Research Committee on Public Policy and Administration Panel 2: Modernising Government: Global and Comparative Perspectives

Quite opposite to common public metaphor on public administration as sleepy, slow and secretive bureaucracy, the Croatian public administration looks like a windsurfer. It rides the waves of domestic political storms and foreign doctrinal (i.e. NPM) and organizational influences, business community attacks and European coincidences, desperately asking for institutional stabilization, ethical standards and professionalism. State administration in Croatia developed during three main phases – establishment (1990-1993), consolidation (1993-2001), and Europeanisation phase (after 2001). It remains to be seen if the adoption of the first Strategy of State Administration Reform in 2008 will be the starting point of the new, fourth phase, the phase of modernisation of Croatian state administration. The development of Croatian public administration is shortly analysed. Environmental influences are systematised, having in mind predominantly the concept of complex and turbulent environment borrowed from the organisational theory. Certain additional insights, predictions and reform proposals are presented, based on empirical data. Key words: Croatian public administration, reform waves, the new public management