EAPAA peer review accreditation and its potential to strengthen PA education: the case of CEE countries

Transcription

1 EAPAA peer review accreditation and its potential to strengthen PA education: the case of CEE countries Author: Juraj Nemec, Prof. PhD 1 Affiliation: Matej Bel University Banska Bystrica, Slovakia Introduction The experience with national and the first experiences with international accreditation processes in public administration (PA) in Central and Eastern Europe (mainly with European Association of Public Administration Accreditation EAPAA or National Association of Schools of Public Administration in U.S. NASPA) indicate that there are many open questions connected with accreditation processes in our region (and not only in our region). In our paper we want to provide some information especially on EAPAA accreditation, not to promote or to criticize it, but to help to understand what is going on. Traditional old type compliance accreditation of PA programmes that still prevails in CEE region has limited chance to guarantee and improve the quality, but also to promote necessary diversity of PA programmes in our region. Could EAPAA peer review and mission based accreditation be a better tool? In our paper we will focus on the basic principles and possible advantages of peer review and mission based versus traditional accreditation. We also highlight main principles and approaches of EAPAA accreditation, and show some important realization problems of this type of accreditation in CEE environment, including selected concrete examples. 1. Accreditation on university level In our paper we understand accreditation of the university (university programme) as the process with the final end in the form of yes or no. These yes or no may be answer to many relatively different questions, namely: Can government (its regulatory body, or any outsourced institution) include the school (programme) into nationally recognized network (normally this means to grant the right to deliver respective programme)? Can the school (programme) be accepted as the member of some national or more frequently international network as it delivers good quality? Answers to such questions should be dominantly based on careful evaluation of qualitative and normally also quantitative data describing the school of the programme. 1 The author is the member of EAPAA Accreditation Committee and the member of subcommittee of the Slovak Accreditation Commission. 1

2 Concerning structures, approaches, tools and methods used, we might distinguish between many accreditation forms, following different characteristics, like: A: Domain : - National accreditation, valid for one country (now in EU normally for all member countries) - International accreditation B: Accreditation body: - Accreditation completely delivered by respective state body (mainly Ministry of Education and its branches) - Accreditation awarded by the state body (Ministry), but realized by semiindependent public body (Accreditations committee, nominated by the state) - Accreditation awarded by the state body (Ministry), but realized by fully independent, normally private body (outsourcing to private accreditation bodies) C: Ways of evaluation: - Accreditation on the base of fixed set of quantitative criteria (probity) - Accreditation on the more flexible base for example on the base of set of broader standards or (and) mission and its fulfillment D: Evaluation staff: - Accreditation process realized by bosses/controllers (persons who are one level higher that evaluated staff) - Accreditation process realized by peers (colleagues, who come to check the situation to be able to help by advises how to improve) - Accreditation process realized by independent individuals, who just come to deliver professional piece of work, and do not have any specific relation to the institution E: Main goals: - To award the right to deliver a degree - To help to improve a quality of the school/programme F: Scope - Accreditation of the whole body (university or faculty) - Accreditation of partial programme 2. Accreditation: do we need it? Especially CEE countries use accreditation as the tool to select universities eligible for public grants/finance. The general rule is that only (nationally?!) accredited programmes can be supported from public funds; in most countries non-accredited programmes shall not be delivered. Let us to start to think about this idea In spite, it might be taken as obvious, we still can put in front the question Do we really need accreditation? Why should anybody have the right or privilege to say yes or no to some school or its programme? Especially liberals (ultraliberals), like J. Kinkor (1996) in the Czech Republic might argue that students (supported by parents) are best judges of the quality of a school where 2

3 they want to study. And because of this there is no need for the government to establish the national accreditation system, to check if the school/programme has the right to deliver a university degree. Simple individual student s choice is preferred by right wing also because of high level of a risk connected with government failure (see for example Stiglitz, 1997). Government failure problem in connection with accreditation means that none accreditation system can be fully perfect, as it is very difficult exactly to measure a quality in fully independent way and by fully independent people. On the other hand (switching to centre and left ) can we fully accept the assumption that students really are best judges? It is relatively simple to prove the fact that majority of students follow certain strategies that prevent socially optimal choice. With imperfect labor markets the typical student s strategy might be short-term strategy, prioritizing the title/grade to quality of education received (choosing the simplest way to finish their studies). Another problem, very significant in CEE region are regional strategies, when students, because of more factors (lack of resources, family situation, etc.) prefer to enroll the nearest available university programme in acceptable field of studies. Some more strategies could be mentioned (partner, etc.) that might be accepted as individually rational, but hardly could lead to so called social optimum concerning numbers and distributions of students (probably only in phantasm of some extreme rights voices). One more reason for accreditation in the Europe cannot be avoided. Because of globalization, of main rules of common market (especially free movement of labor), and of Bologna agreements (focusing on bridging national university education systems and institutions and trying to allow students to migrate during studies), certain need to prove that the school or programme could be internationally accepted starts to be more and more actual. It is natural that the tutors of the programme want to know, if credits obtained in other school really mean that the student was also provided by necessary level of knowledge, skills and experience. How to conclude there is no perfect answer. However, there are many important warnings, connected with traditional system of accreditation in CEE, but also with EAPAA approach. In over-politicized societies with high risk of corruption (see Transparency International CPI indexes for all CEE countries the state really fails. In such environment: may be students choice is most transparent choice??? But again from other perspective what about sharks entering the university education market, taking public grants and not delivering the service?? Other issue: Is non-state and independent per review accreditation possible in CEE??? Let us to show one example of pros and cons of traditional system. 3. Traditional probity based and protective accreditation pros and cons: case of Slovakia The accreditation process in Slovakia involves two levels of decision making. Main part of the process is realized via the Accreditation Committee (AC), semi-independent advisory body of the Government of Slovakia. The Accreditation Committee ( has its main decision making body and several subcommittees to evaluate study programmes. The members of the AC and its subcommittees are university professors and experts from the practice, working on voluntary basis (except of small administrative staff). The system is relative simple the University sends application to accredit selected study programme, the assessment process is allocated to one of subcommittees, the committee drafts a proposal and main body reaches final decision (there is no site visit). After AC 3

4 decides, it submits all proposals to the Minister of Education, who has final right to decide on awarding the accreditation. Concerning the character, the accreditation process in Slovakia is mainly based on the set of given publicly known criteria, it is accreditation of the capacity if the school to deliver respective programme, and it is the tool to say yes or now to the programme. Non-accredited programmes cannot be delivered. The set of criteria to decide is as follows: 1. The level of scientific activities of the school and its bodies participating in the programme (minimum level is set in descriptive way, not by indicators). 2. Sufficient material and technical equipment (the minimum concrete criteria is library, other aspects are set in descriptive way, not by indicators). 3. Structure of academic staff (the requirements what is sufficient are set in only descriptive way, not by indicators). 4. Quantity of academic staff (defined in the way that the maximum number of MA and BA theses per staff member is 10, MA theses can be supervised by PhD or higher qualification). 5. The structure of committees for final state examination (the minimum requirement for the committee to be approved and two members must be internal docents or professors). 6. Person responsible for the programme (there must be a full time internal person responsible for the programme, with proven experience in the field, sufficient publications and teaching experience, bellow 65 years of age, minimum docent for BA and professor for MA programmes). 7. The contents of the programme (as minimum 3/5 of the curricula must be based on national Master Curricula, the programme shall provide necessary skills). 8. Length of studies (BA: 3-4 years, MA: 1-3 years) 9. Final theses (MA and BA levels shall include final theses of prescribed structure and length). 10. Selection of students (proper approach is set in very descriptive way, not by indicators). 11. The requirements to pass examinations and to obtain degree (proper approach is set in very descriptive way, not by indicators). 12. The quality of graduates (expectations on graduates are set in very descriptive way, not by indicators). As any public sector tool, the Slovak accreditation process has it strengths and weaknesses. Potential positive aspects are peers involvement, relative independence of the AC, existence of criteria. On the other hand, it includes many critical points, limiting its effectiveness as regulative and quality control tool in following text we highlight some of problems. The list of used indicators, provided above, clearly shows one of problematic aspects of this kind of accreditation most of criteria are not enough transparent and can be interpreted very differently, to help or to kill. It is also questionable, if all these criteria are genuine. For example, in many cases, 63 years old professor might mean form the point of view of deliverables much less than 35 years old PhD. As accreditation is the necessary precondition to get the right to deliver a university programme in Slovakia, such system of criteria, in combination with the way of selection of AC and its subcommittee members, and with the way of setting of national standard curricula creates a lot of risks, proved by reality. 4

5 AC and its subcommittee members are professors, dominantly recruited from existing long term established universities. Professors from these schools were also responsible for setting the national curricula. As the voice of experts from practice is very marginal, such arrangements give to established universities too much influence over the process. This level of influence is normally misused to grant accreditation to their programmes without real evaluation, and to block any new entrance into the market. In many cases the national curricula were not created on the base of modern international practice, but to mirror existing structure of established programmes, very much depending on what old cadres can offer (supply driven curricula). The same is valid for approved list of study programmes (new programmes shall always fit to some of already existing category) the outcome is non-existence of standard programmes (like public finance), and existence of mish-mash name programmes (like public economics and services) in Slovakia. The accreditation process in Slovakia is expected to serve mainly as the regulatory tool, not to allow programmes of low quality to enter the market, or to sustain in the market too long. However, because of mentioned features it does not serve to its goals very effectively, even more, it limits the chance for many positive progressive developments. It allows for too much subjectivity and includes too few international comparisons. Thanks to this; it is more the fighting tool between new and established schools in their search for public finance, and not positive public policy instrument. 4. EAPAA accreditation process and its potential impacts on PA programmes EAPAA accreditation process could by characterized as per-review, mission based, non-state international accreditation process of university PA programmes. The EAPAA accreditation process has three main phases: 1. Preparation of self-evaluation report by the programme. 2. Site visit by peers and drafting of site visit report. 3. Final decision by the EAPAA Accreditation Committee. The evaluation of a programme is based on given set of yes and no criteria and on standards, described bellow. EAPAA criteria ( are as follows: A: Domain The primary objective of the programme to be accredited is professional academic level education preparing persons for academic level roles in the public sector. A broad variety of programme titles are considered to be subsumed under the broad term 'Public Administration' used in these EAPAA documents: 'Public Administration', 'Public Administration and Public Policy', 'Public Affairs', 'Public Management', 'Government Studies' etc. Also Political Science programmes with a clear public administration orientation are included. The discriminating features are orientation to the public sector and training for practice in the public sector. B: Geography The university or institute providing the Public Administration programme is located in one of the countries of the Council of Europe. 5

6 C: Programme longevity Normal accreditation: the programme must have been in operation at least x years (where x = the length of the programme to be accredited + 2), so there are at least two cohorts of graduates to provide adequate data for evaluating programme policies, procedures, and placement of graduates. New programmes that not yet fulfil the longevity demand, can be certified as peer-approved when the programme is designed in detail, and the organisation and means to implement the programme are available. In this case, the criteria below will be applicable as far as reasonable. After one year in operation the certification can be upgraded to pre-accredited. D: Categories of Accreditation Referring to the Bologna Treaty of 1999, EAPAA uses the Bachelor/Master terminology to indicate these different categories: first cycle undergraduate/bachelor level programmes (3 or 4 years) second cycle graduate/master level programmes (1 or 2 years) combined bachelor/master programmes (4 or 5 years) post-master level programmes (also executive programmes) The EAPAA accreditation standards are standards that are intended to maintain and improve the quality of Public Administration programs. The standards are not intended to dictate curriculum or administrative specifics for each programme but are intended to provide a framework within which each programme will be evaluated. The structure of standards is as follows: A: Domain of Public Administration B: Mission-based Accreditation and Diversity C: Multidisciplinarity D: Relation to Practice and Internships E: Curriculum E: Quality Improvement and Innovation F: Student Assessment G: Programme Jurisdiction H: Faculty I: Admission of Students J: Supportive Services and Facilities K: Student Services L: Public Relations 6

7 As visible from the above description, EAPAA accreditation represents very specific quality management tool. Its main idea is per-review done and mission based quality check of the PA programme. The criteria are very open and allow for enough flexibility. The contents of EAPAA accreditation targets most of really important aspects of quality management of PA programmes, namely: 1. Multi-discipline approach in PA curricula: EAPAA approach fully respects the principle that there is and there must be a diversity of PA programmes across the countries, differing in their content, mission, disciplinary orientation, pedagogy, relation to practice. Simultaneously it supports necessary level of converge of all programs, to allow for exchange and comparability. The EAPAA standard is set as follows: The programme to be accredited should have as its major subject Public Administration in the broadest sense of the word. This embraces governance and all the aspects of management and policy that come with it, as well as the social and economic environments that affect it and are affected by it. Also it embraces the understanding of democratic values. The responsibility of the accredited programmes is not just to teach technical proficiency, but also to teach Public Administration according to academic standards based on positive and normative theory and empirical research. Public Administration programmes should be multidisciplinary in character: relevant core concepts and theories in the disciplines of economics, law, political science and sociology should be taught in the programme with explicit focus on the interrelations between the disciplines. 2. Core components of PA: EAPAA approach defines core components of any PA program, but allows for local differences: The curriculum should express the general idea of public administration as a multidisciplinary programme, with the purpose of preparing students for professional academic level roles in the public sector in democratic and legal states. All components of the curriculum should be justified with respect to their quality and consistency with the mission of the programme. This should be demonstrated by explicitly linking the mission and programme objectives with the curriculum components. Components also can be covered through explicit entry requirements for the programme. Core components: The core curriculum should provide a thorough teaching of the basic concepts, theories, methods and history (classics) of Public Administration. Depending on the institution s view on the disciplinary position of Public Administration, this will be done either in courses in Public Administration, or in the context of courses in the basic disciplines (economics, law, political science, and sociology). The curriculum components should be designed to produce professionals capable of intelligent, creative analysis and communication, and action in the public sector. Courses taken to fulfil the core curriculum components should provide research methods, concepts and theories from the disciplines of economics, law, political science and sociology, as well as the relationship between these fields. Also public finances, informatisation, and public management should be part of the core curriculum. Students should be obliged to give adequate proof of their ability to work independently on real problems or research questions in the public sector, for example through essays and final papers (e.g. a masters thesis). 7

8 The core curriculum components should enhance the student's values, knowledge, and skills to act ethically and effectively. Other components: Each programme should clearly define its objectives for additional work and the rationale for the objectives, and should explain how the curriculum is designed to achieve these objectives. The statement of objectives should include any programme specialisation or concentration and the main categories of students to be served (e.g., pre-service, in-service, full-time, parttime). If a programme advertises its ability to provide preparation for a specialisation or concentration in its catalogue, bulletin, brochures, and/or posters, evidence should be given that key courses in the specialisation or concentration are offered on a regular basis by qualified faculty. Units other than the Public Administration programme may offer specialisation or concentration courses. The specialisation and concentration courses should not be substitutes for the core curriculum components. The curriculum length should be in accordance with the accreditation category that is applied for. 3. Developing a mission statement and/or an educational philosophy of a programme: mission based accreditation is main EAPAA principle: The programme should state clearly its educational philosophy and mission and have an orderly process for developing appropriate strategies and objectives consistent with its mission, resources, and constituencies. From the mission a set of credible educational objectives should be formulated. Interpretations of the standards of this accreditation must be justified in light of the programme's mission and objectives and success in fulfilling its mission. 4. PA programmes and the practice of public administration: internships and close relations to practice are EAPAA standards: Public Administration programmes should provide adequate training of practical skills. Preferably a carefully planned (by specification of criteria for the internships places and assignments for the students) should be made available by the programme, or should be a prerequisite to participate in the programme. This internship may come in the form of a thesis research project. Students who lack a significant professional work background should be strongly encouraged to do an internship. The programme should provide on-going academic supervision of the internship. 5. Ways of assessing the performance of the students as an answer to changes in the larger environment: EAPAA standards promote modern ways and forms of assessing students: The programme should assess individual performance of its students. The programme should evaluate the students performance in a substantive way with respect to the objectives of the curriculum. Student assessment procedures and measures may take any form appropriate to the programme and its circumstances. 6. The position and role of doing empirical and theoretical research in a PA school (faculty, department): EAPAA standards stress the importance of sustainable research activities as follows: 8

9 The institution should specify how each regular faculty member is involved in the teaching and the related research and service aspects of the programme. 7. Composition of the faculty of PA programmes: the qualitative and quantitative dimensions of staffing of the programme are vital issue for EAPAA: There should be an identifiable faculty nucleus that accepts primary responsibility for the programme; this responsibility should be recognised at the next higher level of the organisation. This regular faculty should consist of a sufficient number of faculty significantly involved with the programme to support the teaching, research and service responsibilities appropriate to the size and structure of the programme. A substantive percentage of the professional faculty nucleus actively involved in the programme should hold an earned doctorate or other equivalent terminal academic degree in their field. Any faculty lacking the terminal degree must have a record or sufficient professional or academic experience directly relevant to their assigned responsibilities. Where practitioners teach courses, there should be satisfactory evidence of the quality of their academic qualifications, professional experience, and teaching ability. 8. The position and role of innovation (substantial and/or pedagogical) and quality improvement in PA programmes: EAPPA standards concerning this aspect are as follows: The programme should assess the accomplishment of its objectives; it should use information about its performance in directing and revising programme objectives, strategies, and operations regularly. The Public Administration programme should provide evidence of an adequate process of curriculum development Pros and cons of EAPAA accreditation The character of accreditation is simultaneously strength and weakness of EAPAA approach. As this kind of accreditation is dominantly peer review quality management tool it can really serve only to situations, when the main goal is improved quality of delivery of programme and not the award itself. In cases when applicants apply for EAPAA accreditation mainly to serve as quality check, it represents really effective tool, as high quality peers from top European PA programmes come to deliver high quality performance audit to the school for relatively very low costs. In cases of schools seeking just for award of certificate, EAPAA accreditation more or less fails. As the time period for a site visit is very short, there is good chance to build Potemkin villages, just to prove that program is eligible. Comments and recommendations might be just formally accepted, and after the award all goes as before (EAPAA capacity for follow up is very limited). The problem of EAPAA approach is also limited chance to be accepted and to serve regulative tool. It is not sufficiently formalized to serve to this purpose and outcomes may depend very much on concrete situation, approach of the programme, structure of site visit team, etc. Almost everywhere schools first need such formal accreditation and only later may seek for quality review (to improve its potential, EAPAA already created system of joint accreditation, where both approaches might be combined to some extend). 9

10 Selected practical implementation problems of EAPAA accreditation: CEE experience In this part we present some existing experience from EAPAA accreditation in CEE environment certainly place, time and people are not described. Modern teaching approaches Normally self-evaluation reports claim that modern teaching approaches are used within the school in routine way. However, such claims are simple to be cross-checked, also without visiting any lecture (visiting of few lectures or seminars during the site visit makes no sense, as such visits would not create real picture. Indicators of what is really going on are detailed syllabi, materials on web page and also routine of students to use such materials (it shall not happen that the student accompanying the site visit team is not able to open his account in intranet to show available study materials such situation clearly indicates formal existence but not real use). Internationalization Programs also normally claim that they incorporate international experience. In reality this is not simple and not very much practice in many CEE schools. The main barrier is the quality of library CEE libraries cannot be compared to standard Western situation, because of more objective reasons. The collection of necessary stock started only after In most schools resources to pay for international textbooks and journals are very limited (my faculty budget for library was on the level of 200 EUR per year for several years, and extra-budgetary resources are also not unlimited). However, there are also subjective barriers. The worthiest practice is the fact that many CEE teachers are used to work only with one textbook (normally written by them) for the course. This practice is fully visible from different study materials (syllabi, tests ). Research Classic problem for CEE schools is lack of international research projects. Still too many teachers do not speak main international languages, especially English. Also some national research grant systems do not motivate to search for international co-operation. In case the grant system supports many small projects, there is no chance to check real outcomes of what was achieved, and such research might be just formal compilation. Many advisory or training and curricula development projects are counted as research in statistical data provided by schools, too. Lack of international research is very visible from self-evaluation reports and CVs of faculty. Student s assessment Similarly to way of teaching, schools claim that modern assessment methods are standard used. The reality is very simple to check - samples of tests, questions for intermediate or final examination, written theses and their style and contents are really clear indicator of good or bad practice. If questions are just requesting for memorization of facts, such approach cannot be accepted as modern. If the list of used literature for majority of final 10

11 theses is short and contains only 5-6 sources (normally books), again this is not signal of good practice. Potemkin villages As already indirectly indicated, schools normally try to show local situation better than reality. Such attitudes are to some extend normal. However, as the main goal of the school applying for EAPAA accreditation should be quality audit and not the certificate, manipulation of facts is not very good strategy. Attempts to show the programme much better than real situation might be risky. The site visit team consists from top professionals from more countries, who should be able to see discrepancies between reality and information provided in self-evaluation report very clearly. Discussion with staff, students and other persons representing the programme and its environment shall be open and creative. If participants are pre-selected and instructed to show only positive features, meetings are not helpful and damage the picture, also in cases when the programme is really progressive. And if the main representatives of the programme and of the school do not like any comments or suggestions (as they expect award and want to hear you are the best school in ) EAPAA accreditation is on wrong track. Capacity The last big issue to be mentioned in this short overview is capacity problem. Preparation of the self-evaluation report, organization of site visit are not simple and cost free issues. EAPAA fee is moderate, and should not be problem for the school. Travel and local stay costs of site visit team (to be covered by the school) depend on concrete situation, for remote areas with expensive flights may rise to substantive level. The most important problem seems to be the capacity to write proper, comprehensive and real self-evaluation report. First there must be staff with fluent English (other languages might be used, but in reality will not be used in CEE region). These people need to find time to collect all information (that must not overlap with national accreditation information database), what might be difficult if comprehensive internal information systems are not in regular use within the school. Than it is necessary to process all collected information into the proper report time and some experience are necessary. The way of describing information fro EAPPA purposes might be very different from what is needed in national accreditation. Concerning the style and contents of the report, two extremes might be observed. One was already described the report shows all aspects of the programme better than the reality. However, it also happened that the report was really bellow reality. Both situations are difficult to solve. EAPAA is not coming to the school as controller/ reviser, and does not have proper mechanisms to deal with Potemkins because of its specific character. EAPAA also must archive all written documents, and if the self evaluation report is not of proper quality, it is too difficult to award accreditation only on the base of different messages form site visit team. And schools must not understand that the main goal quality audit was successfully achieved (and the programme received many inputs to improve), if also the award is not received. Conclusions 11

12 There are many approaches to accreditation processes; in CEE accreditation is used mainly as regulatory mechanisms to set the list of publicly supported universities. The story is very general - the public body responsible for university education claims that quality control must be done by the state as students and their parents are not best judges or value/quality provided to them by a respective programme. Following this it introduces accreditation to decide, which programmes can be delivered in the market (or which will be supported from public funds). However, in reality, as any public sector tool, this type of accreditation is connected with large potential of government failure and serves to protect hidden interests. As of today, we feel that there is no chance for effective functioning of accreditation systems in typical CEE conditions, thus a lot of doubts about this tool occur. EAPAA accreditation brings very important new approaches into the accreditation area, and has the potential to serve as really important quality management tool. However, its potential in CEE region is still significantly limited, because of more factors. From the point of view of governments, as of today, in its current form it will not be accepted by national accreditation bodies in CEE countries (at least in most cases). From the point of PA schools two problems shall be mentioned, as minimum: - lack of financial and human resources to participate in EAPAA accreditation - applying for EAPAA accreditation to receive certificate and not to learn and improve. Both mentioned problems and some other barriers mean that the potential of EAPAA accreditation for quality improvements is not sufficiently used in CEE region. Will the situation improve? Hope, yes! EAPAA should keep its unique character and CEE accreditations systems step by step converge to its main principles, not opposite. Literature: 1. Allen, R. Tomassi, D.: Managing Public Expenditure. Paris, SIGMA OECD Cullis, J.-Jones, P.: Microecomomics and the Public Economy: A Defence of Leviathan. Blackwell, Cullis, J.-Jones, P.: Public Finance and Public Choice. McGraw-Hill, Hamerníková, B.-Kubátová, K.: Veřejné financie. Praha, Eurolex Bohemia, Kinkor, J.: Trh a stat. Praha Kubátová, K. Vitek, L.: Daňová teorie a politika, Praha, Grada Lane, J. E.: New Public Management. London, Routledge Medveď, J. Nemec, J. Orviská, M. Zimková, E.: Verejné financie. Sprint, Bratislava Miller, W.L., Grodeland, A.B., and Koschechkina, T.Y.: Are the People Victims or Accomplices?, Budapest, LGI, Ochrana, F.: Veřejné projekty a veřejné zakázky. Codex Bohemia, Ochrana, F.: Veřejný sektor a efektivní rozhodování. Management Press, Praha, Ochrana, F.: Veřejná volba a řízení veřejných výdajů. Ekopress, Praha, Orviská, M. a kol.: Ekonómia a financovanie verejného sektora. Fakulta financií UMB Banska Bystrica, Pollitt, Ch. Bouckaert, G.: Public Management Reform. Oxford, Oxford University Press Pudil, P. - Vybíhal, V. - Vítek, L. - Pavel, J. a kol.: Zdanění a efektivnost. Eurolex Bohemia, Praha,

13 16. Rothbard, M. N.: Ekonomie státních zásahů. Liberální institut Praha, Stiglitz, J.E.: Ekonomie veřejného sektoru. Grada, Praha Strecková, Y. Malý, I.: Veřejná ekonomie pro teorii a praxi. Computer Press, Praha, Šumpíková, Markéta (ed.): Teorie a praxe ve veřejném sektoru. Megaprint, Praha Vítek, L.: Teorie společenské volby a politické rozhodování vzájemná závislost. In: Sborník příspěvků Problémy definování a prosazování veřejného zájmu. MU Brno, Wright G. Nemec. J.: Public Management in the Central and Eastern European Transition: Concepts and Cases. Bratislava, NISPAcee