The post-independence civil service in Kosovo: A message of politicization
| DOI | 10.1177/0020852312455992 |
| Author | Fisnik Korenica,Dren Doli,Artan Rogova |
| Date | 01 December 2012 |
| Published date | 01 December 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
International Review of
Administrative Sciences
78(4) 665–691
!The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/0020852312455992
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International
Review of
Administrative
Sciences
Article
The post-independence civil
service in Kosovo: A message
of politicization
Dren Doli, Fisnik Korenica and
Artan Rogova
Group for Legal and Political Studies, Prishtina, Republic of
Kosovo
Abstract
This contribution discusses the politicization of the civil service system in Kosovo as a
framework through which politicians exert influence in the system. The article employs
the concept of formal-political discretion, as a means of explaining and elucidating the
extent to which both the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo
(UNMIK) and current legislation regulating civil service preconditions/pre-favours the
politicization of the senior civil service in Kosovo. It first discusses the concept of
politicization based upon current scholarship and gives hints on the way in which
these concepts fit with both UNMIK and Kosovo’s current situation. Next, the article
discusses and compares the previous civil service system built by UNMIK with the
current one – built in post-independence Kosovo based upon the formal-political dis-
cretion model. The article further argues that the former system of civil service – in
contrast to the current system – provided less formal-political discretion to political
elites with which to politicize the senior civil service. The article concludes by suggest-
ing that the current post-independence legislation regulating the civil service grants the
executive institutions a significant level of formal-political discretion in the appointment,
dismissal and promotion of civil servants.
Points for practitioners
The articles offers a thorough, both theoretical and practical, policy explanation of the
model and structure of Kosovo’s civil service, hinting on the previous and current
legislative gaps that allow for partisan influence and control. The article also portrays
the routes via which the politicization of the civil service in Kosovo is being developed,
giving insights on how civil servants perceive such a process. Comparing the previous
civil service system with the current one, the article informs practitioners on the dir-
ections that the new reform on Kosovo’s civil service should take. Finally, the article
Corresponding author:
Fisnik Korenica, Group for Legal and Political Studies, ‘Rexhep Luci’ 10/5, Prishtina 10 000, Kosovo
Email: fisnik@legalpoliticalstudies.org
provides in-depth policy information on the means to redesign the key protection
mechanisms of Kosovo’s senior civil service management.
Keywords
appointment, civil service, dismissal, Kosovo, law, politicization, promotion, reform
Introduction
Recent studies of public administration have revealed different problems in estab-
lishing a professional civil service. These studies, therefore, indicate that the
reforms of the civil service usually affect both the relationship between politicians
and civil servants on the one hand, and the professionalism and impartiality of a
given civil service system, on the other. It is, of course, argued that civil service
system reforms ‘are essentially political, aiming at changing the balance of power
between politics and public administration,’ especially in post-communist and tran-
sition countries (Peters and Pierre, quoted in Rouban, 2007: 263).
Yet, from this perspective, these studies explain that the politicization of the civil
service prescribes a state of affairs wherein politicians and/or incumbent political
parties have amplified their role in the definition of public policies vis-a-vis civil
servants. To some degree, the argument goes, politicians, by their ‘legitimate inter-
est’ – have made an impact on the policy-making process. These different modes of
influence have been markedly increasing in post-communist and transition coun-
tries. As such, the effects of politicization in both the performance of the civil
service and the quality of the public policies is assumed to be negative. Some
authors deem that the effects of politicization of the civil service hardly can be
measured. Others read into the effects of politicization, and suggest that it delivers
negative results in terms of the efficiency of the civil service and in the quality of
public policies (Peters and Pierre, 2004: 8).
Notwithstanding this presumption, the present contribution illustrates the
extent to which Kosovo’s legal framework governing the civil service enables
incumbent politicians and/or political parties to exert control or to influence the
civil service.
1
In this case, we apply the concept of formal-political discretion to
illustrate the relationship between the legal framework and the politicization of the
civil service in Kosovo. However, since the evidence suggests that the level of
political influence proves higher within the category of senior civil servants, we
apply this approach only for the senior civil service staff (Verheijen, 1999). Our
claim is that the most recent changes in the legal framework governing the civil
service have increased the authority of politicians in relation to senior civil servants;
either through their involvement in the process of recruitment, dismissal, and pro-
motion or through increased control of the policy-making process and the roles
designed to be exercised by senior civil servants within the bureaucracy.
According to Meyer-Sahling (2006: 699), the legislation enables and constrains
the ‘exercise of political discretion in the personnel policy domains of allocating
666 International Review of Administrative Sciences 78(4)
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