Abstract
This chapter aims at exploring the development of the Estonian public service system from 1991 to 2019, through the different periods of post-communist reforms. Estonia represents one of the fastest political and economic transformations among the post-communist countries. Replacing the communist public service by merit principles relied not only on the adaptation of a democratic legal framework but also on a fundamental change in the values, attitudes, and beliefs of politicians, public service executives, individual public servants, and citizens. The Estonian government has developed an open position-based public service system where the responsibility for all the main components of the public service such as recruitment and selection, performance appraisal, training and development, and pay are in the hands of single organisations, and where the politicisation level is one of the lowest among the post-communist countries. However, the public service reform of 2012 which can be described as a pragmatic managerial-oriented reform, may adversely affect meritocratic principles in the public service. Full decentralisation of the public service gives enormous power to managers of individual public sector organisations, whose high managerial discretion in people management processes may lead to misuse of power and revival of elements of patronage. This makes the entire institution of public service vulnerable and provides the biggest challenge for years to come.
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Notes
- 1.
European Public Administration Country Knowledge (EUPACK); https://www.hertie-school.org/en/eupack/.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
The term ‘soft conditionality’ meant that the European Commission was regularly assessing and commenting upon the plans, activities, and regulations of all individual accession countries in regard to their administrative capacity.
- 5.
Based on Pesti and Randma-Liiv (2018).
- 6.
See, e.g. Althaus and Vakil (2013).
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This study was supported by the Estonian Research Council grant PUT 1461.
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Randma-Liiv, T., Pesti, C., Sarapuu, K. (2022). Public Service Development in Estonia: From Patronage to Meritocracy. In: Baimenov, A., Liverakos, P. (eds) Public Service Evolution in the 15 Post-Soviet Countries. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2462-9_5
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