Salient features of the 1988 civil service reforms in Nigeria

The main provisions of the 1988 civil service reform in Nigeria are discussed, including structural reorganization, professionalization and the enforcement of public accountability. As of the time of the reform, the following defects were associated with the civil service: undue importance accorded the generalists at the expense of the professionals; profligacy among public officers; nonchalant attitude among civil servants to their duties; and corruption. Measures taken to rectify these defects by the reform include: the adoption of a uniform structure for the civil service nationwide; the harmonization of power with responsibility; the streamlining of the span of control of officers to not more than eight units; the expansion of the powers of internal audit units complemented by an audit alarm system; the mandating of chief executives to submit progress reports on their ministry to the president; and the rationalization of promotion criteria for public officers. These provisions are little more than the rehashing of past legislations, which failed to achieve positive results, not because they were faulty in precept but because they were sacrificed to sloppy implementation. Therefore, the 1988 reform may suffer from the same fate because it was simply grafted onto the corrupt system that caused the failure of past reforms before it.     

THE IDEA OF A PROMOTIONS APPEAL SYSTEM

“The Public Utility did not have a formal Appeals Board system in the form which had been adopted by a number of other government organisations in Australia. Over the years, however, the procedure had been established that senior employees who had been superseded could appeal to the Executive Committee.” “A striking feature of civil service mores is an apparently widely-held belief that special protection must be provided in public service not only against political influence in appointments, but also against what is called ‘internal patronage’. By this is meant protection against arbitrariness, nepotism, and favouritism, all alleged in some quarters to be inherently characteristic of the managerial and supervisory ranks of the public service. The present role of the Civil Service Commission as protector of the individual employee in questions of transfer, promotion and salary increments derives from this fear, and from the belief that intervention of an independent authority is necessary to ensure preferment on the basis of merit. “No convincing evidence has been found that any special factors distinguish the public service from other employment in this respect. Consequently, it cannot be concluded that civil servants need special protective machinery which employees outside the public service do not have. Moreover, there is an impressive array of evidence that the procedures and machinery created to prevent internal patronage have imposed upon the public service a very high cost in terms of delay, unfilled positions, poor selection of personnel, and generai frustration of responsible supervisors.”     

Effects of the Institutional Design of the Civil Service: Evidence from Corruption

ABSTRACT

This research tests the direct effects of civil service structure on perceptions of corruption. Numerous studies suggest a relationship between civil service structure and corruption, but few test this link. It is hypothesized that corruption depends on the presence or absence of civil service policies, including job duties, tenure and security provisions, discipline policy, and rules on rewards and bargaining rights; the impact of government wages, per capita GDP, and democratization on corruption is also assessed. These hypotheses are tested using World Bank data for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and central and eastern European countries. No statistically significant relationships between civil service structure and corruption are found; however, occasional evidence that corruption is higher in countries with higher total government wage bills was obtained. Results additionally indicate that corruption is lower in countries with higher GDP. While the conclusions presented here are largely exploratory, there is a distinct lack of evidence indicating a relationship between civil service systems and public perceptions of corruption.     

Party patronage in contemporary democracies: Results from an expert survey in 22 countries from five regions

This Research Note presents a new dataset of party patronage in 22 countries from five regions. The data was collected using the same methodology to compare patterns of patronage within countries, across countries and across world regions that are usually studied separately. The Note addresses three research questions that are at the centre of debates on party patronage, which is understood as the power of political parties to make appointments to the public and semi‐public sector: the scope of patronage, the underlying motivations and the criteria on the basis of which appointees are selected. The exploration of the dataset shows that party patronage is, to a different degree, widespread across all regions. The data further shows differences between policy areas, types of institutions such as government ministries, agencies and state‐owned enterprises, and higher, middle and lower ranks of the bureaucracy. It is demonstrated that the political control of policy making and implementation is the most common motivation for making political appointments. However, in countries with a large scope of patronage, appointments serve the purpose of both political control and rewarding supporters in exchange for votes and services. Finally, the data shows that parties prefer to select appointees who are characterised by political and personal loyalty as well as professional competence.     

EXPLAINING HYBRIDITY IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION: AN EMPIRICAL CASE OF BHUTAN'S CIVIL SERVICE

Public administrations are mostly hybrid in nature with a combination of characteristics of different paradigms and models. In the first part of the paper, I use the notion of paradigms to explain a form of hybridity in public administration. The concept of paradigms in public administration is helpful in identifying a typology of the ideal types and their characteristics based on the main paradigms and models of public administration: the patronage system, the traditional public administration, the new public administration, and other emerging models such as public value management, responsive governance, and new public service. In the second part of the paper, through the trajectory of Bhutan's public administration history, we observe that its public administration exhibits characteristics that sit across the various paradigms and models of public administration. Thus, in doing so, the paper makes a significant contribution in applying the ideal type typology to explain how hybridity in public administration occurs in practice. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Iraq’s Political Turmoil

Motivated by the government's patronage and corruption, massive political protests in Iraq have mobilised the majority Shia population and weakened Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. He is caught between an intensely disgruntled population and an equally stubborn ruling elite. In a heavily armed population with a recent history of civil war, there is a salient risk that popular demands will be pursued through violence.     

Cleaning up and invigorating the civil service

Reliable quantitative estimates are not available of: (1) the quality of civil service performance and changes therein as the result of development projects, or (2) the importance of civil service performance for various development outcomes. Nonetheless, anecdotal evidence indicates that in some countries government performance has indeed collapsed, with calamitous effects on development. Although poor government performance is theoretically overdetermined—there are many possible causes, which we cannot disentangle in practice—a plausible story can be told based on institutional economics, using such concepts as information, incentives, and credible commitment. This version of both problems and solutions is supported by examples of successful reforms. The article argues that “institutional adjustment’ deserves more consideration as a basis for reforms. Two practical examples are discussed in some detail: improving incentives in the public sector and strategies to combat corruption. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reassessing the Impact of Civil Society: Nonprofit Sector,Press Freedom,and Corruption

The notion that a strong civil society helps to fight corruption has become a cornerstone of governance policy. Yet, a continuing dearth of empirical research, which tests this general proposition and probes the relevant causal mechanisms, feeds rising skepticism of current policy initiatives. This study theorizes the relationship between civil society and corruption, arguing that civil society's impact depends to a large extent on its ability to generate sufficient public pressure which, in turn, depends on the press being free. Analysis of cross‐national and longitudinal data shows that civil society strength is indeed inversely linked to the level of corruption, but the impact is highly dependent on press freedom. This conditioning effect affirms the importance of the public pressure mechanism. These results explain the need for policy to target both civil society and press freedom in promoting accountable governance and sustainable development.     

网络反腐的行动类型、过程及实现机制

从公民行动的角度对网络反腐的内涵进行界定更能凸显网络反腐的实质。根据公民行动的方式、行动所指涉的对象、行动过程,网络反腐可以划分为腐败告知型、腐败挖掘型、集体动员型。三种类型的网络反腐行动中,公民从"围观"到"挖掘"到"抗争",显示了互联网时代草根力量的崛起。公共舆论的生成、倒逼、草根动员是网络反腐的行动机制。在未来反腐倡廉建设中,从廉政政策的制定、廉政制度的革新、腐败治理的议题等开放渠道,让草根权力在现实的腐败治理中有效地参与,是化解网络反腐舆情日益高涨的根本。     

Senior Civil Servants and Bureaucratic Change in Belgium

The Belgian civil service used to be a Weberian bureaucracy, with a strict division of labor between civil servants and politicians, administrative careers based on both seniority and partisan patronage, and a technocratic culture coupled with a high level of alienation from both politics and politicians. Administrative reform came in the wake of the constitutional reform that transformed unitary Belgium into a federal state with several governments, each with a civil service of its own. The fiscal crisis prompted them to look favorably on the promises of New Public Management (NPM). The new Flemish government was first to take advantage of this opportunity, as it had the financial resources, the tendency to refer to Anglo-Saxon and Dutch examples, and the right political and administrative leadership.The staying power of these as yet precarious reforms depends on the continuity of political leadership, the establishment of an administrative culture matching the institutional innovations, and resistance to the endemic temptation to use them for partisan purposes.     

Exam‐centred Meritocracy in Taiwan: Hiring by Merit or Examination?

As a legacy of Imperial China, the Taiwan civil service entrance examination (CSEE) represents the hallmark of a unique exam‐centred meritocracy, in which government agencies and public managers are deprived of selection power. This system diverges from the trend of managerialism in Anglo‐Saxon countries. This paper argues that the evolution of meritocracy in Taiwan has been built around the CSEE and has contributed to a top‐down state‐building approach. The current system is a product of a long‐term power struggle among the Examination Yuan, government agencies, and civil service examinees. In contrast to the popular framework of patronage versus merit, the policy debate in Taiwan is better framed as whether or not recruitments are made on the basis of competitive examination. The value of ‘equality’ is upheld at the expense of the value of ‘competence’.     

Citizens,Partners or Patrons? Corporate Power and Patronage Capitalism

Abstract

The addition of new social roles in public service and civil society to large business corporations' enormous economic power and substantial political influence suggests novel but little-understood changes in the institutional relations between business, state and civil society. Sociological emphasis on the centrality of power relations in business conduct and radical diagnoses of a corporate ‘take-over’ of public and civil society institutions is contradicted by other literature which portrays corporations as socially responsible benefactors rather than all-powerful behemoths. The present analysis assesses rival emphases on power relations and normative shifts toward corporate social responsibility in the sphere of business–civil society partnerships. It argues that, in the United States and Britain, a new set of institutional relationships is emerging to fill a vacuum in tackling social and environmental problems. In this new institutional field, large corporations are taking on the role of patrons to a variety of clients amongst public and civil society organisations. This social relationship parallels similar episodes of patronage when systems of community and public welfare disintegrated during the rise of capitalism.     

公民伦理与公职人员的思想道德建设

国家公职人员中存在的腐败现象有着深刻的历史文化背景。中国社会几千年封建专制历史所形成的"差序格局"中的熟人社会交往方式,对当前的公职人员的工作与处事方式有着根深蒂固的影响。西方社会中影响深远广泛的是"契约论"精神,形成了分权制衡的格局,有利于公民权力空间的成长。当前中国社会经济的发展促成了公民社会的逐步形成,中国传统的伦理观念已难以适应公共交往领域,治理公职人员的腐败行为要大力培养民众的公民意识,尤其公职人员自身的公民意识和公民伦理道德观念,从而保障国家和政府职能的正当行使和公民权益的实现。     

The political economy of accountability in Timor‐Leste: Implications for public policy

With a view to establishing the likelihood of the occurrence of state capture and different forms of corruption and the feasibility of their management and prevention, important aspects of the historical, social, economic, political and governance context of Timor‐Leste are examined. This context is found to be conducive to various forms of state capture and systemic grand and petty corruption, and to be resistant to conventional short‐term technocratic anticorruption remedies. While the latter are likely to have public relations benefits that may be helpful to the maintenance of political stability in the short run, it is argued that significant anticorruption progress is a long‐term endeavour, achievable principally through: sustained impartial service delivery that undermines beliefs in patronage; hastening—through general education and the creation of a conducive legal environment for business—the emergence of leaders of integrity and the growth of a middle class; and the establishment of the rule of law. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

印度反腐败机制及其效果

印度长期以来一直面临着腐败问题的困扰,而且发展到现在腐败问题愈发严重,如今在印度腐败已经成为一种"生活方式"、"生活机制"。腐败给印度带来了非常严重的不利影响,为此印度政府无论是在立法还是在机构设置上都采取了许多措施。不过,由于受到低效的法律体系、公务员体系、民主体系、传统文化以及种姓制度等制约,印度的反腐败工作长期停滞不前。对印度腐败与反腐败的理性分析与思考,对我国反腐倡廉建设具有一定的借鉴意义。     

The challenges and opportunities of implementing the integrity pact as a strategy for combating corruption in Nigeria's oil rich Niger Delta region

In recent years, significant local and transnational concerted initiatives have been instituted to curb the incidence of corruption that has undermined socio‐economic development in Nigeria. Drawing on the critiques of such initiatives, and the experience from the process of implementing the Integrity Pact in the Niger Delta Development Commission, this article suggests that the Integrity Pact in principle offers real opportunities that can both reinforce and complement existing anti‐corruption initiatives in Nigeria's public sector. However, political instability, lack of continuity in civil service leadership and limited capacity are core challenges that confront the successful implementation and institutionalisation of the Integrity Pact as a means of fighting corruption and meeting sustainable development objectives in the Niger Delta. The article concludes by considering the implications of the findings for the fight against corruption in Nigeria. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

美国的公务员制度改革及其启示

“重塑人力资源管理”是美国联邦政府公务员制度自1883年建立以来持续时间最长的重大改革。这一持续8年的公务员制度改革,既是为了解决传统公务员制度的种种问题,也是为了实现制度变革与发展的愿景,即形成一种与现时代政府环境相适应的联邦政府人力资源管理理想制度。美国联邦政府的公务员制度改革,反映了当今时代公共部门人事管理的某些普遍要求,对于包括我国在内的其它国家的公务员制度改革与发展具有一些启示意义。     

The specificity of public service reform

Despite universal recognition of the decline of public services and the need for reforms, considerable divergence of views exists on the strategy and sequencing of reform for individual countries according to their capacities and level of development. This article reflects on the general contours of public service reform, emphasising past experience, the need to be pragmatic rather than idealistic, the mudding of the waters by the New Public Management movement, the complications of structural adjustment programmes of international financial institutions and the damage resulting from the imposition of universal solutions unfitted and unsuitable to local circumstances. Reform needs political and bureaucratic champions, careful preparation, patience and necessary investment, and capacity to neutralise opposition. Ultimately, one has to allow for a shifting combination of history, culture, politics, economics, sociology, ideology and values in each country. This analysis is applied to the possibility of reforming the public service of India, the second most populous country in the world, and the lessons to be gleaned for developing and implementing the strategy. The article then concludes with an outline of some universal problems facing public service reformers all around the globe such as corruption, the future role of government, shape of the civil service, reversing its erosion and addressing issues of fragmentation, compensation and diversity. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Democracy and Deceit: Regulating Appearances of Corruption

While corruption has long been recognized as an appropriate object of regulation, concern with appearances of corruption is of recent origin, coinciding with declining trust in government in the mid- to late-1960s. The reasoning that would support regulations of appearances, however, remains flawed, as it depends upon a "public trust" model of public service that is incomplete and often misplaced when applied to political representatives. The justification for regulating appearances is unambiguous, however, from the perspective of democratic theory. Democratic institutions of representation depend upon the integrity of appearances, not simply because they are an indication of whether political representatives are upholding their public trust, but because they provide the means through which citizens can judge whether, in particular instances, their trust is warranted. Representatives, institutions, and ethics that fail to support public confidence in appearances disempower citizens by denying them the means for inclusion in public judgments. These failures amount to a corruption of democratic processes.     

Reforming post‐Communist bureaucracies: The effect of transitional justice

Observers of post‐Communist politics recognize that civil service reform, an important part of the institutional transformation in Eastern Europe, was initiated at a very uneven pace. Hungary and Poland adopted changes quickly after the fall of Communism, while Romania and Slovakia waited longer. How can one explain the timing of civil service reform after 1989? Previous research blames a number of factors but inconsistencies between predictions and actual outcomes warrant a more thorough investigation. What has been overlooked, we argue, are the policies of transitional justice that altered the costs and benefits for elites to keep the institutional status quo. The empirical analysis reveals that when in place, lustration by vetting of public officials reduced the likelihood of passing a civil service reform act. This effect is conditioned by the legislative strength of ex‐Communist parties, as demonstrated by results from logistic regression tests on data from 11 countries.