Toward a New Public Administration Model in Romania: The Challenges of Designing Coherent Public Administration Reforms

Reforming public administration in Romania has been a continuous challenge over the past decades, and the traditional model of public administration has been reshaped through various horizontal and vertical reforms. The problem is that these reforms have lacked coherent theoretical and practical trajectories. From the fall of the Communist regime in 1989 until Romania’s accession to the European Union, the new public management (NPM) paradigm predominantly influenced the public sector. Since 2007, no single model of reform has gained centrality, resulting in a mix of elements that have included NPM, the neo-Weberian state, and new public governance. This study explored and clarified the challenges that Romania has faced in designing reforms to enhance institutional efficiency and professional consistency.