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The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview of the public administration (PA) development in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) from an ex post perspective covering the past three decades.

The paper reviews prior literature on CEE and PA paradigms. The authors propose to distinguish between four main phases of public sector development in new democracies: post-communist transition, EU accession, post-accession fine-tuning, and e-governance.

There were many common features in the polities and PAs of the CEE countries at the beginning of the 1990s because of their common communist legacy, and also during the EU accession period, stemming from the “administrative capacity” requirement by the EU. However, domestic decisions of individual CEE governments following accession have moved them apart from each other. While some CEE countries face reversals of democratic public governance reforms, others are leading e-government initiatives – the current phase of public sector development.

The choice of countries is limited to the new member states of the European Union.

The paper shows that it is increasingly difficult to generalize findings, let alone to offer recommendations, that apply to all CEE countries. This is likely to lead to an end of a specific CEE administrative tradition as previously conceptualized in academic literature.

It is impossible to provide anything other than a glimpse of such a complex figure as Nietzsche in the span of a review of a book on his influence (if any) on economics. Here I provide a summary of his life and major works. I have had to omit some works from the discussion, and also suppress a good deal of biographical detail. Some Nietzsche scholarship, especially that outside the analytical philosophical tradition, consider events in Nietzsche's life as important to understanding his philosophy, and look for explanations of his philosophy in his life, such as the lack of a father figure and the search for male role models in Wagner and Schopenhauer, and the effect of his chronic illness on his philosophy. If I consider these interpretive issues, I do so only tangentially.

Argues preliminarily that quantitative‐mathematical social science, including economics, is not possible because it applies a method useful in other areas to a field to which it cannot be applied and because the truth claim of science so conceived is self‐referential to begin with. The argument is primarily based on the classic Gadamerian hermeneutic critique of the natural sciences and on the conception of the social sciences as related to phronésis.

Investigates the importance of English language sources of Friedrich Theodor Althoff (1839‐1908), a German of great influence both in his own country and, indirectly, in the United States. Explores some measures of his influence in education and international understanding. Examines a wide variety of sources. Explains how it could happen that an influential person would end up in intellectual history with almost no recognition. Challenges several conventional assessments. Althoff′s most important contributions are in print and more almost certainly exist in university archives, but the material is scattered and unorganized. Because we do not yet have the full story of this remarkable and complex man, firm conclusions about his influence are not yet possible.

The essay narrates and analyzes Eugen Dühring’s remotion, i.e. the taking away of his status as Privatdozent, and thereby of his right to teach at a university, by the Prussian Minister of Culture in 1877. After sketching out the background of the University of Berlin, the institution of Privatdozent, and Dühring himself, first, Dühring’s 1875 clash with Adolph Wagner is described, which put him on “probation”. Then, the 1877 scandal is looked at in detail, and the accusations against Dühring by the Faculty of Philosophy – mainly libel and insult – checked against the facts. It is argued that, while there might have been a point in Dühring’s charge of plagiarism against the physicist Helmholtz regarding the first law of thermodynamics, Dühring was generally guilty as charged, and that his remotion was certainly legal. As far as the legitimacy of this harsh measure is concerned, the case is less clear, but in the end, it is claimed that the remotion was legitimate as well.

The purpose of this article is to discuss the idea that new public management (NPM) would be passé.

The article is based on a review of existing theories.

The article argues that NPM has two dimensions, namely the minimization of the role of government vis-à-vis society and the improvement of the internal performance of the public sector. Whereas the first dimension is indeed more and more disputed nowadays this does not imply this also goes for the second dimension. The conclusion of this article calls for explanatory empirical research in order to explain the increasing variance in reforms among countries, by investigating which factors are determinative for decisions by governments to turn one way or the other.

It is far from certain which way the public sector is heading in the so-called post-NPM era. Some countries are still implementing NPM-kind of reforms, either by downsizing or by introducing performance management. Other countries have chosen alternative paths. All this implies an increased variance between countries in the direction public sector reforms take. It requires quite different support from administrative sciences compared to the one-size-fits-all recommendations for public sector reforms – in conformity with the maxims of NPM – as witnessed in the past decades.

The article contributes to the discussion about the role of NPM today. It presents original conclusions about diverging developments based on the unique comprehensive literature review on the topic.

For a book claiming that it “introduces the reader to the major concepts,” I was quite disappointed by the papers devoted to the application of economic reasoning to legal rules. No one directly defined the core of the Chicago approach. There were no quotations from Becker about the “economic way of thinking” and no mention of Posner's famous claim that “the common law bears the stamp of economic reasoning.” This section provides examples from three papers to illustrate the lack of a clear presentation of the meaning of the economic analysis of the law, as defined by the Chicago school.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the epistemological tensions embedded within big data and data-driven technologies to advance a socio-political reconsideration of the public dimension in the assessment of their implementation.

This paper builds upon (and revisits) the European Union’s (EU) normative understanding of artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven technologies, blending reflections rooted in philosophy of technology with issues of democratic participation in tech-related matters.

This paper proposes the conceptual design of sectorial and/or local-level e-participation platforms to ignite an ongoing discussion – involving experts, private actors, as well as cognizant citizens – over the implementation of data-driven technologies, to avoid siloed, tech-solutionist decisions.

This paper inscribes the EU’s normative approach to AI and data-driven technologies, as well as critical work on the governance of these technologies, into a broader political dimension, suggesting a way to democratically and epistocratically opening up the decisional processes over the development and implementation of these technologies and turn such processes into a systemic civic involvement.