Professor Nicolai Petrovsky joined the Martin School in mid-August. His main research interests are the performance and responsiveness of bureaucracies in democratic countries. Currently he is beginning a project about whether it matters for organizational performance if employees exhibit high levels of ‘public service motivation’ or not. Also he is starting a collaborative project on the performance consequences of chief executive change in British executive agencies. Finally, he is extending the work from his dissertation on merit civil services as means to make policies more credible and thereby to protect democracy.
For the last three years, Professor Petrovsky worked at Cardiff University in Wales on a research project about leadership turnover and performance of English local governments. After completing his undergraduate education in Konstanz, Germany and Madrid, Spain, Professor Petrovsky earned a Master’s degree in political science from the University of North Texas. He then completed the coursework part of the Ph.D. program in political science at Texas A&M University before joining Cardiff University. Professor Petrovsky wrote his dissertation while in Cardiff and received his Ph.D. in political science from Texas A&M University in May 2009. His dissertation includes empirical work on Mexico’s new federal merit system and English local governments. Professor Petrovsky has published in journals including the Journal of Politics (forthcoming), Public Administration, and Defense and Peace Economics, and contributed a chapter on leadership and performance to the Oxford University Press book ‘Public Service Improvement: Theories and Evidence.’