Public Administration Reform in Romania from a Leadership and Managerial Perspective (English version)

Public administration reform has been a top priority for every political party that has held office from 1990 since present, but after more than 20 years of “reform”, Romania still faces major administrative problems and challenges while its administrative system in some areas the system still being pre-bureaucratic. One of the causes why reform initiatives and projects have had such a hard time in delivering the promised results is the lack of major political support and consequently lack of leadership in guiding and implementing such measures. We will try to underline the importance of leadership in any major change process – administrative reform fits perfectly in to this category – by pointing out that in the cases were administrative reform succeeded, leadership was a crucial positive contributing factor. After a brief presentation of major changes that took place at administrative level until the countries EU accession we will analyze the latest changes that took place after 2008 and the global financial crisis, which can be seen as a catalyst for the reform process.