Theodore Tsekos | University of the Peloponnese (original) (raw)

Papers by Theodore Tsekos

Governance and Public Management, 2019

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

Governance and public management, 2019

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

Governance and public management, Jun 26, 2018

The concluding chapter summarizes the findings and trends collected in the countries’ chapters. S... more The concluding chapter summarizes the findings and trends collected in the countries’ chapters. Seven cases of austerity policies in the local public sector (Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Croatia and Albania) are presented. In consequence, this chapter aims at analysing the scrutinized countries by a set of analytic dimensions concerning policy transfer, the outcomes of austerity and their impact on Local Public Service management and delivery. Henceforth, a comparison among the seven Mediterranean austerities is provided looking for classification of different types of austerity. Finally, the chapter provides a discussion on the commonalities and variance resulting from a comparison and specific recommendation for policy-makers about the adoption of austerity measures and the future of Local Public Service (LPS) in Mediterranean Europe.

Governance and public management, Jun 26, 2018

The austerity agenda has been adopted by states under the pressure of influential supranational a... more The austerity agenda has been adopted by states under the pressure of influential supranational agencies and authoritative opinion makers. Consequently, austerity programmes took the shape of mandatory measures or recommended fiscal instruments aiming at reducing fiscal deficits and, thus, restricting public spending. Such fiscal tools and measures ‘travel’ across different milieus and levels of government, being subject to isomorphic change, and do not necessarily prove always successful. This observation allows a reasoning about the nature of transfer and its expected and unexpected effects. This chapter scrutinizes the transfer of austerity policies to understand if it can be considered as an external import, a domestic construction, or a mix between external demands and local responses. The contribution reviews the meanings of the concept of austerity seen as semantic umbrella, a global discourse and local practice, a window of opportunity, a multilevel problem, a set of strategies and instruments. The taxonomies and dichotomies about the potential alternatives (i.e. strict fiscal measures vs. broader structural reforms) and subsequent impacts are presented and discussed.

Social Science Research Network, 2012

Social Science Research Network, Jun 1, 2015

Governance and public management, Jun 26, 2018

Local Governance in Europe has recently undergone dramatic retrenchment due to the fiscal consoli... more Local Governance in Europe has recently undergone dramatic retrenchment due to the fiscal consolidation adopted by the central governments because of the economic crisis and the consequent decline of fiscal capacity. From 2010 to 2014 a wave of financial cutbacks and limits on public expenditure was enacted by most of the Eurozone central governments (Lodge and Hood 2012). These measures envisaged reductions of provisions and resources as well as new arrangements implemented to save costs (e.g. central budget supervision, reorganization, privatization and program termination) (Kickert., Randma-Liiv and Savi 2013). This retrenchment severely affected local policies across Europe and particularly degraded their core business: the public services. As demonstrated by a recent research (Wollmann, Kopric and Marcou 2016), public services increasingly became a crucial and strategic core of local governance in Europe. In recent years, local authorities have managed a large percentage of the public expenditure on producing and delivering public services to citizens. Hence the steering of services at local level became of major importance for the public sphere, on the one hand, and for citizens' rights-insofar as citizens' proximity to local power enhances transparency, public scrutiny and participation-on the other (Wollmann 2014). Accordingly, the public services (ranging from welfare services-health and social services-to public utilities-water provision, waste collection, transport) may now be considered a crosscutting and significant key to understanding the extent of the retrenchment and its detrimental impacts. As a result, the Local Public Service (LPS) will be the unit of analysis adopted in this book to reflect on austerity policy and look for recommendations. A large body of studies have recently focused on austerity policies and their capacity to solve problems

Social Science Research Network, 1986

French Abstract: L'experience montre qu'il faut une alternance politique majeure – a savo... more French Abstract: L'experience montre qu'il faut une alternance politique majeure – a savoir la succession au pouvoir de partis guides par des philosophies politiques diametralement opposees et entendant mettre en place des pratiques radicalement differentes - pour entrainer des changements importants au niveau administratifs et meme au sein de la haute fonction publique. Tel est, en principe, le cas de la Grece d'apres 1981, quand le pays a vu pour la premiere fois un parti de gauche acceder au pouvoir. Pourtant des facteurs lies aux caracteristiques politiques, socio-economiques ou administratives particulieres du pays sont interfere avec le processus liant changement politique et changement administratif. Le changement administratif qui a suivi I ‘alternance politique d'octobre 1981 touche plus a la forme qu’au fond des choses. Le bouleversement initial des sommets hierarchiques visait a permettre au personnel politique socialiste de maitriser les processus decisionnels. Les forces “rationalisatrices” au sein du parti socialiste ainsi que leurs allies socio-politiques directs ou indirects seront averes incapables de renverser le courant. Le changement administrative reel reste impossible en Grece tant que les conflits entre les interets clientelistes et ceux lies a la reactivation des reseaux formels aboutissent a -la victoire des premiers. Il ne pourra resulter ni d'une simple reforme administrative, ni d'une alternance politique meme majeure, mais seulement d'une serie de changements socio-economiques profonds.English Abstract: Experience shows that it takes a major political change - namely the succession to power of parties guided by diametrically opposite political philosophies and aiming at implementing radically different policies - to result in significant changes to the administrative level and more precisely within of the senior civil service. This is, in principle, the case in Greece after 1981, when the country has seen for the first time a left party to power. Yet factors related to political, socio-economic or special administrative country have interfered with the process linking political change and administrative change. Administrative changes that followed the political transition of October 1981 affect more the shape than the essence of the reforms. The initial upset of the hierarchical summits intended to allow the socialist political personnel to control decision making processes. The "rationalistic" forces within the Socialist party and their direct or indirect socio-political allies will be proved unable to reverse the momentum. Substantive administrative change remain impossible in Greece as conflict between clientelistic interests and the rationalistic networks lead to the victory of the former. Administrative rationalization cannot result from a mere administrative reform, nor even from a major political change, but only from a series of deep socio-economic changes.

Social Science Research Network, 2003

The introduction of ICT in Public Administration and the new administrative practices that these ... more The introduction of ICT in Public Administration and the new administrative practices that these technologies introduce have been described as e-government (e-G). At a first stage, most approaches to e-Government were chiefly technical. More recent developments comprehend e-G mainly as a social and organizational phenomenon. Nowadays there is a global agreement in approaching e-Government as a complex phenomenon involving not only technological, but also social, organizational and cultural components. Based on the evolutionary stages of the Information Technology impact on public organizations, the paper proposes a four-level classification scheme: 1st Stage: Islands of Automation,2nd Stage: Automated Process Chains,3rd Stage: Re-engineering through Information Technology and 4th Stage: Total Reinvention. Finally, three types of critical organizational perquisites that should be taken into account for the development of e-G strategy: a. Organizational prerequisites, namely a radical organizational redesign so to avoid having "the same old mess run faster", b. Political prerequisites, that is political openness and willingness for transparency and participation and c. Technological Prerequisites where inter-operability is the key concept realized through a two-fold integration process: internal system integration (creation of intranets) and external system integration (creation of extranets).

Local Public Services in Times of Austerity across Mediterranean Europe, 2018

Greece is a typical South-European example of the Napoleonic state launched at the very beginning... more Greece is a typical South-European example of the Napoleonic state launched at the very beginning of the nation state-building era (Sotiropoulos 2004). Until the last quarter of the twentieth century, centralism had traditionally been perceived as necessary in order to sustain Greece's national unity and (re-)distributive capacities, in the face of political instability, weak economic development and regional divergence (Hlepas and Getimis 2011). This centralism, however, could not depend on a strong, independent bureaucracy. The Greek state bears some traits

Corporatisation in Local Government

quarterly by NISPAcee and distrib ut ed together with the NISPAcee News let ter. The series launc... more quarterly by NISPAcee and distrib ut ed together with the NISPAcee News let ter. The series launches ac a dem ic publications that discuss results of policy research in different fields of pub lic ad min is tra tion. It provides a forum for the analysis and dis cus sion of contemporary problems and pos si ble so lu tions, models and meth ods of public administration and public pol i cy with as sess ments of em pir i cal evidence from re gion al experience in pub lic sec tor reform. The main goal is to enhance the quality and quantity of intellectual ex change among re search ers, educators, schol ars and prac ti tioners dealing with major is sues of pub lic administration and public policy in the Central and East Eu rope an regions.

Evaluating Reforms of Local Public and Social Services in Europe, 2017

There are several pathways towards policy evaluation. For the purposes of the present analysis, w... more There are several pathways towards policy evaluation. For the purposes of the present analysis, we classify the different approaches listed in the relevant literature (Kuhlmann and Wollmann 2011; Wollmann 2003, 2007; Bemelmans-Videc et al. 1998) into three major categories: a. Evaluating existing situations against standards or values (ex ante evaluation); b. Evaluating results (outputs, throughputs, outcomes, impact) against policy targets (ongoing and ex post performance evaluation of projects, programmes or policies, including cost-benefit assessments and sectoral or global reforms);

lished quarterly by NISPAcee and distrib ut ed together with the NISPAcee News let ter. The serie... more lished quarterly by NISPAcee and distrib ut ed together with the NISPAcee News let ter. The series launches ac a dem ic publications that discuss results of policy research in different fi elds of pub lic ad min is tra tion. It provides a forum for the analysis and dis cus sion of contemporary problems and pos si ble so lu tions, models and meth ods of public administration and public pol i cy with as sess ments of em pir i cal evidence from re gion al experience in pub lic sec tor reform.

In this paper, we propose, (a) a high-level representation for the overall governance system and ... more In this paper, we propose, (a) a high-level representation for the overall governance system and (b) two models for describing the overall policymaking system’s function backed up with feedback mechanisms for controlling system’s Critical Success Factors. In recent literature and practice the e-government term has been mainly used for describing systems aiming at electronic service provision by public administration agencies. e-Governance, as introduced here, is a much wider concept as it incorporates information flows between society and political system, political and administrative system, and internal political system and civil society flows. Providing high-level models and definitions for the overall governance system is perceived to be the first step towards standardization and the creation of commonly accepted domain vocabularies and ontologies. The later constitute the sine qua non infrastructure for achieving interoperability at the content level, thus becoming the enabling...

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2002

This paper analyses e-government and attempts to show that it is a major paradigm shift in the wa... more This paper analyses e-government and attempts to show that it is a major paradigm shift in the way that government and public administration are to function. To shed light on this major breach, an analysis is performed regarding the types of information that have been produced and used by the state through time , as well as the methods employed for information processing and dissemination of information in three stages ,tribal, massive and configurational. The paper reviews the effects of information technology on general organization by structuring these effects in four stages: islands of automation, automated process chains, business reengineering through IT and total reinvention. It then analyses the fourth stage as it applies to government and public administration in particular. The major changes brought upon government and public administration through IT in this fourth phase appear to have profound effects forcing even a reconsideration of what public administrations should produce and why .For this new era, an organizational, information systems and political paradigm for public administration is proposed.

Governance and Public Management, 2019

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

Governance and public management, 2019

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

Governance and public management, Jun 26, 2018

The concluding chapter summarizes the findings and trends collected in the countries’ chapters. S... more The concluding chapter summarizes the findings and trends collected in the countries’ chapters. Seven cases of austerity policies in the local public sector (Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Croatia and Albania) are presented. In consequence, this chapter aims at analysing the scrutinized countries by a set of analytic dimensions concerning policy transfer, the outcomes of austerity and their impact on Local Public Service management and delivery. Henceforth, a comparison among the seven Mediterranean austerities is provided looking for classification of different types of austerity. Finally, the chapter provides a discussion on the commonalities and variance resulting from a comparison and specific recommendation for policy-makers about the adoption of austerity measures and the future of Local Public Service (LPS) in Mediterranean Europe.

Governance and public management, Jun 26, 2018

The austerity agenda has been adopted by states under the pressure of influential supranational a... more The austerity agenda has been adopted by states under the pressure of influential supranational agencies and authoritative opinion makers. Consequently, austerity programmes took the shape of mandatory measures or recommended fiscal instruments aiming at reducing fiscal deficits and, thus, restricting public spending. Such fiscal tools and measures ‘travel’ across different milieus and levels of government, being subject to isomorphic change, and do not necessarily prove always successful. This observation allows a reasoning about the nature of transfer and its expected and unexpected effects. This chapter scrutinizes the transfer of austerity policies to understand if it can be considered as an external import, a domestic construction, or a mix between external demands and local responses. The contribution reviews the meanings of the concept of austerity seen as semantic umbrella, a global discourse and local practice, a window of opportunity, a multilevel problem, a set of strategies and instruments. The taxonomies and dichotomies about the potential alternatives (i.e. strict fiscal measures vs. broader structural reforms) and subsequent impacts are presented and discussed.

Social Science Research Network, 2012

Social Science Research Network, Jun 1, 2015

Governance and public management, Jun 26, 2018

Local Governance in Europe has recently undergone dramatic retrenchment due to the fiscal consoli... more Local Governance in Europe has recently undergone dramatic retrenchment due to the fiscal consolidation adopted by the central governments because of the economic crisis and the consequent decline of fiscal capacity. From 2010 to 2014 a wave of financial cutbacks and limits on public expenditure was enacted by most of the Eurozone central governments (Lodge and Hood 2012). These measures envisaged reductions of provisions and resources as well as new arrangements implemented to save costs (e.g. central budget supervision, reorganization, privatization and program termination) (Kickert., Randma-Liiv and Savi 2013). This retrenchment severely affected local policies across Europe and particularly degraded their core business: the public services. As demonstrated by a recent research (Wollmann, Kopric and Marcou 2016), public services increasingly became a crucial and strategic core of local governance in Europe. In recent years, local authorities have managed a large percentage of the public expenditure on producing and delivering public services to citizens. Hence the steering of services at local level became of major importance for the public sphere, on the one hand, and for citizens' rights-insofar as citizens' proximity to local power enhances transparency, public scrutiny and participation-on the other (Wollmann 2014). Accordingly, the public services (ranging from welfare services-health and social services-to public utilities-water provision, waste collection, transport) may now be considered a crosscutting and significant key to understanding the extent of the retrenchment and its detrimental impacts. As a result, the Local Public Service (LPS) will be the unit of analysis adopted in this book to reflect on austerity policy and look for recommendations. A large body of studies have recently focused on austerity policies and their capacity to solve problems

Social Science Research Network, 1986

French Abstract: L'experience montre qu'il faut une alternance politique majeure – a savo... more French Abstract: L'experience montre qu'il faut une alternance politique majeure – a savoir la succession au pouvoir de partis guides par des philosophies politiques diametralement opposees et entendant mettre en place des pratiques radicalement differentes - pour entrainer des changements importants au niveau administratifs et meme au sein de la haute fonction publique. Tel est, en principe, le cas de la Grece d'apres 1981, quand le pays a vu pour la premiere fois un parti de gauche acceder au pouvoir. Pourtant des facteurs lies aux caracteristiques politiques, socio-economiques ou administratives particulieres du pays sont interfere avec le processus liant changement politique et changement administratif. Le changement administratif qui a suivi I ‘alternance politique d'octobre 1981 touche plus a la forme qu’au fond des choses. Le bouleversement initial des sommets hierarchiques visait a permettre au personnel politique socialiste de maitriser les processus decisionnels. Les forces “rationalisatrices” au sein du parti socialiste ainsi que leurs allies socio-politiques directs ou indirects seront averes incapables de renverser le courant. Le changement administrative reel reste impossible en Grece tant que les conflits entre les interets clientelistes et ceux lies a la reactivation des reseaux formels aboutissent a -la victoire des premiers. Il ne pourra resulter ni d'une simple reforme administrative, ni d'une alternance politique meme majeure, mais seulement d'une serie de changements socio-economiques profonds.English Abstract: Experience shows that it takes a major political change - namely the succession to power of parties guided by diametrically opposite political philosophies and aiming at implementing radically different policies - to result in significant changes to the administrative level and more precisely within of the senior civil service. This is, in principle, the case in Greece after 1981, when the country has seen for the first time a left party to power. Yet factors related to political, socio-economic or special administrative country have interfered with the process linking political change and administrative change. Administrative changes that followed the political transition of October 1981 affect more the shape than the essence of the reforms. The initial upset of the hierarchical summits intended to allow the socialist political personnel to control decision making processes. The "rationalistic" forces within the Socialist party and their direct or indirect socio-political allies will be proved unable to reverse the momentum. Substantive administrative change remain impossible in Greece as conflict between clientelistic interests and the rationalistic networks lead to the victory of the former. Administrative rationalization cannot result from a mere administrative reform, nor even from a major political change, but only from a series of deep socio-economic changes.

Social Science Research Network, 2003

The introduction of ICT in Public Administration and the new administrative practices that these ... more The introduction of ICT in Public Administration and the new administrative practices that these technologies introduce have been described as e-government (e-G). At a first stage, most approaches to e-Government were chiefly technical. More recent developments comprehend e-G mainly as a social and organizational phenomenon. Nowadays there is a global agreement in approaching e-Government as a complex phenomenon involving not only technological, but also social, organizational and cultural components. Based on the evolutionary stages of the Information Technology impact on public organizations, the paper proposes a four-level classification scheme: 1st Stage: Islands of Automation,2nd Stage: Automated Process Chains,3rd Stage: Re-engineering through Information Technology and 4th Stage: Total Reinvention. Finally, three types of critical organizational perquisites that should be taken into account for the development of e-G strategy: a. Organizational prerequisites, namely a radical organizational redesign so to avoid having "the same old mess run faster", b. Political prerequisites, that is political openness and willingness for transparency and participation and c. Technological Prerequisites where inter-operability is the key concept realized through a two-fold integration process: internal system integration (creation of intranets) and external system integration (creation of extranets).

Local Public Services in Times of Austerity across Mediterranean Europe, 2018

Greece is a typical South-European example of the Napoleonic state launched at the very beginning... more Greece is a typical South-European example of the Napoleonic state launched at the very beginning of the nation state-building era (Sotiropoulos 2004). Until the last quarter of the twentieth century, centralism had traditionally been perceived as necessary in order to sustain Greece's national unity and (re-)distributive capacities, in the face of political instability, weak economic development and regional divergence (Hlepas and Getimis 2011). This centralism, however, could not depend on a strong, independent bureaucracy. The Greek state bears some traits

Corporatisation in Local Government

quarterly by NISPAcee and distrib ut ed together with the NISPAcee News let ter. The series launc... more quarterly by NISPAcee and distrib ut ed together with the NISPAcee News let ter. The series launches ac a dem ic publications that discuss results of policy research in different fields of pub lic ad min is tra tion. It provides a forum for the analysis and dis cus sion of contemporary problems and pos si ble so lu tions, models and meth ods of public administration and public pol i cy with as sess ments of em pir i cal evidence from re gion al experience in pub lic sec tor reform. The main goal is to enhance the quality and quantity of intellectual ex change among re search ers, educators, schol ars and prac ti tioners dealing with major is sues of pub lic administration and public policy in the Central and East Eu rope an regions.

Evaluating Reforms of Local Public and Social Services in Europe, 2017

There are several pathways towards policy evaluation. For the purposes of the present analysis, w... more There are several pathways towards policy evaluation. For the purposes of the present analysis, we classify the different approaches listed in the relevant literature (Kuhlmann and Wollmann 2011; Wollmann 2003, 2007; Bemelmans-Videc et al. 1998) into three major categories: a. Evaluating existing situations against standards or values (ex ante evaluation); b. Evaluating results (outputs, throughputs, outcomes, impact) against policy targets (ongoing and ex post performance evaluation of projects, programmes or policies, including cost-benefit assessments and sectoral or global reforms);

lished quarterly by NISPAcee and distrib ut ed together with the NISPAcee News let ter. The serie... more lished quarterly by NISPAcee and distrib ut ed together with the NISPAcee News let ter. The series launches ac a dem ic publications that discuss results of policy research in different fi elds of pub lic ad min is tra tion. It provides a forum for the analysis and dis cus sion of contemporary problems and pos si ble so lu tions, models and meth ods of public administration and public pol i cy with as sess ments of em pir i cal evidence from re gion al experience in pub lic sec tor reform.

In this paper, we propose, (a) a high-level representation for the overall governance system and ... more In this paper, we propose, (a) a high-level representation for the overall governance system and (b) two models for describing the overall policymaking system’s function backed up with feedback mechanisms for controlling system’s Critical Success Factors. In recent literature and practice the e-government term has been mainly used for describing systems aiming at electronic service provision by public administration agencies. e-Governance, as introduced here, is a much wider concept as it incorporates information flows between society and political system, political and administrative system, and internal political system and civil society flows. Providing high-level models and definitions for the overall governance system is perceived to be the first step towards standardization and the creation of commonly accepted domain vocabularies and ontologies. The later constitute the sine qua non infrastructure for achieving interoperability at the content level, thus becoming the enabling...

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2002

This paper analyses e-government and attempts to show that it is a major paradigm shift in the wa... more This paper analyses e-government and attempts to show that it is a major paradigm shift in the way that government and public administration are to function. To shed light on this major breach, an analysis is performed regarding the types of information that have been produced and used by the state through time , as well as the methods employed for information processing and dissemination of information in three stages ,tribal, massive and configurational. The paper reviews the effects of information technology on general organization by structuring these effects in four stages: islands of automation, automated process chains, business reengineering through IT and total reinvention. It then analyses the fourth stage as it applies to government and public administration in particular. The major changes brought upon government and public administration through IT in this fourth phase appear to have profound effects forcing even a reconsideration of what public administrations should produce and why .For this new era, an organizational, information systems and political paradigm for public administration is proposed.