There is no stable government without an educated administration

At the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Belgrade, there is a program entitled "Political institutions, public administration and the public sector". Why is this important in a country like Serbia, where the public witnesses constant institutional collapse?

"We launched this program two years ago," Professor Dušan Pavlović tells "Vreme". "We are now enrolling the third generation of students. We think it is necessary for several reasons. First and foremost, there are no specialized studies to educate people who will work in public administration or research processes related to public administration and the public sector. This is the first and only program in Serbia that is completely focused on public administration in an organizational sense. This can be seen in the selection of courses we offer. Some of them do not exist in Serbia at all - "Introduction to public administration", "Research methods for public administration", "Behavioral public policies", "Budget analysis", "Administrative behavior", "Ethics in public administration"... And some have not existed until now at the Faculty of Political Sciences - "Project Management in the Public Sector", "Economics of the Public Sector", etc.

I must underline that the essence of our approach is political-economic, not purely economic or legal. Because public administration and the public sector are areas where politics and economics intersect. The state has a crucial influence on economic flows with its decisions, but those decisions are fundamentally political. For example, questions such as in which areas the state should invest money from the budget, what should be the tax, who should be given social assistance... To people, they sound like economic questions. However, they are political-economic, because politics influences their definition, even though they have significant economic consequences.

Second, I would especially separate the legal aspects from what we do in this master's program, because since the period of the former Yugoslavia, "public administration" was mainly studied as a legal discipline, so it was thought that knowledge of administrative law was sufficient for work in public administration. Here, we look at public administration from a political point of view - we investigate how it works in real life, not what is written in the law. A typical example is Niskanen's theory of administrative budgeting, Parkinson's law, group dynamics, "catch the curve" in public administration, the question of merit for advancement in an administrative career, leadership in public administration (how to motivate hundreds of people who are hierarchically below you to give their all themselves in order to create a public good), ethics in work in the public sector... These are phenomena that are not mentioned in administrative law. They are not even mentioned in economic science, because no economic discipline deals with political institutions in which political decisions are made that have economic consequences.

WEATHER: What exactly do the participants of the Program get?? That is, where you see their interest in attending it? And who can write it all??

DUŠAN PAVLOVIĆ: Practically anyone who has completed basic studies can enroll. Prior knowledge of political science is desirable. The program is intended for those who are looking for jobs in public administration and the public sector, ministries, local self-government, state agencies and funds, political parties, the non-governmental sector, institutes and think-tanks, who deal with the analysis of public policies, public projects and institutional analysis. All of them benefit from this program in a practical sense. The largest number of students comes from public administration and public administration. These are people who are already employed or interning somewhere in local self-government, ministries, administrations, agencies, etc. People from political parties also come, which is particularly important to us, because parties are organizations that recruit future employees in public administration. This means that parties recognize specialized knowledge as important when they participate in government after some subsequent elections.

We focus on applied knowledge rather than theoretical discussion. For example, in the course "Management of projects in the public sector", students have the task of creating a project report for the public sector. It is similar in the "Budget Analysis" course. Students should create their own budget for a budget project. In the first, they focus more on the management process, and in the second on the financial aspects. In both cases, they need knowledge of public policy and political theory, because this combination of knowledge enables the public justification of the government's policy. It is known that in our public policy we have a lot of problems with defining the priorities of budget projects. Why is spending on the military and police growing faster than spending on, say, education? Why are stadiums being built when parts of Serbia do not have water supply and sewerage? Why are hospitals being built that don't work afterwards? Why is green space in cities decreasing, while business space is increasing? Why are funds for social policy given to civil society organizations that do not know how to best spend them? Why do the costs of some projects continuously increase or are they higher than market prices from the very beginning, and then there is no money to repair toilets in schools?

One of the master's subjects is political ethics in public administration. How do you evaluate the current practice and what the participants will be able to learn on this plan?

This is, of course, a very complex and sensitive issue, because public administration, more than any other profession, involves ethical problems. The reason for this is that a civil servant always, but always, disposes of other people's funds in order to do something. He has other people's money at his disposal, and the powers he has were given to him to work for the community, not for himself. Expectations from public servants are huge in this regard. On this program we discuss what is realistic to expect under the given circumstances. We must be aware that expectations can only be high if the legislative framework protects the integrity of public administration employees. Let's say, is it worthwhile for someone to point out irregularities and abuses in the public administration as a public servant if there is no law that protects him? Or does the law exist, but there is a tacit belief that we should not obey it? Support for the professional and ethical integrity of public administration must come from the very top. Presidents, prime ministers, ministers, presidents of courts, supreme state prosecutors must lead the way with support through their own actions and attitudes.

You state that public administration must be professional, partisan and fair. What is it really like?? And what kind of contribution this master will make to her?

This is one of the questions that is often discussed in our public. I have to say right away that there is partly a misunderstanding about who should be an expert in public administration. Let's say, it is a completely wrong belief that the president, prime minister, ministers and their closest associates should be highly educated and experts in some scientific field in order to be able to occupy these highest positions. The only real expert for the position of president, prime minister or minister is a politician. And he may or may not be trained for the job he will perform. The same applies to state secretaries, which are political posts, to which the minister appoints people who are loyal to him so that he can manage the ministry. How would he manage if he didn't have loyal people under him?

Loyalty in public administration is generally underestimated and unjustifiably criticized. It is impossible to imagine a public administration in which there are no loyal employees, because if this criterion were to be removed from the organization, you would not be able to implement anything. But at some point it is necessary to see that in addition to loyalty, civil servants are also educated, ie. that they came to that position based on the qualifications they have. Because if loyalty were to be taken as the only criterion from top to bottom, the public administration would not be able to do anything again, that is. would cause much harm to the public interest. So every government needs educated people.

Another subject is "Project management in the public sector". What will be the accent here? What is specifically meant when it comes to project management?

We are particularly proud of this course, which we run together with colleagues from the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, who are more expert than political scientists in this field. We do this according to the IPMA standards for project management in the public sector and the European Commission's PM² methodology for effective project management. These standards and methodologies focus on strategic planning, risk management and harmonization of different interests, especially private and public.

The bottom line is this: Today, the executive power performs its actions mainly through public projects. Project management is therefore the key to effective public administration. It is not enough just to know what are the priorities of public policies and where to invest public money, but how to organizationally implement complex projects that involve the cooperation of several ministries, agencies, levels of local government, non-governmental organizations and the private sector. This is the essence of the organizational aspect of the program, because if civil servants do not understand how to implement complex projects when they enter the ministry, what is the point?

What is particularly relevant is the subject of economy and the state. What exactly will the participants be familiar with? This is why public sector economics is important, and institutions and budget analysis - also master's courses?

We have two courses that deal with this topic. One is "The Market and the State", and the other is "Economy of the Public Sector", which have not been performed at the FPN until now. In the first course we deal more with the advantages of the private market, while in the second we explore what the state should do in the markets where it plays a significant role - infrastructure, education, health, pension system and taxation.

The relationship between the state and the market is important again because the trend, which arose first in economic science in the 1960s and 1970s under the influence of neoclassical economics, and then in the form of neoliberal public policy that inspired the transition in the post-communist world in the 1990s and 2000s, has begun to change.

A good example is Marijana Mazzucato's book "Entrepreneurial State: Debunking the Myth of the Public and Private Sector" (also translated by us), which claims that the state always plays a key role in innovation and economic growth. The private sector is not the only driver of innovation. Since many technological innovations, such as the Internet and GPS, would not be possible without government investment, the government should not only finance, but also share the success of innovation. For example, it is not acceptable for the state to finance the research and development of new vaccines, and for the profit from sales to be collected only by a private corporation that produces and sells them at astronomical prices. This brings us back to public policies and the choice of priorities. It is necessary to conduct policies that create positive externalities and encourage cooperation between the private and public sectors on an equitable basis.

Another issue of the relationship between the market and the state concerns the old Edgeworth claim that people in markets are selfish and the state should only enable them to behave that way. There has been a lot of discussion about this in the academic literature. My personal view is that the claim of neoclassical economists cannot be refuted. Expecting people to act in the market contrary to self-interest is unrealistic. But it must not be so at the state level, because the state deals with public goods. The state is actually a kind of social insurance. Since the self-interested market competition creates winners and losers, the winners should compensate the losers. This is now the trend in political economy. The demands of egalitarian theoreticians such as Piketty, Saez, Zucman or Branko Milanović to reconsider the tax system that enabled the rich to increase their wealth over time are becoming more and more explicit. Through the tax system, the state can decisively influence not only economic outcomes but also social justice. This balance between an efficient (wealthy) and just society is one of the main issues we deal with at "Economics of the Public Sector".

At the end, How do you see the current position of political institutions in Serbia?.

For political scientists, institutions are rules. Administrative institutions shape and dictate administrative behavior, and this behavior depends on how successful the public administration will be in some public work, i.e. in providing some public service. And here I have to return to the highest, political positions in public administration - if from those positions come messages and actions aimed at public interest and public good, the work for public administration is much easier.