Back to Basics in Eastern Europe

n June, I taught a course in public management at the Georgian Institute of Public Administration--that's Joe Stalin's Georgia, not Jimmy Carter's. It was my fourth trip to the former Eastern bloc countries.

When I first met the leaders of the emerging democracies in the early 1990s, two things impressed me. They were people of enormous quality, intellect and courage who were entering public service at great sacrifice and even potential risk. Their understanding of the essential elements of democratic governance sometimes put ours to shame.

In the West, when we speak of government reform, we are redecorating. Eastern European countries, on the other hand, are building whole new structures and even creating new traditions. A few countries in the region can faintly remember democratic forms that fell to the Soviets in 1945. Many must reach back to 1917 or the early 1920s to remember, and a few have never lived under what we would call a democratic regime. These countries have been forced to address some of the basic principles and functions that underlie democratic governments.

Some of us in the redecorating business have lost sight of the basic structures on which we are building. If the United States is to help Eastern European countries build stable democratic institutions, we too have to get back to basics. Only a fool believes that democratic forms as they have evolved in the United States--or in any other country--are directly exportable to Eastern Europe.

My recent Georgian experience has only reinforced my first impressions. Some of the key features of democratic governance are hard to see when one is on the inside.

What, then, are some of these basic forms and principles? My list is certainly incomplete--colleagues who have spent more time in democracy-building than I would doubtless add to it. I offer it as a way of suggesting that those of us who tinker at the edge of government management reform periodically ought to get back to basics.

Neutrality and Ethics

Good public service begins with good people--and it takes more than intelligence. We in the United States figured that out in the late 19th century with the enactment of the Pendleton Act and the creation of the merit system. We do not require civil servants to give up their partisan personas--especially in light of recent Hatch Act amendments--but we do not permit their personal politics to influence official actions. Except for elected officials and a small cadre of appointees, we do not require a particular political affiliation in order to hold public office. We hire based on merit, which helps ensure competence and fairness as well as continuity when party control changes.

Political neutrality and a merit system are not the only important features of democratic civil service systems. They all share a commitment to ethical discharge of public duties. Perhaps the single most frequent criticism of civil servants in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union is that they are corrupt. More is at stake here than some abstract notion of the relationship between ethical behavior and fairness. Businesses are less inclined to invest in a country where rules are not enforced and one's survival depends on the whims of corrupt officials. A tax system that does not collect a reasonable percentage of taxes due means that government will lack the resources to provide even basic services. Lack of investment weakens the economy and potentially threatens political stability.

On a visit to Tbilisi, I noticed the police flagging down cars at random. When I asked my hosts what was going on, they told me matter-of-factly that some of them were extorting money from motorists to buy food. Police are paid the equivalent of about $40 a month and have not been paid for several months. Imagine: a new way to streamline government; no costly tax collection or payroll system required. By adopting this approach, the United States could eliminate most of the Treasury Department.

Viewed through my Western lenses, this looked like a simple question of moral fortitude and enforcement of ethical codes. Then, on a visit to Warsaw, I got a different perspective. There, a senior government official told me that his government saw adequate pay for civil servants as a critical factor in eliminating bribery. Beyond merely providing a subsistence wage, the Polish government understands that pay comparability and respect are important to ensuring ethical behavior. I have strong reservations about the particular processes set up by the Federal Employees' Pay Comparability Act, but pay comparability matters.

Non-Governmental Groups

While we tend to use the simple rhetoric of the government and the private sector, democratic governance depends on the existence of a third sector--nonprofits, or non-governmental organizations. These groups serve three important roles:

• They aggregate and mediate public opinion for formulating public policy. Typically, it is not Joe Citizen or Jane Businessperson who lobbies Congress; it is organizations such as Public Citizen, the AFL-CIO, Chambers of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, and our political parties.
• They inform the public and often serve as an instrument of policy implementation--many older Americans learn about the latest changes in Medicare or Social Security by reading American Association of Retired Persons publications, for example.
• They independently fund and deliver services, such as Salvation Army assistance to the needy and church-run schools.

Western models vary. The United States, with its Jeffersonian suspicion of large governments, has an especially strong non-governmental sector. Australians, in contrast, find our use of the voluntary sector instead of the state to deliver social services peculiar. In France, the church has historically predominated in the social services business, especially health and education. If we did not have NGOs, we would have to invent mechanisms and institutions to perform the roles they play for us. And that is what is happening in Eastern Europe.

Building NGOs long has been one of the priorities of the Agency for International Development and other donors concerned with democracy and governance in this part of the world. Organizations that had similar names to Western NGOs existed during the Soviet era, but that actually complicates the problem. Labor unions were state-controlled committees used as an adjunct to the formal organization. The notion of free labor unions is relatively new to the region. There was, of course a political party, but it was an instrument of the state, not a diverse set of organizations established to influence and even disagree with official policies.

The region has no lack of NGOs. Indeed, new ones spring up every day. Still, financing is a huge problem. The people of this region are extraordinarily generous, even by American standards. Locals rarely pass a beggar without reaching into their pockets, but there is not much money here. There are no large indigenous foundations, and government support is virtually nonexistent. Foreign support, both from governments and foundations, has been their lifeline.

Power to the People

Democracy is more than just a way of allocating political power. It defines the way we operate all sorts of institutions. Leadership and strategies originate from the top, but workers who are respected and encouraged to take initiative are usually far happier and more productive. Self-directed teams and quality circles have changed the landscape of both public and private organizations. Diversity of people and ideas and a participatory management style generate better answers than one person could produce.

Fundamental notions of worker empowerment and diversity of approaches were hardly part of the Soviet culture. The Soviet system placed enormous emphasis on education, especially scientific and technical studies, and produced a labor pool of highly educated individuals. Government leaders and academics in this region generally acknowledge that one of the most important and potentially toxic management legacies of the former Soviet Union was a hierarchical, top-down style of thinking. Considering alternatives, open, adaptive decision-making, managing risk, and questioning authority are foreign to the management culture. The problem is exacerbated by widespread unemployment, so those who have jobs are easily intimidated by managers.

Access to Information

The free flow of information to and from government is essential to democratic governance. In a controlled society, it was not important that the public know the laws and regulations, especially those under consideration; a public official could always tell you when you were in violation.

It did not take the citizens of Georgia or other countries in the region long to figure this out. The Parliament's proceedings are now televised and, with AID assistance, a public law database was created. Also, most government agencies are accessible via the Internet. It would be an overstatement to say that there is a robust information strategy and program, but things are happening.

Two years ago, offices had fewer than one computer per 10 staffers and virtually no Internet access. With a few exceptions, the first priority of everyone I spoke to this year was for more Internet access so that they could get information about how other governments and organizations were dealing with issues facing Georgia. If only that were the first priority of our own public officials. We can learn something here as well.

I have learned more from the Georgians and others in this region than they have from me. Democracy faces formidable challenges--economic and political--but I have every confidence that eventually, robust democratic governments will emerge. Moving to market democracy is not easy. The pensioner or wage-earner whose income has gone away may understandably long for the good old days. But most of the people I speak to tell me that they have tasted living in an open society and there is no going back.

Franklin S. Reeder, head of The Reeder Group in Washington, writes, teaches and consults on information technology and public policy matters. From 1992 through 1995, he served as the U.S. delegate to the Public Management Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.