Synthesis: The Relations Between Conflict and Public Administration Performance

Abstract

The aim of this book was to focus on the situation in selected conflict-affected countries in designated regions internationally to highlight main factors determining the quality of public administration in conflict-affected countries and to assess to what extent the conflict determines and impacts on the performance of public administration in conflict-affected countries. To achieve the overarching goal of the book, sixteen country studies were developed from all relevant continents—America, Africa, Asia and Europe: Bangladesh, Colombia, Croatia, Egypt, Georgia, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, Palestine, Paraguay, Philippines, Serbia, South Africa, Uganda, Ukraine and Venezuela. The authors were invited to follow common methodology in evaluating the performance of public administration in their countries; however, they also received full freedom to focus on the most relevant country specific aspects related to the theme. The main value added by this book, namely analysing the linkage between conflict and the performance of a country’s public administration on the comprehensive sample of conflict-affected countries from different regions and of different types, is confirming the general expectation that there is no direct and universal link between “dependent and independent variable” and between the conflict and the public administration performance (and vice versa). One may need to argue that each country differs and specific factors of internal and external environments determine the trends of each country’s public administration performance in conflict-affected countries.