Politicization and the Replacement of Top Civil Servants in Denmark

This article of top civil servants in Danish central and local government sheds new light on politicization. A survival analysis shows that since 1970, the risk that a top civil servant will be replaced has increased. There is no evidence of politicization in central government while city managers' risk of replacement increases both when a new mayor, representing another party and holding an absolute majority, and when the shift of mayor takes place within the same party. We interpret these results as evidence of the adaptability of the merit civil service and political executives' stronger insistence on their authority to make discretionary replacements.     

德国公务员的教育与培训

公务员素质和能力是行政管理中的一个关键性因素,而素质和能力又取决于教育和培训。如何充分发挥教育的效能,如何提高公务员的能力,是公务员教育和培训的重要课题。本集中讨论了德国公务员的教育培训制度,介绍和分析了德国公务员的职前教育和职后培训的基本做法,为我国公务员的教育和管理提供了一定的借鉴。     

北京市科级公务员量化考核研究

量化考核是公务员考核的一个难点,也是目前我国基层政府公务员考核工作需认真面对并要切实加以解决的一个重点。本文对近些年北京市公务员管理部门和部分行政机关开展的科级公务员量化考核的实践做了一个初步的经验性总结,并试图在理论上对目前北京市公务员量化考核的不足和下一步应该改进的政策建议加以分析和说明,旨在推进北京市公务员量化考核的实践,进一步完善北京市公务员的考核制度。     

Confucius Meets Weber or “Managerialism Takes All”? Comparing Civil Servant Values in China and the Netherlands

ABSTRACT

This article assesses the validity of normative claims on how civil servant values in East Asian and Western European administrations differ. By triangulating quantitative and qualitative survey data from a sample of Chinese (n = 508) and Dutch (n = 238) civil servants, we aim to answer two main research questions: “How and why do ideal-type and real-life rankings of civil servant values differ between Chinese and Dutch civil servants?” and “Do differences reflect administrative traditions of both countries?” Our findings demonstrate that similarities exceed differences between value rankings. Surprisingly, ideal-type value rankings are more similar than real-life rankings, with only a few idiosyncratic differences reflecting administrative traditions. Chinese civil servants perceive institutional and systemic factors as reasons for incongruence between ideal-type and real-life rankings, whereas Dutch civil servants emphasize meso-level factors such as organizational public management reforms. We theorize on our results and we provide suggestions for future research.     

Bureaucratic Roles: Political Loyalty and Professional Autonomy*

Political leaders in many countries have experienced growing problems of capacity in the postwar period, a development leading to an increase in the delegation of authority to public administration and civil servants. This delegation of authority creates a significant potential for discretionary decision-making authority on the part of public bureaucrats. One way of studying how bureaucrats handle this situation is to focus upon bureaucratic roles. Bureaucratic roles traditionally contain both political and professional norms. This article discusses how these political and professional considerations can be defined and how these norms are balanced given the potential for conflict which is present. The discussion is illustrated by measuring the perception of bureaucratic norms and role enactment among civil servants in Norwegian ministries. Results indicate that civil servants appear to have few problems in attending to and balancing both political and professional role norms.     

Consociationalists or Weberians? Top Commission Officials on Nationality

This article examines how senior permanent officials in the European Commission (directorgenerals and directors) conceive of the role of nationality in their organization. Do they support a weberian ideal–typical bureaucratic organization, where merit shapes personnel selection and task organization, or do they prefer a consociational form, in which nationalities are represented in organization and policymaking? I explain variation in weberian and consociational orientations, using 105 mail questionnaires collected between July 1995 and May 1997. In explaining variation, I contrast socialization factors and factors related to the professional utility function of officials. I find that utility packs far more power than socialization. Support for consociational principles is highest among officials who belong to nationalities that are organized in strong multifunctional networks in Brussels. In an administration where nationality is a powerful principle of personnel organization, officials with the “right citizenship” have compelling incentives to reinforce its role. Professional utility is also a function of one’s position in the work environment: officials in positions of weak regulatory autonomy or dealing with quality of life issues are more likely to be consociational. Socialization is weak, though prior experience as a national civil servant reduces consociationalism and prior Commission cabinet experience increases it.     

我国不同级别公务员心理契约的差异性分析

重点研究了我国政府中行政管理部门的公务员心理契约问题,主要目的是了解公务员心理契约所包含的要素、不同级别公务员对这些要素的重视程度和建立公务员的心理契约结构模型.在两轮问卷调查的基础上,明确了组织与公务员之间相互期望的各10个要素.利用t统计检验,表明不同级别公务员对期望要素的认识有显著的差别.应用因子分析方法,建立了公务员心理契约的结构模型,该模型显示组织与公务员之间双向心理契约共包含了8个主要方面.研究的主要结论是:盈利组织的心理契约与非盈利组织的心理契约之间的差异是明显的,不同级别的公务员对心理契约中的要素重要性认识程度是不同的.我国各级公务员(从科员到厅局级)主要将敬业精神、诚实忠诚、职业前景和公平公正待遇放在心理契约要素的最重要位置上,而物质激励则处于次位.政府中的创新动力主要来自领导层面,而较低级别的公务员创新动力不足.这些研究结果对政府各级组织建立公平、透明的运作机制具有参考价值.同时为设计相应的激励制度提供了新的视角.最后提出了我国公务员心理契约需要进一步研究的问题.     

Practices and challenges of converting former fighters into civil servants: the case of Eritrea

This study critically discusses the practices and challenges of converting the former Eritrean fighters into civil servants and their management afterwards. The study finds that, although both categories of the Eritrean civil servants (ex and non‐ex‐fighters) have been working together since independence, ex‐fighter civil servants were given special privileges in a number of human resource management (HRM) practices, such as recruitment and selection, placement, promotion, training and compensation. That is, the political involvement in the management of the ex‐fighter civil servants was considerable, which in turn has led to a certain degree of politicisation in the civil service. The Eritrean experience draws a number of lessons with regard to process, treatment within the workplace and different perceptions on the part of the two categories of civil servant. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Westminster Model and the “Indivisibility of the Political and Administrative Elite”: A Convenient Myth Whose Time Is Up?

This article argues that the principle of indivisibility in the relationship between political and administrative elites acted as a central convention of the Westminster system for much of the twentieth century. It explores how in more recent decades this principle has been challenged by the shift to a principal–agent approach. It considers the extent to which this shift diminishes the traditional Westminster model's understanding of the minister–civil servant relationship as one based on a symbiotic interdependent partnership. In its place has emerged a more universal command and control relationship that is seen as necessary to meet the demands of modern accountability and transparency. Such a change has fundamentally altered a long‐established power‐bargain between ministers and civil servants and undermined a core tenet of the Westminster model.     

Introducing the Journal of Civil Society: An editorial statement

Abstract

The comparative strength of Scandinavian democracy is perceived to depend on its close connection with a widespread and membership-based associational life that cultivates orientations and behaviour in harmony with an active, egalitarian citizenship. However, at the end of the twentieth century, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish governmental audits simultaneously revealed that the integrated Scandinavian model of democracy appeared not only to be diverging but threatened by individualization, segregation, and globalization. By a critical examination of various research findings, this article argues that Scandinavian civil society in certain respects is undergoing severe transformations that may explain more general tendencies of Scandinavian democracy. The changes of the civil society are not only internal, such as a shift from members to volunteers. Also externally, substantial changes are taking place, these partly due to governance structures and runaway parties, and causing some civic actors to move from the input side to the output side of the political system; others are shaping their critical role by speaking a global human rights language. Even though Scandinavian civil society has become more diverse, it is still undoubtedly embedded in Scandinavian democracy. However, its role as a trustworthy ally of an integrated democracy should no longer be taken for granted.     

Mediatization of Public Bureaucracies: Administrative versus Political Loyalty

This article analyzes the influence of the media on the central Norwegian immigration administration. Through behind‐the‐scenes ethnographic methods, it explores how key bureaucratic values such as impartiality, neutrality and loyalty are challenged and modified by the impact of the news media. A key question is to what extent this process of mediatization overlaps with a more general trend of politicization of the civil service. The article first documents that media pressure generates comprehensive strategies aimed at servicing the press, but also different types of information control and internal steering. Second, it describes how media management has become an important concern within public administration, which identifies strongly with the bureaucratic system and its values, and protects and defends it in the media. The article introduces the term ‘administrative loyalty’ to describe these practices and standards that go beyond the imperative to loyally serve the media‐related needs of political superiors.     

澳门公务员绩效评核指标体系分析及其借鉴

有效的绩效考核有赖于一套科学可行的绩效考核指标体系.指标体系的构建一直是公务员绩效考核中的难点与重点.主要采取实地调查法与文献研究法对澳门公务员绩效评核指标体系的构建与完善进行了系统的研究,侧重考察了新评核指标体系的指标设定、指标权重的设计、衡量等级标准的规定以及评核结果等次的设置,希望为我国内地公务员绩效考核指标体系的构建、绩效考核制度的改革与完善提供经验借鉴.主要得出以下结论:一是职务分析是科学合理地进行绩效考核系统设计的前提,必须把绩效考核建立在规范的职务分析的基础上,根据不同岗位的绩效目标和绩效标准来进行有针对性的绩效考核.二是在进行指标体系设计时,要动态地制定绩效考核目标;要对绩效考核目标进行逐层分解,在分解的基础上形成二级或二级以上的考核指标;指标权重的设计要具体考察不同岗位的工作性质和职务要求,尽可能地使权重的分布吻合岗位的特征和绩效目标;绩效考核标准的设计要具体明晰,具有可操作性.     

Civil society organizations and the prevention of mass atrocities: Perspectives from south Sudan

Nowhere is the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) in development and democratization more critical than in countries at high risk of mass atrocities. In this article, we examine the actual and potential role of development CSOs in the prevention of mass atrocities based on an analysis of 302 CSOs in South Sudan. The article examines if and how service-providing CSOs frame their work as contributing to the prevention of mass atrocities. The article seeks to understand how these CSOs deliver services and articulate their work regarding the prevention of large-scale identity-based violence. We aim to explore the degree to which organizations describe atrocity prevention as an intentional part of democratization efforts. The article is situated within the larger debates about the service delivery and civil society functions of CSOs. Specifically, we ask: To what extent do development CSOs articulate a contribution to the prevention of mass atrocities? We posit that the service delivery and civil society functions can be better achieved by giving deliberate attention to an atrocity prevention perspective.     

Multiple Institutional Embeddedness in Europe: The Case of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish Government Officials

The questions posed in the current study are (1) whether, and (2) how, participation within Commission expert committees and Council working parties of the European Union (EU) affects the coordination behaviour of the participants. Based on organizational theory arguments, the coordination role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is arguably weakened by institutional dynamics existing within Commission expert committees. The opposite is argued to be the case within Council working parties. Empirically, this study is based on 160 questionnaires and 47 face-to-face interviews with Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish domestic government officials attending EU committees. Secondly, this study also includes answers from 49 officials at the permanent representation to the EU of these three Scandinavian countries. Being excluded from attending Council working parties, Norwegian civil servants participating within Commission expert committees are shown to coordinate considerably less with the foreign ministry than their Danish and Swedish counterparts. Notwithstanding these observations, this study also reveals how the coordination behaviour evoked by national civil servants reflects their domestic institutional affiliations. In addition to showing how EU committees affect coordination behaviour among the participants, the current analysis also shows how responses to integration requirements are filtered – and even conditioned – by a prior state of affairs at the domestic level of governance.     

论公务员培训方法创新及发展趋势——基于北京市公务员培训实践的思考

近年来,为适应时代的需要,北京市在公务员培训中不断进行方法的综合创新,形成了多种有针对性、实用性、灵活性的培训方法,表现出公务员培训方法发展趋势由单一教学向多元教学转变,由教师讲授向教学互动转变,由被动听从向主动参与转变。公务员培训方法要进一步改革创新,必须要顺应发展趋势,以提高公务员素质和能力为着力点,综合运用多种培训方法,并通过质量评估来检验创新的实效。     

Management Roles in Political and Senior Civil Servant Positions: A Multiple-Study Approach

ABSTRACT

A recent trend in public administration studies has been to assess how public management is performed by politicians and top civil servants. Surprisingly, little is known about how these different posts develop their management roles. Following seminal management studies, we focus on core management roles to compare the ways in which politicians and top civil servants develop their management responsibilities within public organizations. Empirical evidence is provided by triangulating three separate studies developed in Spain. Results from the triangulation show that there is unmistakable evidence of differentiations between politicians and top civil servants when performing their managerial roles.     

The Judicial Theory of a Reasonable Public Servant

Contemporary theory of the constitutionally reasonable public servant, established by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1982 in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, is measured in reference to clearly established constitutional or statutory rights that a reasonable person would have known. In this article, the author seeks to elucidate the evolving contours of the objective reasonableness standard and examines how federal courts have applied it. To gain a firsthand impression of how public officials challenged in federal courts are measuring up to the objective reasonableness standard, the author provides a snapshot of 449 recent court cases selected from two federal circuits, the Eighth and the District of Columbia circuits. He concludes that public officials in these two circuits have fared very well under the standard of objective reasonableness. The flip side is that aggrieved individual citizens must carry a heavy burden to protect their constitutional rights.     

The Purse Strings and the Policy Process: Bureaucratic Shaping of Industry Policy Capacity after 1945

Much literature in public administration debates the role of the public servant in the policy-making process. Some literature acknowledges an integral role of the public servant in the process. However, this role often remains obscure, due to being couched in abstract terms. The hierarchical structuring of responsibilities and power within bureaucracies imparts the capacity for differential influence. This paper provides a case study of the role of the Public Service Board (power over staffing) and the Australian federal Treasury (power over the purse) in the shaping of the bureaucratic structure. The case study centres on the industry policy bureaucracy in the volatile decade after World War II. In shaping the bureaucratic capacity, the Board and the Treasury exerted a discretionary influence on the policy process itself.     

Civil society actors in peace negotiations in Central America

Civil society actors are assumed to play an important part in post-conflict peacebuilding; therefore, the international community pushes for civil society participation already during peace negotiations. However, the actual connection between civil society’s participation in those negotiations and its role in implementation processes remains unclear. Taking the Central American peace processes of the late 1980s and early 90s as a case study, this article compares civil society participation in peace negotiations and provisions for civil society involvement for the implementation phase, with the actual role that the civil society played in the implementation processes in Nicaragua, Guatemala and El Salvador. The article questions the importance of including civil society actors in the negotiation process since the level of civil society inclusion in, activism during and influence on the negotiation process in the three cases did not result in a stronger role for civil society organizations in the implementation process. The article concludes with an analysis of how these findings modify the current understanding of the role of civil society in peace processes and proposes a different focus for future research.     

Blurring the International-Domestic Politics Distinction: Danish Representation at EC Negotiations

This article explores the extent to which Danish membership of the European communities has blurred the traditional distinction between international and domestic politics. Based on data concerning the pattern of representation of Danish ministries at EC negotiations, the article finds a strong decentralization of negotiation competences among ministries and a spread of negotiation responsibilities across hierarchical levels, types of organization, and types of civil servants. The conclusion is that this blurring tends to maximize the influence of domestic interests and that it accounts for much of the immobility of EC decision-making.