Skip to main content
Disciplines
Automotive Business IT + Informatics Construction + Real Estate Electrical Engineering + Electronics Energy + Sustainability Insurance + Risk Finance + Banking Management + Leadership Marketing + Sales Mechanical Engineering + Materials
Events
DE
EN
Books
Journals
Topic Page
Marketing
Start single access now
Access for companies
EXTENDED SEARCH
Log in
Top

2019 | Book

Scope, Design and Framework Read chapter Read first chapter

International Aid, Administrative Reform and the Politics of EU Accession

The Case of Albania

Author: Artan Karini

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

Part of: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Login to get access
insite
SEARCH

About this book

This book provides a detailed analysis of the dimensions and dynamics of the role of international aid in the reform and capacity development of public service in post-communist Albania. It challenges the technocratic, results-based management frameworks used by aid organizations and reports of official donors operating in the country context, and offers a qualitative and critical assessment of the role of aid in administrative reform and capacity building. Secondly, the book highlights the specificity of the national politico-administrative context and its ability to modify the process of policy transfer from aid organizations to the Albanian bureaucracy. In doing so, it illustrates the domestic challenges in the transfer process towards policy learning and makes a valuable contribution to the debate over the (voluntary vs. coercive) administrative reform in Southeast Europe in relation to the politics of EU accession.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter
Chapter 1. Scope, Design and Framework
Abstract
This book looks at the nexus of two conventionally distinct areas of study, ‘international aid’ and ‘administrative capacity building’ in Albania, a middle-income country located in Southeast Europe (SEE) and an official ‘EU candidate’ since June 2014. In this chapter, a general background to the research study, motivated by both a gap in the literature in terms of the interaction between aid policy and administrative capacity, key theoretical constructs applied, design considerations and observations from my professional experiences as a development practitioner in post-communist Albania are provided.
Artan Karini
Chapter 2. Albania: A Pre- and Post-1990 Snapshot
Abstract
This chapter is an account of the sociopolitical developments related to administrative reform in post-communist Albania. A parliamentary democracy and transition economy, Albania is a member of the UN, NATO, OSCE, the Council of Europe (CoE) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It is also one of the founding members of the Union for the Mediterranean and an EU ‘official candidate country’ since June 2014. This chapter explores the main aid donors and their support for public administration reform.
Artan Karini
Chapter 3. Aid-Supported Policies and Programmes
Abstract
This chapter is the first part of a critical analysis of the aid-supported programs and institutions/mechanisms of international aid. Albania is not an exception among developing countries, where international aid organisations have played a role both as facilitators of policy transfer and as sources of pressure for reform (Martin 1993; Wright 1994; Common 1998). Thus, in the formative years following the collapse of communism up until 2000, the policies of those organisations including the WB, the EU, the EBRD, the UNDP and the USAID had one element in common: application of aid conditionality as pressure on transitional governments to adopt reforms (Ruli 2003; Elbasani 2009). Therefore, aid policy as reflected in the interventions of international organisations in the early years of transition targeted ‘state-building’ broadly rather than public administration reform, as a strategic approach towards the country’s development.
Artan Karini
Chapter 4. A Paris Declaration ‘Success Story’?
Abstract
This chapter forms the second part of the critical analysis begun in Chapter 3. From 1992 to 1996, many donors regarded Albania as another emerging South East European country in transition to a market economy, and therefore, international aid instruments extended to it were comparable to those offered to Hungary and Poland (Fritz 2006). However, the failure of the first post-communist government and political changes in 1997 woke up the international community to the fact that Albania had a unique modern history that required more traditional DAC country programming (ibid.).
Artan Karini
Chapter 5. Lessons Learned from the Case Study of Administrative Capacity in Albania Voluntary or Coercive Transfer?
Abstract
Through an account of the national political, institutional and bureaucratic context, this chapter aims to show that a political culture characterized by increasing levels of politicization in public administration and failure to introduce essential legal amendments as well as the externally motivated nature of administrative reform were the root causes for its perceived failure at least up until 2015. By exemplifying how the national context has been able to modify the transfer process, the chapter argues that, using legal loopholes, the ruling parties have been able to circumvent the provision of the CSL, developed with the assistance of SIGMA/EU and the WB, in order to bring in or retain political militants in the administration.
Artan Karini
Chapter 6. Conclusive Remarks
Abstract
This chapter completes the conclusive discussion started in Chapter 5, intending to provide an alternative story in terms of understanding international aid in post-communist Albania. This book has reinforced the controversial and ambiguous nature of aid policy by demonstrating that when focused on regulatory frameworks and clustered with political processes such as EU accession, the policy learning it supports may occur but transfer per se may not be the outcome. However, as evidence from case of administrative reform and capacity building in Albania suggests, the root cause for the non-transfer is the national context characterised by an adversarial and polarised political culture, in which governing elites have attempted to use aid to their advantage perhaps at the cost of long-term development of the nation.
Artan Karini
Backmatter
Metadata
Title
International Aid, Administrative Reform and the Politics of EU Accession
Author
Artan Karini
Copyright Year
2019
Electronic ISBN
978-3-319-97834-5
Print ISBN
978-3-319-97833-8
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97834-5