POLITICS AND ITS IMPACT ON THE REFORM PROCESSES: THE CASE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REFORM IN SLOVAKIA (1989-2006)

Although a successful overthrowing of communist regimes occurred in most CEE countries in the early 1990s, the former satellites of the Soviet Union soon found it difficult to create a new democratic political and administrative system (Horanicova and Klimovsky, 2005: 1). Slovakia is not an exception. In contrast, it is a nice example of how difficult such a creation can be and how uncertain the outputs of any reform are (including public administration reform). Reform in any government usually starts with high expectations but Often ends in disarray and disappointment. Usually, there are two reasons of this phenomenon. One of them, often discussed, is bureaucratic resistance to change, and the other one is associated with the lack of political will. However, even if reformers get both the bureaucratic resistance and the political will under control, they cannot guarantee the success of any reform. Five conditions that can determine reform and its quality can be identified: external pressure; internal dissatisfaction; reform strategy; mechanism for managing reform; and feedback and evaluation (Preparing Public Administrations 1998). This paper is dedicated to the impact of politics (or, in other words, political development) on the reform of public administration in the conditions of Slovakia in terms of the above-mentioned five conditions. It shows that the political development in Slovakia was the cause of several important changes with respect to the reform of public administration.