Influence of Institutions and Actors on the Reform of Implementation Management : A Comparative Analysis of Social Services in Croatia ; Utjecaj institucija i aktera na reformu implementacijskog menadžmenta : Komparativna analiza socijalnih usluga u Hrvatskoj

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to describe and explain the variation in the reform of implementation management in Croatia by looking at various social services. While the reform was based on principles of effectiveness, efficiency and participation in one segment of those services, in the other segment it was used for development of partisan patronage networks. While combining comparative strategy with the process tracing method, the dissertation focuses on six social services and relies on interviews with policy actors, official documents and statistical data to map and explain different reform outcomes. By using comparable case strategy, dissertation identifies two factors that led to differences in implementation of reformed social services and affected the capacity of political parties to use social policy reform as an instrument of patronage. Sufficiently institutionalized setting in which services were provided prior to the reform, with both dense working procedures and professional standards, reduces the ability of political parties to integrate political patronage into implementation management. In the case of a minimal or non-existent institutional setting, the involvement of service beneficiaries or actors advocating their interests constrains possibilities for party patronage. While employing the process-tracing method, the dissertation uses the notion of political metagovernance as a conceptual starting point and crafts a causal mechanism that can account for the distortive impact of partisan patronage on the reform of service provision. By analysing the case in which comparative analysis indicated distortions in the service provision, it reveals how the patronage-driven political executive inspired by network-based forms of governance failed to move traditional service provision into novel implementation mode but overly politicized the role of metagovernors instead while using the reform for the selective distribution of public funding and employment of party supporters as service providers. ...