INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION SYSTEMS OF THE WESTERN BALKAN COUNTRIES IN THE PROCESS OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

Abstract

The article substantiates a multi-level diagnostic framework for assessing the institutional capacity of public administration systems in the Western Balkans during European integration. Institutional capacity is defined as the ability of an administrative system to maintain a recurrent governance cycle: planning reforms, securing resources, coordinating policies, sustaining a professional civil service, ensuring accountability mechanisms, delivering quality services, using digital tools and managing public finances. The methodology combines systemic, institutional, comparative, secondary statistical and logical-analytical approaches, a critical review of recent literature and secondary analysis of SIGMA/OECD, ReSPA, WeBER and Worldwide Governance Indicators materials. The article distinguishes normative alignment with the acquis from the actual administrative ability to implement membership requirements. Based on the SIGMA approach, six diagnostic dimensions of institutional capacity are identified: public administration reform strategy, policy development and co-ordination, public service and human resource management, organisation, accountability and oversight, service delivery and digitalisation, and public financial management. The quantitative SIGMA-based analysis reveals uneven administrative capacity across the WB6, with public financial management showing the highest average result and public service and human resource management the lowest. The article proposes a typology of regional administrations according to their functional balance and a logical-analytical adaptation matrix for Ukraine, linking institutional lessons from the Western Balkans with the risks of Ukraine’s accession negotiations, wartime governance, recovery and public administration modernisation.