This article is the second of a two-part posting.

Panagiotis Karkatsoulis

Taking into account the previously-mentioned remarks, no significant change in the administrative reform policy is expected to take place in 2012: The horizontal cuts will be continued and consequently the public sector’s core functions won’t be carried out properly.

As a countermeasure to that grim prospect, a recovery plan must be agreed upon by major stakeholders, including at least:

1. Measures to strengthen the administrative professionalism, mainly the following:

• A drastic reduction, by at least 50 percent, of the political appointees, of the posts of Deputy Ministers, Vice-Ministers, General and Special Secretaries, political advisers and other staff employed through political channels: 16 Ministers, 21 Vice Ministers and 9 Deputy Ministers, 75 General and Special Secretaries and 1080 political advisers just for the central government. Adding the 325 municipalities and 23000 legal entities, the number of political appointees is considerably higher.
• A change of the status of the Secretaries General of the Ministries from politically appointed to selected among qualified professionals for a certain period of time (managers)

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Washington, DC–The American Society for Public Administration pleased to announce the recipients of several of the Society's major awards. All of the awards will be presented at the Award Ceremony during the Society's National Conference in Las Vegas, March 2-6, 2012.

ASPA's extensive award program advances excellence in public administration in the simplest and most effective way.

It identifies and illuminates government that works and government employees who work well. Today, it is more important than ever that effective and efficient government be recognized, reinforced, and, whenever possible, imitated with the hope of providing better service to the public.

Likewise, ASPA's awards recognize those researchers and professors who have made outstanding contributions to public administration literature and in the classroom.

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This article is the first of a two-part posting. Watch for Part 2 to be posted this Thursday, January 26th.

Panagiotis Karkatsoulis

The future of the Greek state seems, at first glance, mortgaged; a series of problems justifies this ominous prediction. The most important, in order of priority:

A) The many years of resistance to the reform of the State, including the period of the Economic Adjustment Programme. The failure to adapt to international and national rapid developments in the economy, technology and current risks, places the Greek state in the chorus of states with high operating costs, low efficiency and significant corruption.

B) The pseudo-reforms (i.e., the reforms that were announced but never implemented) due to clientelistic strategies and the promotion of vested interests. As a result of the “fake” reforms, the credibility of the Greek political system was undermined, on a European and international level, and the already severely weakened trust of the public employees towards their political leaders was withdrawn.

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