Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
21st Century
Comparative Perspectives
Edited by
Jos C.N. Raadschelders, Theo A.J. Toonen
and Frits M. Van der Meer
The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Also by Jos C.N. Raadschelders
Edited by
Jos C.N. Raadschelders
Professor and Henry Bellmon Chair of Public Administration, University of
Oklahoma, USA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham and Eastbourne
Contents
List of Tables and Figures vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Acknowledgements xii
v
vi Contents
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1: Trust in civil service in 12 Western-European
countries, 1981–2000 (%) 45
Chapter 4
Table 4.1: Selected diffusion cases 1980s–2000s 57
Chapter 5
Table 5.1: Economic growth, quality of public institutions,
and corruption of selected Asian states 67
Table 5.2: Public sector reform capacity: Institutional veto
points, bureaucratic autonomy and reform results
in selected Asian countries in the 1990s 68
Table 5.3: Moon and Ingraham’s PNT and public sector
reform in selected Asian countries in the 1990s 78
Chapter 6
Table 6.1: Civil service and other public sector institutions 87
Table 6.2: Examples of variations in the scope of civil
(public) service in SSA 87
Table 6.3: Distribution of some SSA countries by performance
in civil service rehabilitation efforts 91
Chapter 7
Table 7.1: Number of policy officials employed by the
Permanent Representations at the European Union
of four EU member states 107
Chapter 9
Table 9.1: Local government systems (traditional profiles) 140
Table 9.2: Local public employment, general public
employment and general employment in country-
comparative perspective, 2000/01 142
Table 9.3: Development of local public employment in
country-comparative perspective 145
vii
viii Tables and Figures
Chapter 17
Table 17.1: High level of trust in elected politicians and civil
servants (%) 275
Chapter 18
Figure 18.1: Levels of political and administrative system
reform 282
Notes on Contributors
ix
x Notes on Contributors
Introduction
During the past decades’, civil service systems (CSS) have come under
intense scrutiny. The role and position of the civil service as core actors
in the public sector has been seriously questioned by political pundits
and other actors in society and academia. Allegedly, the central posi-
tion of civil servants in the political–administrative and societal
systems is eroding. It is argued that the supposed monopoly of the civil
service in public service delivery has gradually broken down. Some
visionaries even expect the demise of the civil service as we know it
(Demmke 2004; 2005). Perhaps this particular prophecy is grossly exag-
gerated, sooner reflecting the author’s wish than an empirical fact. Yet,
it cannot be denied that, due to a variety of reasons, CSS have increas-
ingly been influenced by a range of internal and external pressures
prompted by changes in the institutional context. These internal and
environmental changes will be examined in this volume and will be
introduced in this chapter. Taken together, these changes supposedly
amount to a new, more fragmented order in the public domain gener-
ally referred to nowadays as multi-level governance. In this supposed
new order, governments and CSS have to find their place. Although
there appears to be some common understanding in the scientific com-
munity with respect to the nature of these wide-ranging change
processes, the analysis of the actual consequences for CSS has received
less attention.
In this book various aspects of these challenges and change processes
will be probed and the findings will serve as a basis for the final
chapter. This publication is rooted in a research project, Civil Service
System in Comparative Perspective, that started in 1990. Back then,
1
2 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
From what has been said above, we can distill the main elements of
our study. First, the importance of considering the existence or absence
of variation regarding both the design and reform of civil service
systems. Second, the importance of the (discovery of the) a multi-level
governance context for existing civil service systems both on a macro
(system or parts thereof) and micro (the individual civil servants) level.
Third, the normative dimension and the internal inconsistencies
relevant to CSS have grown in importance. Fourth, CSS needs to be
considered in relation to its immediate institutional/organizational
environment: the political system and its office holders
This book is thus divided into four parts. In Part I, we examine
current issues and changes affecting the civil service systems that were
included in the civil service project. Thus, we will examine the state of
affairs in Central and Eastern Europe, in Western Europe, in Anglo-
American countries, and in Asian countries. In addition to this, a
chapter on Africa is included, and this fills an important gap in our
knowledge. The binding theme in Part I is the public sector reform
dimension and the effects on the different civil service systems.
Obviously, this includes attention for the historical perspective, since
the impact of the past is as relevant as the influence of contemporary
changes. Tony Verheijen and Aleksandra Rabrenovic discuss rapid
changes and their effects in Central and Eastern European civil service
systems (Chapter 2). They specifically consider the usefulness of the
legalist continental European model, the performance focused Anglo-
American model, and the corporatist South Asian model, and then
assess the feasibility of new public management (NPM)-style reforms in
that part of Europe. Next, Frits M. Van der Meer, Trui Steen and
Anchrit Wille examine change and continuity in Western Europe and
how various countries have coped managerialist-type reforms in the
The Challenges of the 21st Century 7
social status is generally less than that of their British and French col-
leagues (Chapter 13). Does social status of civil servants matter when it
comes to civil servants’ responsibilities? Judicialization and constitu-
tional responsibilities are revisited by Gerrit Dijkstra in his reflection
on responsibility, accountability and performance (Chapter 14). He
carefully argues that any unidimensional approach is simplistic.
Indeed, in recent years, the traditional vertical approaches to this issue
(professional-ethical – cf. Friedrich; political-institutional – cf. Finer,
and political-societal – cf. judicialization) have been complemented
with the more horizontal and programmatic approach characteristic
for performance measurement and management. Is this a viable alter-
native to the more trarditional, hierarchical approaches to accountabil-
ity? Whatever the answer, a civil servant/manager can only function
properly and adequately if sensitive to the societal environment. This
sensitivity is not just one of responsiveness to societal needs and prob-
lems but also one of properly and adequately managing the interaction
political and societal actors. Guy Peters and Jon Pierre focus on the
Weberian, the NPM, and the governance perspectives upon managing
the interaction with the environment (Chapter 15). In the light of the
increased intertwinement of public, non-profit and private actors, they
suggest to focus tertiary education in public administration more on
the bargaining, collaboration, and multi-level governance features of
today’s government and not only on the public law skills of old. Is
knowledge of law less important today to a civil servant than, say,
social, business management, and language skills?
In Part IV titled ‘Civil Servants in the Political Environment’, we look at
the implications of civil service reform for political–administrative rela-
tions, for politics, and for the political–administrative system at large in
the 21st century. First, we assess what the impact of the reforms summa-
rized in Part I, and further analysed in terms of consequences in Parts II
and III. Then we consider the degree to which political system reforms
might be complementary to civil service reforms. Finally, recent literature
on political–administrative relations further underlines the increased
importance of civil servants in the development and implementation of
public law and government policy.
Richard Stillman attempts to glean lessons from the events leading
up to and happening since the introduction of the Senior Executive
Service in the United States (Chapter 16). While this only represents
one case of reform, and that limited to the top of the career civil
service, it does emphasize a variety of commonsensical insights useful
anywhere. At the same time, his discussion also shows how much
The Challenges of the 21st Century 11
institutional tradition and culture matter. Can we draw lessons from the
past for the future? Of those advanced by Stillman, we only mention
that for reform to be successful time is needed, and more specifically a
period that encompasses several administrations/cabinets. This brings
the role of politics and political office holders to centre stage. Reforms
of CSS have undoubtedly influenced political–administrative relations.
The question is: in what way? Are civil servants more subordinate to
politics than before because of financial restraints, budget cuts, and the
triumph of managerial values? Luc Rouban addresses this question and
paints a much more nuanced picture than often found in literature
(Chapter 17). It appears that politics intervenes both more and less,
dependent upon issue salience. However, the nature of that interven-
tion varies with whether NPM-type reforms were imposed (i.e., top-
down NPM reform) or voluntarily embraced (i.e., bottom-up NPM
reform). The matter of whether NPM reforms were imposed or em-
braced takes attention to the political system itself; more specifically,
to the degree to which civil service and administrative reforms can
succeed without political (system) reform. This question is considered
by Jos Raadschelders and Marie-Louise Bemelmans-Videc (Chapter 18).
Is the political environment as important to success or failure of
administrative reforms as it is to the success or failure of public policy?
(see also Van der Meer, 2005/06).
In the concluding chapter, we revisit the various topics in this
volume and organize that chapter on the basis of the civil service
definition used in this project: Mediating institutions for the mobilization
of human resources in the service of the state in a given territory. We also
offer a neo-Weberian perspective upon the role and position of the
state, and thus of civil servants, in contemporary society. It is in that
neo-Weberian perspective that we encompass both NPM and gover-
nance approaches to understanding civil service systems. The civil
service of the 21st century needs no less.
Notes
1 For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, historians’ use of the concept of
governance dominated. See, e.g., B.P. Wolffe, The Royal Demesne in English
History: the Crown Estate in the Governance of the Realm from the Conquest to
1509 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1971).
2 The concept of governance has become quite popular and has a normative
ring to it. It is considered superior to hierarchy, underappreciates the need of
formal institutions, and is biased toward process. We define this concept in a
neutral manner later in this chapter.
12 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
References
Adamolekun, Ladipo, Public Administration in Africa. Main Issues and Selected
Country Studies (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999).
Bekke, Hans A.G.M. and Frits M. Van der Meer (eds), Civil Service Systems in
Western Europe (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2000).
Bekke, Hans, James, Perry and Theo Toonen, Civil Service Systems in Comparative
Perspective (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996).
Burns, John P. and Bidhya Bowornwathana (eds), Civil Service Systems in Asia
(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2001).
Demmke, Christoph, European Civil Services Between Tradition and Reform
(Maastricht: EIPA, 2004).
Demmke, Christoph, Are Civil Servants Different Because They Are Civil Servants?
Who Are the Civil Servants – and How? (Maastricht: EIPA, 2005).
Farazmand, Ali and Jack Pinkowski (eds), Handbook of Globalization, Governance,
and Public Administration (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Taylor & Francis, 2006).
Ferlie, Ewan, Lawrence Lynn Jr and Christopher Pollitt (eds), The Oxford
Handbook of Public Management (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
Halligan, John (ed.), Civil Service Systems in Anglo-American Countries
(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2003).
Kickert, Walter, Public Management and Adminsitrative Reform in Western Europe
(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1997).
Krasner, Stephen D., ‘Abiding Sovereignty’, International Political Science Review,
22(3) (2001), 229–51.
Oszlak, Oscar, The Argentine Civil Service: An Unfinished Search for Identity.
In James L. Perry (ed.), Research in Public Administration (Stamford, CT:
JAI Press, 1999), pp. 267–326.
Page, Edward C. and Vincent Wright (eds), Bureaucratic Elites in Western
European States. A Comparative Analysis of Top Officials (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999).
Page, Edward C. and Vincent Wright (eds), The Changing Role of Senior Service in
Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Perlman, Bruce, Development and Reform of Post Sandinista Nicaraguan Public
Administration. In James L. Perry (ed.), Research in Public Administration
(Stamford, CT: JAI Press, 1999), pp. 189–231.
Perry, James, L. (ed.), Research in Public Administration (Stamford, CT: JAI Press,
1999).
Peters, B. Guy and Jon Pierre, Governance, Politics, and the State (New York:
St Martin’s Press, 2000).
Peters, B. Guy and Jon Pierre, Intergovernmental Relations and Multi-Level
Governance (Bristol: Policy Press, 2001).
Peters, B. Guy and Jon Pierre, Multi-level Governance and Democracy:
A Faustian Bargain. In Ian Bache and Matthew Flanders (eds), Multi-level
Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 75–93.
Pollitt, Christopher and Geert Bouckaert, Public Management Reform: A Com-
parative Analysis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
Raadschelders, Jos C.N. and James L. Perry, Protocol for Comparative Studies of
National Civil Service Systems (Comparative Civil Service Research Consortium:
Bloomington: School for Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana Uni-
The Challenges of the 21st Century 13
Introduction
17
18 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
It can be safely argued that at least two of these features tend to occur
across the board.8 The first two features highlighted above are mostly
remnants of the previous system of governance. The low level of base
salaries was compensated by an elaborate system of monetary and non-
material benefits, including free holidays, medical care, housing, etc.,
and advancement based on years of service was the main feature of
career progress in former communist systems. These features remain
particularly strong in FSU states, where even reformed systems retain a
significant number of bonuses and allowances, the allocation of which
has little connection with performance and often continues to consti-
tute a sizeable proportion of actual wages.
Wage system assessments conducted in recent years call for the need
to develop wage systems based on European principles, such as trans-
parency,9 rewards according to level of responsibility or complexity of
work and equal pay for equal work. Reforms have been initiated in
several states but these have often been incremental in nature (Russia,
Ukraine) or slow to be implemented. More positive examples are
Lithuania, which has introduced a more transparent wage system
based on job complexity (World Bank, 2004b), and Latvia, though the
Latvian system has been adversely affected by the decision not to pub-
licize the level and conditions for pay of performance bonuses for
senior officials. This generated strong suspicions among citizens.
Hence, where there is some movement in the establishment of more
merit-based and transparent pay systems, good examples remain few
and far between. Wage system reform thus continues to lag behind
other elements of civil service development and in this continues
to put achievements of the overall reform process at risk. Therefore,
wage system reform remains among the most important elements of
reform.
These are rather recent developments and it is still too early to assess
their real impact upon the development of public administration
systems in Europe. However, the speed at which the discussion on
European values has developed from a single OECD paper to a widely
joined discussion among academic and practitioners, including gov-
ernments outside the immediate circle of EU candidate states, shows
that this may give a European sense of direction to reform processes
that have long been seen as driven by ‘imported’ NPM principles.
Much in the same way, the CAF has been embraced both by the more
‘managerial’ Northern European and English-speaking states as well as
by continental European states such as Belgium and Austria and
appears to have helped fill the need for a benchmarking approach that
different European traditions can identify with.
The fact that states appear to be comfortable with the benchmarking
systems designed and consider them an expression of administrative
values they can associate with, creates a serious potential driving force
for civil service reform in a wider European context. The experience
with the most recent accession process provides clear proof of this.
Politicians in CEE states, often showing little interest in civil service
reform before the benchmarking system was created, started to show a
strong interest once EU regular reports identified ‘front runners’ and
‘laggards’ in civil service reform. This especially in states that felt less
sure of being included in the first wave of Eastern enlargement. Beyond
this, states such as Ukraine self-adopted the benchmarking system to
emphasize their European credentials.
The benchmarking systems currently hold value mainly for EU states,
the close circle of candidate states, and others that aspire to eventual
membership, but have established a clearer sense of the kind of public
management and civil service system is needed to be part of the
‘European Administrative Space’.
(most spectacularly in Bulgaria, but also in the Czech Republic and the
Baltic States) based on weak and/or corrupt governance structures. In
recent years, the governance and growth debate has moved from
explaining reversals in growth patterns to a discussion of proactive
approaches, that is, whether improving the quality of governance can
help attract outside investment. The need to create better conditions
for attracting outside investment has recently been used as an argu-
ment by reformers (particularly in resource-rich states, e.g., Russia and
Kazakhstan) that seek to diversify their economic structures and attract
foreign investment. In addition, Armenia, for instance, linked adminis-
trative reform to World Trade Organization (WTO) accession, arguing
that trade liberalization coming with WTO membership requires states
to compete more with business climate and investment policies,
thus creating the need for investment in public administration
development.
The link between governance (and especially foreign direct invest-
ment: FDI) and growth is made more frequently, and explored in a
rapidly growing body of literature. Unfortunately, the analytical work
on governance and growth continues to be limited mainly to large
multi-country regression studies (World Bank, 2005a). They are dif-
ficult to use in an individual country context. Still, the attention gov-
ernments devote to the publication of, for instance, the World Bank
composite governance indicators,13 shows that this linkage is increas-
ingly taken serious by policy-makers. This can be further illustrated by
the recent debate on the adoption of the Administrative Reform
Concept and Action Plan in the Russian Federation. This was based on
the argument that for Russia to diversify its economy and attract FDI, a
serious improvement in the quality of governance would be the main
prerequisite. Similar discussions have surrounded the debate on civil
service and wage system reform in Kazakhstan, which, even more than
Russia, is at risk of suffering from the ‘Dutch disease’ (World Bank,
2005b) brought about by a strong dominance of the oil industry. Thus,
some of the movement on the administrative and civil service reform
agenda can be explained by the emergence of this particular school of
thought and its increasing influence on government policies.
The WTO accession argument is of a similar nature. While WTO
accession, unlike EU membership, does not impose specific require-
ments on administrative and civil service systems, it is clear that states
do need to build capacity in key policy areas (including standardiza-
tion, certification, customs, etc.) if they are to benefit from WTO mem-
bership. Kyrgyzstan, for instance, joined the WTO early but did not
30 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
benefit much from membership due to its lack of progress in (in part)
administrative reform. Armenia is a case in which WTO membership
(in part) inspired administrative and civil service reform that are at
least in part driven by the need to sustain economic development.14
Conclusion
Drivers of administrative and civil service reform in CEE and CIS states
are varied and diverse. In states that joined the EU or aspire EU mem-
bership, the EU-driven benchmarking and assessment approaches have
been a major impetus for reform. In states further removed from the
European mainstream, the main drivers for reform are economic inte-
gration and globalization as well as the perceived linkage between eco-
nomic development and good governance. The two sets of drivers are
often mutually reinforcing: CAF was defined in the context of the
development of the Lisbon competitiveness agenda, as a self-standing
but connected mechanism in furthering the European competitiveness
agenda, while EU benchmarking systems have been applied in states
and regions well beyond the immediate circle of states aspiring for
EU membership. What is clear is that the almost parallel emergence of
the ‘governance and growth’ school and the development of bench-
marking systems in the context of the European integration process
have given a strong impetus to administrative and civil service reform
and helped to define and move forward the reform agenda over the
past seven years.
What can the emergence of new civil service systems in CEE countries
teach us about the usefulness of different models? The clash between
the Anglo-American custom-based and management-driven civil service,
and the continental European formal and rule-driven system, has been
clearly visible in debates during the past 15 years in the region. The tra-
ditional continental model is much more alive than economic analysts
make us believe. While performance measurement and management
quality have been key elements of the debate on the development of
new civil service systems, the main focus was legal frameworks, norms,
new systems of politico–administrative relations, and other traditional
European notions. This may come as a surprise, in particular if one
considers the dominance of NPM paradigms at the time that new civil
service systems were formed in the region (Verheijen in Peters and
Development in Central and Eastern Europe 31
Notes
1 The views and opinions expressed in this chapter are the personal views of
the authors only.
2 Even though the very concept of the CIS has been overtaken by political
reality (Turkmenistan and Georgia have effectively left the organization and
others may follow), the term is used in the context of this chapter to indicate
the 12 states of the former Soviet Union that initially formed the CIS in 1991.
3 It should be noted that most of the Central Asian and Caucasus states have
no or limited own experience in statehood.
4 In parallel with the ‘Nomenklatura’ system operated by the Communist
Party.
5 See Verheijen in Peters and Pierre (2003) for a more elaborate discussion.
6 In Slovakia, this proved unmanageable, because all recruitment became
blocked, in Armenia both considerations of manageability and incentives
played a role.
7 Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Poland have experimented with strong central
agencies.
8 See, for instance, World Bank/DFID (2004a), World Bank (2003b),
and World Bank, Tajikistan (2006), World Bank PEIR wage studies on
32 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
References
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Modernization, Europeanization or Latinization?’, Journal of European Public
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and Civil Servants in Coalition Governments (Bratislava: NISPAcee, 2005).
Rabrenovic, A. and T. Verheijen, ‘Politicians and Top Level Officials in Former
Yugoslav States, Back to Discarded Traditions?’ In A. Rosenbaum and J. Nemec
(eds), Democratic Governance in the Central and Eastern European Countries:
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(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1999).
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Time?, WRR Working Paper 109 (The Hague: WRR, 2000).
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NISPAcee, 2001).
Verheijen, T., ‘L’Administration publique en Europe Centrale et Orientale:
apparition d’un Modèle Émergent sui generis ou avatar des différentes
traditions Européennes’, Revue Franc[,]aise d’Administration Publique, 105–6
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Zeitschrift für Staats- und Europawissenschaften, 3 (2004), 373–89.
Development in Central and Eastern Europe 33
Introduction
34
Western European Civil Service Systems 35
In the past two centuries, most European countries have adopted com-
prehensive legal frameworks for their civil service systems. This was a
long and arduous process since legislation was adopted in a piecemeal
manner. Arguments of political expediency has often been at odds
with producing comprehensive (and often) codified schemes. The drive
for more codified civil service legislation started in 1794 in Prussia with
the inclusion of ample provisions in the Preußische Allgemeine
Landrecht. A recognizable separate act dates from 1805 when the
Hauptdienstpragmatik über die Dienstverhältnisse der Staatsdiener was
adopted in Bavaria. Codification came relatively late, for example, in
the Netherlands (1929), Belgium (1930) and France (1946). The United
Kingdom still lacks a statutory civil service act, although a draft civil
service bill was presented to Parliament in 2004.
In continental legal thinking, enshrining rights and duties of civil
servants is traditionally seen as one of the cornerstones and critical
manifestations of the Rechtsstaat. Regulation regarding civil servant’s
duties implies a standardization of previously – at least partially –
autonomous civil servants (particularly those working in field agencies
and collegial organizations) by government centres through the
emphasis of hierarchical lines. Standardization concerns both the exis-
tence and enforcement of a code of behaviour based on ethical norms,
as well as the legal rights that protect civil servants against arbitrary
interventions and behaviour of his political superiors.
The adoption of civil service laws constituted a bureaucratic revolu-
tion almost similar to the current impact of new public management
in the northwest corner of Europe. Crucial to civil service laws has
been the reform of personnel management into a more objective
system of recruitment and selection securing the hiring of qualified
and skilled civil servants. This included an aversion to appointments
on the basis of (political) nepotism, but not necessarily the inclusion of
political merit criteria (Van der Meer and Raadschelders, 1998). Regu-
lations have been refined and expanded in order to limit the room for
36 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
discretion and thus avoid, according to the dominant view, what was
seen as abuse or arbitrariness. The personnel management system thus
became increasingly bureaucratized and civil services slowly acquired a
protected and professional nature (Raadschelders and Rutgers, 1996).
The introduction of civil service legislation limited political and man-
agerial abuse and flexibility. These self-limitations, however, explain
the reserve of some governments in the past to embark on issuing inte-
grated civil service acts while governments presently desire to limit
existing civil service rights.
Since the late 1970s and the early 1980s, criticism has increasingly
been directed at perceived bureaucratic rigidities in personnel manage-
ment regulations and practices. These rigidities were perceived as frus-
trating the efficiency and effectiveness and to hinder reform. The
introduction of more flexibility was considered all the more important
given rapid changes within and in the direct environment of govern-
ment. Large budgetary deficits, social-economic tensions accompanied
by political-ideological resentment against big government and bureau-
cratic interference led to calls for smaller (more effective and efficient)
government. This stimulated a fundamental reappraisal of the place
and role of the public sector within society and consequently to a reap-
praisal of public personnel management (Bekke and Van der Meer,
2000; Peters and Pierre, 2001; 2004).
The preferred solution to remedy these bureaucratic rigidities was to
introduce more flexible labour relationships. The need for reform was
argued by a coalition of political office holders, top civil servants and
political science and public administration experts. A new managerial
way of thinking gained the upper hand, labelled ‘new public manage-
ment’ (NPM) and was very much advanced by the backing of interna-
tional (reform) agencies as the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
World Bank and supportive publications of administrative scientists.
This idea of modernizing personnel management in the public sector
has led to a wide array of human resource management initiatives
relating to changes in the legal status of civil servants and the intro-
duction of new payment schemes, mobility schemes, management
development plans and training programme.
While this new managerialism pertains to problem definitions and
policy intensions, it does not necessarily involve real life reforms.
There are wide-ranging discrepancies between countries with regard to
the popularity of reform issues and the actual level of implementation.
NPM was, and is still, particularly popular in the British Isles, the
Western European Civil Service Systems 37
isolated from the effects of these operations. What might well be the
common denominator behind the cutbacks is that policies were pri-
marily led by a concern to reduce government costs as visible in the
budgets, rather than resulting from a real assessment of actual person-
nel needs. Not surprisingly then, these reforms did not (only) lead to a
‘leaner’ government, but to a more fragmented and opaque public
sector.
Apart from the size issues one of the central elements in Western
European HRM reforms has been the so-called decentralization of HRM
responsibilities from centralized staff organizations to line departments
and agencies, and the further devolution within departments and
agencies to line managers. Within Western Europe, northern countries,
especially Sweden, but also Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and the
UK have taken steps in this process of devolution, while the issue does
not seem to carry much priority within Southern European countries.
Yet, even the Northern European countries are believed to have only
marginally dismantled the very core unity of the civil service. Con-
tradictory even, initiatives are now underway to create so-called shared
service centres in which technical HRM functions are organized.
Furthermore, the management of the senior civil service remains under
central influence or is actually centralized, as was the case in the
Netherlands in the 1990s. In addition, decentralization processes as
such do not actually guarantee greater flexibility and variety in person-
nel systems. In some countries with decentralized HR authorities, line
ministries and agencies do not have flexible schemes at all, but run
similar systems in practice (Shim, 2001).
Although NPM may have found its way in numerous HRM reform
efforts, in most countries except the Scandinavian countries, the
formal career systems have not been diminished in importance,
although some reform efforts have been made (sometimes in vain) to
offset possible inflexible side effects. One should keep in mind,
however, that in many countries corps constructions have remained in
force for traditional corpslike structures such as the Foreign Office, the
military and the police. Likewise, senior civil service career systems are
in place or have been introduced. This demonstrates that, due to the
inherent importance attached to esprit de corps and the demand for a
civil service professionalism incorporating ethics and political sensitiv-
ity, the limits of NPM are found.
Reform initiatives may have ‘deprivileged’ civil servants in terms of
opening the civil service to a certain extent, they do not show an
overall success story in leading to a new management of public sector
Western European Civil Service Systems 39
Although the belief is widespread that the public sector has politicized,
it is difficult to substantiate this assertion given the many meanings of
the term. Politicization is a convenient umbrella term. The politiciza-
tion of civil service systems can refer to the (changing) number of
(party) political appointments, (party) political behaviour as well as
political sensitivity of civil servants (Van der Meer and Raadschelders,
1998). Hojnacki (1996) argues that civil service politicization implies a
violation of the principle of political neutrality. But this view is based
on the unsubstantiated claim of an administrative past in which neu-
trality was the norm. Also, the term political neutrality is not unam-
biguous. An ‘apolitical’ and ‘neutral’ civil service has to operate in an
environment that is highly political defined (Page and Wright, 1999).
According to most contemporary and Weberian (Page, 1992) defini-
tions, politics is not limited to certain persons, institutions or to spe-
cialized arenas in which an action takes place. Politics can be defined
as the process that determines ‘who gets what, when and how’
(Lasswell, 1936). In this sense, many public servants are involved in
politics, even if they stay clear of party politics. The pattern regarding
the demarcation between political and the administrative systems in
the 19th and 20th centuries, however, has been, in a formal sense, to
shield the civil service from overt party-political control in order to
enhance its efficiency and to ensure its fairness (Peters and Pierre,
2004; Van der Meer and Raadschelders, 1998).
We distinguish between bottom-up and top-down politicization
(Peters and Pierre, 2004). Bottom-up politicization pertains to the
increase of political activity by civil servants. Given the extensive scope
of the politicization concept, this can include party-political allegiance
and behaviour, a policy-oriented attitude and the awareness of the
political context of public service delivery. There are countries where
some (senior) civil servants are still forbidden to be (active) members of
political parties (e.g., the UK and Ireland). In the majority of the
remaining countries (e.g., Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden)
42 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Government and the civil service system generally suffer from a nega-
tive image. In the past 20 years, many West European governments
Western European Civil Service Systems 45
50
40
30
1981
20 2000
10
0
Ita G N Fi U D S B F N I I
ly er et n K e n we e l r a - I r c e l r e l
m h e la n m d gi nc e an an
a n rl d a r e n u m e la n d d
y an k d
ds
Conclusion
budgetary motivated, but there are some cases where civil servants
themselves played a major role in introducing reform. Also, the direc-
tions and the intensity of reform vary across countries. Differences
between the northern and southern part of Western Europe can be
linked to different stances towards the managerialism promoted by
NPM. However, taking into account also the possibility of diversity
within an administrative system, this does not mean that countries
that are less enthusiastic about NPM do not engage in profound reform
of its civil service system.
What has become clear is, that despite a lot of efforts, reform often is
confined to paper exercises or leading to mystifications surrounding
data and figures. There are, for instance, ample HRM policy initiatives
but less real life reform. Reform initiatives may have de-monopolized
the civil service in opening employment to outsiders to some (small)
degree, but these reforms have in general not led to a fundamentally
altered system of managing public sector personnel. It has been stated
that the public service has become more politicized, with civil servants
being more open to the political dimensions of their function and
increased control exerted by government over bureaucrats through
changing structures, culture and/or people in the civil service system.
The words trust is central to the reforms and can explain the difficulty
in depoliticizing the civil service through neutralizing appointments.
Our analysis has focused on conflicting demands involving the need
for (legal) civil service protection and the incorporation of public
sector ethics, the change from a legal to a managerial form of pro-
fessionalism, and the political demand for the introduction of a larger
degree of flexibility in the personnel system.
Civil service protection is related to professional autonomy within
the context of the rule of law. This protection can not only diminish
political interference, but also the level of system flexibility. As a result,
a drive for flexibility has reinforced a more or less European wide
movement to adopt a managerial form of civil service professionalism
and fundamental questions have been raised about the actual need for
the public (law) nature of public sector employment. Although the
public law status is been retained in most cases, public labour and
social security arrangements have been made more in accordance with
those existing in the private sector. However, overemphasizing flexibil-
ity in recent reforms might impair the ethical norms embedded in the
protected service. The public law status is again slowly considered as
relevant for protecting the public interest, safeguarding core values of
civil service and preserving or creating a public sector ethos.
48 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
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Systems in Comparative Perspective (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996).
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Western European Civil Service Systems 49
50
Anglo-American Systems: Easy Diffusion 51
Historical development
The five systems generally exhibit patterns of development that are
generally similar for five broad phases: colonial administration;
clarification of the roles of elected representatives and representative
institutions; development of civil services as systems (personnel and
business efficiency); the administrative state; and contemporary reform
(Halligan, 2003b). The parallels are fairly striking in terms of the
developmental phases, although the timing and length of the phases
vary with the time lag between the emergence and implementation
of a concept in the country of origin and in other countries can be
decades for 19th-century reforms or years for late 20th-century
reforms.
The post-colonial period was distinguished by the domination of
elected representatives and the prevalence of different forms of patron-
age. The developmental roles in the New World and the Antipodes
created opportunities for pork barrelling. At the same time, there was
clarification of the roles of elected representatives and the control
of representative institutions including acceptance of ministerial res-
ponsibility. The Northcote–Trevelyan report of 1854 was pivotal for
the development of civil services in all Anglo-American countries, and
implementation of its principles continued for the next half-century.
The move to establish a professional service in the 19th century was
largely a reaction against the excesses of patronage and eventually pro-
duced a central personnel agency for implementing standard principles
across the service and the career service based on merit.
At the same time differences began to appear. For the United States,
a turning point was the Pendleton Act of 1883, which was influenced
by the British reforms following Northcote–Trevelyan but produced
results that were American in character, in particular the open service.
The US rejection of base-grade entry was in contrast with systems
evolving a closed career service, while political appointments were
maintained for senior positions. In these respects the United States
diverged from the others. Yet none accepted the British concept of an
administrative class based on the generalist who had undergone dis-
tinctive education and recruitment, and each country was to acquire
features shaped by both individual experiences and the circulation of
ideas among them.
Anglo-American Systems: Easy Diffusion 55
After the turn of the century all systems further developed their civil
services. Actions ranged from country-centred initiatives (e.g., a new
federal service in Australia) to those with broader implications, includ-
ing a renewal of activity led by the two largest systems, which had
moved early towards new civil service arrangements. In several coun-
tries there was a focus on efficiency (spurred in part by scientific man-
agement), review, reorganization and rationalisation until the 1920s.
A dominant phase of the 20th century saw institutionalization of the
new civil service systems. This has been termed the ‘administrative
state’ by Americans, reflecting the growth of the public sector, and the
more pervasive influence of decisions by civil servants on policies and
programs affecting public life. This coincided with the expansion of
civil servants’ entitlements and continuing debates about equity or
efficiency and swings in practice.
The current reform era was initiated in Thatcher’s Britain, although
the US Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 played a role and official
inquiries in several countries laid the foundation for much of what fol-
lowed. The reform agenda was picked up and extended in various ways
by Australia and New Zealand in the 1980s and by the United States’
National Performance Review in the 1990s (Halligan, 2003b).
As a result of incremental change over time and the impetus of
recent reform, many historical differences between the systems became
less important, while new ones emerged. The relatively closed systems
became more open; the concept of the generalist was picked up by the
United States; political appointees were exercising influence over
Westminster systems; and systems’ differing capacities to effect change
were producing new divergences.
Process of diffusion
The long history of the transfer of ideas and reforms between the five
countries started with the transplanting of British institutions into its
four colonies during the 18th and 19th centuries. The subsequent
dominant pattern reflects explanations centred on hierarchical dif-
fusion: the larger or more developed countries adopt new policies at an
earlier stage. A basic principle in communication networks in the dif-
fusion literature concerns the development of relationships between
units with similar characteristics, and decisions about whether to adopt
a particular innovation are largely dependent on the experience of
comparable systems that have already adopted it (Halligan, 1996).
The historical links have been based on bilateral relations between
countries with similar cultural and linguistic traditions and with
56 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
In reforming their civil services, the five countries have come from a
fairly common base – with some notable variations – in moving away
from traditional features. Their reform agendas have had common ele-
ments that reinforce their identity, among them the emphasis on per-
formance management, the development of a senior corps, and the
focus on leadership.
58 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom were in the 40s band,
in all cases trending down (Halligan, 2003b).
There are of course many cases of initiatives that have not travelled
between countries even where they were confronting common envi-
ronmental challenges. The Australian response to external threat was
to build coordinating units within current structures, particularly
within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. The idea of cre-
ating a US Department of Homeland Security was explicitly rejected.
Conclusion
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Bekke, H., J.L. Perry and T.A.J. Toonen (eds), Civil Services in Comparative
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Sage, 2006).
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from the Experience of OECD Countries’, International Public Management
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Gregory, R., Theoretical Faith and Practical Works: De-Autonomizing and
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pp. 288–317.
Halligan, J. (ed.), Civil Service Systems in Anglo-American Countries (Cheltenham:
Edward Elgar, 2003a).
Halligan, J. (2003b), Anglo-American Civil Service Systems: Comparative
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In T. Christensen and Lægreid P. (eds), Autonomy and Regulation: Coping With
Agencies in the Modern State (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2006), pp. 162–80.
Halligan, J., Reintegrating Government in Third Generation Reforms of
Australia and New Zealand, Public Policy and Administration, 22 (2007).
Hood, C., Exploring Variations in 1980s Public Management Reform. In Bekke
et al. (1996), pp. 268–87.
Ingraham, P.W. and D.P. Moynihan, Civil Service and Administrative Reform in
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Kettl, D.F., The Global Public Management Revolution (Washington, DC:
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(Oxford: Blackwell, 1990).
64 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Introduction
Scholarly accounts of civil service (or public sector) reform in Asia gen-
erally emphasize the limited scope of the reforms (Cheung and Scott,
2003: 1–24). Indeed, Asia, of all continents, has seen the lowest levels
of downsizing (ibid.: 11). Efforts to privatize, they argue, have also
been stalled. Studies of specific Asian countries, such as Japan, con-
clude that the reform process has been hesitant and slow and that little
of substance has actually changed (Beeson, 2003: 26). Real reform of
the civil service in Vietnam, to take another example, has been ‘very
slow’ (Painter, 2003: 225). In general, scholarly accounts conclude that
in spite of ambitious public sector and/or civil service reform pro-
grammes not much has happened.
A problem with this picture is that by attempting to be so inclusive it
misses significant variation among Asian states that is best captured by
comparing a group of similar cases. In this chapter, I start with Asia’s
Confucian states (here defined to include China, Japan, Singapore,
South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam) and examine civil service/public
sector reform in them as they evolved along two different paths: the
developmental and the socialist state paths. Confucian societies value a
strong competent interventionist state and, at least initially, authori-
tarianism. Developmental states (Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and
Taiwan) were the product of public sector reform that focused on insti-
tution building and intimate relations between an elite, meritocratic
bureaucracy and business interests in the pursuit of industrialization
(Johnson, 1982; 1999). The formula was effective under certain con-
ditions, especially authoritarianism, but less effective as these states
democratized and became more tightly linked with the world
65
66 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Sources: World Development Indicators 2002 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2002); Human
Development Report (New York: United Nations (UNDP), 2005); Global Competitiveness
Report, 2004–05 (World Economic Forum); Transparency International, Corruption
Perception Index (2004).
highest reform capacity (Singapore) has shown only modest, largely sym-
bolic results. If we take incidence of corruption as a measure of results,
however, then the outcome is not surprising. The country with the
highest reform capacity (Singapore) has the best results, as predicted.
Civil Service Reform in Asia 69
The need for social transformation in China and Vietnam meant the
party/state took control over virtually all aspects of public life and
obliterated the boundaries between state and society (Vogel, 1969;
Schurmann, 1971). The revolutionary state operated through institu-
tions of central planning for a command economy. State planning
commissions, led by the Communist Party, aggregated plans and deter-
mined production targets for economic and social agencies in virtually
every sphere, from industrial undertakings to universities and hospitals
(see Barnett, 1967; Harding, 1981). Chinese culture and institutional
arrangements required consensus and inhibited horizontal communi-
cation, placing a premium on bargaining (Lieberthal, 2004: 191–2) and
exhibiting a number of pathologies, including ‘blocked leadership,
minority veto, [and] control by the organized (which in China gener-
ally means powerful bureaucracies)’ (Lampton, 1992: 37). Numerous
veto points weakened the power of the political executive. Having
adopted a policy of aggressive economic development, authorities in
both China and Vietnam had little choice but to undertake reform of
their public sectors.
The reforms with the greatest impact have been those that
(1) decentralized power over management of the economy to local
governments; and (2) forced thousands of state-owned enterprises into
the market. In the early 1980s, the central government decentralized
power to manage the economy to provincial and county governments.
Powers previously held centrally, such as authority to approve foreign
investments and to grant tax concessions were handed over to local
governments. The centre also created special economic zones along
the coast to encourage foreign investment. These reforms all boosted
investment and economic growth especially in China’s coastal
provinces.
The second reform, forcing SOEs into the market had major con-
sequences for government revenue and for employment. As a result of
the declining profitability of SOEs, government revenues in China fell
from more than 35 percent of GDP to a low of 10.7 percent of GDP in
1995. Only when a new tax sharing reform was introduced did govern-
ment revenues begin growing again and stood at about 15 percent of
GDP in 2000. The impact of SOE-reform on public employment was
even more dramatic. From 1995 to 2003 public employment fell from
112 million employees to 68.8 million, a decline of 40 percent (see
National Bureau of Statistics, 2005: 122). In relatively short order the
70 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Japan
The Japanese political system is organized in a way that frustrates the
political executive. First, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Japan’s
current ruling party, is composed of institutionalized factions that
provide financial support for faction members and bargain among
themselves for leadership positions. Which faction leader becomes the
leader of the LDP (and thus perhaps the prime minister) depends on a
bargain worked out among the various faction leaders (Painter, 2003:
241–2). This sort of structure institutionalizes veto points. Second,
within Japan’s LDP, policy cliques (zoku) of sectorally organized groups
that bring producers and bureaucrats together, increase the number of
veto players considerably. The cliques develop close ties to private busi-
nessmen and civil servants. They are seen as the experts in the policy
sector. They are also important instruments for distributing spoils
within the party and are part of a vast network of money politics and
corruption that characterizes the political system (Beeson, 2003: 33;
Painter, 2005: 242). Factions and policy cliques play a key role in the
LDP and help to disable the political executive. Third, in Japan politi-
cians are recruited in large numbers from among retired bureaucrats
and this ensures that the political executive is weakened in its struggles
with the bureaucracy (Beeson, 2003: 32–3).
In spite of this institutional setup, there has been no dearth of
administrative reform policies, programs, and plans. The First and
Second Provisional Civil Service Reform Councils in 1961 and 1981
72 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
have had limited success but did manage to cut the civil service by
5 percent and reorganize some central ministries. The participation of
senior civil servants as members of the Councils allowed them to ef-
fectively protect their interests (Painter, 2003: 243–4). The LDP’s loss of
power in 1993 allowed further public sector reform on to the agenda.
Struggles over structural reform of the Ministry of Finance lasted for
years and only culminated in 2000 when a new bureau, the Financial
Services Agency, took over some MOF duties. Generally public sector
reform in Japan has been characterized by delay, reluctance to reform,
gridlock, and opposition from the bureaucracy (Painter, 2003: 242–3;
Beeson, 2003; Nakamura, 2003: 37). Struggle over public sector reform,
however, has not prevented some privatization of public assets, such as
the Japanese National Railways in 1987, and the huge postal savings
system which includes the largest banks and insurance companies in
the world and other businesses starting in 2006.
South Korea
The Korean political system is usually described as president-led (Moon
and Ingraham, 1998; Jung, forthcoming). During the heyday of the
Korean developmental state the President (Park Chung Hee) installed
in a military coup, presided over a coherent power center that was able
to impose reform on the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy in Korea
depended on the president for privileges, including organizational
growth, greater job security, and cabinet appointments (Jung, forth-
coming). Jung concludes that bureaucrats in Korea came to see that
their ministries’ ‘political power solely depended on President Park’s
favor’ (Ibid.) Hence, there were few veto points, and presidential rule
was the norm.
As a result of democratization, new players have emerged on the
scene. Korean presidents who depended on coalition governments,
such as Kim Dae Jung, have seen their position vis-à-vis the bureau-
cracy weakened considerably. In these conditions, the number of veto
points has increased and the president’s power over administrative
reform process has weakened. The fact that reform of budget and per-
sonnel functions had to be negotiated among coalition members in
1998 demonstrated the debilitating impact of coalition government on
the president’s powers.
Without exception Presidents have come to power with public sector
reform programs (Painter, 2003: 248). These have included some cuts
to the civil service (50,000 were cut under Chun) and major structural
reorganizations (ibid.: 248). Arguably the most significant structural
Civil Service Reform in Asia 73
reform was the demise of the pilot agency, the Economic Planning
Board, which personified the Korean developmental state. A cohesive
political executive in 1994 was able to quickly merge the Board with
the Ministry of Finance with little opposition from the bureaucracy
(perhaps because the new Ministry of Finance and Economics was even
more powerful than either agency was before) (Jung, forthcoming).
Reform initiatives have come from the political executive in Korea
which has been able to impose its will on the bureaucracy in spite of
considerable bureaucratic resistance. The number of veto points varied,
but has perhaps been somewhat fewer than in Japan. The capacity of
the bureaucracy to resist in Korea has also been somewhat lower than
in Japan.
Taiwan
Since the mid-1980s, public sector reform strategies in Taiwan have
been designed in the context of democratization. When opposition
forces coalesced into the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in 1986
and many non-governmental organizations emerged, the relationship
of the state to society changed fundamentally. The authoritarian state
no longer imposed its will on society. State–society relations had to be
negotiated. Clearly the state in Taiwan was losing autonomy, becom-
ing more embedded in society. As a result calls to modernize the state
structure became more insistent (Cheung, 2003: 100).
The democratization of Taiwan in the 1990s has expanded the
number of veto points considerably, thus undercutting the capacity of
the political executive to carry out administrative reform. The election
of DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian to the Presidency in 2000 while the
traditional ruling party, the Kuomintang (KMT), still held control of
the legislature, resulted in stalemate in many areas, including adminis-
trative reform.
Unlike the governments of Japan and Korea, the traditional post-
1947 leadership in Taiwan (the KMT) used SOEs as key instruments of
industrial development3 (Evans, 1995: 55). In the 1950s, Taiwan’s SOEs
accounted for over half of all fixed industrial production. It fell in the
1960s, but expanded again in the 1970s (Wade, 1990; Evans, 1995:
55–6). As Wade points out, unlike Japan and Korea, the private sector
was largely absent from policy networks dominated by the KMT. To a
large extent, Taiwan’s network of strategically placed SOEs each with
its own set of relations with private firms, compensated for the lack of
a well-developed network of ties between the state and the private
sector (Evans, 1995: 56).
74 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
state-owned factories shut down. The state still retains shares in the priva-
tized companies although the policy has been to eventually achieve com-
plete divestment. Another 17 SOEs are scheduled for privatization by
2007 (Council for Economic Planning and Development, 2002).
I have no data on the impact of privatization on employment in
Taiwan. Labour unions claim that thousands have lost their jobs as a
result of privatization (Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions, 2005).
Aggregate studies of the impact of privatization that include Taiwan,
however, appear to suggest that the privatized companies are more
profitable and efficient, but they do not address the long-term impact
on employment.4
Elite consensus also exists on the nature and content of public adminis-
tration reforms, such as de-politicizing the civil service, one the one hand,
and more managerial reforms, on the other hand. These have included
downsizing, pay reform, performance management, and contracting out.
Bureaucratic resistance to these changes has thus far been minimal
(Cheung 2003a: 100, 112) but progress in these areas has been slow.
Singapore
The political system of Singapore is structured to enable the People’s
Action Party (PAP) to dominate elections and indeed for much of the
past 40 years or so since Singapore became independent, the PAP has
held all but a few seats in the legislature (Worthington, 2003). Since
the PAP took power in 1959, the party actively fostered the unity
of the political and bureaucratic elite in a ‘power sharing pact’ that
is the foundation of the PAP’s social control and policy capacity
(Worthington, 2003: 20–1). The inner core executive of PAP ministers
and higher civil service is effectively fused. This arrangement and the
suppression of any effective political opposition means that few veto
points exist to constrain the political executive.
The autonomy of the Singaporean state has allowed it to design
and implement public sector reforms with a more or less free hand.
As Worthington and others have pointed out
‘the penetration of the state into civil society is such that Singapore
is unique in [non-socialist] East and southeast Asia in the extent to
which its managerial state is able effectively to engineer the eco-
nomic, cultural and political behavior of its society. This has
resulted in a state which has been described as a curious cross
between the Leninist cell system and the Confucian Chinese
Mandarinate.’ (Worthington, 2003: 2)
76 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
and civil society on the one hand and politicization, on the other,
‘contributes’ to the impact of administrative reform.
State policy on trade unions is illustrative of the generally repressive
nature of state–society relations in the socialist states. In China and
Vietnam, for example, all autonomous trade unions were abolished
when the Communist Party came to power. The party organized workers
into officially sanctioned unions, over which the party maintains tight
control. Attempts to organize autonomous trade unions in China have
been met with repression, including the arrest, indefinite detention,
and exiling of trade union leaders (see He, 2003). In Singapore, labour
is also subordinated to the state. The National Trades Union Congress
(NTUC) has a symbiotic relationship to the state and is incorporated
into it. The strategy in Singapore has ‘allowed the political and bureau-
cratic executive to be projected into and assume control over the unions
thus removing workers from any control over policy’ (Worthington,
2003: 28).
In the developmental states that have democratized, such as Japan,
Korea, and Taiwan, civil society plays a more active role (Mouer and
Sugimoto, 2003; Kim, 2003; Hsiao, 2003). Although the density of
trade unions in Japan and Korea has declined, they have autonomy
and have been able to exercise some influence in the political process.
Citizen pressure, however, can both help and hinder reform. The
re-election of Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi in September 2005 on
a single issue – carrying out reform of the huge postal savings bank – is a
case in point. Citizen pressure, especially the pressure of public sector
unions or businesses with clientelistic ties to bureaucracies being
considered for restructuring can also delay reform. Exactly how civil
society plays into the reform equation depends on the political context.
With economic development, civil society in the socialist states has
become more pluralistic. The role that their more autonomous civil
societies will play in public sector reform remains to be seen.
The extent to which civil liberties such as freedom of speech and
freedom of association exist in a country are also indications of the
strength of civil society. According to an index of press freedom com-
piled by Reporters Without Borders, Japan and South Korea have the
freest presses (ranked 43rd and 48th respectively), followed by Taiwan,
ranked 60th (Reporters without Borders, 2004). The two socialist states
and Singapore are clustered near the opposite end of the index
(Singapore at 147, Vietnam at 161 and China at 162, out of 167 states
ranked). I sum up my brief discussion of the strength of civil society in
the six Asian states in Table 5.3.
78 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Table 5.3: Moon and Ingraham’s PNT and public sector reform In selected
Asian countries in the 1990s
Notes
* The author gratefully acknowledges the support of the Hong Kong Research
Grants Council, which provided funding for this research.
1 Bribery of public officials is highly correlated with economic development,
which may indicate that poorer countries such as China and Vietnam can
expect to ‘grow out’ of corruption. Other forms of corruption, however, that
link politicians to business interests are probably not captured by these
indices. These forms of corruption have characterized politics in Japan and
Korea (Beeson, 2003; Painter, 2003) and could develop in the socialist states
as they become richer. These problems raise questions about how best to
measure the outputs of administrative reform.
2 Unlike Russia and the Central European states, neither China nor Vietnam
adopted large-scale ‘big-bang’-type privatization. While there have been pri-
vatizations of locally owned state-owned enterprises, official policy has been
to preserve large strategically important SOEs in both countries. In China, by
2003, there were about 23,000 state-owned enterprises of which about 2,000
were classified as ‘large’. About 200 of these are owned and managed by the
central government.
3 The establishment of many of these SOEs dates from the Japanese colonial
era in Taiwan.
4 See the summary provided of such studies in UNESCAP, Evaluating the
Impact of Changes in Ownership, available at <http://www.unescap.org/
drpad/publication/dr22_2122/chap4.pdf> (accessed 28 September 2005).
References
Barnett, A. Doak, Cadres, Bureaucracy, and Political Power in Communist China
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1967).
Beeson, Mark, Japan’s Reluctant Reformers and the Legacy of the Develop-
mental State. In Anthony B.L. Cheung and Ian Scott (eds), Governance and
Public Sector Reform in Asia: Paradigm Shifts or Business as Usual (London:
Routledge, 2003), pp. 25–43.
Burns, John P., Changing Environmental Impacts on Civil Service Systems: the
Cases of China and Hong Kong. In H.K. Wong and H.S. Chan (eds), Handbook
80 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
The civil service institutions (CSIs) inherited by the new African states
that emerged in the 1950s and the 1960s had three advantages that
enabled many of them to perform satisfactorily during the immediate
post-independence years. First, the CSIs operated in a context in which
the goals of governments were clearly articulated: win independence
and seek to improve the quality of life of the mass of the population
through the provision of infrastructure and services such as roads,
energy, water, education and health. Second, the political leaders who
progressively took over executive powers from the departing colonial
rulers from the early 1950s through to the early 1960s were nationalists
who were committed to wining independence, and, in most cases,
were conscious of the need for strong and well-equipped CSIs that
would serve as instruments for ensuring the continuity of the state,
maintaining law and order, and assuring better living standards for the
people.
The third advantage was the inheritance (from the departing colo-
nial governments) of career civil service systems led by small numbers
of well trained, experienced and committed senior civil servants that
provided quality leadership for the institutions in most of these new
states in the different sub-regions of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).1 These
higher civil servants were as committed to the principles of the inher-
ited civil service institutions (notably, merit-based recruitment and
promotion, political neutrality and security of tenure) as they were to
the goals of government articulated by the new political leaders. In
some cases, the two groups of leaders forged strong partnerships to
82
Africa: Rehabilitating Civil Service Institutions 83
When many SSA countries embarked on CSR in the early 1990s, the
programmes were, without exception, only part of a broader public
sector reform effort. Essentially, each country concerned was seeking
to respond to the challenges posed by democratization and economic
liberalization. Predictably, the degree of commitment to reform varied
significantly from one country to another. Indeed, in some of the
countries, debates on aspects of public sector reform have continued to
the present (late 2005). In addition to CSR, public sector reforms focus
on the redefinition of the role of the state; the reform of public sector
management institutions such as teachers service and police (in coun-
tries where they are organized and managed separately from the CSIs),
state-owned enterprises (SOEs), subnational and local governments,
and the reform of both the judiciary and the legislature.
In examining four main issues addressed in CSR programmes – tackling
the problems of civil service staff; strengthening budget and financial
management; improving performance, with emphasis on service delivery;
and enhancing accountability, transparency and ethical behaviour –
Africa: Rehabilitating Civil Service Institutions 85
1 2 3 4 5
Table 6.2: Examples of variations in the scope of civil (public) service in SSA
Botswana 1A+B + 3 + 5 4
Kenya 1A + 1B (excluding revenue 4+5
administration) + 3
Namibia 1A+B (excluding police and prisons) 4
+3+5
Nigeria 1A + 1B (excluding police) 3+4+5
Notes:
1. Each of the four countries has a Public Service Commission (Civil Service Commission
in the case of Nigeria), established in each country’s constitution as an independent
body. A Public Service Act defines the powers and functions of each commission whose
operations are governed by regulations and rules that must be consistent with both the
Act and the Constitution.
2. Kenya: Although the police force and the prison service are part of the public service
and under the public service commission, they have regulations and rules that are
separate from those for the other public services.
3. Namibia: The police force and the prison service are constituted into a security service
that is outside the remit of the Public Service Commission.
4. Nigeria: Only the federal civil service is considered here. (State civil services are separate
from local government services.) A Civil Service Act 1988 was abandoned in 1996.
However, there are civil service regulations and rules that must be consistent with the
constitutional provision on the Commission. Nigeria also has a Federal Character
Commission enshrined in the constitution to enforce a vaguely defined
representativeness in both the civil service and other public sector institutions
throughout the federation.
88 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Virtuous Vicious
cycle cycle
Notes:
1. This categorization is a snapshot that represents overall position of countries during
the entire 15-odd years covered in the review, especially the past half-dozen years.
A categorization of the same countries for 1995 and 1999 will show different
placements for several countries in B and C including Rwanda that would have been in
category D in 1995. And Nigeria would have been in group C in 1999. The placement
of countries in groups A and D would have remained unchanged.
2. Information on the countries provided as examples is based partly on assessments
provided in the monograph cited, and partly on the author’s first-hand observations
during professional visits to all but one of the countries in groups A, B, and C between
1990 and 2005.
At the level of practice, two points deserve attention. The first relates to
the scope and pace of CSR implementation in the different countries
and the second is an exploration of how actions at the regional and
sub-regional levels could help to broaden, deepen, and sustain CSR in
individual countries. Regarding a possible research agenda four priority
topics need to be addressed: two concern the respective impacts of
culture and governance on management in general, including CSIs,
and the other two are CSI-specific foci on the institutions’ role in
poverty reduction (with particular reference to the Millennium Develop-
ment Goals) and their relationship with the external development
environment. One topic of future concern that relates to both practice
and research is the need for attention to capacity development for
leadership (both political and administrative).
Notes
1 In this chapter, Sub-Saharan Africa and Africa are used as synonyms. North
Africa is regarded as part of the Middle East, as is the practice in some inter-
national organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank.
2 Of course, commitment to the merit principle does not mean total lack of
attention to representativeness. Typically, there is attention to representa-
tion in both old and new states, based on class (Britain), geographical area
(France), racial or ethnic groups in heterogeneous societies such as Ethiopia,
Nigeria, and South Africa in SSA.
3 The five tasks are: ‘establishing a foundation of law [a law-based state]; main-
taining a nondistortionary policy environment, including macroeconomic
stability; investing in basic social services and infrastructure; protecting the
vulnerable; protecting the environment’. I would add assuring the security of
persons and property as a sixth fundamental task of the state.
4 That is, the African Development Bank, the World Bank, and the Inter-
national Monetary Fund (IMF)
5 It is important to mention that many SSA countries embarked on CSR pro-
grammes of varying scope during the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s but
none of them was linked to state reform in the sense that it is used here.
Perhaps the two most broad-gauged CSR efforts were those undertaken in
the early 1970s in Kenya and Nigeria.
6 Up to 1990, Namibia and South Africa were one country under the infamous
apartheid system. Because of its racial exclusion policy, the similarities in
institutional capacity, socio-economic development between it and Botswana
and Mauritius cannot be described as virtuous. However, post independence
Namibia and post-apartheid South Africa qualify to be in the same category
as Botswana and Mauritius.
7 Tanzania Government’s Public Service Reform Annual Report, 2000/2001.
Improvements recorded in subsequent years are contained in annual ‘State
of the Public Service Report’ that are available on a government website: see
*blhttp://estabs.go.tz*bg
8 A model ‘Charter for the Public Service in Africa’ was adopted and individual
countries were expected to adapt it for use. The charter has four basic prin-
ciples: (i) principle of equality of treatment; (ii) principle of neutrality;
(iii) principle of legality; and (iv) principle of continuity [in the provision of
public service].
References
Adamolekun, L., ‘Political Leadership in Sub-Saharan Africa: From Giants to
Dwarfs’, International Political Science Review, 9(2) (1988), 95–106.
Africa: Rehabilitating Civil Service Institutions 99
Introduction
103
104 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
120
100
80 The Netherlands
60 United Kingdom
France
40
Germany
20
0
1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004
control have in many countries been sharpened over the last decade,
to the detriment of organized interests who seek to intervene after
EU directives have been transposed and integrated into national
legislation.
Agencyfication
Agencyfication is the process in which national governments increasingly
delegate mainly implementation and regulatory activities to national-
level agencies that are either completely privatized, or operate at arm’s-
length from the ministerial department and enjoy relative autonomy, at
least with respect to managerial affairs, but under the direct political
responsibility of a minister. Since the early 1980s most western states
pursued some sort of agencyfication strategy, often as a part new public
management (NPM) inspired reforms (van Thiel, 2005). It should not be
overlooked, though, that patterns of semi- and para-governmental gover-
nance of executive tasks existed for a long time in continental European
systems (Dijkstra and Van der Meer, 1997).
Besides purely domestic motives agencyfication is also regarded as an
indication of internationalization. First, the inter- and transnational
nature of governance is a potential driving force behind agencification
(Christensen and Lægreid, 2005: 19). In a complex system of multi-
level governance, national executives need to be vigorous and efficient
in pursuing their goals, both in a strategic sense and in terms of tack-
ling substantial policy problems. Offloading some of their implementa-
tion and regulatory tasks (especially those that would otherwise bear
considerable political sensitivity) to agencies may be instrumental to
enhancing performance on their primary goals (Toonen, 2001).
Second, internationalization encouraged new forms of regulation
and the creation of ‘independent’ inspectorates (Hood et al., 2004;
Christensen and Lægreid, 2005). Where until the late 1970s regulation
and inspection used to be carried out by integrated sections within the
central bureaucracy, in an internationalized governance system a
stronger focus is put on re-institutionalizing the separation of powers,
that is, the formation of regulatory agencies and inspectorates outside
the central departmental structure. In the end, the more important the
role of supra- and transnational organizations in monitoring the
behaviour of the national state, the higher the need for a national
regulation system that is high in credibility, legitimacy and therefore
independent and relatively autonomous from the central executive.
Thus, internationalization contributes to the fragmentation of bureau-
cratic structures.
110 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Mediatization of governance
Mediatization of governance concerns the trend toward a more impor-
tant and more autonomous role of the mass media in scrutinizing and
steering governance. In almost all of the Western states, governments
have embraced or have been forced to embrace the idea of greater
transparency to acquire greater democratic legitimacy for their policies,
implying more communication with the public and less secrecy sur-
rounding policy practices. This increased transparency of governance is
further reinforced by the development and application of new media
(e-mail, e-government), strengthening direct interaction between citi-
zens and bureaucratic officials. Citizens have more and faster access to
information and services through the internet. Also, the increased
speed and range of information diffusion has enabled the press to take
a more active and autonomous role in scrutinizing political decisions
and decision-making. Citizens and other societal actors can inform
themselves quicker and better about government issues, strategies,
successes and failures (Toonen, 2001).
Moreover, many Western countries witness the increasing practice of
top civil servants to contact the press and to speak out on policy issues,
for which – according to the doctrine of ministerial responsibility –
ministers are answerable to parliament. The doctrine of ministerial
responsibility can only be maintained if bureaucrats are loyal and
refrain from seeking publicity or venting their own opinions in the
media. While interactive governance and increased transparency are
perceived as positive from a legitimacy and accountability perspective,
Weberianism Revisited? 111
Judicialization of governance
In most western countries, the popularity of NPM led to one or more
waves of regulatory reforms. Also, international organizations such as
the European Union (emphasizing competition and the development
of a free internal market), the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD), World Trade Organization (WTO) and the
World Bank (encouraging new reform ideas across the globe) have
stimulated the development of tighter evidence-based legal controlling
mechanisms in countries that used to employ more consensus-based
112 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
service systems. But does that imply that the Weberian conception of
bureaucracy is now less useful than in the past for the comparative
analysis of national civil service systems?
Following Page (1992), and taking the potential for bureaucratic
dominance as a central notion in Weber’s writings, we focus on the
countering forces of a number of institutions – parliaments, interest
groups, political leadership, personal staff, and the judiciary. We turn
to each of these pillars and institutions and assess their relevance or
obsolescence for present-day analysis.
The principle of hierarchy in organizing and coordinating the
administrative apparatus has by no means become obsolete. However,
in some parts of the civil service hierarchy is now complemented as an
coordination principle by contractual market principles and networks
(i.e., voluntary cooperation based on mutual dependence rather than
hierarchy). These mechanisms are primarily visible in those parts of
the bureaucracy that were established or reformed within an NPM
context (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2004: 82). In this sense, a differentia-
tion is conceivable in terms of the importance of hierarchy between
the core departmental organizations and the decentralized units.
Similarly, when looking at the much-debated erosion of professional
career patterns, a mixed picture emerges. On the one hand, in several
systems the debate about the ‘normalization’ of the legal position of
the civil servant with the position of employees in the private sector is
reopened. This indicates that the distinctness of ‘serving the state’
is in decline. Also, for a considerable share of the managerial offices
(especially those in decentralized organs) in practically all Western
states, contracts become less permanent, more flexible, and in some
cases connected with specific performance targets. On the other hand,
internationalization has opened an extra dimension to the career
system, perpetuating and perhaps reinforcing the existing principles
of career constitution (see on new career opportunities: Caiden, 2006:
537–41).
Moreover, when trying to assess the degree to which the Weberian
principle of candidates being ‘selected on the basis of technical
qualifications and being appointed’, reality shows variations. It appears
that in the more peripheral parts of the system, technical qualifications
are highly valued. Most of the decentralized tasks and processes were
intentionally depoliticized when placed at arm’s length. Since these
bodies deal with technical rather than political issues, it is to expected
that they rely more heavily on technically qualified staff than the core
ministries.
114 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
These core ministries (especially at the higher levels) are more and
more exclusively in charge of strategic decision-making. This requires a
more strategically minded and politically responsive staff for these
offices promotion is less likely to be based on seniority, but rather on
achievement or political or personal loyalty to the incumbent minister
or government. At the top, the number of strategic advisers, separate
from the career civil service, has been growing.
On this variable, the core bureaucracy seems less bureaucratic in a
Weberian sense than the peripheral bodies. This raises the question
whether internationalization and multi-level governance, where polit-
icization leads to core bureaucracy and the depoliticization and profes-
sionalization into more peripheral units. This development may point
at a broader trend. In the classical conception, the division between
‘politics and technical work’ used to coincide (at least theoretically)
with the division between politicians and bureaucrats. It is now worth
trying to empirically establish if this dividing line coincides more
with the separation between the core ministerial departments and
the decentralized administrative bodies.
Another element of the bureaucratic ideal type is that the ‘office is
treated as the sole, or at least primary, occupation’. The changes dis-
cussed here involve a greater usage of external strategic consultants
who work on short term or part-time contracts, which lowers the score
on this variable, at least for the central departments. Whether this
holds to the same extent for staff in organizations outside the core
bureaucracy remains an open question.
Weber emphasizes official secrecy as one of the tenets of bureaucratic
power (1947). On the basis of the changes described above, it can be
expected that secrecy is decreasing as a source of bureaucratic power.
Two reasons for this are increased transparency of governance and the
increasingly critical and autonomous role of the press. In addition, we
witness the greater external profile of a number of top bureaucrats
(Steen et al., 2005), which might enhance the power of these civil ser-
vants and thus compensate for the loss of power caused by the erosion
of official secrecy.
A number of (comparative) studies point at the decreased ability
of national parliaments in scrutinizing the executive, including the
bureaucratic apparatus (Wessels and Rometsch, 1996; Börzel and
Sprungk, 2007). This is partly explained by the expanded role of
European institutions in initiating legislation and policies, although
there is considerable cross-national variation. In Denmark and the
United Kingdom parliaments play a relatively important role in the
Weberianism Revisited? 115
Conclusion
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8
Historical Legacies and Dynamics
of Institutional Change in Civil
Service Systems
Philippe Bezes and Martin Lodge
Introduction
We are said to live in an age of reform. The past three decades have wit-
nessed the privatization of state-owned enterprises (Feigenbaum et al.,
1999), the retrenchment of the welfare state (Pierson, 1994), change in the
wider political economy (Hall and Soskice, 2001) as well the reorganiza-
tion of the ‘administrative state’ itself. Although emerging in largely sepa-
rate literatures, these studies have produced rather similar findings and
conceptual perspectives. One similarity is that far from diagnosing univer-
sal paradigm changes and ‘convergence’, scholars have explained that
reforms across states and time have varied. Another similarity has been the
widespread use of broadly historical institutional perspectives to account
for the observed variations. A particularly popular concept has been ‘path
dependency’ to highlight how the force of past commitments – in the
form of high fixed costs and increasing returns – not only directs common
external demands for change into particular national and sectoral reform
trajectories, but also exposes states to a specific set of ‘vulnerabilities’
rather than others (see Scharpf and Schmidt, 2000).
The field of comparative public administration has been receptive to
these institutionalist literatures – however, the analysis of reform in
civil service systems could be advanced further by adopting concepts
that have emerged in recent historical institutionalist writings. In par-
ticular, the literatures on welfare state retrenchment and ‘varieties of
capitalism’ have advanced the study of institutional transformations
processes, especially through an increased focus on ‘mechanisms of
reproduction and logics of change’ (Thelen, 2003: 221; Streeck and
Thelen, 2005) and trajectories (Pierson, 2000; 2004) that have offered
new avenues for in-depth historical analysis.
121
122 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
The study of civil service systems has been characterized by the search
for typologies that account for differences across states (cf. Esping-
Andersen, 1990, on different ‘welfare families’). Such attempts at
tracing varieties across civil service systems have included studies
of constitutional position, of political–administrative relationships
(Aberbach, Putnam and Rockman, 1981; Peters, 1987), of central–local
government relationships (Page, 1991), of interaction with public
opinion (Rainey, 1996), representativeness (Van der Meer and Roborgh,
1996) or internal labour markets (Wise, 1996). Page has compared civil
service systems across a variety of dimensions (Page, 1992; 1995; also
Heady, 1996; Heywood and Wright, 1997; Peters, 2001).
A related set of writings has sought to establish causal relations
between constituencies and reforms trajectories by claiming to bring
‘institutions’ back into the study of public administration. Christensen
and Lægreid (2002) have emphasized sociological neo-institutionalism
by acknowledging the influence of March and Olsen’s (1989) work,
especially the notion of the ‘logic of appropriateness’. Not dissimilar to
the work by Rockman and Weaver (1993) as well as other attempts at
distinguishing ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ states, Knill (1999) pointed to the
impact of political–administrative structures in explaining variations in
‘administrative reform capacity’. Hood (2001; 2002) examined possible
linkages between the historical forms of ‘public service bargain’ and
national features of public sector reforms. Finally, Pollitt and Bouckaert
(2000) also offered insightful analysis of national reform trajectories
among different types of politico–administrative regimes.
‘Historical Legacies’ and Institutional Change 123
trative law (see Cassese, 2000: 66–70). The existence of a ‘rigid [legal]
backbone’ (Knill, 1999: 115) suggests that any ‘new’ types of ideas – such
as those supposedly managerial ideas associated with the ‘new public
management’ movement’ – will be filtered in the light of legal coherence
and standard operating procedures, both cognitively as well as struc-
turally through the existence of judicial institutions that further raise
potential ‘reversal’ costs that are involved in any proposal for change.
The second component that shapes the way civil service systems evolve
is its degree of pervasiveness. As already noted, pervasiveness points to the
range of competences that come under the central government’s direct
leverage and the type of networks of organizations and agents through
which government exercises its power (see Page, 1995: 259–61). It is
linked to the spatial distribution, ‘division of labour’ and hierarchical
relationships of public agents across levels of government. Different
countries have relied on different types of organizational structure to
‘deliver’ public services, ranging from central government, state field ser-
vices to autonomous agencies. As a consequence, actors have been histor-
ically distributed across various levels and with different functions and
responsibilities. Sweden, for instance, has historically been characterized
by a substantial number of implementing autonomous agencies, whereas
France has traditionally been characterized by an integrated central
administration with a large hierarchical network of state field units in
local authorities – under the double supervision of the ministries and the
prefects, the territorial representatives of the state.
In other words, this aspect of pervasiveness refers to the degree of
administrative centralization. A high degree of administrative central-
ization is characterized by an integrated system between central
administration and the territorial field units, while a decentralized
system would be characterized by a weak network of field units and a
loose hierarchy from central government to territorial administrative
offices. Two distinct forms of personnel management with different
degrees of autonomy, of number of actors and of resource distribution
emerge from these differences in pervasiveness. In the contemporary
age of ‘managerial reform’ decentralization and ‘autonomization’ of
agencies appear to be more feasible in systems that already have exist-
ing compatible organizational structures (such as Sweden) or where
the state fields units are weak (allowing for an ‘easy’ introduction of
such organizational templates) rather than in cases characterized by
integration and strong local state field units such as in France.
The third component, the political–administrative nexus, points to the
relationship between politicians and bureaucrats ‘at the top’. One key
‘Historical Legacies’ and Institutional Change 125
service careers are planned, with material rewards relating to rank and
age (in the bureaucracy). Despite an overall similarity, variety still
exists and may even have increased in the past two decades. For
instance, consider the introduction of relative pay levels for Singapore
civil servants who receive amounts their colleagues elsewhere can only
dream of. At the same time, though, Singaporean bureaucratic salaries
were below those received by their private sector colleagues. In addition,
civil service systems vary according to the ‘unmentionable’ material
rewards that they provide bureaucrats (cars, discretionary payments,
medical care and housing, or ‘allowances’ derived from public procure-
ment). Finally, civil service systems also show differences regarding the
provision of immaterial rewards, with the Japanese and English
systems maintaining an ‘honours and medals’ system, while post-1945
Germany had no such tradition for its civilian bureaucrats (and, since
the 1970s, also not for its armed forces). Linking career and reward
are issues relating to career advancement. For example, reward relates
to the level within the bureaucracy any public servant can expect
to rise and the extent to which this rise on the bureaucratic ladder
is conditioned by competition from within and outside the bureau-
cracy.
The ‘managerial age’ of the late 20th century is said to have challenged
many of the traditional reward patterns. These include some countries
attempts at introducing ‘performance pay’, challenges to established
pension ‘rights’, and the opening up of the labour market to ‘outsiders’.
Thus, what was in the past regarded as the main attraction of a civil
service career (tenure and secure reward) has dwindled. At the same time,
this reduction in security has not fully been complemented with an
increase in the ‘risk surcharge’. Top UK bureaucrats, though, managed to
receive substantial pay increases over the past decade, and this caused
salaries to pass those of most top politicians, including the prime minis-
ter. Such a pattern has, however, not been witnessed in, for example, the
United States or Germany.
1991) where choices for designing institutions are made at one moment
through new political coalitions with strong policy feedback: the
choices of new patterns ‘place institutional arrangements on paths or
trajectories, which are then difficult to alter’ (Pierson, 2004: 135).
These trajectories are characterized by sequences of choices that to
some extent predetermine the set of alternatives available at a future
point in time. These alternatives are partly the result of the restrictions
of options that arise from any particular choice as well as the con-
sequence of side effects of initial choices. An excellent illustration
of how choice shapes the sequence of possible later reforms has
been provided by Tulia Falleti’s (2005) study of decentraliza-
tion policies in Latin America in which she illustrates how certain
choices at particular junctures placed states on particular reform
trajectories.
It is not difficult to find the importance of ‘critical junctures’ and
‘sequencing’ in the study of civil service systems too. An historical
investigation relying on this kind of argument is Silberman’s account
of differences in key administrative choices in 19th-century France,
Japan, the UK and the United States (1993). He explains how civil
service systems developed and rationalized differently in the face
of the same kind of problems because they encountered different types
of leadership succession crisis. A contemporary use of ‘critical junc-
tures’ approach can be fruitfully advanced to analyse how and why
many civil service systems in the 1980s were exposed to strong exter-
nal and internal challenges and associated with extensive reforms.
Factors that have been put forward to explain the interest in civil
service reform across countries have been the emergence of parties in
government willing to challenge existing institutional arrangements
(New Zealand, the UK, Australia), to address particular party-political
concerns (France, Spain) or to sustain certain welfare state outputs
(Sweden). At the same time, fiscal pressure, the rise of ‘anti-tax elec-
toral coalitions’, the rise of different campaigning strategies that paid
little attention to civil servants’ advisory role and placed its faith in
spin doctors, and more party-’loyal’ advisers also provided for ‘polit-
icization’. Finally, the supposed rise of a ‘new paradigm’ (the ‘new
public management’) has also been suggested as a factor driving polit-
icians towards civil service reform (Hood, 1995). In many ways, the
aggregation of these factors allows us to identify the 1980s as a ‘critical
juncture’ in that social processes and standard operating procedures
across civil service systems were questioned. In this period, high
conditions of ‘stress’ and heightened attention towards civil service
128 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Apart from greater sensitivity to the way in which these critical junc-
tures shape later choice sets, the recent institutionalist literature has
also paid attention to the inherent contestation of any institutional
arrangement and to those mechanisms that allow for major change
over time through incremental adjustment (Streeck and Thelen, 2005).
Actors seek to challenge existing institutional arrangements as well as
bring different interpretations regarding the ‘rules of the game’ into
their interactions. Such contestation arguably leads to some instability
and ‘hunting around’ (see Lodge and Wegrich, 2005). Viewing institu-
tions as endogeneously contested structures that also display
significant ‘staying power’ provides for several further insights into the
analysis of civil service system reform trajectories. This approach is
all the more necessary in public administration as studies have over-
oscillated between analysing radical transformations in some countries
and inertia in others. Without claiming to provide an exhaustive list of
arguments, four key themes exemplify gradual transformative change
and reflect the tension between contestation and stability within
institutional arrangements.
One way in which civil service systems have witnessed change is
through ‘displacement effects’ (Streeck and Thelen, 2005: 19–22), that
is, the growing importance of institutional arrangements that were
created at different points in time, were previously latent or of minor
significance and will become dominant. Gregory and Christensen
(2004), for example, suggest how in the Danish case the development
of fixed-term contracts and performance review for top civil servants in
1987 was based on older forms of fixed term appointments that had
been created in 1971. And what started as a device for specialized jobs
has grown in significance over time, leading to the adoption of per-
formance contracts for all agency directors. In France, the use of an
aggregate wage bill ceiling framework to estimate the global costs of
personnel expenditure in the civil service provided bureaucrats within
ministerial Budget Directorates with considerable discretion to decrease
the sum that could be negotiated with the social partners in public
132 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
service bargainings in the 1980s. This tool was initially used as a ‘low-
profile’ instrument but turned into a major managerialist device in the
early 2000s as part of wider administrative reform initiatives (Bezes,
2007). Indeed, a new Act on Budget Legislation, adopted on 1 August
2001, redesigned the overall budget architecture by organizing credit
items into broad programmes, devolved the resource allocation deci-
sions to public managers and gave them consolidated appropriation
items including a global wage bill ceiling and a jobs ceiling. This
allowed these officials to decide on the mix of resource inputs to
obtain policy goals with the exception of topping-up personnel appro-
priations from other items.
The second notion is ‘layering’. Orren and Skowronek (1994; 2004)
have provided the leading analysis of the development of the US
administrative state using such a layering ‘lens’. Layering denotes the
way in which additions are placed onto existing institutional arrange-
ments: ‘new coalitions may design novel institutional arrangements,
but lack support, or perhaps the inclination, to replace pre-existing
institutions established to pursue other ends’ (Schickler, 1999; quoted
in Thelen, 2003: 226). Such developments are said to lead to ‘differen-
tial growth’ (Streeck and Thelen, 2005: 23), leading to the incorpora-
tion of a new set of arrangements into established standard operating
procedures. Arguably, the initial bifurcation of the Whitehall pay
bargain given the performance-related and time-limited contracts for
‘Next Steps’ agency chief executives created the space for introducing a
greater ‘risk reward’ into the contracts of ‘normal’ Whitehall civil ser-
vants at a latest stage. Capano (2003) has also suggested that the man-
agerialist tools that were incorporated into the Italian civil service in
the 1990s did not replace the historical ‘paradigm’ of the Italian civil
service, but was superimposed and incorporated into them. In other
words, layering is likely to have a number of effects, not all of them
intended. Of course, there may be no effect whatsoever: reform initia-
tives are regularly announced with great fanfare, but then disappear
without much trace. In many ways, the organization of the UK central
government with its Cabinet Office responsible for overall civil service
policy allowed for this kind of pattern (in that individual career pro-
spects advanced through the production of policy initiatives, but not
their implementation). Instead of tombstone patterns, layering can
also have ‘irritant’ effects on existing arrangements that have (often
unintended) transformative effects. For example, the greater prom-
inence of ‘outsiders’ in the British core executive (in the form of spin
doctors, special advisers and civil service outsiders recruited into the
‘Historical Legacies’ and Institutional Change 133
Conclusion
This chapter has advanced to two key arguments. First, national civil
service systems are not simple constructs that are likely to respond in
similar ways to exogenous pressures. Instead, what emerges is a pattern
of different motives, opportunities and constraints for civil service
system reform due to specific institutional configurations. In many
ways, even ‘critical junctures’ are shaped by the past. This does not
mean that all civil service systems should be regarded as sui generis, but
at the same time, there should be greater awareness that states are not
engaged in administrative reform races that commence from similar
starting positions (see also Hood and Lodge, 2005).
The second argument is that taking as a starting point the five com-
ponents at the heart of civil service systems should allow for consider-
able scope for extensive comparative research. At the same time, using
the conceptual tools developed in institutional analysis should also
allow for a more theoretically informed analysis of both change and
stasis. In the discussion regarding five components that provide for a
civil service system, we have pointed to the importance of looking not
134 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
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9
Public Service Systems at
Subnational and Local Levels
of Government:
a British–German–French
Comparison
Sabine Kuhlmann and Jörg Bogumil
Introduction
The nature of local public service systems is not only linked with the
nature of public employment and civil service systems but also with
137
138 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Territorial Structure
Personnel weight
In all three countries the local level has a sizeable workforce which
reflects the important role of local government within the national
public sector. With a share of one-third (Germany, France) respectively
Public Service Systems 141
and more than half (Great Britain) of total public employment, the
local public service consistently plays a decisive role within the
national public service system. There are significant differences
between the countries, though. These primarily arise from historical-
institutional imprints and path dependencies. Up to now, the muni-
cipalities in the UK have had a high personnel size and a high density
of local employment. This mirrors the unequalled local strength within
the ‘dual polity’ model. In France, the Napoleonic centralism and the
Jacobin tradition are still influential, visible in the smaller size of local
compared to central public employment. Per 1,000 French citizens,
there still are almost twice as many state servants (41) than local
employees (23). The state continues to have by far the largest share
of public employment (more than 50 percent). Comparing these two
countries we can assume that Great Britain – despite the Thatcheristic
‘war against local government’ (see below) – is still endowed with a
stronger local workforce than – meanwhile – decentralized France. In
Germany, too, the distribution of local employment across the three
levels of government (Federation, Länder, Communes) has remained
comparatively stable. The municipalities still represent one third of the
total public employment (after the Länder with about 50 percent). In
this respect they are still a substantial cornerstone of the civil service
which confirms the historic tradition of a strong local self-administra-
tion. With its dual function of implementing state policies transferred
by Federal and Länder legislation on the one hand and fulfilling own
local self-administration tasks on the other hand, it forms the back-
bone of German public administration on the whole.
Furthermore, the significance of the local public service can be mea-
sured by its share of general employment. In countries with a lean
public sector (for instance, Germany) local governments, relative to
total employment, have a less important role as employers than in
countries with an extended public sector (such as France). In Germany,
local public employment weighted by total employment has the least
important position in comparison to the other countries, which can be
referred to the lean German public sector in general. This contrasts to
Britain, where local public employment, with 10 percent of general
employment, is at the top position, followed by France with 6 percent.
These figures reflect the evolution of the public sector as a whole.
In Germany, the share of public employment as a percentage of
general employment has decreased to 14 percent, whereby the German
civil service is meanwhile one of the leanest among the OECD
members (Derlien, 2002: 232). The French civil service, by contrast,
142 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Table 9.2: Local public employment, general public employment and general
employment in country-comparative perspective, 2000/01
Note: * Figures for 2001 only full-time employees of the local authorities, Intermunicipal
Associations and the Indirect Public Service (‘mittelbarer Öffentlicher Dienst’) are not
included. Source: Kuhlmann and Röber (2006). ** Figures for 2001 included: Regions,
Départements, Communes, intermunicipal cooperation bodies (EPCI), établissements
publics locales. Source: Ministère de l’Intérieur, DGCL (2003). *** Figures for 2000;
included: counties, districts, boroughs. Source: Bach and Winchester (2003), 294.
Legal distinction
In legal and institutional terms, the degree of distinction between the
local public service on the one hand and the central state civil service
on the other hand, as a second indicator for measuring local public
service ‘autonomy’ in comparative perspective, varies significantly
between the three countries. Within the French model, the local level
has been quite visibly acknowledged as a distinct sector of public
employment. In the course of decentralization reforms, a specific ter-
ritorial civil service (FPT) was created by law of 26 January 1984 – dis-
tinct from the state civil service (FPE) – which was granted its own
‘statute’ and specific local provisions (of course ruled by national legis-
lation). Within the German federal and Länder legislation, there are
only very few prescriptions which exclusively refer to local personnel.
Thus in legal terms, the distinction between the state (Federal/Länder)
and the local level of public employment is not clear. Local servants
are basically subjected to the same nation-wide uniform prescriptions
(civil service law, Bundesangestelltentarif (BAT)/Tarifvertrag Öffentlicher
Public Service Systems 143
‘Status structures’
Third, we draw upon the actual profiles and structures of the local
public service (compared with the other levels of public employment)
and focus here on ‘status groups’. In continental European countries,
the local level has turned out to be a forerunner in challenging and
questioning traditional ‘status models’ in public employment practice.
The national legislator, by contrast, continues to stick to the tra-
ditional statutes for civil servants. In Germany, the traditional duality
of the status groups (civil servants – Beamte/employees – Angestellte) has
barely disappeared, especially in East Germany, where the local civil
servants’ quota is distinctively lower (2 percent). In fact, an almost
single-status system in the municipalities has meanwhile evolved with
East Germany at the very top. Civil servants (Beamte), who are still pre-
dominant at the Federal and the Länder levels, are increasingly dis-
appearing (12 percent of the personnel). Thus the (British) model of
collective bargaining is coming to the fore and this stands in marked
contrast to the federal and Länder civil services with their Beamten
quota of about 60 percent each. The British system is not familiar with
status differences in the German and French sense, taking into account
that the traditional distinction between ‘manuals’ and ‘non-manuals’
as ‘status groups’ does not imply strict legal differences. Nonetheless,
British local authorities have likewise been forerunners in blurring and
abolishing traditional employment (or ‘status’) structures. The ‘single
status agreement’ passed in 1997 by the NJC for Local Government
Services brought to an end the common differentiation of manuals and
non-manuals – at least in formal terms. The local government services
were in first place to embark on a ‘single status model’ in Britain. The
same basically applies to French local government, which was path
144 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Patterns of continuity
Very distinct structures and profiles of local public employment
evolved in the three countries under scrutiny here. They have largely
been shaped by different ‘starting conditions’ and longstanding his-
torical traditions. These illustrate the formative influence of past insti-
tutional choices and historically ingrained structures that at least in
the basic structures determine the local landscape even in recent times.
The duality between the continental European (Hegelianic respectively
Rousseauistic) state tradition, on the one hand, and the (utilitarian-
liberal) public interest tradition on the other hand, proves to be a par-
ticularly influential inheritance in the three countries. These traditions
are reflected to this day in the different legal arrangements of employ-
ment contracts in local public service. Within the British public inter-
est-tradition, which perceives the state and local public service as a
part of society, the regulative competence of public employment is
assigned to the bargaining units (except teachers) and is part of normal
industrial relations. In France and Germany, public employment is, by
contrast, to a large extent regulated by national legislation (Dienstrecht/
statut). The prevailing legal and institutional distinction between
private and public employment is conceptually derived from their rule
of law principle and the Rechtsstaats tradition of continental Europe.
Though the traditional status models in the local practice have became
increasingly blurred, significant differences between the countries
remain. The French municipalities are still dominated by the tradition
Public Service Systems 145
of the strong statut, the British local governments by the model of free
collective bargaining and the German communes by the duality of
status groups. German local governments have, however, adopted
a ‘single-status system’ by largely renouncing the Beamten status,
whereas in France the trend from the ‘single-status system’ to a new
‘two-status structure’ is moving in the opposite direction.
The distribution of the local workforce by sectors of activity, too,
reflects continuity over time, which again is moulded by historical
imprints. While in Great Britain the outstanding significance of the
education sector (50 percent of the personnel) with the teachers as its
backbone, is striking (Schröter and Röber, 2000), in France the prevail-
ingly ‘technical’ function (planning, public utilities, construction,
infrastructure) of local government is still characteristic (about 50 per-
cent as well). In Germany, the profile of the local workforce is deter-
mined by the communes’ mandate in local social policies. This main
focus of employment has been broadly stable since the 1960s.
Patterns of change
In the past decade, a series of cutbacks and changes have occurred that
heralded sustained modification of the significance of local public per-
sonnel. They are primarily evidence of the functional shift between
local governments and state on the one hand and public and private
sector on the other hand. In the wake of the ‘neo-liberal revolution’ in
Great Britain the density of local government employment decreased
from 53 employees per 1,000 inhabitants in 1991 to 46 today, a reduc-
tion of 10 percent in total and the traditionally strong local govern-
ment system in the UK was awkwardly weakened. Local authorities lost
attitudes to best value’ (Stewart, 2003: 133; 209; cf. also Hood
et al., 1999: 101).
Conclusion
Our findings give support to the assumption that local public service con-
stitutes a relatively distinct system of public employment. It does not
only carry a substantial weight of the public workforce but is, above all,
an important pillar and backbone of the entire politico– administrative
system at national and supra-national levels. A capable and viable as well
as politically accountable local self-government appears to be a decisive
precondition for the functioning of the entire democratic order. Against
this background, current reform initiatives in the OECD world have been
directed towards transferring responsibilities, resources and powers from
upper to lower tiers of government, thereby further strengthening the
local level. These reform strategies are necessary and appear to be promis-
ing, taking moreover into account that in many countries local govern-
ments are also the forerunners of public sector modernization. This may,
on the one hand, be due to the more urgent (also financial) problems and
pressures at reform. On the other hand, it seems also to be related to the
attributes and dedications of the local personnel acting in a more flexible
way with reform instruments and behaving in a more pragmatic and
output-oriented manner than is the case at other political and adminis-
trative levels. This behaviour, again, results from the immediate proxim-
ity to the local arena, to local problems and to the citizens. The success
and failure of public sector reforms thus largely depends on the degree to
which local government is involved and may expect to benefit or not
from these reform measures. Against this background, the above-men-
tioned cutbacks that local public services in Germany and Great Britain
suffered in the course of NPM reform, EU liberalization and national bud-
getary crises, appear to be precarious setbacks. They conspicuously con-
tradict the ongoing trend of devolution and decentralization in Europe
(cf. Stoker, 1991: 7; Vetter and Kersting, 2003: 16), which was described
here for France. From a more ‘normative’ point of view, we would thus
finally plead for a design and direction of public sector reform appropri-
ate to further and reinforce local government’s pivotal position within
the politico–administrative system. From the more ‘scientific’ perspective,
we suggest that future administrative research should take up the chal-
lenge to put a greater analytical emphasis on subnational and local levels
of public service systems and thus fill this ‘missing link’ in comparative
public administration.
150 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Notes
1 We use the term ‘public service system’ instead of ‘civil service system’ in
order to distinguish it from the concept of ‘civil service’, which primarily
refers to central government personnel (see Bekke et al., 1996: 1).
2 Accordingly, the German model resembles partially the British territorial
system (northern parts of Germany) and partially the French model (south-
ern and eastern Länder).
3 We leave aside here the ‘political profile’ of local governments because it is
not in the immediate focus of this chapter.
4 The project was supported by the Hans-Böckler-Foundation (2004–06). In
spring 2005, a survey in altogether 1565 municipalities has been conducted,
including all mayors and heads of county administration (Landräte) as well
as all staff council’s chairmen. The survey is representative for all German
municipalities with more than 10,000 inhabitants.
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10
Middle Level Bureaucrats:
Policy, Discretion and Control1
Edward C. Page
Introduction
Top level bureaucrats have been the standard fare of studies of bureau-
cracy. Max Weber’s (1988) treatment of the subject, a sheet-anchor for
the study of bureaucracy ever since, has been widely interpreted as a
reflection on the role of very senior administrative levels and, in partic-
ular, their policy-making roles (see also Armstrong, 1973; Suleiman,
1975; 1978; and Aberbach, Putnam and Rockman, 1981). While the
lowest levels of bureaucracy have received some attention (Mechanic,
1962), the only serious appearance in the academic literature on
administration is as implementers, and most famously as ‘street level
bureaucrats’ (Lipsky, 1980; see also Pahl (1977) for a discussion of
‘urban managers’). The middle levels of the bureaucracy have largely
tended to be ignored.2
Why should this matter? One answer that there are a lot of middle
level bureaucrats in national government organizations and we have
little understanding of what they do. For example, most treatments of
the ‘top’ of the German bureaucracy cover around 1,500 people, while
there are 18,000 federal officials in the much broader classification of
‘senior’ (höherer Dienst), 41,000 in the ‘upper’ (gehobener Dienst). In
Britain, the top three ranks make up around 700 people, while the
‘Senior Civil Service’ comprises 4,000 and the grades immediately
below (grades 6 and 7), 22,000. Certainly many people in these grades
may be unimportant if we wish to understand policy (the central
reason for political science’s interest in bureaucracy) but this is an
assumption, not a fact.
A theoretical answer to the question is that one of the central charac-
teristics of bureaucracy is that it is a social system as well as a social
152
Middle Level Bureaucrats 153
group. Weber (1988: 836) does not emphasize the power of top
officials, but of the social system of bureaucracy: it is the advance of
officialdom rather than just top officials that makes him ask whether
democracy is any longer possible in modern society. For Tocqueville
([1836] 1994) the key kind of despotism ‘democratic nations have to
fear’ is certainly an ‘administrative despotism’, but it is not wielded by
a small leadership caste, but by ‘schoolteachers’. An understanding of
bureaucracy as a social system requires an understanding not just of its
top leadership, but of the norms that pervade its operation: a view rec-
ognized by Merton (1940) and Gouldner (1954) but recognized rather
rarely in political science (for exceptions, see Heclo and Wildavsky,
1974; Mayntz and Scharpf, 1975).
Given that so little is known about life in ministries and central or
federal agencies outside of the interactions at the top, there is no great
wealth of comparative data and information on which to base a com-
parative examination of the role of middle level officials. The central
purpose of this chapter is to outline the roles that middle ranking
officials play in the development of policy and to highlight the fea-
tures of bureaucratic systems that might cause variation in the role of
middle ranking officials. This chapter relies heavily on the experience
of one national bureaucracy – that of the United Kingdom (or more
accurately the non-devolved civil service based in Whitehall) – but
seeks to generalize beyond the individual case with the use of some
material gathered for a comparative study still in its very early stages.
the staff devoted to the activity) and the circumstances under which
seizures are made (only for large amounts or whether it is a form of
punishment to be visited on small-time crooks), are questions of detail
that shape the whole policy. The answers given to them are likely to
make the difference between a symbolic or even dead-letter policy and
the development of a significant new tool in the armoury to combat
crime.
In the development of the legal, fiscal and administrative framework
for a programme, there are likely to be many issues for which it is very
hard to identify a key decision which shapes its subsequent develop-
ment. A large number of policies cannot be deemed to be formed
before they have developed details.3 Those who develop details, and
lower level policy officials have responsibility for developing detail, are
thus likely to have significant roles in shaping policies unless their
roles in this respect are so tightly constrained by their political and
administrative superiors.
Even service work can bring relatively junior officials significant policy
making responsibility: for example, the mostly middle ranking officials
in the private office of a minister, rather than the permanent secretary
or other top brass, provide the main line of communication between
leading politicians and the officials working for them, and officials
servicing committees or other bodies are frequently relied on to iden-
tify emerging issues and suggest remedies (as with the Home Office
158 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
official advising a narcotic drugs panel who read all the rave and
dance magazines to find out about the contemporary drugs scene and
recommend action be taken on new drugs).
argued, ‘The politicians have lots of people working for them. They are
working away all the time at political initiatives and they came to us and
asked what we thought of it. They are the real motor in the whole
process. They have some knowledge in the area – most of them as much
as we have’. The real expertise in the Swedish system is more likely to be
found in the administrative agencies, even after one acknowledges the
greater career specialization among Swedish officials than British. The
agency officials, at least those involved in two of the six regulations in my
comparative study, saw themselves as mere providers of information
regulations. As the agency official responsible for one sensitive regulation
put it ‘I was not part of the Working Group [looking at the regulation] so
I was not party to the discussions about the different types of interests
and conflicts over the choice of the model – that is something for the
[name withheld] department to sort out’. In a third case the agency acted
as a lobby – persuading the ministry that a revised regulation was needed
and suggesting what might be in it – but its administrative and technical
experience did not bring it a direct policy role.
Here we have two different normative patterns of compliance – the
UK model is based on anticipating reactions of politicians, the Swedish
is based on allowing elected politicians and those who carry their
authority more directly to shape policy. Is this a distinction without a
difference? It is certainly not in terms of the discretion available to civil
servants in the process. Civil servants in UK ministries typically face
and take a wider range of choices about how policy initiatives are
developed than their Swedish counterparts. It should be emphasized
that UK civil servants do not perceive themselves to be ‘policy makers’
in the sense that they can develop policy in any way they like – indeed
they generally regard their choices as highly limited by what they
know the minister will want or like. Nevertheless, the pattern of
normative compliance in the UK appears more likely to involve mid-
dle ranking civil servants in questions of policy design and political
calculations than the pattern in Sweden.
Given the norm of compliance with democratically expressed wishes
is a fundamental feature of bureaucracies, one would not expect, in
other democratic countries, to find a basic norm of ‘non-compliance’ –
the generally empirically unfounded assumptions of ‘shirking’ in prin-
cipal-agent theories of bureaucracy notwithstanding. Whether there
are two models (an indirect ‘anticipated reactions’ model as in the UK
and a direct ‘expressed preferences’ model of compliance as in Sweden)
is hard to say at present. The United States might in principle be
expected to offer two sources of authority that need to be balanced,
Middle Level Bureaucrats 165
Conclusions
Notes
1 The research contained in this chapter is supported by Economic and Social
Research Council grant RES-000-22-1451 for the project ‘Hierarchy, expertise
and policy bureaucracy: a comparative analysis’.
2 Carpenter’s (2001) historical study of ‘mezzo’ level of bureaucracy not-
withstanding. Carpenter’s understanding of ‘mezzo’ is just below the very
top, but still at very senior levels.
3 Certainly not all policies require detail of this sort. Some policy decisions
are relatively simple such that the decision itself hardly needs any opera-
tional specification before it comes into effect (such as raising the bank rate)
or the decisions may set in train understood or frequently performed rou-
tines that require little elaborate operationalization (such as establishing or
suspending diplomatic relations with a particular country). Moreover, some
policy decisions can be of such far-reaching impact that subsequent deliber-
ation over detail and operational issues pale into significance beside them;
working out precisely how the policy will work resembles crossing the ts
and dotting the is of a principle already established. The granting of inde-
pendent status to the Bank of England in 1997 might be an example of such
a policy.
Middle Level Bureaucrats 167
References
Aberbach, J.D., Robert D. Putnam and Bert A. Rockman, Bureaucrats and Politicians
in Western Democracies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981).
Armstrong, J.A., The European Administrative Elite (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
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Bezes, P. and P. Le Lidec, French Top Civil Servants Within Changing
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Lipsky, M., Street-Level Bureaucracy: The Dilemmas of Individuals In Public Services
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1980).
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Mossberger, K., The Politics of Ideas and the Spread of Enterprise Zones
(Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000).
Page, E.C., Governing by Numbers. Delegated Legislation and Everyday Policy Making
(Oxford: Hart, 2001).
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tration’, Public Administration, 81(4) (2003), 651–79.
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Pahl, R.E., Managers, Technical Experts and the State: Forms of Mediation,
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11
Reforming Human Resource
Management in Civil Service
Systems: Recruitment, Mobility,
and Representativeness
Per Lægreid and Lois Recascino Wise
Introduction
Towards the end of the 20th century, the notion of the distinctiveness of
public sector as a ‘model employer’ began to fragment. Macro forces and
the dissemination of reform ideas appear to have contributed to a
rethinking of the notion of the uniqueness of the civil service and to the
weakening of conditions of employment for civil servants in many coun-
tries. Nowadays, the notion that the public sector warrants a distinctive
internal labour market system is no longer obvious. Not only have the
domain and responsibilities of civil servants changed, as others in this
volume describe, but also in many countries the status of civil servants
was also dramatically altered. Civil servants have become de-privileged in
terms of their conditions of employment, losing their special conditions
of recruitment and advancement as the public sector turns to business
and industry for inspiration and best practices (OECD, 2005a). The trans-
fer of private sector management techniques into the public sector chal-
lenges the notions of a career service, lifelong employment and general
employment conditions affecting the quality of working life. Decentral-
ization of responsibility for hiring, firing and promotion and drift in pre-
vailing norms about how these processes are determined contribute to
making it increasingly difficult to describe the operating internal labour
market (ILM) system within a given jurisdiction or organization; the
notion of a single or even dual ILM in government has become obsolete.
There is a move from collective barging to site or individual wage bar-
gaining and growing use of contractual and contingent workers in gov-
ernment along with special systems for political appointees. This trend
may create multiple internal labour market systems within the same
agency and increase administrative complexity.
169
170 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Bouckaert, 2004). The pace and means of these reforms have, however,
differed from country to country. It seems that each country adapts the
instrument available to its own institutional structure and economic
and social constraints.
The general picture is a parallel process of robustness and flexibility.
On the one hand, only few countries have made drastic moves away
from their traditional civil service systems. On the other hand, most of
the countries try to reform and adapt their systems to provide flexibil-
ity. We face parallel processes of NPM-inspired reforms introducing
private sector management tools to increase efficiency and normative
oriented reforms enhancing social equity and equality. Both these
trends are promoting individualization but the change processes are
heavily constrained by traditional civil service systems and historical-
institutional contexts. Even if the different countries move towards
NPM territory, the scope and pace of the reform processes are different
(Christensen and Lægreid, 2001). Some countries are forerunners and
others are laggers. They also start form different starting points repre-
senting different state traditions such as the Anglo-American public
interest tradition, the continental European Rechtsstaat tradition and
the Scandinavian welfare state tradition. Thus the pace and scope of
human resource management reforms are very different from country
to country (Shim, 2001). The most extensive reforms are in New
Zealand but Australia, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Switzerland
have also transformed the nature of public service employment and
people management. On the other end of the spectrum are countries
where HRM reforms have been much more limited, leaving traditional
system of public sector personnel management relatively unchanged,
such as France, Spain, Germany, and Japan (Shim, 2001). There is also
a large intermediate group of countries such as the United States,
Canada, the Netherlands and most of the Nordic countries.
Parallel processes of robustness and flexibility are also obvious when
it comes to four central qualities for traditional public administration:
anonymity, merit, permanence and neutrality (Stark, 2002). These
principles vary with administrative level as well as across countries.
They have, for instance, been stronger in Westminster system than in
the United States. What is clear though is that NPM-inspired HRM
reforms represent challenges to the tenets and principles of Weberian
bureaucracy. The threat to some principles, however, may be greater
than it is to others. Anonymity and permanence are more vulnerable
to these efficiency-based reforms than the concepts of merit and
neutrality.
174 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Decisions nowadays are more often associated with the person who
executes them and managerial accountability is strengthened relative
to political responsibility. Adding to this, bureaucrats must to a greater
extent face the personal consequences of their behaviour in office
through linking individual actions to merit-based adjustments. Short-
term contracts to supplement tenure and promotion are more often
based on some indicator of individual performance. These reforms can
be seen as challenging the permanence principle by connecting out-
comes, including the results of hiring and firing decisions to a given
manager’s rewards and penalties.
In the next part we review specific changes related to recruitment,
status, promotion and mobility. Subsequently, we draw some implica-
tions for policy and practice.
An overall perspective
What we might see for senior services is two trajectories. One repre-
sented by senior services that have been modernized but within state
traditions and rather closed and robust against external pressure. The
second are more venerable to external pressure, and more open to new
management and personnel concepts (Halligan, 2003). The first family
of countries departs from the Rechtsstaat tradition of continental Europe
and the second from the Anglo-American public interest systems of
United Kingdom and its previous colonies.
Implications
collectivity, shared values and mutual trust relations among civil ser-
vants (OECD, 2005a) on the other hand. How to balance fragmenta-
tion and integration, individualization and common identities and
market pressure and cultural cohesion is a big challenge in human
resource management reforms in the public sector.
Variation on key practices from one country to another is the rule
rather than the exception. Different states face different contexts, risks
and problems and start with different values and norms. The efficiency
driven emphasis is controversial in the field of HRM (Pollitt and
Bouckaert, 2004) and the notion that current performance should be
the dominant criterion for tenure and promotion has not become uni-
versally accepted. Seniority, loyalty and qualifications still play an
important role in many states. The persistence of values related to the
perceived role of government as a model employer and traditional
notions of the uniqueness of the public services may partly account for
the tenacity of these criteria.
The traditional public administration model characterized by its high
value on rule following behaviour and limited freedom and account-
ability for appointments and promotion (and in turn results) is being
challenged by public administrators around the world who seek more
discretion for hiring decisions and promotion, but who are also more
anxious to obtain greater accountability (Christensen and Lægreid,
2002). A system that extends discretion for appointment authority to
managers without strengthening their accountability, however, under-
mines political control. Thus a challenge facing civil service systems in
the 21st century is balancing the demand for flexibility and account-
ability with the need for representativeness and equity in human
resource management.
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Part III
Civil Servants and Legality,
Efficiency, and Responsiveness
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12
Law and Management:
Comparatively Assessing the Reach
of Judicialization
Robert K. Christensen and Charles R. Wise
Introduction
185
186 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Legal tradition
describes, ‘justice precedes law’, the codified law being a ‘rather late
and occasional interloper’ (Horowitz, 1977: 1). Civil law, on the other
hand, is law preceded by a justice articulated by scholars and legislators
as a guide, and often constraint, for judicial bodies (Murphy, Pritchett
and Epstein, 2002).
A theme of the preceding century’s comparative research has been
that the expansiveness of judicial policy depends on the context’s legal
tradition whether civil or common law. Accordingly, legal tradition is
an important beginning point in our framework. Christie (2000: 224)
offers some insight into legal tradition’s significance: ‘courts operating
in different legal cultures can reach different conclusions on the same
issue, not necessarily because they take a different view of the merits of
the issue involved, but because they have a different view of the judi-
cial function and/or utilize different judicial techniques’.
Murphy, Pritchett and Epstein (2002: 5–6) describe the features of
civil law in relation to judicialization, as a ‘system, closed, self-con-
tained … a neatly ordered body of principles hierarchically arranged.
Any judicial tampering with this system, even a charitable effort to
ease harsh effects of the [Civil] Code’s commands, is bound, over the
long run, to do more harm than good’. Common law, however, relies
upon the creativity of a judiciary, and is, by definition, that ‘part of the
law that is within the province of the courts themselves to establish’
(Eisenberg, 1988: 1).
Although the strong correlation between the common law tradition
and strong judicialization was a general assumption of 20th-century
comparative research, some observers have suggested that civil law
judges have gained increasing policy power (e.g., Murphy, Pritchett
and Epstein, 2002), while common law judges, at least in the United
States, have curbed their policy potency (e.g., Shapiro, 1995).
Accordingly, we offer the following middle-range theory to test this
assumption’s validity in the 21st century:
equation that can cause each system to move closer to – or retreat from –
the other system’s position’.
The increasing, if not cyclical, convergence of civil and common law
traditions notwithstanding, our reading of the research is that the
central tendencies of civil law judiciaries tend less towards judicializa-
tion than do common law judiciaries.
Judicial appointment
We consider first the aspect of judicial appointment. In the United
States, judicial appointment to the federal bench is primarily the pre-
rogative of the Executive branch, and such appointments are, as a rule,
life tenures. In France, however, guarantees of life tenure are absent
(Provine, 1996: 183). European countries have generally preferred
judicial predictability over independence. Illustratively, Kagan (2001:
111–12) observes that ‘in the Netherlands (and in other hierarchically
organized European legal systems) judges are recruited, socialized, and
supervised in a manner explicitly designed to maximize adjudicative
predictability … to homogenize the judiciary to make its decisions
legally competent, uniform, and predictable’.
Furthermore, the selection of these judges, unlike in many European
countries, is observed (Jackson, 1974; Kagan, 2001: 112; Provine, 1996:
200) to be as much as function of political prowess as a successful legal
career. For example, Kritzer (1996: 175–6) notes that ‘many judges on the
US federal bench have had extensive experience in both legislative and
administrative roles’. We believe that judicial appointments based on
political or administrative experience increases the likelihood of judicial-
ization. A contrasting illustration drawn from Great Britain supports this
proposition. ‘In England, a judge who is a former barrister with no direct
experience in political administration might be very reluctant to make a
decision that result[s] in having to deal with the day-to-day operation of a
prison or a school district or a mental hospital’ (Kritzer, 1996: 176).
We conclude this section with the following middle range theories
Timing. Like standing rules, the US courts are also more bound than
European courts on when a dispute can be heard. The powers of US
courts only reach those disputes that have occurred or otherwise have
an element of ripeness. When judicial action cannot provide relief
either because a state act had not yet occurred or because the occur-
rence became moot, US litigants are denied recourse. This requirement
is commonly referred to as ex post/a posteriori relief.
In contrast, the powers of European courts generally reach ex post/a
posteriori and a priori/ex ante, to cover those state acts that have not
fully materialized (Epstein, Knight and Shvetsova, 2001). Because these
courts are able to adjudicate across more temporal stages of a policy
issue, we offer the following middle range theory:
As Guarnieri et al. (2002: 79) observe, the less specialized the ‘the
scope of judicial decisions is the more politically significant a judge’s
role is likely to be’. Nevertheless, Guarnieri et al. recognize some debate
in the literature relative to this point. Our theory offers a good starting
point in testing this inquiry in the future.
Intergovernmental relations
account for substantive area of law. They note that in different areas of
case law the ECJ often encourages the position of a national court in a
particular area of law to gain their support.
By examining the implications of EU banana regulations for
Germany, Ruggiero (2002) suggests an additional dynamic that hear-
kens back to our theories about judicial structure (MRT5). Using a
rational institutionalist framework, Ruggiero (ibid.: 74) suggests that
national high courts (courts of last instance) sometimes ‘disempower’
the ECJ and EU in the minds of lower/intermediate courts; ‘the general
independence of the member state legal order and hierarchical struc-
ture may condition the likelihood of whether lower member court will
follow the precedence of the member court of last instance or of the
ECJ’.
The influence of supra-/international courts relative to national judi-
cialization is still evolving and appears, for now, to depend on particu-
lar circumstances. However, the middle range theories we offer in this
section, in connection with MRT5 (responding to Ruggiero’s observa-
tions) go some distance in clarifying the next steps around which
future research can coalesce.
Conclusion
Notes
1 For example, ‘how a nation prepares and selects its legal personnel depends
on prevailing principles of jurisprudence. As noted above, France differs
fundamentally from common-law nations … in the position it takes on the
origins of law and the role of judges’ (Provine, 1996).
2 ‘Rather than relying on individuals asserting rights, demanding damages and
otherwise seeking redress, Britain provides a broad net of social programs
to mitigate many of the inevitable misfortunes of modern life … [e.g., by]
by shifting consumer protection into the criminal arena, Britain has lifted
the responsibility for insuring fair dealing from the individual consumer and
placed it in the hands of a government agency’ (Kritzer, 1996).
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201
202 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
uphold the constitution and also in how he or she engages his or her
peers in dialogue about the oath they share in common. Further,
I would like to know to what extent the civil servant and his or her
peers encourage their training officers to integrate some constitutional
principles into the training curriculum. Clearly, there is no bright line
dividing individual from institutional questions. Most questions have a
little bit of each.
Underlying my argument is the presumption that civil servants in all
four countries, and probably in many other countries as well, play
enormously significant roles in the governance of their countries.
For purposes of this chapter, my high-toned view of the civil service is
simply a presumption. I have defended the grounds of this presumption
elsewhere.5
American civil servants have contributed significantly to the develop-
ment of constitutional doctrine because of the problematic character of
their legal status. I say problematic because of their dual role as
employees and citizens. Like civil servants everywhere, they experience
the inner tension that comes from this dual role. As employees, they
are the organizational inferiors of their political masters and should
stand ready to do their bidding. As citizens, however, civil servants are
the masters of the elected officials and, like all citizens, have a duty to
see to it that the elected officials serve the public faithfully. To har-
monize these two roles is no easy matter. Consequently, questions of
disciplining civil servants often follow the well-worn path to the court-
house, that traditional repository, as de Tocqueville noted, of most of
the difficulties arising in the American political culture.
The conflict of roles often becomes acute when the employee’s
freedom of speech clashes with management’s insistence on silence.
Let us examine three Supreme Court decisions addressing this peren-
nial issue. I turn to decisions of the Supreme Court not only because
they state the law of the land authoritatively as of a certain time but
also because the justices give reasons for their opinions which are often
subjected to criticism by dissenting justices who disagree with the
outcome of a case. Thus, there is a dialectic element to Supreme Court
opinions that can serve as a model for civil servants who, ideally,
would engage one another in constitutional argument over events
in their agencies. Courts provide certain guidance for constitutional
argument among alert civil service citizens.
Our story of freedom of speech goes back to 1892, when a policeman
in New Bedford, Massachusetts, lost his job for talking about politics
in violation of a civil service reform regulation forbidding such
204 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
the very first sign of their unhappiness before they have a chance to
contact the media. This, of course, would violate every canon and stan-
dard of good management, common sense and decency. It under-
scores, however, the depth of the clash of cultures between the realms
of public management and constitutional law. As such this case
puts managers on alert to the fact that good management and good
constitutional law do not always harmonize.9
Further troubling lessons emerge from Rankin v. McPherson, a case
involving Ardith McPherson, a black, 19-year-old probationary em-
ployee in the constable’s office of Harris County, Texas. On 30 March
1981, McPherson heard the shocking news that President Ronald
Reagan had been shot outside the Hilton Hotel in Washington, DC.
She turned to her boyfriend and fellow employee and said, ‘If they go
for him again, I hope they get him’. Unbeknown to McPherson,
another employee was within earshot, heard the unfortunate remark
and reported it to Constable Rankin, who immediately fired McPherson.
Shortly thereafter, McPherson sued for reinstatement in a federal
district court in Texas. She argued that even though she was a prob-
ationary employee, she could not be terminated for exercising her con-
stitutional right to free speech, but that this is precisely what Constable
Rankin had done. The district court rejected her plea but the Court of
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed, thereby prompting Rankin’s
appeal to the Supreme Court where McPherson prevailed. Following
the Myers precedent, Justice Thurgood Marshall found McPherson’s
speech was of public concern and therefore protected by the First
Amendment. The relevance of the First Amendment was not enough
for McPherson to prevail. She needed a favourable outcome from the
Pickering balancing test wherein Justice Marshall weighed McPherson’s
free speech interest against Rankin’s managerial interest in firing her
for her intemperate remarks. He found the balance to be struck in
McPherson’s favour.
In a vigorous dissent, Justice Scalia maintained the court’s majority
misunderstood the true nature of the case before them. For Scalia, the
issue ‘is not, as the Court suggests, whether Rankin’s interest in dis-
charging [McPherson] outweighs her rights under the First Amendment’.
Scalia maintains that the court’s majority errs in confining Rankin’s
interest in this case to discharging McPherson. His correct interest is ‘in
preventing the expression of such statements in his agency’ as those
McPherson had uttered. Scalia concedes that termination may well be
too severe a punishment, but decisions of this nature are to be made by
the Texas Civil Service Commission not by the US Supreme Court. By
Constitutional Responsibility 207
intended to benefit the accused and not his lawyer. And we can
ask Charles Richmond if he really wants us to pay him with non-
appropriated funds.
These answers might have some merit in a technical or even literal
sense, but they still fall short of being exemplars of justice. It might be
best to characterize these decisions as constitutionally plausible but
harsh and unfair. I have selected such decisions for this chapter to
highlight the opportunity they offer to conscientious civil servants to
use their administrative discretion to bring about fairness in future
cases with similar circumstances. My point is ethical rather than
strictly legal. Supreme Court decisions upholding seemingly harsh and
unfair treatment of persons permit agencies to continue to act in the
same way in the future without requiring them to do so. Administrators
have the discretion to take a gentle line even if the law permits a
harsher line, if the circumstances warrant such gentleness. Just when
and where an administrator should be severe or gentle is a matter of
prudence which is, of course, a crucial element in the responsible exer-
cise of administrative discretion. We have already touched upon the
Supreme Court’s pedagogical role for civil servants and elected officials.
This is true not only when we see the court at its best but under less
favourable conditions as well. When it comes to moral aspiration, the
Supreme Court, like the Constitution it interprets, provides a floor not
a ceiling.
Examination of Supreme Court decisions was intended to provide
concrete examples of constitutional interpretation that civil servants
might use when faced with problems on how to implement their oath
to uphold the constitution. We looked at cases where the Supreme
Court performed admirably as well as where its performance was found
wanting. In both types of situations, the court’s reasoning is instruc-
tive. The final case concerns the long-standing practice of political
patronage, where our approach is a bit different. Rather than offer
guidance to civil servants on how they might fulfil their oath, I look
upon the civil service itself as an institution that demands serious con-
stitutional reflection and thereby contributes to the development of
constitutional doctrine. The case in question is Rutan et al. v. Republican
Party of Illinois (1990).13 On two occasions prior to Rutan, the Supreme
Court had declared dismissal of public service personnel on patronage
grounds unconstitutional. The point at issue in Rutan was whether that
doctrine should be extended to personnel actions less serious than dis-
missal, for example, denial of promotions, transfers, and recalls from
temporary layoffs. Does the Constitution forbid such decisions to be
212 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
taken on grounds of partisan loyalty? The Supreme Court said yes and
thereby triggered a spirited dissent from Justice Scalia which, in turn,
prompted a no less spirited response from Justice Stevens. Taken
together, they provided a full dress review of the crucial role of histori-
cal practice in constitutional interpretation. History was at the centre
of Scalia’s dissent. How can it be, he asks, that political patronage, a
practice as old as the Republic itself, could be unconstitutional? Justice
Stevens answers that patronage is unconstitutional because it rests on
the discredited right–privilege dichotomy which, as explained above,
opened the door to the dismissal on purely partisan grounds of persons
fully qualified and competent to hold their public office. The only pos-
sible justification for such a practice is to consider the public office as a
privilege which could be withdrawn at the pleasure of the office
holder’s superior. Thus the centrepiece of Stevens’ argument is a string
of personnel decisions from the McCarthy era of the early 1950s to the
late 1960s and culminating in Pickering v. Board of Education, which put
an end to the privilege doctrine that had dominated public personnel
law throughout the first half of the 20th century. It is quite clear that
in Justice Stevens’ jurisprudence an authoritative judicial decision
trumps constitutional practice no matter how long or how venerable.
In reply, Justice Scalia offers a brief compendium of the ‘original
intent’ doctrine which has claimed so much attention in recent years.
To Stevens’ charge that Scalia is trying to resurrect the right–privilege
dichotomy, that ‘has met with unequivocal repudiation’ by the
Supreme Court, Scalia responds:
‘That will not do. If the right-privilege distinction was once used
to explain the practice [of patronage], and if that distinction is to
be repudiated, then one must simply devise some other theory to
explain it. The order of precedence is that a constitutional theory
must be wrong if it contradicts a clear constitutional tradition, not
that a clear constitutional tradition must be wrong if it does not
conform to the current constitutional theory. On Justice Stevens’
view of the matter, this Court examines a historical practice,
endows it with an intellectual foundation, and later, by simply
undermining that foundation, relegates the constitutional tra-
dition to the dustbin of history. That is not how constitutional
adjudication works.’
Conclusion
Throughout this chapter I have tried to develop the theme of the con-
stitutional importance of American civil servants. As for responsibility,
I suggest but one innovation which would be extremely controversial
but, if accepted, would help high-ranking civil servants come to a
deeper understanding of their roles as constitutional actors. Quite
simply, I propose that members of the Senior Executive Service promise
openly and publicly that they will not vote in any local, state or federal
election as long as they hold their official positions.
My proposal will surely meet serious criticism and rightly so. Some
will argue that it will deprive the electorate of thousands of its
most informed participants. Others will say it renders nugatory the
impressive argument that career officials are model citizens for the rest
of us.
My primary reason for offering this proposal is pedagogical – to
invite the high ranking civil servant to reflect on the high status he
enjoys in the constitutional order he has sworn to uphold. It would
also give assurances to his political master of his non-partisanship – or,
to be more precise, of his bipartisanship – supported by the statutory
language on responsibility in the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978.
Presidents and presidential appointees should be free to pursue their
political agenda, secure in the knowledge that their high ranking civil
servants are trustworthy while at the same time they know these same
politically loyal civil servants will have the same loyalty to the next
cohort of presidential appointees and their successors. This loyalty
would include safeguarding the secrets of previous administrations as is
the traditional constitutional practice in the United Kingdom.
I do not propose a secular version of the Vicar of Bray. The twofold
loyalty I support is not grounded in the vicar’s cynicism but in the con-
scientious ideal of the highest form of public service – the preservation of
a constitutional republic.
214 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
This country shall never want for zealous partisans who enter poli-
tics for such worthy ends as stopping terrorism, effecting meaningful
healthcare policies, reforming the military services, maintaining ade-
quate force levels for all services, etc. Americans also need a small cadre
of civil servants who might have entered upon their careers many years
ago for any number of reasons but now see themselves as single-
mindedly dedicated to that cause above causes – the preservation of
the constitutional order of the Republic. They realize that the great
constitutional officers of the Republic cannot complete their appointed
rounds without adequate administrative support.
The proposal I put forward would be strictly voluntary. Any effort to
enshrine it in law or regulation would clearly violate the first amend-
ment. The political subordination to the president and to the heads of
his executive departments will not make mere ‘yes men’ of these high-
ranking civil servants I envision. Administration officials will soon
learn that these non-voting civil servants are as loyal as any member of
the administration but they are loyal in a markedly different way and
for markedly different reasons. The civil servant supports the president
of the day enthusiastically but always in a measured way so as to
reserve for the constitution itself ‘that last ounce of commitment’.14
In a word, I am suggesting a plan that might possibly start senior
American civil servants on a path that could earn them the prestige
enjoyed by their senior counterparts in Canada, France and the United
Kingdom. At the outset of this chapter, I tried to show why the consti-
tutional traditions of these three countries were less useful for peda-
gogic purposes than the US Constitution. This is not a serious problem
for high ranking civil servants in these countries because they have
earned prestige by other means. Perhaps US civil servants could link
the ‘non-voting bipartisanship’ I advocate to serious constitutional
study and reflection in order to enhance their self-awareness as men
and women who bear serious burdens of governance and deserve the
respect of their countrymen for whom they bear these burdens well.
Notes
* Several of the themes touched upon in this chapter are developed more
fully in my Civil Servants and Their Constitutions (Lawrence, KS: University
Press of Kansas, 2002). Conversely some themes touched upon in that book
are extended and more fully developed in this chapter. I wish to thank the
University Press of Kansas for granting permission to make use of my 2002
book in this chapter.
1 Reference re: Secession of Quebec, [1998] 2 R.C.S., 218.
Constitutional Responsibility 215
Introduction
216
Responsibility, Accountability and Performance 217
Already during the 1930s and the 1940s, the traditional and pre-
dominantly (legal constitutional) hierarchical construction of the
responsibility relationship between civil servants and politicians was
questioned by the American political scientist and German émigré
Carl Friedrich. In Friedrich’s opinion the traditional way of civil service
responsibility was more or less outdated. Friedrich started his analysis
from the idea that the number of civil servants had increased over the
decades and assumed that with it their discretionary powers must have
grown. In addition, the hierarchical mode of control could also lead
to unacceptable outcomes as, for instance, was witnessed in Nazi
Germany, when the moral and individual dimension of the respons-
ibility relationship was overlooked. Civil servants should be held
responsible in new ways. A political ethical dimension of responsibility
based on individual conscience and an inner reflection on professional
standards should be the way out of the problem. This argument
inspired the famous Friedrich–Finer debate, which still dominates
approaches to civil service responsibility: the moral professional and
the political institutional approaches.
220 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
grown. The discretion of civil servants has been strongly restricted and
the amount of supervision has grown. The emphasis in judicial checks
is on the value of legality. The checks on the effectiveness, efficiency
and sustainability should be the focus of the legislature and the execu-
tive. In Western countries, these branches are assisted by advisory
bodies, courts of audit and scientific institutes. Scientific evaluations
are the order of the day. Media, activist groups and interest groups
provide representative bodies with a continuous flow of information.
Sometimes the problem seems to be that of information overflow
rather than lack of information.
civil servant lead to appeals before the judge and which results these
appeals have. When theta, lambda and some of the sigma values cannot
be operationalized, it means that performance measures may only play
a restricted part in the assessment of the (internal) responsibility of
civil servants.
This chapter focuses on the different ways civil servants are held and
made responsible. In the introduction, I distinguished four possible
routes: the moral ethical route as argued by Friedrich and others, the
internal political (hierarchical) or vertical approach, the external polit-
ical societal or horizontal approach and the programmatic approach
through measurable performance standards.
The different country studies in the Civil Service Project show that
since a few decennia NPM has become an almost worldwide trend. One
of the elements of NPM is the emphasis on performance measures.
Especially an organization such as the OECD promotes a more busi-
nesslike approach not unlike NPM. In this chapter, working from a the-
oretical framework that combines Kiser and Ostrom’s (1982) levels of
analysis and Hood’s (1991) value types, some points have been raised
concerning this approach.
An important point of criticism is that performance measures cannot
be implemented at all or cannot be rightly implemented when the
institutional context is not taken into account. In terms of Kiser and
Ostrom, performance measures are part of the collective choice level
(and should have impact on decisions taken at the operational level),
so the constitutional level should be taken into account. When there is
no fit between both levels, performance measures can either not be
implemented at all, or they will inevitably fail after some time.
Adjustments at the constitutional level, be it intentional or not, need
to be pursued as well. Changes in the collective choice level must be
embedded in the constitutional level. If not, they will probably fail in
the end. Dwivedi and Halligan (2003: 170), for example, point out that
the traditional values of the Westminster system are: permanence,
objectivity, neutrality. The values important in NPM however, are:
flexibility, business orientation, results orientation, customer service
and personal responsibility. Successful implementation of NPM will
put pressure on the traditional values. In many essays on NPM, it is
228 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Note
1 There might even be some need to divide sigma values in sigma 1 (legality)
and sigma 2 (democracy). But then again where would the limit be as within
sigma 2 values a distinction between formal democratic values (sigma2a) and
responsiveness could be made (sigma 2b). This distinction is relevant for
demarcating vertical and horizontal forms of responsibility.
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and management. In John Halligan (ed.), Civil Service Systems in Anglo-
American Countries (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2003), pp. 148–73.
Finer, Herman, Administrative Responsibility in Democratic Government.
In F.E. Gourke (ed.), Bureaucratic Power in National Politics (Boston: Oxford
University Press, 1978).
Friedrich, C.J., Public Policy and the Nature of Administrative Responsibility.
In F.E. Gourke (ed.), Bureaucratic Power in National Politics (Boston: Oxford
University Press, 1978).
Halligan, John, Civil Service Systems in Anglo-American Countries (Cheltenham:
Edward Elgar, 2003).
Harmon, Michael N., Responsibility as Paradox. A Critique of Rational Discourse on
Government (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995).
230 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
231
232 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
The analysis presented in the original Bekke, Perry and Toonen (1996)
volume on comparative civil service systems proposed that the dis-
juncture between constitutional provisions and functional demands for
administration was the principal source of change pressures in civil
service systems (p. 323–4). They also argued that disparities existing
between the socio-economic and political environment of administration
and the civil service were important sources of tension and change
(p. 324–5).1 In short, the civil service system operates within a social, cul-
tural and political environment, and if there is inadequate congruence
between the administrative systems and that environment then there will
be strong pressures to move toward a more congruent system.
Those two propositions about institutional change were well justified
from the evidence available to the project at that time, and represent
some general truths about organizational change in the public sector. The
changes in politics and government since that time, however, have made
these ideas about change all the more germane. In the first place, the
reforms in public administration associated with NPM have tended to
devalue, or more commonly to ignore, the constitutional position and
legal position of the civil service system (Suleiman, 2003). The career civil
service has been denigrated in favour of a model of generic management,
a view within which civil servants are not partners in the management of
the state but rather are often seen as impediments to the efficient man-
agement of the public sector (Hood, 1990; 2001; but see Du Gay, 2000).
The recent challenge is, however, not confined to taking rapid and appro-
priate action in the wake of natural disasters but has to do with dealing
with contingencies more generally. For the purposes of this chapter
perhaps the most crucial shift in the position of public administration has
been the movement away from a concentration on government per se
and toward more concern with governance. Much of the discussion of
governance has focused on the role of non-governmental actors in pro-
ducing public policies. This shift in emphasis has occurred both in the
real world of government and in the academic literature on the subject. It
has been easy to overemphasize this transformation in the style of achiev-
ing collective goals, and to assume that ‘governance without government’
is a real possibility (see Rhodes, 1996). Despite the importance of net-
works and connections of government organizations with organizations
in the civil society, there is still a central role for government to play.
The shift toward a governance conception in collective goal-setting
has a number of implications for the role of administration. In descrip-
tive terms the shift toward governance means that government is now
more the enabling state than it is a hierarchical, commanding state.
Over the past several decades a number of cooperative instruments for
delivering public programmes have become standard components
in the repertoire of government when confronting policy problems,
especially in social, health and urban policy (Salamon, 2002). Govern-
ments now use contracts, partnerships, co-production and co-finance,
and other creative arrangements to find the means of delivering
policies. Using these instruments, however, does not preclude the con-
tinuing use of hierarchical methods and hierarchical management
within the public sector.
Governance and Civil Service Systems 235
skills that were believed to be critical to public service 25 years ago are
(believed to be) less important today (public law would be the prime
example) whereas new types of skills are becoming more sought after
(social skills, business management, language skills).
As with multi-level governance, the openness of governance arrange-
ments and the involvement of actors from civil society appear to be
important democratic transformations of what had been perceived as
rigid bureaucratic arrangements for administering public policies. The
central issue in all such shifting of roles and responsibilities, however,
appears to be the capacity to retain the public nature of the public
sector (Wright, 2000). For personnel management, the increasing
adoption of both governance and NPM concepts means that the civil
service is valued less in the delivery of services or in the overall man-
agement of the state. Both the recruitment of more managers from
outside of the career system and the use of personnel in not-for-profit,
for-profit, or client organizations to implement programmes means
that a significant number of the people making decisions about gover-
nance will not have been socialized into the career values of the public
service (Chapman, 2000).
Emerging questions
Summary
Notes
1 This explanation for change is similar to that central to the normative
version of institutionalism. Brunsson and Olsen (1993), (see also Brunsson,
1989) argue that a marked disjuncture between action and stated norms will
be a primary motivation for change in institutions.
2 We need only look at globalization of economies, the multi-polar nature of
international relations, and insecurities surrounding the Welfare State to
understand this instability.
3 These two changes in the political and administrative systems to some
extent employ similar ideas about governing, but may do so for rather differ-
ent reasons. For example, both bodies of literature emphasize ideas like
‘Steer, don’t Row’, a phrase made popular by the execrable Osborne and
Governance and Civil Service Systems 243
Gaebler book (1992). In the NPM world the use of non-governmental actors
is to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and limit the power of the State. In the
governance approach there are some elements of efficiency but the principal
justification is to involve the civil society, enhance participation, and recog-
nize the capacity of networks in civil society to provide at least a certain
degree of self-management in their policy areas.
References
Agranoff, R. and M. McGuire, ‘Multinetwork Management: Collaboration and
the Hollow State in Local Economic Policy’, Journal of Public Administration
Research and Theory, 8 (1998), 67–91.
Allison, G.T., The Essence of Decision (Boston: Little, Brown, 1972).
Bache, I. and M. Flinders (eds), Multi-level Governance (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004).
Barberis, P., ‘The New Public Management and a New Accountability’, Public
Administration, 76 (1998), 451–70.
Bekke, Hans A.G.M., James L. Perry and Theo A.J. Toonen, Civil Service Systems in
Comparative Perspective (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1996).
Brunsson, N., The Organization of Hypocrisy (New York: Wiley, 1989).
Brunsson, N. and J.P. Olsen, The Reforming Organization (London: Routledge,
1993).
Burns, J. and B. Bowornwathana, Civil Service Systems in Asia (Cheltenham:
Edward Elgar, 2001).
Chapman, R.A., Ethics in Public Service for the New Millennium (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2000).
Coombes, D. and T. Verheijen, Innovations in Public Management – Perspectives
from East and West (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1998).
Derlien, H.-U., On the Selective Interpretation of Max Weber’s Concept of
Bureaucracy in Organization Theory and Administrative Science. In P. Ahonen
and K. Palonen (eds), Dis-Embalming Max Weber (Jyväskylä, Finland: SoPhi,
1999).
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Governance, 3 (1990), 205–14.
Hood, C., Relations between Minister/Politicians and Civil Servants: Public
Service Bargains Old and New. In B.G. Peters and D.J. Savoie (eds), Governance
in the Twenty-first Century (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2001),
pp. 178–208.
Kettl, D., The Transformation of Governance: Public Administration for Twenty-first
Century America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002).
Osborne, D. and T. Gaebler, Reinventing Government (Reading, MA: Addison-
Wesley, 1992).
Page, E.C. and B. Jenkins, Policy Bureaucracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2005).
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New Forms of Control’, Asia-Pacific Journal of Public Administration, 26 (2003),
3–16.
244 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
247
248 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
where, why, how, and in what directions they are heading. Specifically,
through exploring one institution as a case in point, America’s Senior
Executive Service (SES), this chapter endeavours to underscore how
effective lessons for the new millennium can be drawn in this key
element of the US civil service system.
The choice of what aspect of the civil service system to select for
analysis is really unimportant. What is important is the demonstration
of a method for analysis. To better appreciate 21st century civil service
systems, I advance the argument (undoubtedly controversial and
unconvincing to some) that by analysing a single stream of institu-
tional history via various ‘historic frames’, perspectives, useful lessons
about the SES’s future can be gleaned. The variety of historic frames
that will be used for appreciating diverse aspects of SES development
through time include: institutional comparisons, innovation and diffu-
sion of ideas, empirical learning processes, executive leadership,
windows of policy opportunity, gaps between its promise and perfor-
mance, changing workplace norms, and best practitioner experiences.
Other frames could well be devised and then added to this list, but the
point is that each perspective offers helpful insights, or lessons, about
where the SES is heading in the 21st century.
In other words, this single case study exercise provides a ‘laboratory
experiment’ to illustrate how tomorrow’s direction of one aspect of a
civil service system, SES, may be inferred, generalized from, or possibly
‘discovered’ from its past institutional experience when analysed
through a variety of historic lenses. In short, the aim of the following
example is to explore how hindsight may supply foresight.
The SES is a personnel system within the federal career service that is
not made up of political appointees (i.e., serving at the pleasure of the
US President), nor those permanent career employees holding classified
positions GS-1 (the lowest level) to GS-15 (the highest career rank with
the highest pay and greatest job responsibilities). The SES was estab-
lished in 1978 as title IV of the Civil Service Reform Act and today
comprises 6,800 careerists (within which up to 10 percent can be
appointed by the President as non-careerists) who are in theory
selected into the SES based upon their general management leadership
capabilities. They are not assigned GS rankings but hold ranks from SES
I to SES IV with ‘rank in person’ as opposed to ‘rank in position’ (i.e.,
‘rank in person’ means held by the individual regardless of where he or
she serves, as opposed to GS assignments based upon rank in position
(i.e., the rank is determined by the assigned position of the individual
and not transferable if that person moves elsewhere).
Is Past Prologue? 249
the European definition of the word (for most Americans, ‘state’ refers
simply to a territorial subdivision of the nation, such as the State of
Colorado). Moreover, the United States is rooted in the common law
tradition, and only in the 20th century did positive law or administra-
tive law emerge as a recognized legal discipline. Nor was there any
sense of hierarchy in civil service recruitment and selection. Every
attempt to introduce a sorting of public service jobs by class or univer-
sity background always was – and still is – vigorously opposed. The
1883 Civil Service Act, which largely remains in effect today, requires
open, competitive exams. Candidates can compete for any open posi-
tion, regardless of their background or present rank in the civil service,
with selection determined on the basis of an applicant’s practical skill-
fit to the specific task requirements. In other words, equality to apply
for any position and pragmatic job-related selection processes govern
the criteria for most civil service appointments to date, as opposed to
the European tendency to define more precisely the ideal training, to
use generalist entrance exams, and to prescribe the precise entry
points, as well as routes of formal advancement in public service, espe-
cially at the higher levels.
Finally, within the US public service, unlike Europe’s, political
appointees have always played a larger, if not far more powerful and
complex role in shaping bureaucratic outcomes. For the most part,
throughout Europe, political appointees occupy only a few top spots
throughout government departments, with the rest belonging to
careerists, and with a clear-cut differentiation between the two. The US
President appoints 6,478 political appointees to fill not just the top
cabinet posts, but also positions many rungs down. If a major scandal
erupted in the British Government over the Prime Minister’s political
staff potentially influencing favourable intelligence estimates before
the Second Gulf War began in March 2003, by contrast there was sur-
prisingly little public outcry in the United States over the Vice
President and his immediate political staff on several occasions visiting
the CIA to press for ‘better estimates’ of weapons of mass destruction
(WMDs). No British-style Butler Report explored this most sensitive
national security issue largely because deeper political participation
within bureaucratic decision-making is not merely accepted, but
valued, given the pervasive public hostility toward bureaucrats of any
stripe. Of course, the up-side is a more open, noisy, less secret, more
participatory higher civil service, but the down-side is obvious (i.e.,
top-level careerists may be more prone to political pressures). So being
forthright and honest in the application of their particular expertise to
252 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Recall that the idea of a federal higher civil service had been wrestled
with for 30 years prior to 1978 as well as actually crafted for legislation
by the Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon administrations. Each defeat
nonetheless proved a positive learning process for reformers because
advocates had to go back to the drawing board and fine-tune the pro-
posal which, in turn, improved is public salability. Particularly during
the late Johnson and early Nixon administrations, the Civil Service
Commission conducted extensive staff analyses of data and informa-
tion about top federal employees, focusing upon their pay, selection,
retention, mobility, status, work content, and so forth. These detailed,
empirical examinations of the federal higher civil service highlighted
glaring issues of poor pay, lack of mobility, the necessity for a distinct
cadre of top general public managers and low status. The easy avail-
ability of these studies and knowledge of what went wrong with prior
legislative reform attempts were what Carter’s CSR initiative built upon
and used successfully to justify and then push through SES.
The first American Civil Service Act of 1883 was passed as a result of
President James Garfield’s assassination in 1881 by a disappointed
political office seeker who purportedly was not given his desired post.
The assassination stunned the nation and resulted in public outrage
and Congress’s enactment of civil service legislation. Likewise, the
innovative 1978 Civil Service Reform proposal would not have been
256 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Recent studies of the SES are striking in that they raise many of the
same issues with the senior civil service that the CSR was meant
to resolve. The National Academy of Public Administration Report
(2002: 7) re-emphasized the original goals of CSR:
‘SES’s structure and composition have barriers that impede the fed-
eral government’s ability to recruit, retain, develop, and capitalize
258 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
While the nine lessons do not exhaust the numerous possibilities that
can be drawn for the future, this framing exercise raises several other
possible problems to ponder. Such questions can turn into stimulating
sources for speculating about devising new historic frames useful for
further lesson drawing about tomorrow’s civil service systems, such as:
• Can examining the American SES experience hold any useful lessons
for nations beyond its shores? Or, is the US political culture so dis-
similar from others that such lesson-drawing comparisons are of
little help across cultures?
• Does the effective institutionalization of the SES for America and
other nations also turn ultimately on effective political support, sus-
tained even through difficult government transitions? And if so,
how is that ongoing political backing best maintained?
• Is individual character what counts more than any sort of higher
civil service system for insuring innovative leadership at the top?
And if so, how can that human quality be found, nurtured and
put into elite career positions? If not via the SES, how? Are recent
attitudinal changes toward work as evidenced by a younger gen-
eration entering government service significantly affecting the SES’s
original fundamental assumptions, and in turn, exacerbating its
contemporary problems? And if so, how can the SES best adapt to
such changing workplace norms?
• Is the entire issue of adopting the SES really more about the broader
theoretical problem of how and where government – any govern-
ment – draws the line between politics and administration, meaning
that the creation of any kind of effective higher civil service system
depends upon insuring administrative discretion for top-level,
career public managers?
• What is the link between university preparation and higher civil
service innovative leadership? Do increasing university special-
izations negate fostering broader innovate leadership by senior
Is Past Prologue? 261
To sum up, this SES ‘lab experiment’, in using the institutional past to
generalize about its possible 21st century directions, demonstrated
some pluses as a method to focus on different time dimensions of one
institution, as well as for carefully examining the factual information
relative to that particular historic frame, raising questions about those
facts, and then permitting some tentative generalizations to emerge
relative to what that particular frame implies for today and tomorrow’s
institutional development. However, this experiment also underscores
its many limitations.
No scientific law can be discovered by using this method. It will not
create nomothetic knowledge, but rather uses idiographic knowledge
of history to analyse individual aspects of reality that give meaning to
the present and future.
The experiment was confined to one institutional history within one
political culture. Since there was no attempt to apply its findings
outside its national boundaries, it did not and perhaps cannot address
the substance of higher civil service futures elsewhere. Though its
methodology may be applicable elsewhere, there are caveats even here.
First, the choice of institution to analyse presupposes it had a history
to analyse. Without a past, this historic framing exercise could not
apply to examining prospects for something that is an entirely ‘new’
institutional innovation.
Second, selecting the historic frames and lessons drawn, even the
choice of facts to present within each frame, are ultimately subjectively
determined. There is no ‘one best way’ to decide. So as in all social
262 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
References
Huddleston, M. and W. Boyer, The Higher Civil Service the United States: Quest for
Reform (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996).
Karl, B., ‘Public Administration and American History: A Century of Professional-
ism’, Public Administration Review, 36 (1975), 489–503.
Light, P., The New Public Service (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1999).
Long, N., ‘Power and Administration’, Public Administration Review, 9 (1949),
257–64.
National Academy of Public Administration, Strengthening Senior Leadership in the
US Government (Washington, DC: NAPA, 2002).
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DC: Georgetown University Press, 1995).
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of George Santayana (LaSalle, IL: Open Court Press, 1940).Sherwood, F., Summary
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17
Political–Administrative Relations
Luc Rouban
263
264 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
The history of this ‘new deal’ is not simple and cannot be reduced to
a confrontation between politicians and senior bureaucrats. Other
actors, especially citizens and rank-and-file bureaucrats both as users
and voters, play a central role in the new strategic game. Civil servants
share political values and the ‘human resource’ cannot be managed
like a natural resource on the basis of top-down decisions. Senior civil
servants themselves have to deal with their subordinates or field agents
and cannot ignore their demands or their professional ethos. From a
political science point of view, the NPM reform is just one aspect of a
more complex change concerning public action as a whole that
includes: integration within a globalization process, budget savings
and/or state retrenchment, more governance and less government, and
more citizen involvement and less bureaucratic intervention.
To make matters more complex, the starting point of NPM reforms is
not the same from one country to the other because political–administra-
tive relations are basically the result of decades or centuries of conflicts
and compromises between social groups (e.g., religion-based in the
Netherlands, politics-based in the UK, professional by nature in France).
National historical trajectories cannot be underestimated and it would be
a bit foolish to draw a comparative sketch which could explain all the dif-
ferences through the interaction of a limited number of variables. The
ambition of this chapter is to highlight just a few aspects in order to
understand what happened in political–administrative relations in the
past 20 years.
The consequences of the civil service (NPM) reforms for the
political–administrative relations is explored through two main
questions:
(1) To what extent has the renewal of political steering been translated
into a subordination process of the civil service and to what extent
have civil servants been politicized?
(2) How have policy roles evolved and have NPM reforms resulted in a
professional decline or a revival for senior civil servants? Finally,
one may ask who wins in the competition for legitimacy and
citizen’s trust.
From the first reform steps of the British civil service in the early 1980s
to the privatization of the Italian civil service in 1993 or the reform
stance of the French Raffarin’s government in the 2000s, NPM style
reforms have been built upon a series of criticisms against a civil
service alternatively or cumulatively viewed as ‘social-democrat’,
‘Welfare proactive’ or ‘conservative’. Civil servants became the ‘enemy’
from within. In post-Gaullist France, President Chirac said during the
1995 electoral campaign that it was necessary to ‘get rid of the tech-
nocrats’. From an historical point of view, this may be regarded as a
reversal of alliance: the politicians allied with the taxpayers against
their own civil servants while the modernity bargain of the 1960s had
been largely built upon the alliance of the elites, whether public or
private, against the ‘civil society’ (i.e., the working class and the middle
class) in the name of new major government technocratic programs.
A set of new strategies have been used by the various European gov-
ernments in order to subordinate their ‘arrogant’ and ‘tricky’ civil
servants.
they came from the City or from within her own party (Thatcher,
1993).
Generally, NPM reforms may be seen as a ‘revenge’ of the middle
class upon the higher layers of society, especially in those countries
where senior civil service positions traditionally were reserved for the
elite. This may explain why Tony Blair did not undo the legacy
Thatcher’s reform. This aspect of the NPM reforms is rarely raised
but comparison of European political and administrative elites shows
that the former, and noticeably the MPs, are generally from modest
social origin while the latter are coming from upper classes (Page and
Wright, 1999; Best and Cotta, 2000). In other words, NPM reforms are
linked to a new definition of political elites. This historical transforma-
tion can be interpreted as instrumental, that is, a means to modify the
way nation-states are managed with more dedication to budget
savings, or, in terms of social evolution, as a means to drastically
diminish the power of those who traditionally defended the nation-
state. A good example of instrumentalism is that outside of the UK, NPM
reforms have been adopted easily in countries where the higher civil
service is rooted in middle classes (e.g., Denmark, the Netherlands,
Sweden).
where NPM reforms have been implemented in the 1980s and the
1990s. The two processes are simultaneous but are they correlated?
In the UK, where civil service political neutrality is a major component
of the political culture, NPM measures included politically oriented nom-
inations within ministries as well as agencies. Of course, Thatcher did not
ask for Conservative senior civil servants but she looked to substitute
senior civil service ‘but-sayers’ by ‘can-doers’ (Clifford and Wright, 1998).
Politicization amplified with John Major’s government. The number of
the Prime Minister’s personal advisers doubled then and the trend toward
politicization was confirmed during the Blair administration. However,
this politicization only concerned pressure or political control over higher
civil servants and not any kind of real partisan appointment policy.
In Italy, where the separation of the administrative and political
worlds is a constitutional principle since 1948, recent NPM reforms
(1993, 1998) produced a subtle mixture of privatization and politiciza-
tion of the dirigenza, that is, the higher positions in the national public
administration. Members of the dirigenza are now appointed on the
basis of temporary contractual arrangements determining their profes-
sional objectives and salaries. Their dependence upon the minister has
been reinforced since they can be replaced when a new government is
elected or when their performance is not satisfying (Battini, 1998). As
in the UK, politicization means political trust and more personal ties
between the higher civil servants and the elected leaders.
In Spain, the starting point of NPM reforms was in 1997 when upper
administrative positions were organized and defined, but giving such
control to the ministers that actually an almost traditional spoils
system was created. One year later, when the Conservative Partido
Popular took power, a new wave of political appointments occurred.
Similarly, the devolution process, giving the ‘autonomous communi-
ties’ a crucial role in most domestic policies, has reinforced politiciza-
tion at the regional level, giving even more power to the political
parties in choosing the local managers (Alba, 1998).
In two other countries, politicization has been enhanced or main-
tained although these countries are characterized by the absence of any
real NPM reform at least at the national level and as far as the higher
civil service is concerned. First, in France, where ministerial cabinets have
become much more controlling of most of the policy-making process,
and where a systematic turnover of senior civil servants has occurred
(both in top level ministerial positions and in strategic local positions,
such as the prefects) (Rouban, 1998). Second, in Germany, where scholars
observed that the political influence over the upper administrative
270 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Table 17.1: High level of trust in elected politicians and civil servants (%)
AT BE DE DK ES FI FR GB GR NL PT SE
Politicians 9 14 7 36 10 25 7 9 12 16 2 15
Civil servants 55 48 44 63 45 48 55 26 29 41 43 38
Conclusion
of dismantling the state: civil servants are still the best supporters of
politicians.
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278 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
In the administrative state of the 20th century, career civil servants have
come to occupy a role that far surpasses that of their predecessors and
that has resulted in increased attention for the relation between political
and administrative actors at institutional (i.e., political– administrative
system) and actor levels (i.e., political–administrative relations). In its
design, the project on Civil Service Systems in Comparative Perspective
(CSSCP) included attention for the role and position of politics and of
politicians in relation to administrative reform. Given the primacy of pol-
itics and the practice of administrative authority, we must consider the
extent to which administrative and civil service reforms require attention
for reform of (elements of) the political system.
As far as the Western world is concerned, the intensity and nature of
public sector reform consistently assessed as having intensified since
about 1975 (Peters and Pierre, 2001: 1), with the incremental changes
until the 1970s giving way to turbulence and transformation from the
early 1980s on (Nolan, 2001: xix). Indeed, the rapid, systemic changes of
the 1990s are expected to continue for decades (Baker, 2002: 10). Fewer
authors hold that the past 20–25 years represent an intensification of per-
manent and continuous reform processes that only differ from the past in
its focus on fragmenting, differentiating and decomposing administrative
systems (Toonen and Raadschelders, 1997; Toonen, 2001: 200). Indeed,
in the past 200 years citizens all over the world witnessed unprecedented
changes in the government of their countries.
Since the late 18th century citizens in the Western world witnessed
changes and conscious efforts at reform from within, at first prompted
by new political alliances and later by the desire to re-establish political
control over bureaucracy (Du Gay, 2000: 5; Halligan, 2001: 15; Meek,
2001: 48). In the non-Western world, the administrative state was
279
280 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
There are various ways in which (a particular aspect of) public sector
reforms is/are conceptualized, including: a model of output paradoxes of
reform (Hesse et al., 2003: 15), types of reform on core-periphery
and intra- and inter-organizational axes (Halligan, 1997: 19), Weberian,
managerial and accountability reforms (Schneider and Heredia, 2003;
Behn, 2001), four models of new public management (Nolan, 2001:
xxiv–xxvii), two patterns of political involvement in the civil service
(Peters and Pierre, 2001: 4), values of public management reform (Hood,
1991), types of privatization (Hood, 2001: 13–16), speed and scope of pri-
vatization (Wright, 1994), reform intensity (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2003:
22), types of off-loading (Jann and Reichard, 2003: 40–41), and types of
partnering and collaborative arrangements within and outside (with the
private and the so-called third sector) government (Gray et al., 2003). All
have merit, yet are not useful when attempting to develop a framework
that captures all public sector reforms.
282 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
Mechanisms of reform
By and large, the two main mechanisms of reform are (a) indigenous
creation of new structures and practices (frequently based on com-
parative knowledge about what not to do and how not to do it) and
(b) imitation of and/or adaptation to ‘best practices’.
An example of the first is the transformation of the political–
administrative system in the aftermath of the Atlantic Revolutions. At
the Constitutional Convention in July 1787, the Founding Fathers of
the United States established a new government in part inspired by
their knowledge about structures and practices in the governments of
England, France, and the Dutch Republic they did not wish to emulate.
Transformations in political–administrative systems in the develop-
ing world and the former communist countries in Europe appear to
be inspired more by imitation and adaptation. This also happened
in Western Europe, where many of the Napoleonic reforms in the
occupied countries were retained after his defeat (Wunder, 1995).
Imitation can be either voluntary or coerced. Many administrative
reforms in the Western world have been pursued on the basis of volun-
tary copying. For instance, in the late 19th century, American scholars
and American and Japanese civil servants frequently travelled to
Europe with the specific mission to see how other governments dealt
284 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
with the increased demand for public services in the face of population
growth, urbanization, and industrialization (Miewald, 1984; 1994;
Westney, 1987: 20, 40–41; Saunier, 2003). In recent decades, the new
public management (NPM) prompted comparable voluntary imitation.
It seems that voluntary imitation as a mechanism of reform is less rele-
vant for the instigation of political reforms, although, for instance, the
reforms in Germany and Japan following the Second World War were –
in part – inspired by the American influence (e.g., Germany’s adoption
of judicial review).
Coerced imitation can occur through imposition by a foreign sover-
eign or through strong advice from external actors. Many features of
Western-European political–administrative systems have been imposed
upon territories throughout the world. Colonizing countries simply
imposed state boundaries and subnational jurisdictions irrespective of
indigenous boundaries of (tribal) governance and dividing tribal areas
across different sovereignties (e.g., Davidson, 1992). They introduced a
bureaucratic system more or less similar to that of the mother country
(Braibanti, 1966; Dimier, 2004; Durand, 2006). While upsetting indige-
nous systems of governance, colonial administrations did at least
provide something: namely, a state bureaucracy that proved crucial in
the efforts to develop the country (Linz and Stepan, 1996: 7; Heady,
2001: 299). Similarly, it has been said that the Japanese colonial
administrations in Korea and Taiwan later served as a resource for the
establishment of an effective state organization that helped integrating
both countries into the world economy (Rueschemeier and Evans,
1985: 52).
(1974), Portugal (1974–76), and Spain (1975–78). All three had the
opportunity to focus first on political reforms and were motivated by
the promise of participating in the political and economic network of
the European Union (Linz and Stepan, 1996: 219). But, constitutional
level reforms do not only occur at national level. Next to reform of the
political–administrative system at large, there have been major reforms
in intergovernmental relations (e.g., France, Germany) as well as
reforms at subnational levels of government (e.g., elected mayor).
These, too, must be regarded as changes at the constitutional level.
Outside of the Western world, we find reforms at all three levels,
transformational by nature and involving the entire political–adminis-
trative system. With regard to Eastern Europe, it is reported that adapt-
ing the political culture and the behaviour of political actors to fit a
democratic system is the most difficult challenge (Ágh, 2003: 295). We
suspect that the same was, and in several countries still is, the case in
former colonies. Clearly, the transformations in South American coun-
tries such as Brazil (1974–95), Argentina (1983), Uruguay (1985), Chile
(1990), and a variety of former Soviet countries show how difficult it is
to successfully develop democracy. This is especially so when a clear
distinction between political party and state bureaucracy is missing
(Linz and Stepan, 1996: 250) and when politicians are reluctant to
pursue civil service reforms that will remove their patronage influence
over bureaucracy (Schneider and Heredia, 2003: 15).
Could it be that lack of attention for political reforms has indeed rele-
gated politics to a fairly minor role so that bureaucracy has become the
main source of government policy? Also possible is that the legislators’
increased attention for short-term and quick interventions have left
the development of a longer-term vision for society to bureaucracy
(e.g., in the Netherlands: see Van der Meer and Raadschelders, 2007).
Looking for an analytical frame ‘that captures all public sector reforms’
(see Introduction), this section’s purpose is to devise an analytical
and normative framework to facilitate the study of administrative
reform as conditioned and/or complemented by political reform, with
the latter potentially being an independent (i.e., political system) as
Political (System) Reform 289
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Introduction
299
300 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
debate about the question what the meaning of core public services
is in EU-context. Are these public services so distinct that labor laws
are necessary separate from such laws that constrain private sector
employment?
The widening mobilization strategies have in some Western nations
lead to a call for ‘normalization’ of civil service provisions, procedures
and (e.g., Italy, Switzerland, The Netherlands). ‘Normalization’ refers to
efforts of standardizing, i.e. normalizing, labor law conditions for the
public and private sectors alike. In other words, separate labor laws
are to be abolished. These laws mainly concern labor relations and
conditions. In the EU-context, these facilitate the free mobility of
people, goods and services, i.e., the utmost openness in recruitment
policies and mobilization strategies in a cross-national setting. But,
internationalization – even in the context of the EU – has not pro-
gressed to such a degree that the state as a legal, cultural, and political
entity clearly demarcated from other societal institutions has ceased to
exist. Thus, the European Court faces the need to search for the limits
to this ‘normalization’ by identifying the distinctiveness of ‘publicness’
or the ‘public domain’ as a basis for member state bound and con-
trolled recruitment and mobilization policies within core public
institutions.
It is likely, if not inevitable, that this search for the distinctiveness of
the public domain will be the basis for differentiating public labour
relations and public personnel policies from private sector arrange-
ments (Rouban). This not only implies only a distinction between
‘public’ and ‘private’ personnel and in human resource (mobilization)
policies but also involves a distinction between people ‘working for the
state’ (i.e., public employees) and people working ‘in the (public)
service of the state’ (i.e., civil servants). where the latter constitute a
special but not necessarily ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ category. Interestingly, we
can observe this development already at the local level of governance,
historically the breeding place of innovation and institutional adapta-
tion to changing technological, economic, social and political circum-
stances.
The notion of the civil service is often closely associated with the
national level of governance (Kuhlmann and Bogumil). This is not sur-
prising at the end of an era during which the building of a democratic
nation-state had been the core mission of institutions of governance
(which includes civil service systems). Current developments, con-
veniently summarized with the catchwords of internationalization,
informatization, individualization and cross-culturalization have
304 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
… human resources…
… in the service …
has become clear that civil servants have embraced a much more active
role in public policy making and service delivery and thus have become
the indispensable pillar to the state and, yes, to democracy. It is true
that Weber expressed concern for the degree to which bureaucracy
could threaten democracy (cf., the ‘… unaufhyaltsamen Vormarsches der
Bürokratisierung …’, Weber, 1980: 836). His pessimistic outlook on the
future role and position of bureaucracy, and thus of civil servants, did not
take into account the degree to which the civil service as institutional
arrangement and as personnel system has been able to restrain civil ser-
vants’ actions to serving the population at large and its elected represen-
tatives. In more popular terms, civil servants are not generally considered
as a viable force capable of a coup d’état. Does this mean that the
Weberian perspective can be discarded? Several authors in this volume
(e.g., Van der Meer et al.; van de Berg and Toonen; Peters and Pierre)
suggest that the Weberian perspective ought to be revisited. Indeed, a
neo-Weberian perspective that combines an empirical and a normative
component would help a conceptualization of civil servants in service of
the state that fits the needs of the 21st century.
With regard to the empirical component of this neo-Weberian con-
ception it is important to define bureaucracy both as a type of organi-
zation (perhaps even: institutional arrangement) and as a particular
personnel system (e.g., merit based, etc.). With regard to the organiza-
tional element of bureaucracy, it is clear that public organizations are
to varying degrees both rule-bound (cf. Weber’s ideal type of bureau-
cracy) and incentive-based (cf., NPM-style entrepreneurial bureaucracy).
This is especially the case where NPM reforms have been implemented
(Halligan). Indeed, NPM emerged in societal cultures that embraced
a neo-liberal free market entrepreneurialism where citizens are
‘… no longer members of a political community but part of a chain of
principal-agent contracts …’ and where civil servants are no longer
‘statesmen in disguise’ but ‘servants of power’ (Rhodes, 2005: 143, 149).
This helps to recognize current trends in some countries (i.e., the
Anglo-American countries) and why other countries have not devel-
oped quite that far (e.g., Western Europe, Southeast Asia) or are not
even considering NPM-style reforms for having to focus on building a
stable institutional structure (e.g., Central and Eastern Europe, Africa).
Thus, a neo-Weberian public sector and civil service, one that com-
bines rule-bound and incentive-based features, is far from being a
universal trend, yet attractive to any system.
From a normative perspective, we should consider the gap between
the perceived and the desired role and position of the civil service.
312 The Civil Service in the 21st Century
professionalism. In other words, the civil servant is the crucial actor of,
for, and in the 21st century enabling framework state.
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In the Enabling Framework State 315
316
Index 317