| My dissertation examines the adoption of decentralized forms of governance in post-communist states during EU accession. The study is based on the analysis of two Romanian social policy sectors serving vulnerable populations---abandoned children and people with disabilities. I show that post-communist state bureaucracies suffered from politicization, clientelism, and a deficit of expertise. The official EU strategy was to reform the post-communist state along Weberian lines. However, during EU accession, efforts to decentralize, institute market principles, and strengthen the regulatory power of the post-communist state led to a different type of state that I label the Regulatory Network State (RNS). Because policy networks comprising professionals, academics, and foreign NGOs were the backbone of the new type of state, the RNS was relatively immune to politicization and clientelism and made extensive use of professionals. However, I show that the RNS also had a number of negative developmental effects, including inequality, fragmentation, and elitism. This study makes several theoretical contributions. It adds to the literature on post-communist transformation by showing that a decentralized governance approach is more successful in reforming the post-communist state than a purely Weberian approach. Second, it contributes to the literature on globalization because it shows that the adoption of decentralized governance takes place through the medium of policy networks, and not directly through external pressure. Third, it contributes to the theory of the developmental state because it points to the necessity to articulate a better vision of the post-bureaucratic state, one that emphasizes complex equality, substantive rationality, and participatory democracy. |
