codes for public servants in ten Central and East European countries.

This article analyses the development of the European Union (EU) project of a Charter for Services of General Interest (SGI) from the mid-1990s to the publication of the White Paper on Services of General Interest and the draft European Constitution in 2004. Though service charters are often associated with New Public Management (NPM) reforms related to privatization, they are also an integral part of the process of EU institution building, and need to be understood alongside developments such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Using a four-stage model of international NPM convergence analysis four phases of the Charter for SGI experience are examined and compared to Anglo-Saxon experiences. Though there are important similarities linking the charter initiatives in the EU and the Anglo-Saxon world, there are also a number of important differences, which can be explained by the project to construct a supranational political citizenship, as well as vital institutional differences in capabilities related to EU competences and issues of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we explore the potential role of entrepreneurship in public sector organizations. At first, we present a review of the entrepreneunship theme in the political science and public management research streams, comparing these ideas with the mainstream business literature on entrepreneurship. Thereafter, we illustrate empirically how Stevenson's classical framework of entrepreneurship can be applied in a European local government context to explain the recent initiatives to compete for and utilize European Union structural funds. The empirical basis of the study is comprised often in-depth case studies of local government organizations, five in the UK and five in Italy. Finally, we propose five distinct types of entrepreneurial agents in the public sector: professional politician; spin-off creator; business entrepreneur in politics; career-driven public officer; and politically ambitious public officer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a game-theoretic approach to analyse the taxation of interest income in Europe in the presence of tax evasion. The model allows tis to assess the success of various reform proposals. We argue that the tax treatment of nonresidents' interest income plays a crucial role. When decisions on discrimination and on withholding tax rates are made non-cooperatively, the outcome is similar to a prisoners' dilemma. All countries discriminate, but in equilibrium internationally mobile portfolio capital evades taxation successfully. In contrast, if all governments did not discriminate, tax competition leads to less tax evasion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper charts the initiation, development, and finalisation of Europe's harmonised system for reaction-to-fire classification. Technical literature, archival material, and original interviews are drawn upon to document and explain the process by which this system was created. It is shown that early attempts to retain existing national fire test methods were abandoned, but that from these existing tests grew a novel (but not wholly new) system. We document and detail how and why key thresholds and test parameters were agreed. We show how a relatively small number of civil servants and their technical advisors were empowered to create this system and how, once they had completed their task, they were promptly disempowered. The result of this process of harmonisation was that new agreements were forged; these agreements were embodied in standards, and embedded in each nation's building regulations. Our account shows not only that ideological, national, and business interests competed to influence this 'Euroclass' process, but also that the creation of useable standards necessarily distilled complex judgements into a simplified standard, with the reasoning behind the choices then becoming opaque to users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a large body of literature on the effects of politicization, relatively little is known about its relationship with the work attitudes of public employees. This study investigates how different forms of politicization relate to senior executives' job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Using data from a large-scale executive survey conducted in Europe, we found that senior public officials exhibit negative work attitudes when there is political intervention in civil service staffing, when they have little policy influence, and when political actors interfere in their managerial activities. In particular, politicians' disrespect for bureaucratic expertise had the largest effect on work attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The financial crisis has once again brought up the question of the 'perfect size' of local governments and revealed a new dimension of the eternal question of financing self-governing local communities. The paper presents a comparative overview of efforts to determine the 'perfect size' of municipalities and recent reforms in different countries aimed at enabling municipalities to ensure both local-level democracy and identity, and economic efficiency in the delivery of public services. One of the most popular ways for achieving this goal is to promote various forms of inter-municipal cooperation. Some forms of inter-municipal cooperation already exist in Slovenia; a considerable breakthrough in this regard occurred in 2007, but such an approach would have been possible much earlier. Analyses show that this change is due to changes in the rules regarding co-financing. Despite the fact that neither literature nor politics in Slovenia sees inter-municipal cooperation as an alternative to merging municipalities, experiences show that practice will proceed in this direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent debates about whether the standard full-time working week (35–40 h) can be replaced by a shorter working week have received extensive attention. Using 2015 European Working Conditions Survey data, this study contributes to these debates by exploring the relationships between job quantity, job quality and employees' mental health. Overall, we find that a job's quality matters more than its quantity as measured in hours per week. The results show that actual working hours are hardly related to employees' mental health but job quality, especially intrinsically meaningful work, less intensified work and having a favourable social environment, has positive effects on employee mental health, even in jobs with short working hours. Moreover, although working less than one prefers (under-employment) has negative effects, these negative effects become much smaller in size and non-significant in good quality jobs, especially in jobs with skill discretion and good job prospects. These findings develop the debates about a shorter standard working week by emphasising the continued and crucial importance of job quality in debates on the future of work. These results also suggest that policymakers should pay particular attention to job quality when addressing the dramatic reduction in total hours of employment in Europe following the COVID-19 crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last decades, there has been a spectacular increase in the number of entities providing public services in Spain. Functional decentralisation and externalisation processes became relevant and they made it possible to modernise the Spanish public sector, which was out of touch with new ideas in the rest of the Europe. In this study, we expose the evolution of these processes from 1999 to 2010, through a qualitative analysis using the biplot technique. The results show a trend toward functional decentralisation that is more important in the largest cities, especially through the creation of public companies and autonomous organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the implementation and impact of emerging assessment methods for new public service media activities - the so-called ex ante tests - as a case in point, this article analyses evolving means of governance and accountability, and evaluates the thesis that claims the locus of governance power shifts from government to commercial competitors. The article does so by way of a comparative analysis of Flanders and Norway, illustrating the path dependency in this process. Based on the overall context of the EU approach to public service broadcasting, and public service broadcasting's history and position in the two countries, the article compares the legal aspects of the ex ante evaluations, their main procedural aspects, the services subject to evaluation, the implementation of the mechanisms and the challenges that arise from these new instruments of governance. It compares for a number of parameters including the actors involved (as initiators, executers and evaluators) and their leverage power, the procedures developed, the services targeted and the level of time, money and effort invested. The analysis serves as an illustration of a more general trend towards an audit culture and towards a shifting locus of power from government to include other stakeholders, especially commercial competitors that have a growing power to determine policies regarding public-funded media institutions. At the same time, the analysis confirms the path dependency thesis, showing how the organization of these processes still depends on historical, political, economic and cultural specifics. Such insight is important to assess the impact of the recent crisis of public service media. In closing, the article points to implications both for media research and for practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two trends in the practice of modern public administration, the emphasis on ethics and quality, although different as philosophical concepts, influence each other. This paper summarizes what is the Total Quality Management and the Ethics Management, from the Public Service perspective at the European and Romanian level. Public administration reform is a current priority in the context of modernizing the state. At present, there is a growing convergence between the quality and ethical standards regarding the public service provided to citizens. Based on a Total Quality Management tool called Common Assessment Framework - CAF, it is argued the positive influence of this type of management on the ethical conduct of civil servants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the issue of European energy market, giving market participants and their contribution and the complexity of such a field. Every state, through the particularities of national energy policy, influences in a lesser or greater measure the energy market developments. As a result, the work brings into question the situation of European countries importing, exporting, net production or net importers of energy, highlighting the major transactions that arise from their cooperation and consequences arising out of here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Convention on the Future of Europe was created to draw up a constitution for an enlarged European Union. The Convention contained representatives of member states, acceding states, national parliaments and European Union institutions, as well as the Committee of the Regions. Regional representatives within the Convention and external organizations such as the Conference of Regional Legislative Assemblies in Europe (CALRE) sought to lobby the Convention in pursuit of regional interests which had been part of the regional agenda since Maastricht. This paper examines the various efforts by the regional lobby to influence the Convention and, in particular, the emergence of the `constitutional' regions as a more coherent representative of Europe's third level of government. It argues that regional interests were largely marginalized within the Convention but that regional demands might be reinserted into a new European constitution given regional lobbying of national governments in advance of the 2004 intergovernmental conference in addition to intergovernmental bargaining and negotiations at the intergovernmental conference (ICC) itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the introduction of the new top civil servant contract system in New Zealand and Norway. Even though both countries introduced contractual arrangements at the same time, the content of the reforms and their scope, scale and intensity are very different. The New Zealand reform was more radical and internally consistent. In contrast to an aggressive and thorough implementation in New Zealand, the contract system was implemented more cautiously and reluctantly in Norway. The effects of the reform are ambiguous and uncertain in both countries. A transformative perspective focusing on the interconnection between international administrative doctrines, national political-administrative culture, and polity feature is used to understand why contracts reforms have different contents, effects and implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employment in the municipal workforce is a key area in which cities shape the inclusion of their population of immigrant origin. While many European cities have developed policies aiming to foster the employment of staff of immigrant origin, little is known about the drivers and barriers of their implementation. Based on a comparative case study of local administrations in one German regional state and drawing on organizational theory, this article explores the role of organizational factors. It shows how the interplay of mainly two factors matters: support from the administrative leadership and the pragmatic recruitment rationalities of the human resources practitioners. Additionally, the findings suggest that the local identity as municipality more or less shaped by immigration also informs practices. The article argues that to understand the implementation of policies promoting workforce diversity organizational structures and rationalities must be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the onset of the Great Recession, 'doing more with less' has become a policy mantra. To do more with less, a range of governments have concurrently imposed wage cuts and greater work demands on public employees. This article assesses the impact of these changes on the job satisfaction and work motivation of public employees in 34 European countries. Congruent with previous studies linking income and working hours with job attitudes, the article finds a negative impact on both. There are no free austerity lunches: while public employees may work longer hours for lower pay, they are less satisfied and less motivated when doing so. One caveat applies: the effect on motivation-although not satisfaction-is mitigated when employees feel that their values are aligned with those of their organization. This puts a premium on public managers fostering value alignment, particularly when it is hardest to achieve: in times of cutbacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking the case of the relationship between small European public broadcasters and the international content sales activities of BBC Worldwide, this contribution analyses if and to what extent the commercial arm of public service media institution BBC is strengthening the hegemonic position of Anglo-Saxon content in European media markets, and undermining the objectives public broadcasters stand for. To this end, it takes a comparative approach, combining and triangulating results from analysis of relevant documents, from BBC Worldwide and from public broadcasters that acquire their programmes, with data from semi-structured expert interviews with representatives from small European public broadcasters’ acquisition departments. Results indicate that, despite its public service claims, BBC Worldwide is an international content distributor like any other and that its activities contribute to cultural homogenization of audiovisual content in Europe, thus limiting small European public broadcasters’ possibilities for content universality, creativity, diversity and quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National officials working in international bureaucracies regularly invoke the fear that member states strategically use such officials for influencing decision making and agenda-setting to their advantage. This article theoretically analyses conditions under which the autonomy of national civil servants in international bureaucracies might become compromised. The ensuing predictions are then tested using a unique survey among seconded national experts ( SNEs) in the European Commission ( N ≈ 400). Finally, evaluating the characteristics linked to reduced autonomy among SNEs in the Commission, the article illustrates that these officials are, in practice, likely to be relatively independent from member state influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article compares the Europeanization of central government in four Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs): Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and Slovakia. Using a large N survey of ministerial civil servants, it finds that the Europeanization of central government is characterized by partial convergence. The scope of Europeanization is large and similar among CEECs, reaching widely and deeply into government ministries. Moreover, patterns of Europeanization are similar among CEECs: the same ministries form the 'inner core' and 'outer circle' of Europeanized ministries; only a small proportion of civil servants work full-time on EU issues and routinely engage in activities that 'project' national policies at EU level. Compared to old member states, patterns of Europeanization show signs of convergence, while the scope of Europeanization is larger in CEECs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketisation of urban service delivery gained renewed intensity in the crisis. Mobilising Polanyi’s concept of double movement, we analyse how marketisation of public services both creates and constrains the potential for urban counter movements in the USA and Europe. We identify three main urban responses: ‘hollowing out’, where cities engage in service cut backs; ‘riding the wave’, where cities attempt to harness the market; and ‘push backs’, where cities and citizen movements oppose marketisation. Although the city is constrained by marketisation at national and international levels, we find evidence of push back and, in it, the potential for public service alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the level of support for the integration of paid work and personal life (work–life balance [WLB] support) in public sector organizations in Europe. Data of the Establishment Survey on Working Time and Work-Life Balance 2004-2005 (ESWT) is used to analyze the supportiveness of public sector organizations within and between countries. So far, little attention has been paid to variation within the public sector and whether and to what degree this is related to institutional and economic drivers. The results suggest that institutional pressure is the most important driver for public sector organizations to offer WLB support to their employees: State support in a country has a positive relationship with WLB support in public organizations, in particular for public administration organizations. Little evidence for the relevance of economic drivers was found despite the introduction of new public management (NPM)-style reforms in the public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although one people, the Sámi live in four different countries with different laws and regulations. The Sámi media landscape is thus shaped by four different political and economic frameworks, creating unique nationally defined environments. Simultaneously, the Sámi people are internally diverse, both in terms of language and identity. The media professionals within Sámi media need to navigate in an environment where there are several indigenous and majority languages, which raises questions about the fragmentation of potential audiences, and also about the role of the Sámi media in sustaining or undermining particular Sámi languages. Drawing upon recent interviews (2012) with Sámi media professionals, this article seeks to provide insight into the development of an expanding indigenous media infrastructure within the Nordic states and the homelands of Sápmi. It points particularly to the centrality of the national public service broadcast system in providing the political and infrastructural context for this development. The different political settlements between national governments and their Sámi populations significantly shape the wider political will that has framed this process. At the same time, while seeking to shed some light on the diverse Sámi media environment, this article also provides some insight into the professional and personal identities of the individuals working within the Sámi media world. The synergy between the wider media environment and the personal and professional endeavours of Sámi media professionals is central to the future development of the Sámi media environment of Sápmi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It can be argued that because of the rise of New Public Management and the growing dominance of labor law and HRM practices, the so-called ‘traditional’ public law formulation of the position of civil servants has come under pressure in a number of Western European countries in recent decades and have shaken the ‘bargain’ agreed between the political and administrative leaders since the Second World War. By contrast, in Central and Eastern Europe and Britain, new Weberian-type civil service legislation has been introduced. In this analysis, we examine both apparent opposites from a public sector bargains perspective and find that European countries are at a crossroads in their reflection on the ‘bargain’.Points for practitionersFor practitioners in this field two considerations are important to note. The first is that while the discussion about the (legal) position of civil servants within their political-administrative system may seem to be a national debate, in essence it forms part of a more general debate that is conducted all across Europe. The second is that both theoretically and empirically, two dimensions of the bargain have to be distinguished, namely on the one hand the material labor conditions (pay, job protection, etc.) and on the other hand the values of bureaucracy (impartiality, integrity, loyalty, etc.). As our empirical analysis shows, these two dimensions have become increasingly independent from each other in the discussions and reforms in various countries over recent decades. In other words, managerial reforms in terms of material labor conditions have in practice been paired with the renewed emphasis on Weberian values of bureaucracy. Whether this decoupling is sustainable from a policy point of view in the long run (i.e. whether Weberian-style labor conditions are or are not conditional for high levels of Weberian values of bureaucracy), remains to be seen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a court case which focuses on the role of national regulatory authorities (NRAs) in electronic communications in Europe. The decision of the Court clarifies the tasks of NRAs under the European Union Framework Directive and the Universal Service Directive which can be exercised by the national parliaments. The case highlights the legislative influence of national parliaments on network-bound sectors and the conflict associated with financing of public service obligations.