6-7 July, 2009,
University of Helsinki, Finland

Treating citizens as customers has been one of the key elements in transforming public services in Europe. Many public sector innovations have focused on giving citizens more voice and more choice, and on giving them the service quality they deserve.

 But are we right to reduce the citizen’s role to that of a customer? What have been the implications of these changes in the public sector? Is the difference between citizens and customers a mere conceptual one, or do the differences run deeper? What is the political, legal, and economic position of citizens and consumers within the organisation of public services? Do they have a different position in different countries?

At this conference, we invite perspectives from public administration, public management, political science, law, business and marketing.

What

The Trans-European Dialogue (TED) is an annual scholarly conference organized jointly by the two key professional associations of Public Administration in Europe, the European Group of Public Administration (EGPA) and the Network of Institutes and Schools of Public Administration in Central and Eastern Europe (NISPAcee). It is a high-level, focused conference on a timely topic in Public Administration (PA) that will profit from bringing together senior experts from different regions, thereby facilitating interchange and discussion across Europe and even including Central Asia and the Caucasus, which also belongs to NISPAcee’s area.

Philosophy

Unlike traditional academic conferences, the TED does not have a large number of papers. Instead, experts discuss a small number of papers and controversial statements. TED also wants to contribute to a closer collaboration between researchers from Central, Eastern and Western Europe.

Venue

The Second Trans-European Dialogue will be held in Helsinki, at the University of Helsinki Main Building. An accommodation arrangement has been made with Hotel Helsinki, which is five minutes walk from the University. These rooms need to be booked through the local organsisers (not directly with the hotel). Detailed practical information will be sent to participants in spring 2009.

There is no conference fee. The TED2 programme includes lunches and two receptions on the 6th and 7th of July.

Please note, the TED 2 will be immediately followed by the IIAS 2009 conference on ‘The history and future of nationbuilding, the role of public administrations, civil servants and public finances’, which will also be hosted in Helsinki.

Participation and selection

TED is predominantly an academic conference. We welcome applications from faculty and graduate students, as well as from public sector practitioners involved in strategic policy work or research. The conference is largely based on plenary discussions and a limited number of presentations.

To be considered for participation, participants should not send paper proposals, but:

• A short bibliographical statement, including information on work or research experience, and, where applicable, publications.
• Formulate 2-3 questions or statements for the discussion, related to conference topic (‘Citizens vs. customers’)  and briefly motivate why you think these questions are important. These statements will serve as an input for the plenary discussions.

Send these to Katju Holkeri (katju.holkeri@vm.fi).

Deadline for submissions: 15 March 2009.

The organising committee will select participants by April 5th, 2009. We strive for a balanced representation of participants from Eastern-, Central and Western Europe. The number of participants will be limited to 50.

More information

If you have any questions about the practical arrangements please contact:
Katju Holkeri (katju.holkeri@vm.fi).

Website: http://www.ted-2.org