Is There Anybody Out There? For a Better Communication Between Romanian Public Administrators and Their Constituencies

Abstract

Modern public administration education has been established in Romania and in other former communist countries in the early 1990s. As a result, many senior managers in central and local governments have not had the opportunity to attend these academic programs, and the number of in-house training programs has been limited. This study focuses on a set of communication skills – including the use of new technologies and social media – that top local administrators should acquire in order to develop a better relationship with their constituencies. The study is based on assessments of eight workshops conducted in Romania and the Republic of Moldova with government spokespersons and top public administration managers, and on the most recent data on Internet use and Internet penetration in Romania provided by Internet World Stats (2012) and by Intellinews (2013).