Ilja Luciak, professor and chair of the Department of Political Science in Virginia Tech's College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, recently completed a multi-year study on "Gender Equality and Democratization in Central America and Cuba" for the European Commission.
This report is categorized into three categories: (I) Introduction, (II) Key Issue and (III) Congressional Action. It also consist a figure for F-22A Weapons Loadout.
Competitive contracting is the most common form of municipal privatization and has been growing in USAsince the 1970s regardless of the political affiliation of elected officials. Between 1982 and 1992 contractingincreased by 121 percent in the 596 cities where comparable data were available. The average common municipalservice is contracted out by 27 percent of cities.Cities privatize first to save money and second to improve services. A summary of nine major, comprehensivestudies covering every contract entered into by the reporting jurisdictions – 7, 168 contracts in all – showed averagesavings of 29,5 percent.Mayor Stephen Goldsmith gained national and international attention for his successful efforts in Indianapolis.He used public-private competition to bring about large improvements in street repairs, wastewater treatment,fleet management, solid-waste collection, airport management, golf courses. All in all he put eighty-six services outto bid, of which city employees won 43 percent – but only by drastically improving their productivity. The numberof employees declined by a third but no union member lost a job, and the city projected cumulative savings of $450million.
This article focuses, first, on the moral legitimacy, leadership, and capacity of public service, and theirpotential role in considerations of ethics in international relations, in general, and corruption, in particular.Second, arguing that realpolitik has attenuated our analysis of corruption and our ability to oppose iton moral grounds, a case is made for linking the scholarly work on corruption and the scholarly work onmorality in international relations, in order to enrich our understanding of corruption as a key moral concernof global governance, and to enable us, as well, to design and deliver effective anti-corruption initiativesacross the globe. Finally, the article concludes with a call for morally independent and resilient publicadministrators as key players in competent states, as well as collaboration between practitioners andscholars in the development of new skills and strategies to advance democratic discourse and decisionmaking at all levels of governance.
The article analyses changes of EU structural policy in the new programming period of 2007 – 2013. In thebeginning of the article the evaluation of EU structural policy is made, which allows to formulate the main principlesof structural policy. Subsequent reconstruction of financial instruments of structural policy is analysed, and attentionis paid to the fact that from 2007 only two structural funds formally remain. Combined with financial instruments forstructural policy there are three funds in total. Also in the article an analysis of new objectives of structural policyis made. Legal bases for European territorialcooperationgrouping is also analyzed. Finally, the article affirms thatstructural policy develops to cohesion policy.
Citizen participation topic became actual in various European Union (EU) projects since 6-7th decade of the XX century, when in many countries it had been started to transfer authority power from centre to regional and local government authorities with intention to make closer decision-making and implementation to the people. It is considered that decentralization can assure management, which would be more public, participatory, cooperative with community, reactive and accountable. Regional level is very suitable for promotion of citizen participation ideas, because regional and local management is closest to the people. Therefore EU regional policy is inseparable from enhancement and development of democracy, in order to achieve social welfare of population, economy strengthening and to reduce the differences between the EU regions. Nowadays tendencies in public administration indicate that a good management is defi nable by categories of wider citizen participation, pluralism, subsidiarity, transparency, accountability, accessibility, cooperation and effi ciency. "Old democracy" states try to consolidate values of democracy and at the same time to adjust effective methods of new public management, new public administration or new civil service into the management of public organisations. The main scientifi c problem in respect of looking for effective management model is to fi nd a suitable form, how to apply effective management principles from private organisations in the management of public organisations and to secure democratic principles at once. The success and effectiveness of new management systems much depends on the legal basis and the specifi c management and administration traditions of concrete state. The aim of this article is to evaluate the opportunities of citizen participation in regional management, considering the EU guidelines in respect of regional policy. The article analyses citizen participation tendencies in management of public organizations, EU position with regard to regional policy ...
The curriculum "Computer Systems" of RTU faculty's of Computer Science and Information Technology is developed on the basis of classical teaching principles. The curriculum is accredited for 6 years till 2013 on academic bachelor, professional school after bachelor's degree, master and doctoral levels.Despite of the current positive state RTU Institute of Applied Computer Systems (IACS) taking advantages provided by European Social Fund in Latvia is implementing a set of projects directed towards improvement of the educational curriculum "Computer Systems" and the quality of studies. Total amount of the implemented projects is 486800 Latvian lats for the period from October, 2005 till August, 2008. The necessity of revision of learning process, its content and objectives is determined by the following factors: Latvian Republic accession to the European Union; explosion of industry; a new standard of Informatics for secondary education in Latvia.The aim of the paper is to introduce readers to practical exploitation of opportunities provided by ESF in the improvement of IACS's learning process, competitiveness of IACS's graduates and valuable inclusion of Latvian Republic into the common EU scientifi c and educational area.
The impact of the European Union on Social Security is quite complex and enigmatic. At the starting point, there is a genuine paradox: whereas the construction of a large and unique market supposes, among many others prerequisites, the harmonization of social security systems, this harmonization is left to the good will of the member States since Social security is not truly within the competence of the Union. In these conditions, it is quite obvious that a thought and organized harmonization is absolutely unreachable. Beyond the threat of systems of social protection in the European Union contracting, the issue arises of their restructuring and alignment. Given the common challenges they all face (ageing populations, family instability, unemployment, social exclusion and job insecurity), the priority for the reform debate is the redefi nition of fundamental rights and the need to draw a distinction between conditional and universal rights.Through a brief review of EU social policy development and role in European integration theory, this article will argue that, despite its expansion, EU social policy lacks vital fi nancial and political muscle to signifi cantly affect national welfare regimes and create a European welfare state. Moreover, its broad guidelines and fl exible implementation may even encourage national social policy diversifi cation rather than harmonization.
The article addresses the challenges of 21st century public management. It requires good andaccommodating public service, effective management of finances, the adaptation of business managementexperience, the expansion of public services, readjustment of services to segmented society, activecooperation with communities and active help to the sphere of politics. For that purpose, "the newpublic management" methods are being implemented. Authors argue that a "softer" version of "thenew public management" is often identified as "the new office of the state", and is more acceptablefor public management of continental European states (especially Mid-European countries), becauseit promotes the development and expansion of a civil society.
The aim of the paper is to compare civil servants' motivation in countries having different civil servicemodel. The article starts with a short introduction of factors motivating civil servants. Later on differences betweencareer-based and post models are explored, paying special attention towards motivational factors. Datafrom civil servant's motivational survey conducted in Lithuania 2007 allows the comparison with data formother countries. Comparative analysis proves that civil servants despite different level of economical developmentand civil service model are motivated and demotivated by rather similar factors. Among the motivatorsare salary, job security and social guarantees. Too much rules and regulations, bad leadership, political pressureshave a negative impact on their motivation.
Current models of human resource development (HRD) suggest that expectations about a line managerrole in HRD are changing as organizations are striving to make the HRD function leaner and morestrategic. In this context, line managers are increasingly held responsible and accountable for human resourcedevelopment. Thus, this paper investigates the themes and implications, concerning the role of theline managers in human resource development. It also seeks to explore current developmental roles of linemanagers in Lithuanian government institutions and to define and discuss the factors inhibiting theirgreater involvement in HRD. The results of the research have revealed that line managers in governmentinstitutions of Lithuania have not assumed the responsibility for HRD. It was confirmed that it is difficultto fulfill this role, either because of their work load or lack of skills and management tradition in this area.It has been also concluded that substantial investments in capacity development of the line managers andHRD specialists are needed to make sure that line managers and HRD specialists are capable of carryingout their new roles.
The article deals with the phenomenon of conflicts arising in the society of postcommunist transformation. Lithuaniais one of those countries where simultaneous political and social transformation and followed by legal andadministrative modernization has caused formely uknown numerous social conflicts. The old mechanisms for dealingwith new conflicts were unfit. Society became dismembered and divided.The article reviews an extent of conflicts in Lithuania, and how the state and society preserve the social orderfrom destruction. Conflict management along with its strong and weak features is under consideration. It further discussesthe following guidelines for developing a national system of conflict management:– the role and importance of public administration as a conciliatory institution;– the need for creating legal environment for conflict resolution through approving the mediation law;– strengthening individual and communal culture of dispute resolution though education and specialtraining of youth and professionals.
Over the decade the development of information society to a large extent has been determined by the Lisbon Strategy and the job as initiated in it: the European Council and the European Commission are invited to prepare a comprehensive and exhaustive Action Plan for Electronic Europe eEurope. Over the decade both the eEurope Initiative and the eEurope 2005 Action Plan as well as other documents as prepared in this fi eld and the newest document – the i2010 Strategy – have determined the development of information society in the whole European Union, including Lithuania. Of particular importance is the i2010 Strategy – a strategy for digital technologies as intended for growth and job creation. The European Commission's Annual Progress Reports – being very signifi cant documents – are helpful in assessing the achieved results as well as specifying plans for further works, activity directions and pace. The fi rst report of this kind assessing progress in the implementation of the i2010 Strategy has already appeared.Lithuania over eighteen years of its independence has made a tremendous progress both in developing its economy and creating as well as evolving country's information society. Creating Long-Term Development Strategy of the State of Lithuania, the Lisbon Strategy was taken into account, whereas creating the Strategy for Information Society Development in addition to other documents related with information society development in Lithuania, the mentioned European documents as intended for the information society development were taken into account. Undoubtedly, the creation and development of information society to some extent depend on a country's level of economic development, which is partly characterised by GDP (gross domestic product). This article deals with the newest indicators for the information society development in Lithuania and their relation with GDP, - what indicators are in Lithuania and how they look like in comparison with countries of various development level.
This paper aims to answer the question "What does a concept of the e-Citizen consists of in Kaunas region and why?" Generally the concept of the e-Citizen is directly related to the vision of eEurope, i.e. with all to the development of eEurope directed actions, which are highly attended of European Union in recent years. Analyzing the e-Citizen's subject, it is essential to examine the issue of e-service, because the e-Citizen's vision is shaped by using e-service concept, which aims to involve every citizen, family, school, enterprise and administration in the digital era. The research problem includes e-Citizen's concept and the initiatives in Kaunas region, thus highlighting the interaction between dimensions of e-Services and e-Citizen, also both why those initiatives are required and what is an outlook in this range for Kaunas region.The main task is to answer the question concerning e-Citizen's concept by analyzing the e-Initiatives in Lithuania and Kaunas region. These e-Initiatives are underlying goals of eEurope and i2010. The aim of the research is to module the picture of Kaunas e-Citizen and show a value of mentioned initiatives for the inhabitants of Kaunas region by analyzing the implemented and continuing e-Region's projects.
This paper aims at analysing the role of central banks in enhancing smooth operation of payment systems towards an integrated EU fi nancial infrastructure. The research is based on a number of views regarding the signifi cance of payment systems for the implementation of the central bank's monetary policy and improvement of the fi nancial market development process. The novelty of this research is the assessment of the launch of TARGET2 in the EU countries, including Latvia. Regarding TARGET2-Latvija, the authors have evaluated its objectives, tasks, legal framework and launching within the fi rst wave of migration to TARGET2, and have conducted the analysis of indicators determining the operation of payment systems. In the context of large value euro payments, the single shared technical platform, uniform legal framework and similar services across the EU are the advantages of TARGET2. Smooth integration into TARGET2 is the basic condition for the convergence of EU12 with the euro area countries in the payment system area.