Theory states, and practice has thoroughly confirmed, that the causes of poor public policies can essentially be twofold, stemming from either a lack of state capacity and its institutions and/or the interests of those in power to keep them as such—poor for the public interest, but very beneficial for the narrow particular interests of the most powerful.
The lack of state capacity can be further examined as a deficiency in individual capacities of civil servants and/or managers to perform tasks of appropriate complexity, then a lack of institutional and organizational capacities at the institutional level, which can manifest in inadequate work organization, shortage of appropriate technical capacities including modern information and communication technologies, and finally a lack of capacity at the public sector level, in terms of inadequate coordination, organization, and division of responsibilities, etc.
This second cause, the preference for narrow particular interests of the most powerful, is much harder to eliminate, and in principle, the only effective remedy against it is democratization, which is, of course, always and everywhere much easier said than done.
To make the problem of poor public policies even greater and more complex to solve—which we have learned at our own public expense is often paid for in human lives (see COVID procurements, air pollution in BiH, etc.)—the aforementioned two causes of poor policies, namely the lack of capacity and the preference for narrow interests at the expense of the general interest, or simply put, corruption, occur in practice as mutually conditioned and intertwined.
For example, the lack of individual capacities of public servants is conditioned by clientelism, that is, the employment of public servants based on party affiliation rather than merit criteria.
In the case of BiH, things have been brought to absurdity in many ways; examples are not lacking. For instance, public administration or even the public sector as a whole—a general conclusion of all research dealing with this—is simultaneously cumbersome and overstaffed to the point of caricature, while at the same time drastically lacking capacity for the most complex tasks such as analytical work. Of course, this is the result of decades of negative selection of personnel in the public sector, which had the primary goal of ensuring the ruling parties’ survival in power by employing suitable individuals.
The good news is that, as with almost everything, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel.
An interesting theory, for which there are many indications from practice that it is correct, says roughly the following: it is a mistaken assumption, long held, that for successful implementation of reforms, it is necessary to ensure that the dissatisfaction of the so-called losers of reform processes (because every reform or change in public policy has losers and winners, or those who lose acquired privileges or rights due to the change in approach) is amortized in an appropriate way. In fact, it is about the need to restrain the winners of partially implemented reforms (partial reform equilibrium), that is, the narrow political elite that reaps enormous benefits from subordinating public interest to the general, while the negative effects of such a state are passed on to all citizens.
The story of good governance is actually very simple and boils down to this: when creating policies, gather all those who will be affected by such policies and find a solution that will maintain the lowest common denominator—the public interest. And of course, ensure consistent implementation of such a solution by a meritorious administration.
Again, much easier said than done. Of course, you have another option: not to do so, but to make policies behind closed doors and implement them selectively in the particular interest of the most powerful. But that approach will certainly not be sustainable; harsh reality will take care of the (un)sustainability of such an approach. Now, if you’re unlucky, you might end up like Milošević or Ceaușescu, and if you’re a bit luckier, like Gruevski in the embrace and under the protection of brother Orbán.
Undoubtedly, processes indicating the unsustainability of this situation in BiH are already highly visible. The abuse of the public sector as a tool for staying in power will be less and less possible. The current way of maintaining power, based on the distribution of jobs in the public sector in exchange for support in elections (more than 90% of jobs in the public sector, according to TI BiH research, are allocated based on clientelistic criteria), will hardly be sustainable.
The latest labor force survey shows a continuation of the dramatic trend of declining unemployment rates; in RS, the unemployment rate has even fallen below 10%. Of course, this is not about increased employment, but about an epic exodus of people abroad.
Of course, this trend will not only continue but will be further intensified, so that employment in the public sector will no longer be able to serve as a tactic for mobilizing voters. But of course, other problems will again require public policies, in this case, for example, how to find the missing workforce and how to integrate foreign workers into the already xenophobic Bosnian-Herzegovinian society, but that’s a topic for another story.
