Declarations and reality of europeanized public administration in Eastern Europe: Journals content analysis in Slovenia and Croatia

Abstract

Public administration is, especially in Eastern Europe, declaratively reformed to comply with European standards and trends. In order to define the mainstream topics and milestones of administrative development, a focused content analysis as a case study has been conducted with regard to Europeanization in 223 articles published between 2011 and 2014 in the leading specialized journals in Slovenia and Croatia (International Public Administration Review and the Croatian and Comparative Public Administration). The methodology of content analysis has been applied in order to gain objective and comparable results in the fi eld and on the cross-national scale. The main findings reveal that Europeanization is the common thread in both journals and countries. However, based on the Slovenian and Croatian case study, one can claim that in Eastern Europe public administration is in earlier developmental stage, as countries are still often dealing with rather basic restructuring instead upgrade of good administration principles as in the West. Moreover, the declared internationalization of public administration and best practices exchange are fragmented and underdeveloped. The Eastern European countries should consequently intensify their efforts to a more advanced and systemic understanding of the European standards to cope with modern challenges in our globalized society.