Suchergebnisse

This article seeks to explain the differences in outcomes of social services reform in Croatia during the previous two decades. While the service management reform was based on the principles of effectiveness, efficiency and participation in one segment of social services, in the other segment, reform was used for the development of partisan patronage networks. Using the comparable case strategy, the article focuses on six social services and relies on interviews with policy actors and official documents to map and explain different reform outcomes. The article identifies two factors that led to differences in provision of reformed social services and affected the capacity of the patronage-driven political executive to use reform as an instrument of politicized allocation of public jobs. A sufficiently institutionalized setting in which services were provided prior to the reform reduces the ability of political parties to integrate political patronage into service management. In the case of minimal or non-existent institutional setting, the presence of empowered or represented beneficiaries acts as the bulwark against political capture.

Purpose: This paper unfolds the ways in which Croatia, as a young post-communist democracy, has aligned its transition and consolidation with the development of education programs that would support the protection of human rights and the creation of a democratic political culture. Design/methodology/approach: By combining the existing studies with the authors' own analyses of documents and internet sources, as well as interviews with teachers, this paper reveals that by adopting vague and non-binding policies, the Croatian political elite has demonstrated a lack of political will and courage over the past twenty-five years to develop a systematic and quality-based citizenship education.Findings: After long-term negligence, in the most recent five-year period, the need to change the educational path has gained prominence on the policy and political agenda. However, the reform process did not result in bridging, but in the deepening of ideological divides within the Croatian society. With the officially adopted interdisciplinary and cross-curricular approach, the responsibility for carrying out citizenship education was placed in the hands of teachers, with civil society organizations taking a compensating role. Whilst the former lack practical education, as well as guidelines and resources to incorporate citizenship education into the subjects they teach, the latter are incapable of reaching out to a sufficient share of the youth population. The outcome is that the youth continuously displays inadequate levels of citizenship competences.

Cilj rada je doprinijeti razvoju empirijske teorije javnih politika u pitanjima kvalitete dizajna javnih politika. Rad je fokusiran na ciljeve javnih politika koji su središnja sastavnica dizajna svakog resora. Analitički okvir utemeljen je na razlikovanju sedam tehničkih tipova ciljeva javnih politika: opći ciljevi, ciljevi usmjereni na način ostvarenja, na odgovornog aktera, na korisnika, konkretno usmjereni ciljevi, polu-strukturirani te strukturirani ciljevi. Prikupljanje i analiza podataka vođeni su pravilima kvalitativne analize sadržaja, a ciljevi se istražuju na temelju 11 strateških dokumenata hrvatske vlasti. U istraživanim politikama dominiraju ciljevi s općenitim svrhama, te manjim brojem strukturnih elemenata što pokazuje nižu razinu operacionalizacije ciljeva, lošiju kvalitetu pripreme za provedbu i povezivanje s instrumentima odnosno manju učinkovitost dizajna hrvatskih javnih politika. Skupine analiziranih politika se razlikuju te su strategije namijenjene ciljanim skupinama bolje operacionalizirane nego one temeljnih područja i specifičnih društvenih problema. Analiza tehničkih tipova ciljeva pokazuje kako su omjeri među učestalosti njihova pojavljivanja dobar indikator ukupne učinkovitosti dizajna javnih politika.

AbstractThis study aims at empirically improving public policy theory by unfolding the concept of policy goals and contributing to their classifications. The research focuses on the thematic dimension of policy goals and investigates 11 Croatian governmental strategies using qualitative content analysis. The research identifies original policy goal types and classifies them into sector‐, process‐, evaluation‐, instrument‐, and value‐oriented goals. Article concludes with a more comprehensive definition of policy goals, as governmental statements about desired futures in relation to specific sectoral purposes, values, and principles in democratic political systems, policymaking process improvements, necessary instrumental innovations, and evaluation standards that should be fulfilled. The application of this definition and developed goals' classification reveals that elements of policy‐process theories, evaluation research, policy design theory and instrument analysis, democracy theory, and sector‐specific research need to be synthesized to better understand the concept of policy goals and to advance their research.