Culture and public administration reforms in postsocialist transformation: the case of Serbia

Abstract

The paper deals with cultural embeddedness of public administration transformations in Serbia during postsocialism. Public administration reform represents an important aspect of transformation of overall institutional framework in contemporary societies. According to institutional approach, the changes of formal institutions (including public administration) are deeply embedded in informal institutions or culture. Theoretical and methodological framework of the GLOBE research program has been used as a basis for the empirical analysis. The goal of the paper has been to identify the scores on cultural dimensions in Serbia and to analyze the correlation of these scores with expectations of the public administration reform. The expected similarity of culture in Serbia with other East European cultures has been confirmed, as well as hypothesis about its norms and values as strong informal obstacles for successful public administration reform.