Tuesday, June 25, 2013
A1.18C (Oudemanhuispoort)
Since the end of the Cold War international organizations have broadened and deepened their involvement in the state-building processes of newly democratized countries; at the same time, the outcomes of such a broader and deeper involvement have greatly varied across countries and over time. Hence, under what conditions are international organizations successful in their state-building efforts? And when do they fail? The present paper contributes to answering this question by analyzing the puzzling story of a major failure (on the basis of government documents and interviews with key informants): the EU-driven reform of civil service in democratic Croatia. Right after the breakdown of the Tudjman regime, the EU began to provide Croatian governments with incentives and capabilities to remake the politicized and incompetent bureaucracy inherited from the authoritarian period; however, twelve years later, the system to recruit, remunerate and train civil servants continues to be based on political connections rather than professional competence. Since such a failure story cannot be adequately understood with conventional theories based on the level of economic development and the competitiveness of the party system, this paper develops and tests an alternative hypothesis centered on the initial mobilization of organizational resources by government parties: instead of looking at the role played by systemic factors, I will place emphasis on how government parties initially obtained the support of members and contributors and how this experience has then caused their opposition to EU demands on civil service reform.
