A Comparative Overview of Educational and Employment Policies in Croatia

Sa？etak This subnational comparative analysis compares two public policies in the Republic of Croatia – the educational and the employment policy. This research uses two very well-known theoretical public policy concepts: Lowi’s public policy typology and the NATO scheme by C. Hood. The latter was also the basis for the analysis, so that government documents were coded using qualitative analysis according to the categories of the NATO scheme. Two interviews conducted with experts on the two policies mentioned were analysed in the same way. The final result of the research provides a framework for the representation of public policy instruments in the educational and employment policies of the Republic of Croatia. By combining the Lowi typology and these results we reach the conclusion that employment instruments are the most commonly used information tools, which are in the education policy tools of authority, which does not coincide with the assumption that the most commonly used instruments are those in the area of organization. Compared to European trends in policy making, according to the results of this research, Croatia is moving in the wrong direction, if judged by the choice of instruments in these policies. As these are two of the more important areas for further growth and development of the country, it remains to be seen whether "wrong" choices will take us in the right direction. But surely this research and its findings could serve as a starting point for a deeper analysis of the instruments of Croatian public policies