16. role of civil services in a democracy

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Role of civil services in a democracy

NAME: RAMAN KATARIA

NUMBER: 16 (Paper III)

SOURCES:(Download + Crack also see)


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Convocation Address 2012

Tata Institute of Social Sciences

Wajahat Habibullah

Chairman Mr. Ramadorai, Director Professor Parasuraman, Faculty, distinguished

guests and my young friends

It always gives me great pleasure to visit the vibrant city of Mumbai and it is

particularly rewarding for me to be in the academic environment of this Institute on

your Seventy Second Convocation.

The young people of today are the future of our country. You, young people, who

have congregated today for the Annual Convocation Celebration, are part of the

future not only of India but that of the world as a whole. It is to reflect on the

achievements of our country and the challenges that face our people that I am

amongst you today. And so I will speak to you on a subject that has been close to

my heart not only as a profession, but as the identity of our people as a nation-the

creative expression of what Nobel Prize Laureate Amartya Sen has described as

the Argumentative Indian, if you please

The father of our nation Mahatma Gandhi had this dream of India on winning

freedom: "Independence must begin at the bottom. Thus, every village will be a

republic or Panchayat having full powers. It follows therefore, that every village

has to be self-sustained and capable of managing its affairs even to the extent of

defending itself against the whole world." i On the other hand Dr Ambedkar,

introducing our Draft Constitution for second reading was condemnatory of village

self-government," what is the village but a sink of localism, a den of ignorance,

narrow mindedness and communalism? I am glad that the Draft Constitution has

discarded the village and adopted the individual as its unit."


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Today, the Nation as a whole is faced with dramatic change. Governance itself

finds transition accelerated both in concept and form. Governance has of course

always been subject to continuing change, as is the nature of democratic evolution,

and this has been marked from the time of Independence. From a means to

perpetuate imperial rule governance developed into a means of seeking equitable

economic growth. The initial Indian political leadership when we won our freedom,

was westernized in its education, and therefore, even if not in its demeanor,

certainly in its approach to governance. It was hence paternalist. The Civil

Services were therefore an object of respect. Such service, even though not

legally so, was in practice close to being hereditary.

This civil service oversaw the running of a socialist economy; the State was

omnipresent. TheWelfare State was seen as a necessity, but time has shown that

its achievements, although many, were hardly commensurate with such

expectations. Now the state finds itself grappling with transition across the board:

social, economic, political.

Politicisation of the civil services, mainstay of government, in an inevitable offshoot

of democratic rule, commenced in the late 60s, and picked up pace in the early70s. This was the time when the term committed bureaucracy came to be coined.

The civil service had been trained not to question political decision-making. With

the maturingof the political element in governance that element also realized its

strength. There was therefore a need for these two basic elements of governance

to come together in terms of mutual understanding of functions and demands.

Despite much change however, this coming together has to this day remained

largely elusive.

The social change brought about by a socialist economy has impacted on the

political factor. The earliest dramatic manifestation was in what was then among

the leading states of the country, Tamil Nadu, and then the State of Madras. This

was with the onset of the Dravida Munnetara Kazhagan (DMK), which stood for


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separation from the Indian mainstream. That State has largely made the political

adjustments as being part of the diverse nation state of India, while jealously

guarding the identity of the Tamil, which was required. We find several northern

States that have over the past decade been through the process of making such

adjustments.

But an unfortunate ramification of these changes, which these factors of political

and social change have fed, has been the rise of corruption and the dilution of

established ethical norms. This has been compounded, not mitigated by economic

change. That change is signaled by what is described as liberalization. For the

State this meant giving up control. Access to decision-making by those within

government is receding. With the rise of the assertiveness of business houses,

entrenched means of access to ill-gotten gains by the state hierarchy is

increasingly limited, with the erosion of established corruption channels. Collusion

instead of coordination is now increasingly marked between politicians (because of

the need for election funding), business houses, and bureaucrats. There is even

gossip of bureaucrats being on sale, and we have had shocking exposes in the

past years that I must admit to having left me shaken.

Let us evaluate the economic achievement of bureaucrat led governance thus far.

The premier thrust since the 80s has been towards Poverty Alleviation Although

there has been some success, there has also been heavy leakage. Assessments

on reduction in poverty levels vary. Dutts researches indicate that in 1973-74 the

percentage of those below the poverty line (BPL) in the rural sector was 55.72%,

and urban 47.96%. In 1997 the rural BPL level was 35.78%, urban 29.99%.

S.P.Gupta gives the following figures: in 1983 the rural BPL level 45.65%, urban

40.79%; in 1997, rural 38.46%, urban 33.97%. The Planning Commissions India

Human Development Report 2011 focuses on Scheduled Castes, Scheduled

Tribes, and Muslims which have been regarded as the excluded groups. The rate

of decline in poverty has been slowest in the Muslim community: from 1993-4 to

2007-8 urban poverty has declined only 1.7 points, whereas for the Scheduled


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Castes and Scheduled Tribes community urban poverty has declined by 28.2

points and 19.5 points respectively. The question would naturally arise whether

even the more optimistic levels indicate achievements which could be concluded

to have been commensurate with the costs.

What then are the future prospects? The bureaucrat of the future must then be a

facilitator, and banking on wide ranging field experience, a potentially effective

motivator. For this to actually happen, however an action plan will be required for

an effective & responsive administration.

The 73rd& 74thAmendments of the Constitution can in this regard be seen as an

endeavour to usher in a new era to ensure greater public participation in

governance, so essential for democracy. Much however depended on how the

new institutions were to be used by the public and by thebureaucrats. But today,

with the implementation of the governments ambitious NREGA project, the latest

thrust in Indias quest to eliminate poverty, to which Panchayats are central, the

experience, together with that of the last decade in the operation of Panchayati Raj,

has continued to remain mixed. Are these becoming increasingly conduits for

funding, with all the inevitable ramifications for probity, or are they achieving the

primary objective of involving the common man in governance?

The time has come for change and restructuring. A bureaucracy is by its nature

risk averse, thus change resistant. It instinctively withdraws from being responsive

to new ideas. With an increase in the range of demands on government arising

from decentralization and outsourcing there is actually likely to be an increase, not

reduction in government size. This is borne out by simple statistics which will attest

to the fact that the US, a more open government than ours, and the world leader in

free enterprise, has more government servants per 1,000 inhabitants than does

India. Downsizing is therefore not the answer. The remedy rather lies in rightsizing,

and in allowing the people, with all the skills that have been invested in them as

part of the socialist legacy of independent India, to take responsibility in


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governance. This is a need borne out by the fact that many government services

in India like the vital sectors of education and health are, with no public oversight,

lamentably understaffed while staffing at the clerical level of Secretariats is

overweight.

There is of course no need to import structural designs. Our own structure,

centered on local self government in the traditional Panchayat Raj has, despite the

ills so lucidly described by Dr Ambedkar, and what I have described as a mixed

experience thus far, a strong tradition both in its functioning and in its public

interface. This will need to be built upon, not replaced, by greater accountability

through the activation of gram sabhas. If gram sabhas are to function with the full

authority envisaged by the Constitution, this would make every voter a legislator,

something that no other democracy in the world can boast of. But at the same time

it is necessary to study and learn from success stories, benchmarking those that

can be effectively used here.

To start with it is important to identify objectives. For much too long government in

India has spread its net too wide. We can all see the results. We need to

concentrate on fewer areas. NRIs have shown what healthy and educated Indianscan do. Health and education, centered in rural India and therefore an obvious

discipline in the administration of which the people through the institution of

Panchayats can participate, holds much promise. Traditional skills, which we now

describe as handicrafts, mainstay of Indias economy ove r the centuries must be

harnessed to fulfill present needs This can make villages self sustaining economic

units which they had been through the great days f Indias dominance of world

markets. While we as a people must therefore prioritise, government needs to

identify and then withdraw from areas where it is not required, or where the

citizens can fulfill the task better.

Because the new commercialized environment will make the capacity to make

financial profits a valued skill, there is an overriding necessity to build a viable


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code of ethics in society. We must reclaim in todays world the position we once

held of being leaders and models, earning the respect both of our peers and those

more developed.

It is in this context that we might look at The Right to Information Act, 2005. Its

statement of objectives recognises that democracy requires an informed citizenry

and transparency of information, which are vital to its functioning and also to

contain corruption and to hold Governments and their instrumentalities

accountable to the governed.

Freedom of access to information is increasingly regarded as the signature of

democracy. Its evolution as such may be dated from 1766. In that year Sweden,

of which todays Finland was then part, included the freedom of information in

Swedens constitution. Nevertheless it must be remembered that the idea was

born not from Sweden, at that time a relatively backward country to the remote

north of Europe, but emanated from the Confucian tradition of China. And it was

only nearly two centuries after Sweden that the concept began to take hold in what

were then the western democracies. In 1951 Finland enacted a law on the Public

Character of Official Documents. The USA enacted its Freedom of Information Actin 1966, which by an amendment of 1974 placed the onus of justifying restriction

of access clearly upon government. This law places time limits for responding to

requests and provides for access to all non-secret information disclosable through

a principle of severability, also adopted in our law, by which even otherwise

exempt information can be severed to require disclosure of that part that is not so

exempt. Disciplinary action-though not financial penalty-is mandated against

officials for wrongful non-disclosure.

In South Asia Pakistan, then under military rule but with democratic pretensions,

was the first to enact a Freedom of information Ordinance in 2002. Nepal followed

our initiative in calling theirs a Right to Information Act adopted by a democratic

government in 2007. Indonesia followed with a Freedom of lnformation Act in


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2008, with Bangladesh being the most recent entrant with an RTI Ordinance of

October 2008, drawing extensively upon our Act, as that countrys military

government paved the way towards restoration of democratic rule. This is now an

Act

Kofi Annan former UN General Secretary has succinctly described the power of

information:

The great democratizing power of information has given us all the chance

to effect change and alleviate poverty in ways we cannot even imagine

today. Our task your task is to make that change real for those in need,

wherever they may be. With information on our side, with knowledge of a

potential for all, the path to poverty can be reversed.

In our own country, we have over the years moved towards an information

revolution. Indias Constitution, in its Fundamental Rights, carries Article 19(1) (a),

the Freedom of Expression, which Courts have held to include the right to

information, thus accounting for the naming of Indias legislation as right and not

merely freedom which had been the term used in relation to this legislation in

nations across the world hitherto

In the 1970s, under Governments declared policy of garibi hatao, ambitious

poverty alleviation programmes were launched across the country. But, as I have

mentioned, by the early 1980s it had started to become clear that the returns were

not keeping pace and by no means commensurate with the investment made.

Almost in tandem, unnoticed by many in its early years, a revolution in information

technology had begun to gather pace by the late 1980s. This was accompanied by

a withdrawal of Government monopoly over information & broadcasting in

the1990s. These factors opened the ground to the initiatives of civil society, most

notably by the MKSS in Rajasthan led by the Garboesque Aruna Roy, a Tamil and

former civil servant, who threw up the relative comforts of service in government to

give herself wholly to serving the peasantry. With the opening of the free media


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came the Freedom of Information Act piloted through Parliament by Arun Jaitley of

the NDA government in 2002, but never enforced. The UPA Government, in its

very infancy then revised the law and today we have the Right to Information Act,

2005.

When presenting the Bill for the Right to Information in Parliament on May 11,

2005, the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh said I believe that the

passage of this Bill will see the dawn of a new era in our processes of government,

an era of performance and efficiency, an era which will ensure that benefits of

growth flow to all sections of our people, an era which will eliminate the scourge of

corruption, an era which will bring the common mans concern to the heart of all

processes of governance, an era which will truly fulfill the hopes of the founding

fathers of our Republic.

The Supreme Court has in repeated judgments described the right to information

as a part of Article 19(1) (a) of Indias Constitution, the most significant in terms of

its consequences being in the State of U.P. vs. Raj Singh 1975, from which all

subsequent decisions of the Supreme Court on the subject have sprung, where

Mathew J. on behalf of the Bench held as follows:In a government of responsibility like ours, where all agents of the public

must be responsible for their conduct, there can be but few secrets. The

people of this country have a right to know every public act, every thing that

is done in a public way, by their public functionaries. to cover with veil of

secrecy the common routine business, is not in the interest of public.

The key concepts are therefore transparency & accountability in the working of

every public authority, the right of any citizen of India to request access to

information and the corresponding duty of Govt. to meet the request, except the

information exempted under Sec. 8 and Departments excluded from coverage

under Sec 24, listed in the Second Schedule. It is the duty of Govt. to pro-actively

make available key information to all ii. But this Act is not the responsibility of


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government alone. It brings a heavy responsibility to bear upon all sections of civil

society, notably the citizenry, NGOs, and the media.

So we can conclude that the freedom of which our forbears dreamt has now come

closer to fruition. But those concerned with national security, the growing Maoist

threat and the North East of India has many such concerns, might well ask: what is

the bearing this has on national security? We need therefore to recognize clearly

what we mean by comprehensive security. Do we mean the security of our

military installations, of our economic infrastructure or of our physical structures?

All these are without doubt essential to what we refer and different constituents

thereof. But in the ultimate analysis it can hardly be denied that national security is

synonymous with the security of the people of our country, which all these

institutions serve. And if that is conceded it needs no argument to state that if the

people are the objective in comprehensively securing the nation, it is the people

who must share responsibility for so ensuring.

It should become clear that what the Right to Information Act aims at is the

flowering of democracy in India. But does this flowering mean that security would

be compromised? Does it imply that India must be a soft State? There havebeen observations primarily in the West, even by leading intellectuals, that

democracy is in fact not compatible with security, that to cater to vested interests

with money to spend, elected representatives will inevitably bend, even yielding

national interest to such pressure. In a closely argued essay Us and Them in the

leading international journal Foreign Affairsiii, Jerry Z Muller, Professor of History at

the Catholic University of America has argued that multiethnic states cannot

become nations. In short, Muller argues, ethno nationalism has played a more

profound and lasting role in modern history than is commonly understood, and the

processes that led to the dominance of the ethno national state and the separation

of ethnic groups in Europe are likely to reoccur elsewhere. Increased urbanization,

literacy, and political mobilization; differences in the fertility rates and economic

performance of various ethnic groups; and immigration will challenge the internal


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structure of states as well as their borders. Whether politically correct or not, ethno

nationalism will continue to shape the world in the twenty-first century.

Is Indias ethno nationalismsuch a challenge? Yes indeed. in his monograph CanDemocracies Accommodate Ethnic Nationalism? Atul Kohli, Professor of Politics

and International Affairs at Princeton University, after examining the cases of

Tamilnadu, Punjab and Kashmir answers his own question only with a qualified

yes iv. Yet, any close observer of Indias political evolution through the past

century, with access to greater information than Kohli, will have noted that despite

its bewildering diversity, the practice of democracy has only strengthened Indias

nationhood, while neighboring countries, with an administrative tradition identical

to ours, that had opted for authoritarian military rule and military alliances to bring

political stability and hasten economic progress, have in fact succumbed to

despotism, even disintegrated. Indias diversity has been its strength. It can only

be a weakness if it is perceived as an instrument of dominance of one group over

another, even if the dominant group is the majority leading to what is termed

majoritarianism. Mullers gloomy views stem from what he sees in Europes

history. On this basis he warns the US that, A familiar and influential narrative of

twentieth-century European history argues that nationalism twice led to war, in

1914 and then again in 1939. Thereafter, the story goes, Europeans concluded

that nationalism was a danger and gradually abandoned it. In the postwar

decades, western Europeans enmeshed themselves in a web of transnational

institutions, culminating in the European Union (EU). After the fall of the Soviet

empire, that transnational framework spread eastward to encompass most of the

continent. Europeans entered a post-national era, which was not only a good thing

in itself but also a model for other regions. Nationalism, in this view, had been a

tragic detour on the road to a peaceful liberal democratic order. But he contradicts

this rosy perception by going on to lament that, Far from having been

superannuated in 1945, in many respects ethno nationalism was at its apogee in

the years immediately after World War II. European stability during the Cold War

era was in fact due partly to the widespread fulfillment of the ethno nationalist


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project. And since the end of the Cold War, ethno nationalism has continued to

reshape European borders.

But in India there is no real majority. We are in fact all minorities in one way or

another. In contrast to India, Europe, about the same size but in many ways less

diverse, the harbinger of the concept of nation state, quested hopelessly for unity

through war and conquest, notably the French expansion though Napoleon,

Bismarcks vision of Europe under German hegemony, and Hitlers Third Reich

only to find what Muller finds a precarious unity through the European Union as

the twentieth century, thanks to that very Europes conflicting interests the most

violent in Indias history, drew to a close. No wonder that in concluding his

arguments Prof Muller considers that Partition may thus be the most humane

lasting solution! At the risk of sounding egotistic, I might say that Europe might do

well to learn from us, who have borne for years the trauma of a misconceived

Partition on religious grounds, brought onto us by a failing European power, rather

than we learn from them the West, as has unfortunately been our wont.

Although there will be disgruntled elements in any society, there will even be

incendiaries and extremists who would love to undermine the country but this is

precisely what democracy is designed to overcome, by giving each citizen a sense

that he is participant in governance through being able to hold not only the political

leadership, but every section of government from the lowest to the highest

accountable to him. Surely then security becomes the concern not of a few, but of

all.

The India Infrastructure Report, 1996, also known as the Rakesh Mohan Report

flagged the importance of infrastructure for India's policy makers, "Availability of

adequate infrastructure facilities is vital for the acceleration of economic

development of the country"


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It is understood that good governance is the means adopted to deliver services to

government's clientele, in a manner acceptable to the clientele as efficient and to

the provider, which is Government, as cost effective. There is a general consensus

that good governance must be participatory, transparent and accountablev. The

present system in India, however thanks to perceptions enshrined in the Official

Secrets Act remains firmly grounded on mistrust. If governance is to be

participatory, who are the participants? It is our view that in the current political

and economic environment participants in governance includes the political

leadership, the bureaucracy, business, the media, financial institutions and

decidedly the security apparatus.

The reason for this mistrust can be found in the legacy of governance in India;

stemming directly at the District level from the Mughalvi, adapted and extended

with an archaic Secretariat system of the Colonial. An elitist structure informed

both systems and continues to subsist. The Welfare State strongly influenced by

the wartime licensing legacy for distributing shortages introduced India to

independence! The economy therefore remained rooted in the concept of shortage.

That structure required to be replaced. But whereas change is indeed evolving, as

I have discussed, the most important step must be to develop a consensus on the

objectives to be met. To begin, each participant in governance must be aware of

what is expected of each. But participation in governance is too often seen as a

struggle for sharing power: For example there is the often the perceived conflict of

generalist vs. specialist. This brings us back to the basic proposition that

governance must be distinct from the exercise of power and must comprise

security of life and property, both of which are predicated on security of the nation,

as conceived not by the security forces or the bureaucracy, but by the people of

India, which concept must then be addressed by these. If this is understood, it is

easier to see why perceived needs have not been met by the system, even though

widely understood. At the same time we can also see that we stand at a new


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threshold in Indias form of governance. This was recognized by none other than

President Barack Hussain Obama of the US who concluded his address to

Parliament during his last visit with these words:

"In the United States, my administration has worked to make government

more open and transparent and accountable to the people. Here in India,

you're harnessing technologies to do the same, as I saw yesterday. Your

landmark Right to Information Act is empowering citizens with the ability to

get the services to which they're entitled and to hold officials accountable.

Voters can get information about candidates by text message. And you're

delivering education and health care services to rural communities, as I saw

yesterday when I joined an e-Panchayat with villagers in Rajasthan.

Now, in a new collaboration on open government, our two countries are

going to share our experience, identify what works, and develop the next-

generation of tools to empower citizens. And in another example of how

American and Indian partnership can address global challenges, we're

going to share these innovations with civil society groups and countries

around the world. We're going to show that democracy, more than any

other form of government, delivers for the common man - and woman."

iMK Gandhi:Panchayat Raj,Navjivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, and PP 8-9

iiSection 4, RTI Act 2005iiiForeign AffairsMarch/April 2008, Council on Foreign Relations, NYivAtul Kohli Can Democracies Accommodate Ethnic Nationalism? Rise and Decline of Self-Determination

Movements in India The Journal of Asian Studies 56 no. 2 (May 1997):325-344 1997 Association for Asian

Studies, Inc.vSebastian Morris: The Challenge to Governance in India;p 19, Ch 2, India Infrastructure Report 2002,

Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2002viThe position of Collector, as the name implies was instituted by Raja Todar Mal, head of Mughal imperial

finance in the 16thcentury to collect land revenue, mainstay of the Empire under the nameAmal Guzar
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Ho me aboutme

Friday,May 7, 2010

Rolein the Transition to Democracy

Thewave of democratization that

sweptsouthern Europe, Latin

America,and Eastern Europe in the

mid-1970s and in the late 1980s

broughtto the fore the relationship

betweenbureaucracy and

democracy.In the democracies that

haveemerged in the last quarter of

thetwentieth century, the civil

servicemay be far from responsive,

reliable,and responsible. A civil

servicemay be far from responsive,

reliable,and responsible. A civil service that has been associated with an authoritarianregime can

easilybe considered illegitimate after the transition to democracy takes place. To proveit legitimate,

thecivil service must submit to the leadership of new democratic governments. Such governments

oftenbegin their terms in office by "cleansing" the ranks of the civil service of authoritarian

elements.Thus the civil service of authoritarian elements. Thus the civil service i na new

democracyis vulnerable, more so if it has traditionally proved to be inefficient.

Nevertheless,new democracies put a difficult double task to their civil service: to remain weak and

pose no threat to democratic government and, simultaneously, to help legitimate the democratic

regimeby improving its economic performance over that of the previous, authoatarian regime. The

evaluationof the performance of the civil service in a new democracy is based in a trade-off

betweenthese two demands.

In fact, additional conflicting pressures may be

exertedon the civil service of a new democracy. The

democratic state needs a civil service that is to a

certainextent resistant to all governments in order to

safeguard the well being, the security, and thedefense if the people living within its territorial

boundaries.This demand of the people living within its

territorialboundaries. This demand clashes with drive

ofthe government party (or coalition of parties) to use

thecapacities of the civil service freely to fulfill their

election promises. For instance, nationalist

governmentsmay want to expand the state freely to

fulfilltheir election promises. For instance, nationalist

governmentsmay want to expand the state beyond its boundaries, socialist ones to reform it,

neoliberalones to reduce its economic functions to a minimum. Political parties thatgovern in new

democraciesmay use the civil service for any of these purposes, depending on their profileand the

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constraintsthey face once in power.

Theremoval of elements of the previous authoritarian regime from political institut ionsis part of the

tradition to democracy, and its extent is heavily debated in young democracies. Still, if the

democraticgovernment dominates political institutions, like the legislature and the judiciary, and also

permeatesthe civil service, democracy suffers from the reduction of multiple centersof power into a

singleone-that is, the governing elite. If, as is often the case after the new demo cracyis even more

concentrated. Chances are that the civil service will become responsive only to the needsof the

leadershipof the governing party. Democratic consolidation, which followed the initialtransition to

democracy,leaves muchn to be desired in such circumstances.

Yetthe permeation of the civil service by the governing Democratic Party (or coalit ionof parties)

doesnot necessarily undermine the legitimacy or post authoritarian democracy. In postauthoritarian

democracies, civil servants cannot be fired all at once, even i f they have been politicallysocialized

toserve authoritarian governments. The recruitment of new civil service personnel, withrecords of

resistanceagainst the depend dictatorship, may serve as an injection of democratic legitimacyinto

asuspect body of civil servants. Otherwise, the existence of an intact civil servicethat is known to

have collaborated with nondemocratic rulers may compromise any efforts to deepen and expand

democracy.It should be kept in mind, however, that the deepening and expansion of democracyis

oftenpursed by political elated only to extent that they can control the outcome of opening up

institutions,such as the civil service, to democratic participation from below.

Inthe early phases of the transition to and consolidation of democracy, a state nee dsa strong

government aided by a competent civil service for a number of reasons. During that time a

competentcivil service is instrumental in keeping at bay military and security forc esand countering

pockets of supporters of authoritarian rule in other institutions. Moreover, rarely do new

democraciesemerge amidst economic prosperity. New democratic governments often must grapple

with economic stagnation or decline as they strive to consolidate democratic rule. Again, an

efficientcivil service may play a strategic role in economic recovery and thus contributeindirectly to

thelegitimating of the democratic regime.

Inconclusion, a civil service, which in a new, unstable democracy must be weak in theface of

alternating democratic governments and strong in the face of undemocratic challenges and

economicadversity, feels strongly the difficulties of democratic consolidation. A youngdemocracy

thatcounts on competing democratic parties to consolidate life disagreeable and res ortto the civil

serviceas a pillar of democratic stability. The quest for democracy involves, among other things,

strikinga delicate balance between the elected government and the civil service.

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LABELS: CIVIL SERVICE

Changeand Reform

Thetasks of civil service have changed over the past two centuries, adapting to the changing role

ofthe state in the economy and society. In the beginning of the modern era the role of the state was

limited to waging wars and collecting taxes. Gradually, the state took up more funct ions,such as

monitoringthe national economy and providing welfare services. The expansion of stateactivity led

tothe growth and differentiation of the civil service. For some time now, particula rly in developed

societiesof the poet-World War II era, central government institutions have felt theneed for more

and increasingly specialized civil servants to deal with increasingly complicated problems that

requireexpert knowledge and technology.

INsome developing and underdeveloped societies, however, the growth of the civil se rvicewas not

commensurate with need to adapt to economic development and the complexity of available

technology.Instead, expansions in the civil service were motivated by the need to absurdexcess

laborfrom among internal migrants, the young, and the unemployed and to preserve th e leverage

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exercised by political elites through patronage. The more visible presence of the state in the

economyand society then gave rise to demands for new and better service by the state.The new

demandson the state were nourished by the labor struggles and the wider participationof the

workingclass in the democratic politics of Western Europe and North America.

Recent debates on the socioeconomic role of the state concern not only the extent of its

interventionbut also the efficiency with which political and civil service elites steerthe economy in

anantagonistic international environment and the quality of the services offered by civil servants to

thecitizens. Whereas some earlier transformations of the civil service were promptedby changes

inthe relations between state and society, some recent changes can be increased efficiencyand

imposedservices.

The call for greater efficiency has often meant that the size of the civil service is trimmed, as

governments-particularly in Europe-privatize services previously offered by large statemonopolies

(forexample, national airlines and telephone companies). Alternatively, contemporarygovernments

seek to modernize the organize the organization and methods of public administration. Such

modernizationinvolves training civil servants in new technologies, especially the useof computers,

and teaching new skills related to better planning and evaluation of civil service activities.

Governmentshave resounded to the demand for higher quality service by attempting to change the

attitudeprevailing in the civil service from inertia and aloofness to flexibility, attentionto quality

work,and sensitivity to the needs of citizens. They are also attempting to inform citizensabout the

servicesto which they are entitled.

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Thesystem of positions is an alternative to the career system, but it sometimes appliedalong with

it. In the position system the needs of ministries and public agencies for new personnel are

registered. Job openings are outlined, with descriptions of the duties and qualifica tions of each

position.Public employees are hired on a limited contract #when their contract expires,they may be

rehiredor let go.

Thecivil servant in the position system does not have the special relationship with the states that

thecareer civil servant does. Although the uncertainty of employment and advancementmay be

drawbackfor the position system, there are advantages. The position system is superior to the

career system in that recruited employees have specialized skills, and the government enjoys

flexibility in hiring similar to that of private enterprises (which hire by position). In the position

system, civil servants are recruited not to begin a career period of time, under a contract

comparableto those in the private sector. The position system is found into eh UnitedStates and, in

aparticular sense, was used in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

Astrong anti-elite sentiment has permeated the organization of the civil service in the United States

almostfrom the country's beginning. In the nineteenth century the American federal bureaucracy

washighly politicized: civil service positions were handed out in exchange for politicalsupport, an

allocation system known as the "spoils system". The abolition of the spoils system was

accomplishedgradually, beginning with the Pendleton Act of 1883.

In the United States today, job openings are announced in conjunction with job descriptions.

Applicantspass through a selection process, based on merit#successful candidates areoffered a

contractthat binds the administration to keep the employee in the same position. Th eemployee may

betransferred to other posts after the contract expires. Top positions are also ope nto competition,

but in the late 1970s there was an effort to creator administrative elite, the Senio r Executive

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Service,which included approximately the 6000 highest officials into eh civil service.Still, incoming

presidentsof the United States layers of the federal administration with temporary advisers.Some

degreeof politicization characterizes state and local-level administrations as well.

InCanada civil servants are appointed on the basis of merit #they are selected from an inventory of

candidates who have successfully passed examinations and interviews in career areas of their

choice.Having entered the civil service, Canadians may develop their career through promotion and

transfer among several dozen of departments and agencies. Recruitment to new positions is

accomplishedthrough competitions, first within public service and then outside publicservice.

Comparedwith the career system, the system of positions, as applied in Canada and t heUnited

States,allows for more personnel mobility and perhaps a better match of person to task.Yet the

positionsystem offers less prestige for the high and middle ranks of the civil service and is

vulnerableto wider politicization of the top echelons of the bureaucracy.

Withsignificant variations the system of positions was also applied in Eastern Europeand the

SovietUnion under communism. Officially, employment in the communist public administrationdid not

entaila special labor relationship, like the relationship, like the relationship betweenthe civil servant

andthe state in the West.

Inthe Society Union, in particular, civil servants did not formally enjoy the guara nteeof tenure or the

prospectof a career in the administration. Once hired, civil servants could be fire dor transferred,

but in practice they occupied the same position for long periods of time. The content and

developmentof a civil servants job was not specified in advance, but civil servants who showed

competenceand loyalty to the Communist Party were compensated with higher-ranking positions.

Onthe whole, because of their access to better goods and services, Soviet civil servantsenjoyed

higher living standards than the majority of the population, and top bureaucrats had considerable

privilege

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TheCareer System

Thecareer system is influenced by the

intellectualtradition of German idealism and the

conceptof the state of the philosopher

G.W.F.Hegel(1770-1831). Hegel declared that

universalstandards should apply to the

selection,training, and promotion of civil

servants.Appointments to state jobs should be

madeonly on the basis of the objective

evaluationof the candidates' knowledge and

ability.

In the German idealist tradition the state is

conceivedas separate from society, which it

overseaswith the aims of protecting the general

interest against individual interests. The

theoretical separating if state and society is

complemented by the division of tasks between

governments,cutes them. The career system,

byestablishing a lifelong professional relationship between the c ivil servant and thestate, and by

subordinatingthe civil servant to legitimate political authorities, satisfies the missionof the Hegelian

stateto function as an ideal, impartial arbiter of conflicting societal interests. Thecivil servant does


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!"# %&'##' ()*+#,

nothave the same status as employees in the private sector but has a special relati onto the state,

whichbrings additional duties and fewer freedoms, such as the duty of subordination to the political

willof the government and, commonly, limitations on the freedom to strike. The addi tionalburden of

obligations imposed on civil servants in theoretically, at least- balanced by increasedjob security

anda respectable salary.

The career system is applied in the public administrations of most Western European states

(includingFrance and the United Kingdom) and many postcolonial, independent civil servants are

recruitedon the basis of examinations of hiring graduates of Oxford and Cambridge Universities

withnontechnical education#they reach the top echelons of civi l service through a "faststream" of

promotions.Civil servants generally advance in their careers by acquiring experienc eon the job.

The British career system was

solidified after the Northolt-

Trevelyan report of 1854, which

helped to ext inguish the

particularize and clienteles that

hadbeen evident in the British

administration. Later, the British

civil service developed into a

polymorphous and fragmented

set of bodies of civil servants,

known as classes. The Fulton

report, published in 1968,

contributed to the reshaping of

the career system by

recommendinga decrease in the number of classes, a wider pool of candidates for the top positions

inthe civil service hierarchy, and more specialized in-service training through the establishment of

theCivil Service College. However, despite the Fulton committee recommendations, theBritish civil

servicewas not thoroughly reformed#it remained deficient in openness and accountability.

In France civil

servants are also

recruitedon the basis

of examinations.

Prospectivehigh level

civil servants are

trained in an elite

school, the Cole

National

d'Administration. The

school, founded in

1945, administers

highly competitive

entrance

examinations, offers

coerces leading to

specialization, and

ranksthe members of the graduating class. Under the ranking system civil servants areassigned to

different grinds corps and to the levels of positions they will occupy in the bureaucracy.

Differentiationalong the grade scale provides for greater mobility of civil servant sin the hierarchy of

positions.

InGermany civil servants are recruited on the basis of competition#initially, they are appointed for a

probationarystage, they become career civil servants. Depending on their formal qua lificationsand

thetype of job, civil servants are classified into several categories, forming a hierarchy.There is a


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http://gendernenvirotech.blogspot.in/search/label/civil%20servicehttp://gendernenvirotech.blogspot.in/search/label/civil%20service


20/29

long tradition of legal education among German civil servants. Not all public employeeshave the

samelegal status: the German state has a federal structure, and the competent state s(Lander) hire

some employees on a contract basis. Civil servants have a special relationship to the state,

regulatedby provisions of the public interest.

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Theorganization of

thecivil service

involvesthe

recruitment,training,

promotion,and

transferof civil

servants.Basically,

thereare two paths

alongwhich civil

servicesof the

contemporaryworld

arestructured: the

careersystem and the

systemof positions.

Inthe career system, employees are recruited to the civil service through competiti ve entrance

examinations. Once accepted in the civil service, new employees enjoy tenure. After an initial

probationarystage, they expect to pass the whole of their professional life in the bureaucracy,more

oftenthan not in particular sector of the bureaucracy where they began. In some cases,they are

trainedin schools set up to prepare the newly recruited in service training in new fieldsof interest,

suchas modern public management, public finance, and computers.

Inservice training is usually a prerequisite for the advancement of civil servants. The career ladder

is a grade scale, consisting of several categories with different entry levels depending on

educationalcredentials. The career path up this grade scale is closely linked to, butnot identical

with,promotion in the hierarchy of supervising positions - typically, head of burea u,head of section,

and head of division of a ministry (or "department" in the United States, "Office" inthe United

Kingdom).

Inthe career system, civil servants who have comparable

formal qualifications and specialties form homogeneous

groups or bodies-known as grinds crops in finance may

populate as a group the often powerful ministry of

financialization. Fr example, specialists in public finance

may populate as a group the often powerful ministry of

finance,these groups are officially recognized by law, and,

inpractice, they limit the freedom of the political masters of

the civil service (that is, the elected governments) to

transfercivil servants from one domain puff public administration to another. The c ropsor cores,

whichconsist of high-ranking employees, enjoy prestige, constitute the informal networksinside the

bureaucracy,and usually compete among themselves and with political appointees and cabinet

ministries for power in the bureaucracy. The phenomenon has led to strife and fragmentationin

somecivil services.


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Therole of civil servants in democracy is a long debated question, which was lucidl yconsidered by

Weber in his discussion of the bureaucratization of the contemporary state. On the onehand,Weberperceived bureaucracy as a correlate of democracy in the sense that the existenceof a civil

service,staffed on the basis of merit, contributes to the day-to-day contact betweencitizens and

the bureaucracy. More specifically, the selection and promotion of civil servants according to

achievement criteria is a guarantee of the application of universal criteria in the distribution of

goodsand services by the state to its citizen.

Onthe other hand, the executive of laws, typically formulated by the government and passed by the

legislaturein modern democracies, is left to the civil servants. These individuals' interests, related

totheir personal, ideological, and corporate biases, may find their way into the implementationof

thepolicies of the political elites that have won the confidence of the electorate. In other words, the

strategicposition of civil servants in democratic political strategic position of thecivil servants in

democratic political systems, and the leeway they enjoy in the interpretation of systems,and theleewaythey enjoy in the integration of laws - particularly in the Nobel situations orwhen there are

conflicts of interest - may allow them to deflect the import of policies initiated by legitimate

governments.In short, politicians can carry out the will of electorate only with thehelp of the civil

service, who are not periodically evaluated by the electorate as politicians are, ma y be able to

circumscribethe options of the electorate.

Thecivil service, then, can be perceived as a potential threat to democracy. The so urcesof the

threat can be found in the growing size of the modern state, the accelerating intervention of

government in the economy, and the secrecy and increasing technically of state activities, which

togethermay remove bureaucratic activities from the reach of democratic control. In particular, the

growthof bureaucracy, evident in the rise of the numbers of civil servants over time,has long and

judiciallybeen considered a factor that can lead a time, has long and justifiably beenconsidered a

factorthat can lead to a replace to nondemocratic government. The legislature and thejudiciary, let

alongindividual citizens, have difficulties monitoring decisions made in the silent corridors of the

civilservice.

A relevant questions concerns the extent to which the civil service is responsive, reliable, and

responsible,as part of the executive branch of government in a democratic regime. A responsive

civilservice caters more to the needs of the citizens than to its own tendencies to reproduce and

grow.A responsive civil service caters more to the needs of the citizens than to itsown tendencies

toreproduce and grow. A reliable civil service delivers services that measure up to the standards of

international economic competition and diplomacy and to the expectations of the democratic

governmentin power as to the thorough implementation of its policies. A responsible civil service is

heldaccountable by the majority of the electorate through the exercise of the right to vote and other

formsof political participation. Furthermore, a responsible civil service refrains fromdiscriminating

against the parliamentary minority and against social groups who traditionally possess fewer

resources,such as social status (racial or ethnic minorities) or political pull (wo menor the poor),

thanothers.

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16

ISSN 1648-2603 VIEOJI POLITIKA IR ADMINISTRAVIMAS 2004.Nr. 7

Civil Service, Democracy and Economic Development

Francisco Cardona

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentSIGMA, 2 rue Andr-Pascal, 75775 Paris Cedex 16, France

This article examines the links between merit-based civil service, economic development and the robustnessof democracy. It also argues that patterns of public employment prevalent in the past, such as patronage(including political patronage) and venality of public offices, can no longer be followed if poverty is to bereduced, economic development sustained and democracy reinforced.

Raktaodiai: vieoji tarnyba, demokratija, ekonomika.

Keywords: civil service, democracy, economic development.

Introduction: The Merit System

Most countries feel the necessity to create profes-

sional civil services that are aligned with the require-

ements of democratic states. Political democracy,

modern capitalism and complex states and societies

require professional public administrations. The merit

system is for the moment the only known way of

building up public administrations that attain an

acceptable degree of autonomous professionalism.

The merit system should be understood as a keyinstrument for making legal certainty an actual public

good. Legal certainty, or juridical security, has a fun-

damental value for the economy and for the society.

It is even more valuable as a product of the state than

are such values as efficiency and effectiveness in

conducting public affairs. The reason is quite ob-

vious: legal certainty allows society to be efficient

and effective in itself, and this is an essential precon-

dition for the development of the economy. The state

should be effective and efficient in producing legal

certainty. Legal certainty also requires upstream

good law-drafting, good quality of legislation andgood professional policy advice.

In welfare states, the quality of public services

provided or produced by the state requires managerial

efficiency, but public services must be delivered on

the basis of equity and entitlements of individuals, as

defined and recognised in legislation. Consequently,

efficiency in the management of public services is

legitimate if it falls within the procedural and

entitlement parameters set down in law. From the

standpoint of public services delivery, the notion of

legal certainty is just as crucial, but this issue is not

the focus of this paper.

The merit system, like any other public adminis-

tration mechanism, has not developed because it is

intellectually or culturally more appealing than other

systems, but because it has been better able to solve

practical political, social and economic problems in

countries with western-type cultural backgrounds, i.e.

where the individual, and not the social group, is thecornerstone of society. The merit system has proved

to be an indispensable instrument for producing legal

certainty and predictability in public decision-

making. Each countrys merit-based civil service has

its own particular historical and cultural roots, but

each country has also borrowed from others1in such

a way that today several common trends can be

discerned in the civil services of the worlds most

advanced democracies and economies.

Essentials of the Merit System

With national variations and modalities, the main

characteristics of civil service systems in advanced

democracies, be they career-based or position-based,

can be summarised as follows: Civil servants are

recruited and promoted by means of competitive

examinations, which have replaced previous selection

modalities based on patronage and venality; restrict-

tions to arbitrary transfer, demotion or dismissal of

1European countries in which the historical evolution of merit

systems played a reference role were the United Kingdom, Franceand Prussia. Most European countries built their own merit

systems by borrowing elements from these national frameworks.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Francisco Cardona SIGMA, Vieosios tarnybos vadybos vyriau-siasis patarjas.

El. patas: [email protected] teiktas redakcijai 2004 m. sausio mn.; recenzuotas;

parengtas spaudai 2004 m. kovo mn.


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17

civil servants are well established; the political

neutrality and impartiality of civil servants constitute

stringent obligations imposed upon them; civil

service positions are established centrally and

classified by grades or steps; salaries are determined

in legislation and are paid according to grade and

seniority rather than according to the quality and

quantity of work actually performed (although thisfeature is currently under revision in some countries

so far with uneven and unclear outcomes so as to

introduce a more performance-related salary

treatment); in certain countries restrictions apply to

lateral entry into the civil service, particularly in

those countries where career systems are prevalent

(the majority of senior positions are filled through

internal promotions, and the majority of civil servants

enter the service at the lower levels of the hierarchy).

The system as a whole is monitored by means of

strong control mechanisms and institutions, including

independent civil service commissions (mainly in

Anglo-Saxon countries) or independent judicial

review of the management of the civil service

(mainly in administrative law countries).

The professionalism and political neutrality of the

civil service postulate its autonomy from politics and

its autonomy as a state institution. This institution is

formed of heterogeneous professions and trades, but

has the capacity to build common practices and rules

of behaviour, as well as its own set of values and

group culture (esprit de corps), which in turn con-

tribute to legitimising its existence and its actions [1].The professionalisation of the civil service in demo-

cracies can only be achieved by means of the merit

system. This system is at the foundation of modern

bureaucracies.

Bureaucracies and by extension key elements of

the merit system have been under attack for the past

two decades or so, accused of strangling the

legitimate power of governments, undermining

efficiency incentives, blurring accountability and

impeding administrative responsiveness, among other

misdeeds. These criticisms, coming mainly from

ultraliberal economic viewpoints, are neither originalnor new. They are reminiscent of other criticisms

voiced by Marx, who branded the state machinery

the dreadful parasite body covering the French

society as a suffocating membrane [2].

If bureaucracy is as bad as it has been depicted

recently, it would be difficult to understand how an

institution that has enabled the development of the

economies of rich countries can be so unfit to

provide real solutions. Criticism of the merit-based

civil service derives perhaps from a lack of

understanding of the real nature of the problems that

the merit system is meant to solve. The remainder ofthis paper will focus on this issue.

Patronage was Historically Useful

It is worth remembering that patronage played a

positive role at the dawn of contemporary western

democracies. It was a respected means of popular

participation in public affairs and an invaluable

instrument for laying the social foundations of

political parties, especially in the USA, for the mostpart of the 19

th century and well into the 20

th.

Patronage was even regarded in the USA as an

element for democratisation, as opposed to the

mandarin administration of the former metropole.

Even if patronage was unable to guarantee societal

values, such as professional competence, impartiality

and legal certainty in public affairs, such values were

not fundamental at that time for a number of reasons:

the American internal market was not yet an

integrated market; economic externalities (e.g. legal

certainty) provided for by the state were still limited;

regulatory intervention by the state was rare andextremely limited; and private and public investment

in large fixed-capital assets was not significant (the

USA railway network is often cited as one of the first

large investments of this kind).

As in the course of time this situation started to

reverse into its opposite, the usefulness of the patro-

nage system in running the state also dwindled. The

system became an unbearable deadweight, particular-

ly when economies developed mainly as a result of

industrial revolutions and the size of administra-

tions expanded. Under these new circumstances, the

personal monitoring of the patronage system by

politicians weakened or became plainly impossible.

Emerging modern capitalism required a different

state. Expanded sources of state revenue became

necessary; modern taxation and budget systems

started to develop; a different, more impersonal, rule-

bound administration was necessary because the

direct monitoring of recruitment by political masters

(be it through patronage or through venality) became

impracticable.

Certain parallels to the American patronage

pattern can be found in some European countries thatpractised the patronage and venality of public office

up until the beginning of the 20thcentury. Only once

politicians or the European monarchs were no longer

able to monitor the system, and extract sufficient

profit from it, were patronage and venality abandoned

and slowly replaced by merit-based systems. It was

more yielding to extract profits from the incipient

development of the economy, through new taxation

schemes, than from the old patronage and venality

business. However, certain official posts still

remained in the market up until and just after

World War II.


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18

These developments were coupled with the large

fixed-capital investments of budding capitalism and

the consequential constellation of small firms that

coalesced around them, since the direct participation

of these small firms in the political process was too

costly or impossible. These developments made it

necessary to abandon patronage and venality schemes

and to develop in their place acceptable regulatoryframeworks for the new situation, as well as to ensure

that these norms would be applied to everyone

without arbitrariness and in a predictable way. The

social demand for legal certainty increased

significantly, and as a consequence this shaped the

executive power differently and demanded sound

judicial review of decisions. Patronage and venality

could neither overcome the monitoring problem nor

provide solutions for the new necessity of ensuring

legal certainty and developing and enforcing durable

regulatory frameworks based on negotiated

legislative agreements. This necessity was also at the

origins of the progressive introduction of a public

administration governed by the merit system in the

constitutions of economically advanced countries.

The patronage system has never become totally

inoperative. Patronage is still well alive and wedging

itself between politics and administration in modern

developed economies. However, the patronage

governing contemporary political appointments is

or should be a resource of politics and not of the

merit-based professional administration. This

patronage wedge is tolerable only insofar as it ispolitical and remains confined to a certain limited

number of posts. It is not tolerable if it becomes, by

encroaching on regular administrative territory, a

nuisance for the proper functioning of the state, as is

often the case. In other words, patronage is legitimate

in modern administrations only insofar as it is not

allowed to manipulate or bias legislation and its

application. Such a situation would go against the

interests of those who negotiated the legislation and

against the interests of socioeconomic groups who

make economic calculations on the basis of existing

legislation and rely on its being applied impartiallyand with regularity.

Institution-Building:

The Societal Problems that the MeritSystem Can Contribute to Solving

The institutionalisation of the merit system for the

civil service is a fact in all developed countries, but it

is still very weak in, or absent from, countries in

transition from planned economies, and even more

markedly so in developing countries. These countries

are often referred to euphemistically as countrieshaving a weak institutional environment, which

mainly means that they have an unprofessional civil

service ruled by patronage, cronyism, corruption and

other such misfortunes. Often this lack of profession-

nalism is accompanied by insufficient constitutional

and administrative legal arrangements to effectively

constrain the actions of the administration. The end

result is usually a public administration incapable of

producing the minimal legal certainty necessary forlaunching economic and social development.

In many developing countries the problem is

often summarised by an assessment that they do not

have the administrative capacity or the necessary

institutional minimum [3]. This institutional mini-

mum includes several elements, ranging from the

very minimal to a more complete threshold, which

the state should guarantee: 1) personal safety of

individuals and families; 2) guarantee of property

rights and contract enforcement; 3) an institutional

framework that guarantees macroeconomic and fiscal

stability and therefore a positive investment climate;

4) democracy and the rule of law. Each of these

elements we could call them public goods subsu-

mes all of the preceding elements.

These public goods can only be ensured on

condition that patronage and political clientele

patterns pervading public administrations are

overcome, or at least reduced. This implies building

up modern bureaucracies that are shaped to merit

system patterns, endowed with professional technical

autonomy, subject to the rule of law, and accountable

to governments and society. This also implies thatpolitical classes need to overcome certain temptations

of political populism and patronising of public

employment, the civil service included. These

preconditions represent the only guarantee that the

so-called commitment problem will be solved, i.e.

that there will be sufficient institutional guarantees

for legislation to be effectively applied and

implemented by the administrative apparatus [4] and

for implementation gaps to be reduced to a minimum.

We would understand the merit system better if it

were analysed from the perspective of the societal

function it is meant to accomplish; we would then seefrom that standpoint whether it is an efficient

institution or not. The merit system is justified not by

itself but by the societal function it is meant to

accomplish. Historically it was embraced by coun-

tries (that are now rich) only when the patronage

system and the venality of public office became

inoperative deadweights mainly because the state

was in need of massive accumulation of capital,

production means and investments, particularly those

capable of widening the economic base of the state

(such as infrastructure and warfare), i.e. investments

which could ensure sufficient fiscal revenues tofinance the state. The merit system was deemed to be


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19

a better and more efficient instrument than buying

and selling public offices or using voluntary (today

we would say militant) work provided by those

patronised.

Max Weber in the Background

It is useful at this point to turn to Max Weber, oneof the most insightful analysts of modern capitalism

and its instruments. Max Weber considered that the

rational state rests upon an expert civil service and a

rational legal order that is the only within which

modern capitalism can thrive [5]. The preconditions

for the original development of capitalism included: a

predictable legal system, and behind that a state

bureaucracy; and a habit of treating all people as

having rights and as possible partners in law-regula-

ted commercial dealings, which is a requirement for

establishing wider markets intertwined with regular

and frequent commercial exchanges.The legal order also requires a bureaucratic state

to enforce the law, i.e. professional administrators in

the administration and competent jurists in the

judiciary. Reliable application of legal procedural and

substantive rules is one of the highest values in a well

organised bureaucracy. Another feature is the imper-

sonal application of general rules, both to outsiders

the organisation deals with and to its own staff. This

impartiality is the most important feature of the

bureaucracy for Weber the bureaucracy should act

regularly, in a predictable way, and according to what

is foreseen in law.Webers ideal bureaucrat is a full-time, lifetime

professional. This requires a sufficient salary and job

security, because otherwise people will not stay in the

job full-time for life. Unless they do, the organisation

will not be efficient. Stability helps keep the institu-

tionnal memory alive and helps render it a source of

organisational learning, thus making the institution

more efficient. It takes time and experience to learn

the job, not so much because it is difficult to perform

a particular task, but because it all has to be co-

ordinated and routines have to be set. Consequently,promotion should be based mainly on seniority

because seniority is one of the best guarantees for the

efficient functioning of the bureaucracy. Likewise, an

elaborate division of labour requires the stability of

staff. Because of the nature of bureaucratic work, and

also perhaps because of the importance of training

and co-ordination on the job, the bureaucracy is in

need of educated recruits. Their education must be at-

tested by some certificate. Certified education is

necessary not only to prove that recruits have been

educated, but also because a good bureaucracy needs

to work with impersonal criteria. In Webers thin-king, all of these elements academic credentials,

fixed salary, tenure, and stability are required for

the efficient functioning of a modern administrative

machine with the capacity to live up to its societal

function, which is to produce and instil regularity and

legal certainty (Weber would perhaps have preferred

to use the word rationality) into social and politi-

cal life. These were the societal problems that Weber

had in mind when he analysed the role of thebureaucracy in the emerging economies of production

en masse at the time.

Merit System, the Rule of Law

and Democracy

So far we have not made explicit references to the

relationship between the merit system and the deve-

lopment of democracy, except by juxtaposing demo-

cracy and the rule of law. Nowadays the association

between democracy and rule of law seems undispu-

ted, but this was not always the case. In the 1960s and1970s certain international agencies active in the field

of co-operation for development operated under the

assumption that the rule of law and democracy should

not necessarily go hand in hand. The important

element for economic development was the rule of

law, and this could be guaranteed by both democratic

and authoritarian political regimes. It was assumed

that even authoritarian regimes, such as those under

the Soviet influence, were able to ensure economic

development for their populations. The same

assumption concerned authoritarian regimes in Spain

and more recently in Chile. Furthermore, experience

in the development of early capitalism under

economically liberal doctrines in western countries,

in particular the USA experience, showed that it was

possible to launch the economy simply by making

sure that contracts were enforced and commercial

transactions respected, regardless of the more or less

authoritarian character of a political regime. In

summary, the rule of law was deemed possible

outside of fully fledged democratic political regimes.

This assumption has proved to be mistaken. In

fact, mainstream economic theory follows thedirection that democracy is the most effective

guarantor of good governance in the economic

sphere no less than in the political sphere. Civil

liberties, political freedom, and participatory

procedures are the best way to ensure appropriate

labour standards, environment sustainability, and

economic stability. The performance of democracies

in all of these areas has been superior to those of

regimes with restricted political participation [6].

Today the notion of the rule of law has evolved

and its meaning has enlarged. It is no longer solely an

expression of the supremacy of parliament (in itsoriginal British meaning), but includes, in most EU


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21

central and eastern European countries and

elsewhere in the world have adopted the reformist

political discourse, a discourse that resounds well

and is even convincing at times to international

community ears. Sometimes these old elites with a

new rhetoric gain explicit political support from the

powers that count internationally. However, in most

cases traditional elites pay only lip service toreformist ideas, as their intentions do not go beyond

diverting internal and international criticism, since

few national leaders in transition countries can afford

to be perceived as reactionaries blocking progress.

Effectively, the political discourse in many countries

is reformist, but effective implementation of reforms

remains very limited or non-existent.

One could argue that what is important is the

political will to pursue reforms, or the so-called

political commitment to reform, including the strong

political leadership of a prime minister or president.

Apart from the fact that political commitment is

difficult to define conceptually and even more

difficult to measure3, it depends on political capacity,

an elusive concept. Another sacred word in reform

literature is national ownership of reform efforts,

which is used to refer to national leadership and

political commitment. Thus political will, political

commitment and ownership are different words

representing aspects of the same idea. As the

President of the World Bank expressed it, ownership

means that countries must be in the drivers seat and

set the course. They must determine goals and thephasing, timing and sequencing of programs [9].

The European Union has been assessing state reforms

in EU candidate countries since 1997 in terms of

administrative and judicial capacity to apply the

acquis, but very few assessments have been made ofthe political capacity of these countries to conduct the

modernisation of their public administrations and

civil services, i.e. to move from the nomenklaturasystem to a system that is democratic and merit

based. In certain EU candidate countries the old

political elites have remained in command, although

they have been more or less converted to democracyand change. In the region it is not unusual to hear

political assertions blaming civil servants for their

laziness and lack of interest in their work as the

rationale for the necessity of reforms, which is

another way or diverting the attention away from the

real issues.

3A model for defining political commitment is proposed byWilly McCourt, based on a civil service reform case study, that of

Swaziland. See Willy McCourt, Political Commitment toReform: Civil Service Reform in Swaziland in: World

Development, Vol. 31, No. 6, pp. 1015-1031, June 2003. At:www.elsevier.com/locate/worlddev (doi:10.1016/S0305-750X(0-

3)00044-5)

If civil service reform is perceived as building or

reforming a fundamental institution of a democratic

state, and if this reform effort is justified insofar as it

is included within a policy framework for economic

development and modernisation, the first important

issue is not how to overcome the laziness and

inefficiency of public employees but how to

overcome political populism and current patronagepatterns affecting public services in several transition

countries and how to replace these ills with a merit

system ruled by law. This challenge also implies the

creation of an appropriate legal administrative

framework for the public administration, which

includes regulating how public staff are managed,

how public decisions are made and how public action

is controlled by independent administrative and

judicial institutions.

This legal administrative framework should be

aimed, among other things, at reinforcing the public

accountability of civil servants and ensuring that legal

means compel public servants to serve the general

public interest and to not be influenced by vested

interests of any kind. The best available means for

ensuring this and encouraging appropriate behaviour

by civil servants is the merit system. The merit

system is likely to limit the capacity of politicians to

meddle disproportionately in the appointment of civil

servants. It is also likely to elicit an active and

positive attitude of civil servants towards their own

professionalisation and to encourage their long-term

service. Such changes in attitude in turn represent anincentive for civil servants to commit to democratic

constitutional values and to the general public

interest.

Conclusions

The first conclusion is drawn from the fact that

the institutionalisation of the merit system was histo-

rically legitimised by its societal function and that its

role was to provide legal certainty through institution-

nal guarantees safeguarding the professional impar-

tiallity of civil servants. To a great extent this impar-tiality is determined by recruitment, promotion and

remuneration schemes based on professional exper-

tise and rank within the hierarchy, schemes that are

closed to political or otherwise undue bias. This insti-

tutionalisation of the merit system represented the

only available means of providing a prioriguaranteesof legal certainty, which was in turn essential for

developing the industrial and commercial economy.

The second conclusion is that a merit-based civil

service was not historically imposed against the will

and interests of politicians, but in fact because of

these interests. Under the new economic conditionscreated by emerging capitalism, political classes nee-


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ded a professional bureaucracy that was consistently

less vulnerable to political manipulation and therefore

capable of ensuring the durability of legislative agree-

ments. These early capitalists were aware that the

worst enemies of capitalism were the capitalists

themselves, and to reduce the perils which they repre-

sented, a strong state and an impartial public bureau-

cracy were needed. This view continues to be validfor contemporary emerging democracies in need of

consolidation. Politicians have an interest in limiting

their own meddling in administrative affairs and