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Papers by Panagiotis Karkatsoulis

<p>This chapter highlights some key problems with the structure of the Greek public adminis... more <p>This chapter highlights some key problems with the structure of the Greek public administration and some of the challenges in reforming it. It shows that administrative structures are overly complicated and rigid, and this hinders operational efficiency. Moreover, a lack of a systematic framework for performance evaluation has led to the proliferation of administrative units, including units with only few employees. Coordination across units is limited and is hampered by inadequate use of information technology. Attempts to evaluate performance and to match it with resources have been met with resistance. Attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of new regulations and streamline existing ones have had some limited success.</p>

Public Administration Quarterly, 2010

HAPSc Policy Briefs Series

The outbreak of the Covid-19 has had a negative impact on Governance systems. According to the re... more The outbreak of the Covid-19 has had a negative impact on Governance systems. According to the recent literature, the pandemic should be understood as one more step towards Autocracy. Governance systems have reacted to the coronavirus pandemic through a series of decisions, which suffer both in terms of their issuing significant faults as far as it concerns both their process of issuing and their content. The vast majority of the commented decisions are violating the legality principle and have been issued on a “state of emergency” basis.In fact, what has been happening during the pandemic, is a systematic cancellation of the Better Regulation Agenda. Recent surveys have shown that the poorest the quality of Governance, the heaviest (negative) impact of the coronavirus on regulatory policies. In Greece there was an intensification of corporatistic regulation and decisions during the crisis. Covid-19 has functioned as an alibi: Many agencies and public organizations followed an extra...

Reihe Rechtswissenschaft 49, 1987

Local governance seems to be a promising tool for upgrading both concepts of Governance and Decen... more Local governance seems to be a promising tool for upgrading both concepts of Governance and Decentralization. It is supposed that certain weak points of previous, traditional models of decentralization have been identified and can be overcome. The managerial paradigm sees local self-government as resources, human potential and infrastructure facilities that should obey to certain economic rationales and restraints concerning local budgets. On the other hand, local Governance gives emphasis to the issue of public consultation and citizens' participation in the decision making process. Through the examination of the FYROM local self-government reform case we are going to shed light on similarities and differences among the literature approaches to local selfgovernment and the implementation of such reforms in real life

Developing Local Governance Networks in Europe 2002 Isbn 3789078263 Pags 197 214, 2002

Critical Issues in Systems Theory and Practice, 1995

The concept of ‘reform’ is extremely attractive for the social analysts. Tts definition, however,... more The concept of ‘reform’ is extremely attractive for the social analysts. Tts definition, however, is not equally easy to derive, as it is the case for the concept of the other extreme, the concept of ‘revolution’ (von Krockow, 1976; Greiffenhagen, 1978; Bohret, 1983).

International Review of Administrative Sciences, 2000

Introduction Browsing through the administrative reform programmes of developed countries (OECD 1... more Introduction Browsing through the administrative reform programmes of developed countries (OECD 1997a, 1998a) and the related bibliography (Halachmi, 1999), it is obvious that these programmes consist of tools which refer to different scientific models. No doubt, all these programmes have some common ideas, but they lack a unifying concept that could serve as a comprehensive descriptive and analytical framework and, at the same time, produce new actions and combinations of actions. The lack of a homogenous theoretical background for administrative reforms, which could be attributed, among others, to the general theoretical insufficiency of modern administrative science, can not be overcome by just solving problems pragmatically. This reaction, although insufficient, has been adopted by the majority of experts, politicians and bureaucrats and has set the pace for modern administrative reforms. It is worth mentioning that the old schism between the rational–normative and empirical–descriptive sciences still seems to exist despite the efforts to surpass it (Luhmann, 1966). As we wait, however, for administrative science to react ahead of the administrative reality, it has become imperative to elaborate descriptive models for the comprehension of administrative reality — or better still administrative realities. Such models are of great value for countries and administrations that apply reform programmes, since they provide a framework and help to avoid unnecessary actions in the sense of resources saving. In search of such a concept we meet the ‘value for money’ (VFM) principle. There is no doubt that the VFM principle is implicit in most — if not all — modern administrative reforms. Better Quality Services at Optimal Cost (Cabinet Office, 1999) seems to be a self-evident strategy for public administrations that undertake a reformative process. This principle, substantiated in modern administrative reforms, unifies the two different managerial philosophies that are known through the entrepreneurial

Abstract: The current volume reproduces papers presented in the Workshop which was organized in A... more Abstract: The current volume reproduces papers presented in the Workshop which was organized in Athens, in February 2010 by the European Public Law Organization (EPLO) and the Faculty of Public Administration–National School of Political Studies and Public Administration (NSPSPA), Bucharest.

THE MANAGERIAL FOUNDATION OF BUDGETING The global economic crisis poses significant questions to ... more THE MANAGERIAL FOUNDATION OF BUDGETING The global economic crisis poses significant questions to both the theory and practice of budgeting, disputing the validity of well established theorems and practices. The crisis questions the core notion of "performance" as well as other cardinal concepts of Performance Based Budgeting (PBB), such as the "greatest return in social utility" (Downs 1960), "political and social consent" (Key 1940)- notions central to the way state resources were allocated during the previous five decades. The crisis influences the budgetary agenda, as new facts arise (such as climate change, clean energy, employment policies) which call for a revision of the methods and tools used up to now. Other issues which also emerge refer to the internal organization of the structures dealing with the budget as well as with the structures involved in recruiting, training and evaluating their staff. The discourse on budgeting has been going on for a long time (Schik 1966): it is as old as administrative science and has always been one of its major issues. Administrative science and budgeting theory evolved in close interconnection: the methods and tools used by budgeting over time depicted the prevailing paradigm of the administrative science. This article intends to clarify the main characteristics of the four distinct periods in the evolution of budgeting, and to point out the weak points that should be cured in the crisis aftermath. The conclusion drawn from this mapping is that there is a need for a reinforced central government model, different from any authoritarian or imperative model of the past. (Economist 2010). PBB used to offer a better, alternative, answer to the question "why public money were spent to Action A instead of Action B" (Key 1940) in comparison with the one offered by the classic executive budget theory (Thurmaier 1995). Given the scarcity of resources, it becomes even more imperative to find the most appropriate criterion in order to choose among different options. Notions such as relative value, displacement costs (Lewis 1952) etc, should be re-examined under the light shed upon them because of the recent crisis. Looking back at the initial managerial stages of the budgeting theory one observes that a primary emphasis was put on the central control of spending and the budget was used to guard from administrative abuses (Caiden and Wildavsky 1974). The detailed classification of objects of expenditure which was the main characteristic of the budget during the first period, turned out to be its weak point. The monitoring of all expenditure lines required a high capacity and led to the establishment of complicated and extended control mechanisms. Thus, it was the procedure of budgeting that gained all the attention and not the very essence of the budget itself, which is to pursue policy outcomes. Such an approach to the budget is not viable especially in the aftermath of the economic turmoil. When budgeting entered the matured managerial era, it was disposed of the weaknesses observed during the first period. Its main objective was to manage the efficient performance of work and prescribed activities. Performance budgeting, officially introduced by the Hoover Commission (Cothran 1993), was the major contribution of the managerial era to budgeting. During this phase, the emphasis was given on the efforts to avoid the social engineering of reform; namely, to obviate the mechanistic transformation of budgeting and render it a tool to change the state and society (Lynch 1995). It was considered (Bouckaert 1994) that the objectives of budgeting would be better accomplished through the implementation of a set of techniques, capable to replace the simple balance sheet debit-credit accounts and reflect the financing of (a sum of) (Boorsma and Mol 1995) single actions incorporating policy goals and aiming at specific results (Bouckaert 2002). …

PA TIMES, Jun 2014

Strengthening Public Service, PA TIMES, 2014