engleski

Hundred strategies, one stratagem – an inquiry into the Croatian aptitude to strategy production

Enterprises in transition are operated in an environment given by a large set of laws, by laws and decrees and corresponding organizations which are to enforce them (ministries, state offices, etc). Both legislation and organizations are supposed to be derived from national development strategies produced by the state administration aided by groups and individuals from the scientific community and, in quite a few cases, adopted by the National Parliament. Up to one hundred such strategic documents have been produced since the formation of the Croatian state. A content analysis reveals the common shortcomings of these documents: a voluminous presentation of current state of affairs is followed by unquestionable objectives. At the end a small set of directives is provided without an institutional analysis of those who are to realise them. No financial sources other than general reference to the national budget are mentioned. However, an analysis of national budgets in the period 1991-2005 does not reveal much items that would correspond to expenses required by the strategies. In addition, an analysis of selected pieces of legislation does not show much correspondence between the laws and the strategic documents they are supposed to operationalise. The stratagem refers to the behaviour of policy makers. Initiating and financing the production of strategies they seemingly satisfy the democratic requirement for a transparent development policy and thus provide a shield behind which quite a non transparent policy decisions can be made.

Development strategy; Development policy; Policy makers; Policy implementation

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