Career Officials Research Articles

Position of Deputy Minister in Indonesia (Comparative Study of Good Governance And Fikih Siyāsah)

Indonesia is a country that adheres to a democratic system, the administration of its territory and its status as a nation-state as well as a state of law. As a constitutional state, Indonesia has many legal products ratified by legislators, one of which is the Deputy Minister. Deputy Ministers are regulated in law (UU) Number 39 of 2008 concerning State Ministries. The objective of Deputy Minister Position is to accelerate the performance of ministries that have excess workloads, by placing career officials who are competent in their fields. Although legally the position of Deputy Minister is valid, in the bureaucratic structure of the Indonesian government, this position is considered ineffective and inefficient. The existence of Deputy Ministers tends to be inefficient in the state budget, prolonging the bureaucratic chain, and often becoming a political bargaining power. This article is a normative research of literature study. Article writing is done through the method of collecting data from library sources as well as reporting in the mass media to written works. The results of the research show that Deputy Ministers in Indonesia are not rigidly regulated in laws and regulations. Based on investigations, the Deputy Minister’s diction is only found in Law Number 39 of 2008 concerning State Ministries, Presidential Regulation (Perpres) Number 60 of 2012 concerning Deputy Ministers, along with the amendment regulations. In the study of Islamic law and constitutional practice in the classical period, a caliph’s assistant or right-hand man was called a wazīr. The wazīr was authorized to appoint and dismiss regional chiefs, judges, and other government employees. However, in Indonesia, the issue related to the position of Deputy Minister becomes hot and sometimes invites post-election controversies or cabinet reshuffling. The best way to deal with this problem is to emphasize the redaction in Article 10 of Law Number 39 of 2008 concerning Deputy Ministers, which is regarding “workload that requires special handling”.
 Keywords: position, deputy minister, good governance, Fikih Siyāsah

Political Economy of Elite Capture and Clientelism in Public Resource Distribution: Theory and Evidence from Balochistan, Pakistan

The article critically examines the presence of political and bureaucratic capture in public sector resource allocation in the province of Balochistan, Pakistan. The article applies robust empirical techniques to evaluate how the political and bureaucratic elite indiscriminately and disproportionally allocate public sector funds to meet two overarching ends: (a) to allow maximum misappropriation of public funds for their benefits and (b) to make constituency/district-specific allocations to buy political allegiance and promote pork barrel and patronage politics (political clientelism). For the empirical purpose, the article uses an unbalanced panel technique using data for districts from provincial-level sources. The empirical results show a strong capture and clientelism in the process of budget making and the allocations of resources/projects to districts/constituencies for incumbent politicians and senior career officials who are at the helm of affairs, making disproportionate budgetary allocations of public resources to their home districts or constituencies or the projects with much leverage of extraction (read bribes) in the process of project allocations, bidding and execution. The evidence suggests that districts, which are neither represented by the incumbency of provincial government nor by senior bureaucrats in ministries that make public policy, receive far lesser budgetary allocations than their proportionate share despite the prevailing poor social and economic landscape. Such capture suffices personal interests, supports clientelism in resource sharing and creates an inter-regional and inter-district/constituency disparity in terms of economic and social development within the province.

Understanding Sowan as a New Paternalistic Bureaucracy Pattern of Local Officials in Indonesia

This study aimed to examine the visit of bureaucratic officials to local head candidates who have been confirmed to win local elections, commonly known as sowan. The officials ignore the neutrality aspect of bureaucracy that should be strictly upheld. This phenomenon is explained by the concept of a new paternalistic bureaucracy. This study used a qualitative research method with a phenomenological approach. In-depth interviews, focus group discussions (FGD), and documentation was utilized as data collection methods for this study. This study's interview and FGD participants include local officials with knowledge of the sowan phenomenon and general civil servants in Banyumas, Purbalingga, Banjarnegara, Cilacap, and Kebumen. This study discovered that sowan in the perspective of bureaucracy signifies friendship, loyalty, approach, and negotiation. This research highlights the strength of paternalistic bureaucracy, which generally begins in the final phase of the democratic process of local elections. Conceptually, this study is useful to explain the sowan phenomenon concerning bureaucratic neutrality and democracy and provide practical insights on the importance of law enforcement to violators of bureaucratic neutrality. This study explains the new paternalistic bureaucracy in the era of democracy in local governments in Indonesia. This study recommends the importance of law enforcement for violators of bureaucratic neutrality without discrimination, the improvement of the relationship between political and bureaucratic officials that reflect better partnerships in the recruitment of career officials, and the importance of bureaucrats who are committed to maintaining the principle of merit in the selection of local officials.

Reform of Human Resources Management Through Merit System at West Java Regional Personnel Agency

West Java was ranked first in a merit system evaluation by the State Civil Apparatus Commission in 2020. West Java also won the Meritrocation Award 2020 with a score of 375, up 198 points from the previous year. The purpose of this research was to find out how the Province of West Java was able to reform its human resource management system by implementing a merit-based system. A descriptive qualitative approach was used. The primary data for this study were collected through interviews with career officials from West Java Province’s Regional Personnel Agency (BKD). Documents and personal observations were used to gather secondary data. According to the findings, the Province of West Java has done an excellent job of reforming the human resource management system by implementing a merit system through the BKD. The use of all-encompassing and integrated information and technology was one of two key factors in the successful implementation of meritocracy, the second of which was the importance of high officials.
 Keywords: merit system, public civil servant, West Java Regional Personnel Agency

Sortition as Anti‐Corruption: Popular Oversight against Elite Capture

AbstractRandom selection for political office—or “sortition”—is increasingly seen as a promising tool for democratic renewal. Critics worry, however, that replacing elected and appointed officials with randomly selected citizens would only exacerbate elite manipulation of political processes. This article argues that sortitioncancontribute to democratic renewal, but that its genuine promise is obscured by the excessive ambition and misplaced focus of prevailing models. Casting random selection as a route to accurate representation of the popular will, most contemporary proposals require randomly selected citizens to perform legislative tasks, whose open‐endedness grants substantial discretion to elite agenda setters and facilitators. The real democratic promise of sortition‐based reforms, I argue, lies in obstructing elite capture at critical junctures: a narrower task of oversight that creates fewer opportunities for elite manipulation. In such contexts, the benefits of empowering ordinary people—resulting from their immunity to certain distorting influences on career officials—plausibly outweigh the risks.

Kepemimpinan inovatif dalam pelaksanaan program swasembada pangan nasional di Kabupaten Bone

The research aims to analyses the innovative leadership capacity in increasing national food self-sufficiency through the direct seed planting program in Bone Regency. Innovative leadership is a crucial dimension in the implementation of an innovation program to increase national food self-sufficiency. In its development innovative leadership capacity can be described through strategic planning, commitment and stability of a leader, these abilities will be described in the implementation of the ATABELA program in Bone District. From the results of the study, it was found that the strategic planning of the Regent as the head of the region was active in disseminating information about the ATABELA innovation program, involving local government stakeholders to realize the vision and mission of the Regent and Deputy Regent in the ATABELA innovation program. these were instructed to the Department of Agriculture, the existence of collaboration in the implementation of innovation ATABELA. In terms of leadership commitment, this research has not been supported by specific regulations in the form of local regulations on innovation, but the leadership commitment appears in the direct seed planting tool innovation program with the legitimacy of a strong Regent and legislative members, the majority of which are in the DPRD from the Golkar party whose chair is also the Regent. also, leadership commitment was found with the Regent's leadership character that was hard and a high willingness to innovate in increasing national food self-sufficiency with direct seed planting programs could be realized. Furthermore, leadership stability in implementing innovation with dedication starting from career officials, becoming a Deputy Regent, expert staff of the Governor of South Sulawesi and eventually being elected as a Regent with capital and experience, then strongly supports ideas and knowledge about the characteristics of the Bone Regency to carry out innovation.

Good Governance and Civil Service Accountability in Nigeria - Problems and Prospects

The civil service is the engine room of modern government. It comprises an assemblage of career officials, recruited in a civil capacity to serve the citizenry. By their training, they are equipped to champion the course of development by faithful implementation and evaluation of government polices and programmes. They are expected to do this in a transparent and accountable manner. Over the past decades, accountability which is a core feature of good governance has been central in public sector management. Accountability is important for effective performance in the public sector because both elected and non-elected officials need to show the public that they are performing their responsibilities in the best possible way and using the resources provided them effectively and efficiently. This paper is aimed at examining good governance and the impediments to public accountability in Nigeria, and recommends remedial actions for effective public accountability and performance in Nigerian public sector management. The article adopts qualitative method in gathering data from various sources. It traced the absence of accountability in public sector management in Nigeria to the incursion of the military into the Nigerian public administration. It shows with relevant examples how the culture of non accountability and poor performance has eaten deep into the fabric of the society. It therefore proposes some measures to address the malaise of public accountability in Nigeria. The article contends that unless good governance is in place with public accountability carefully observed, effective public sector performance cannot be realized.

Getting the Neutrality of Village Heads and Village Devices in General Elections:

The practical problem that arises is the existence of a village head/village apparatus in charge of a political party or has committed violations in the Presidential/Vice Presidential elections, Regional Head elections, legislative / DPD elections, and even violations of village head elections. The method used literature review, which is accomplished by compiling articles from newspapers or web media related to the Neutrality of the Village Head and Village Officials. The results showed that the village head/village apparatus had a mass base in the area, so it was often used to support or participate in elections. On the other hand, the village head/village apparatus also strives to carry out practical politics to get closer to and get more attention from regional heads, political party elites or the Central Government in budget allocations or financial or development assistance for their regions. There was also pressure, intimidation or promises directed at the village head to commit a neutrality violation. To achieve neutrality for village heads/village officials, it is necessary to increase Regional Heads, Heads of Service and District Heads in fostering and supervising village government through socialization and prosecution for those who commit violations. It is also necessary to formulate regulations regarding a code of ethics for village heads/village officials to control. Regional heads, career officials and related officials must also provide an example by being neutral during the election.

The Bureaucratic Political Relation Model in Perception of Officers Public: a Study on Bima City Government

The relationship between politics and bureaucracy is significant to observe because this concerns the interests of policymakers and stakeholders related to the politics of local government policies. In this regard, this study aims to describe the Political Relations Model Bureaucracy in the Perception of Public Officials (A Study at the Bima City Government). The approach in this research is descriptive qualitative. The results showed that the Relationship Model Bureaucratic Politics in the Perception of Public Officials (A Study at the Bima City Government) have interrelated and mutually supportive relationships both in formulating, implement and evaluate policies both political and administration towards the implementation of the public bureaucracy in the Bima City Government. Perception public officials concerning political intervention in carrying out activities bureaucracy are reflected in the process of development, administration, and technique as well as transfer and high employee rotation, institutional restructuring of the Bima City government bureaucracy as well The formulation of the Kota Bima Regional Financial Budgeting always occurs for political intervention interests of both public officials and career officials in running the wheel the government in the city of Bima.

«En cuanto sea adecuado a la naturaleza de su condición»: la convergencia de régimen jurídico entre funcionarios de carrera y funcionarios interinos

El régimen jurídico de los funcionarios interinos se ha visto decisivamente afectado por el derecho europeo, en particular por la Directiva 1999/70 de trabajo de duración determinada. Al prohibir la discriminación en las condiciones de trabajo de trabajadores temporales respecto a los trabajadores indefinidos, los funcionarios interinos han visto reconocidos derechos económicos y de carrera profesional que tradicionalmente les eran negados. El Estatuto básico del empleado público define el régimen jurídico de los funcionarios interinos por remisión al de los funcionarios de carrera “en cuanto sea adecuado a la naturaleza de su condición”, expresión cuyo alcance cobra un nuevo sentido, tanto respecto a su contenido como a su interpretación.

Explaining government bureaucrats’ behaviour: On the relative importance of organizational position, demographic background, and political attitudes

A basic insight in public administration research is that career officials play an important role in public policy development as well as in its implementation. Surprisingly, however, despite being an enduring theme on the research agenda, the jury still seems to be out regarding how to account for bureaucrats’ actual decision behaviour, a fact reflected in the numerous competing theories and perspectives available. By applying a novel large-N questionnaire survey as well as an alternative method, this article sheds new light on this highly contested area of research. We find that government bureaucrats’ (formal) organizational position is by far the most important explanatory factor, while classical demographic factors like geographical background, gender and age play a rather minor role. Among officials’ many early experiences, only their educational background and former job experience really count. The political attitudes of officials do not matter. The crucial role of bureaucrats’ organizational position for understanding their behaviour does not depend on intra-organizational socialization. Importantly, the key role of factors that may be relatively subject to deliberate change, such as organization structure and the former job experience and educational background of those recruited, entails a considerable potential for organizational design.

The Correlates of Organisational and Idiosyncratic Nuances of Land Administration System and Formal Delivery of Residential Lands in Nigeria

The indispensability of land as a veritable resource and bastion upon which, the very survival of mankind rests, has been an indisputable fact over the centuries. It goes without controversy, that the supply (or put better still, the delivery) of this all-time important asset, has over the period of man’s existence, been shrouded in one form of restrictions or the other. It is also needless to say that such restrictions are varied, as they dovetail into one era or the other, and are impacted by the traditions, cultures, ethos and idiosyncrasies of people, in whom ownership or at least ‘usership’ of such lands were vested; which eminently determined how land was being supplied for productive activities. This situation has undoubtedly impacted adversely on the general control and administration of land and its vast resources, since the cumulative consequential outcome of this trend, has given rise to a pre-conceived configurative template by which land administration system is being structured. Sadly to note that that this has copiously been hampering the smooth delivery with which residential lands, especially within urban milieu would have been dispensed. Therefore, it is against the above background, that the study was conducted as part of a doctoral research, to unravel the nexus of these structural and culturo-behavioural nuances of land administration system and the formal delivery of residential land. Essentially, on the one hand, is to gauge how the former impacts on the latter and even vice-versa, and on the other hand, to convoke leading ideas that are beneficial towards solving the myriads of challenges that are associated therewith. Hence, 5 point Likert scale questionnaires were administered upon 450 targeted respondents (career and tenured officials of land agencies, independent land consultants and developers within Nigeria’s southwest), as the sample size from among the total sample space of 2408, from which 850 constituted the sample frame, using simple random, convenience and purposive methods of sampling, from which 427 were retrieved and screened for analysis. The 416 questionnaires that survived the integrity tests were analysed via AMOS’ version 18 software for the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), demographics and normality for reliability. Among the results are that the style of the configuration of land administration system’s organisational entity allows for unbridled rivalry and thus makes much needed synergy building extremely difficult amongst the constituent departments and sections, among the resultant effects of which is deliberate jettisoning of responsibilities with attendant belated delivery of services. Among the recommendation is the exhibition of political will by the government to restructure the land administration system, so as ensure timely synergy as the need arises, towards hitch-free delivery of residential lands in Nigeria.

Smart power and public diplomacy: A Costa Rican approach

This article questions the universality of smart power and substantiates the pertinence of a Costa Rican approach when facing the challenge to generate a Public Diplomacy strategy. The theoretical and empirical analysis of the investigation allows determining the suitability of soft power to provide Public Diplomacy with epistemic consistency in a Small State lacking armed forces such as Costa Rica, which currently is considering to create a Public Diplomacy strategy. To test Nye’s hypothesis, a non-probabilistic exploratory approach was conducted between 2013 and 2014 with 40 career diplomatic officials (representing 20 per cent of the total amount of career officials), as an innovative exercise, considering the extensive academic literature review carried out for this study.

La motivación y su incidencia en el desempeño del empleado de carrera. Medición e implicaciones para la administración pública colombiana

El artículo establece la relación entre la motivación del empleado público de carrera y su incidencia en el desempeño organizacional en un sector de la administración pública colombiana. Mide la importancia relativa de los factores motivación. Comprueba que los empleados profesionales de carrera no están adecuadamente motivados de acuerdo con la teoría de la motivación en el servicio público PSM. El documento espera determinar la relación entre la motivación y el desempeño en los funcionarios profesionales de carrera del sector de la función pública colombiano. Con tal propósito, se indaga su nivel de satisfacción y motivación, así como los aspectos generadores de mayor motivación laboral y los factores de insatisfacción en este campo, a través de un diagnóstico sobre la motivación de los empleados de carrera en las entidades del sector de la función pública en el país. Este diagnóstico permitirá conocer las necesidades y motivaciones de los empleados, entender mejor la realidad entre las relaciones que existen entre los conceptos de motivación y desempeño, hacer una comparación con la política estatal sobre la materia objeto de estudio y, finalmente, elaborar una propuesta de mejoramiento de la gestión de las personas basada en factores de motivación.

The dilemmas of organisational capacity

For 40 years public sector reformers have lamented the lack of ‘leadership skills’ in career bureaucracies. They have brought successive waves of change aimed at making the public service more efficient, agile and responsive. An extensive scholarly literature acknowledges the problematic nature of ‘leadership’ in a public sector context – the difficulties inherent to a model premised on responsibility and accountability being shared by elected and career officials. But these insights seem lost on politicians, whose efforts to exert greater control over career officials have brought a range of unintended consequences, mainly because management reforms do not recognise the primacy of politics, nor the stewardship obligations of public sector leaders. In this article, I argue that ambiguities in the roles, responsibilities and relationships between ministers and senior officials must be addressed as a prerequisite for reform. A reimagined partnership between elected and unelected officials is essential to improve policy capacity.

Craft and Capacity in the Public Service

Over the past 8 years, debates about Australia's public service have evolved from being focused mainly on skills and capacities to being now increasingly concerned about the operating environment for career officials, their ability to fulfil their stewardship obligations, and to practice their ‘craft’. In this article, I track those changes and ask what is the craft of public administration? How should we understand it? Are concerns it is imperilled or has been lost valid or overblown? I draw on the observations of current and former senior officials, and the findings of recent Capability Reviews. My primary focus is on the Australian Public Service, because here is where the debate has been most public and direct. I note that the focus of concern has shifted from public servants towards ministers, who have been largely absent from public sector reform initiatives of the past 40 years.

Neoliberalismo local fallido en Latinoamérica: el caso de la red Agencia de Desarrollo Económico Local (ADEL) del PNUD

This article examines the Local Economic Development Agency (LEDA) «new paradigm» model of institutional support for local economic development (LED), a model of led that emerged in the 1990’s as the neoliberal political project began its global ascendancy. The paper draws upon rich primary data from Latin America to demonstrate that the LEDA model has been almost entirely ineffective. Notwithstanding, UNDP has continued to support the leda model because it reflects core neoliberal imperatives – that all development institutions must be (re) structured as private sector-led and financially self-sustainable. In addition, a constituency of support emerged, composed of senior UNDP career officials and external consultants, that derived specific career and financial benefits from the continued operation of the leda model, and this constituency was able to conceal the ineffectiveness of the LEDA model. The article thus demonstrates that ineffective international development policies may be kept alive, Zombie-fashion, so long as they help to promote core neoliberal ideological objectives.

The Civil Service and Democratic Governance in Nigeria : Issues , Prospects and New Hopes

The civil service is the engine room of modern government. It comprises an assemblage of career officials, recruited in a civil capacity to serve the citizenry. By their training, they are equipped to champion the course of development by faithfully implementation and evaluation of government polices and programmes. They are expected to do this in a transparent and accountable manner. However, the British bequeathed civil service model in Nigeria has failed to meet the expectations of the people judging by the catalogue of dysfunctionalities in the polity. With the use of the elite model, the study submitted that the failure of the ruling elite to adhere to constitutive rules is at the heart of the present crisis plaguing the public sector. To come out of this contraption, the administrative and political elites should embrace the principles of good governance that includes: respect for institutionalism, public accountability, popular participation, equity, among others. Unless these steps are followed, the Nigerian civil service may remain a mere geographical expression with little or no growth and development.

Relations of political and career officials in the execution of a replacement in the government bureaucracy in Majene

Relations of political and career officials in the execution of a replacement in the government bureaucracy in Majene

The Politics of Becoming a Top Bureaucrat in the Thai Bureaucracy

“Top bureaucrats” refers to career officials who assume the most powerful positions in their respective government agencies. They become permanent secretaries of ministries, the army commander-in-chief, the national police chief, directors and secretary-generals of agencies, and CEOs of state enterprises, autonomous public organisations and the like. When senior bureaucrats jockey for top positions, they play politics. In examining this aspect of politics and the bureaucracy, it is pertinent to address the following interrelated questions. How and why does a senior bureaucrat rise to the top in the Thai bureaucracy? Is it a merit process, or is it largely the work of politics? These questions underpin the discussion and provide a basis for further extensive research into the political strictures and dynamics involved.