Issue 2020 no6 contents:

The novel coronavirus has shaken the entire world to its roots. Yet, governments’ responses have taken many forms. Some countries were able to flatten the curve, while others struggled to  pick up  the pieces. This article provides governance implications drawn from Viet Nam’s COVID-19 experience. Accordingly, the country’s key features of its COVID-19 responses include resolute leadership, information transparency, central – local government coordination, public participation, and adequate preparedness. Besides, this article also highlights some of Viet Nam’s key legislative and policy initiatives in a bid to cautiously keep the pandemic under control and the economy rolling. By  doing so, it  makes a  practical contribution to  the discourse on  public governance in the time of a public health emergency.

Administrative reform has been recognized as one of the most prominent activities of governments intending to keep up with the recent trends of dynamic societies around the world. In  recent years, the discussion in  the reform literature has attracted significant attention from public administration scholars. It includes various methods and discusses a  series of  experiences of  the reform movement around the world within multiple political landscapes, economic settings, and international turbulences. This paper presents the experience of administrative reform in Indonesia as one of the developing countries in Southeast Asia with a complex history of a colonial legacy. This study analyzes the prominent works of literature discussing the reform experience in Indonesia combined with theoretical perspectives of administrative reform. It highlights three major findings; first, the phenomenon of administrative reform in Indonesia was moving against the reform trend of most other developing countries; second, institutional arrangements play a critical role in repairing the reform trajectory; and third, the current progress of administrative reform in Indonesia still indicates the minimum achievement in some institutions. The discussion of this study, bordered by the settled time frame of reform implementation in Indonesia, is comprised of past and current experiences as well as the future projection of Indonesia administrative reform.

The subject of research is organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in the context of organizational commitment (OC) in public service institutions of Hefei city, China.
Two research hypotheses have been proposed: “Organizational citizenship behavior has positive relationship with organizational commitment” and “Organizational commitment is a predictor of organizational citizenship behavior”. To find the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and organizational commitment, this study adopted a  relational approach. A  validated questionnaire from previous studies was used to collect the data. A total of 234 people (78% response rate) working in different public service institutions responded to  the survey. Correlation and regression were used to assess the impact and relationship between variables of this study. The regression and correlation results for this study showed that there is a very strong and significant relationship between the two variables (OCB and OC) in public service institutions of Hefei city. Thus, the results of this study clearly support the idea that policy makers in public service institutions should pay more attention to shaping organizational civic behavior by investing in organizational commitment.

The use of qualitative research in Public Service Motivation research is growing and its impact on the field is beginning to be felt. This study contributes to our understanding of PSM by exploring the dimension of “commitment to public interest” and the challenges to development in Ghana. The analysis of 34 semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with employees of the Financial Intelligence Centre demonstrates that commitment to public interest is influenced by leadership actions and organizational culture. The outcome of this paper is useful for public organizations in their attempt to improve employee commitment and productivity in the public sector.

The subject of  research of  this paper is  the specifics of  forming and managing a budget surplus when providing economic growth for the national economy. The results of analyzing the concepts of a budget balance are presented, and directions for managing a positive balance of the state budget are revealed. The specifics of the macroeconomic politics of a surplus are given, and it is revealed that forming a “new” fiscal regime – surplus regime – requires a radical restructuring of budget management. The general typical features of countries with a long-term period of a budget surplus are revealed: focus on budget consolidation on the expenditure side of the budget and the ensuing complex budget reforms made after achieving a surplus. It is discovered that one of the main reasons for supporting a stable surplus budget in a number of the world’s countries is  the radical restructuring of  economic and financial priorities, which was caused by serious macroeconomic shocks. It is noted that when assessing the possibility of maintaining a budget surplus in specific countries, it should be taken into account that unfavorable macroeconomic events such as  the financial crisis of 2008 or the global pandemic of COVID-19 in the current year (2020) are of crucial significance for maintaining a surplus. According to the results of a comparative analysis of the dynamics of the level of budget deficit and the rates of economic growth, using the example of  Switzerland and Norway for 2009–2019, no  direct correlation between these indicators was discovered, and it was concluded that there was a lack of empirical evidence and appropriate theoretical generalizations about the existence of a cause-and-effect relationship between economic growth and the type of balance (deficit, surplus, “zero-based”) of the state budget. The advisability of using the budget surplus to reduce the tax burden and to reduce the level of state debt was assessed.

This paper presents attitudes of  public officers employed in  public administrative institutions in Subcarpathia (a region in southeast Poland) towards administrative silence. As a background to the problem, the paper provides characteristics of the legal environment in which the Polish public administration operates regarding administrative silence. In the Polish legal system, administrative silence is expressed and described by different linguistic terms; there are also a variety of possible reactions to it. It causes not only different interpretations of legal regulation concerning the silence, but it also prevents a universal application of these provisions by public administration. The research aimed at determining what kinds of situations are recognised by Subcarpathian public officers as administrative silence (as defined in the Polish Administrative Procedure Code), what types of reactions towards administrative silence most frequently occur, and if there are any internal measures to counteract the silence. The paper concludes with the authors’ assessment of the appropriateness of the current Polish regulatory framework on administrative silence for everyday practice of regional public administration in Subcarpathia. The authors conclude that legislation does not facilitate Subcarpathian public officers to correctly understand the consequences of  administrative silence. This conclusion can be  broadened to  public administration in other Polish regions.

The difficulties that European Welfare States are experiencing in order to respond to emerging social needs are making a re-configuration of the welfare system inevitable. In this sense, spheres such as the third sector are gaining special attention due to their role in the provision of welfare. This paper qualitatively addresses the interaction between public administration and the third sector using the example of welfare provision in the Province of Gipuzkoa. Specifically, our research focuses on the existing instruments for this interaction and the existing spaces for representation and interaction between both.
By means of a participatory approach based on qualitative techniques, professionals from the public administration and the third sector were given voice. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with nine participants considered by the research team as references in the field of the third sector. To complement and advance in the understanding of the information obtained, three discussion groups were also set up: two were formed by participants who are in charge of third sector organizations; and the third was made up of technicians from the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa.
Altogether, the results obtained illustrate much confusion between both actors concerning how their relationships should be  built, as  traditional ways seem insufficient. Although the creation of the civil dialogue table seems like an alternative, it presents several difficulties in terms of ensuring the representation of all third sector organizations.

The main role of public administration is to administrate public affairs. All of the functions in  this field are realised by  employees carrying out the dependent work. Public administration, as  an employer, has to  fulfil the demand of  stability and attractiveness of public sector employment. For the purposes of the study our attention focuses on a large group of public employees, namely teachers in public universities in Slovakia. Legislative regulation of the employment of university teachers is alarming. The paper analyses Slovak legislation of time-terminated employment contracts with university teachers and its unlimited repetition. The authors, supported by settled case law of the Court of Justice of the EU, assess the legislation in substance and critically, but also point to its potential impact on the private life, social security and health of these employees, i.e. psychological aspects. Descriptive analysis aimed at assessing quantitative changes in individual groups of university teachers according to the highest level of qualification was used to express trends in the development of quantitative indicators characterizing selected aspects of employment of university teachers (assistant, assistant professor, associate professor, professor). Legislation on the employment of university teachers under the conditions of the Slovak Republic raises considerations of  unequal treatment of  two categories of  university teachers (associate professors and professors) when compared to the category of assistants and assistant professors. For this reason, an analysis of the age structure of university teachers according to the highest qualifications was carried out. The analyses were carried out using data from the Center of Scientific and Technical Information of the Slovak Republic (CVTI SR) and the Register of University Employees maintained by the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic. The study was conducted for the reference term of 2011–2019. Through our analysis, we have identified a downward trend in  the number of  university teachers qualified as  assistant professors in  the 40–49 age category, and this change does not reflect the increase in the number of associate professors in the same age category. The group of university teachers in this age category then becomes vulnerable/disadvantaged in the labor market, which has serious social consequences for the employees themselves and provides a picture of the university environment in terms of legislation.