Career In Public Service Research Articles

Visible masters and invisible students? Educational translation in the early modern Low Countries

ABSTRACT In the sixteenth-century Low Countries, a market developed for a specific type of translation, designed for educational purposes. From the second half of the century onward, in particular, many bilingual editions appeared, presenting two versions of the same texts parallel to each other. These works furnished authoritative models that students could use to verify their own translation exercises. Children whose native language was Dutch, both boys and girls, used the pedagogical tool of translation to learn the prestigious French language that was crucial for a career in international trade or public service, or Latin, required for an academic trajectory. In this context, translation not only offered an authoritative published end product, but also an educational activity. This article maps the visibility of the various actors involved in these educational translations: printers, schoolmasters, and students. By analysing published schoolbooks designed for translation exercises, as well as handwritten material by schoolmasters and their pupils, it explores the involvement of different actors of translation and questions to what extent the activities of student translators can be retraced.

Bad governance in Australia and how to mitigate it

AbstractWe argue that new public management (NPM) and other processes have led to adverse selection and agency rent problems within the political elite in Australia. The politicisation of the public service and the rise of careerist politicians have led to the de‐separation of what was once two distinct career paths within the political elite. This has changed the decision premise of the advisory system for policy formation and implementation, leading to worse public policy, even policy disasters. We recommend that some of the principles of the Westminster form of government be updated and re‐instituted for political elites within the structures of the Australian government. We canvass four reforms: return to merit appointments and promotion for public servants; a return to tenure for senior public servants; an enhanced push for descriptive representation within the career public service; and a formal role for staffers with centralised appointments, inability to instruct public servants, and restrictions on political and policy roles once leaving public service. These are designed to end the distrust, perceived corruption, and poor governance in the Australian government.Points for practitioners Having separate career paths for non‐elected policy elites and elected elites is vital for information transmission and good governance. Each should operate with separate decision premises and work together in creative tension. NPM practices have weakened the separate career paths of public servants and politicians, leading to adverse selection and agency rent for both. The Westminster system has a logic that has been diluted or weakened within the Australian government, leading to poorer policy and policy disasters. The paper presents four areas for reform.

Privilege, place, and patronage: ‘Giving something back’ to Wales

This article explores the complex relationship between civil society, social inequality, and nationhood through examining the motivations of elite members of Welsh civil society as they volunteer to serve on the boards of a wide range of Welsh charities. We interviewed nearly 60 trustees and patrons, all of whom enjoyed successful and influential careers in business, politics, or public service. Their narratives reveal diverse vocabularies of motive, but prominent within these is the desire to ‘give something back’, and not just to society in general but to Wales in particular. While their desire to ‘give back’ reflects an awareness of their own privileged position, their commitment to Wales can be seen as a response to the country’s historic and current dominance by England, as well as a legacy of non-conformism and community. The article concludes by discussing the implications of these narratives for understanding the specificities of ‘geographies of responsibility’, civil society, and nationhood.

The green ceiling for NRM careers in public service

Actors involved in environmental decision-making bring personal values that extend into the professional sphere, to varied effect. NRM professionals are encouraged to set aside personal values in the workplace. Using semi-structured interviews, this research investigated how ecocentric values are contested in public service NRM in local government in South-East Queensland, Australia. Eight participants described challenges advocating from their disciplinary expertise, communication tactics they found necessary to find purchase within their organisations, and how they felt disciplinary contestations and their workplace identity affected their career. From personal accounts, we theorise and describe a ‘green ceiling’, acting as both a social barrier and structural force limiting the expression of ecocentric values and constrains the influence of those perceived to be ecocentric in public service NRM. The green ceiling presents a framework for understanding how NRM professionals who espouse ecocentric qualities, experience slowed career progress, low job security, career interruption and workplace grief.

Лояльность местных элит центральной власти: общие закономерности и институциональные контексты

The article presents the conceptualization of loyalty (subordinates to superiors), the construction of the general theoretical hypothesis about the main causal factors of loyalty, as well as the analysis of the institutional contexts of the (dis)loyalty of local elites to the central government. Loyalty is understood as a variable characteristic of the political attitudes of actors (individuals and groups), combining recognition of the legitimacy of power, readiness to follow the adopted policy, obedience to orders, and reporting of reliable information about the state of affairs. Based on the general ideas of neo-Weberian political sociology, a hypothesis has been proposed about the basic factors that strengthen loyalty. The more an actor perceives a certain authority as providing his basic needs such as security, social status, income and influence (authority, political participation), the higher the actor’s loyalty to this authority will be. The main types of institutions that allow elites to satisfy their basic needs are civil service, patron-client networks, and egalitarian communities. A relatively high level of loyalty to the central government is typical of the representatives of elites, whose basic needs are satisfied by taking prestigious positions in the public service. It is due to the symbolic and universal nature of status in bureaucratic structures of the military and civil service. The formal and broadly recognized status also allows avoiding the necessity of its constant confirmation by means of aggressive and violent actions. On the contrary, for a successful career within the military-bureaucratic structures of state service, qualities such as discipline, accuracy, diligence, and control over emotions are in demand. The status of the members of patron-client networks and egalitarian communities is informal and recognized only by their entourage (if the entourage is willing to do this). Therefore, participants of informal communities have to confirm their status, including aggressive and violent actions. In such a way, the qualities as a heightened sense of self-worth, emphasized aggressiveness (as a means of demonstrating and protecting status), and love of freedom are constituted, which are little compatible with the bureaucratic virtues of obedience and reverence for superiors. In addition, disdain for official values, symbols, norms and rules of interaction cultivated in communities guarantees that their participants will remain loyal to their patron and/or comrades and will not succumb to the temptation to exchange all this for a more predictable and stable career in public service.

O espaço da politização na estrutura do Governo Federal brasileiro, 1999-2021

Abstract What was the extent of the Brazilian president’s politicization space within the structure of the federal public bureaucracy from 1999 to 2021? The extent of this space is related to the importance of politicization as a strategy for controlling the bureaucracy, monitoring partners, and political accommodation, following the logic of coalition presidentialism. Thus, this article sought to measure it using a descriptive methodology based on data collected from the Federal Government’s Painel Estatístico de Pessoal, encompassing positions and functions within the government throughout the period. By considering all possibilities of appointments and designations made by the president for high-level positions, this article presented an innovative approach compared to previous Brazilian Political Science studies assessing politicization in the federal government. This approach led to the conclusion that the extent of the politicization space did not substantially decrease despite the reduction in senior management and advisory positions (known in Brazil as Cargos de Direção e Assessoramento Superior - DAS), in addition to revealing a new pattern of politicization characterized by increased use of funções de confiança exclusively held by career public servants and the valorization of these servants even in DAS positions.

DODFMiner: An automated tool for Named Entity Recognition from Official Gazettes

Official gazettes are documents published by governments to publicize their actions, spanning long periods of time and making an important transparency mechanism. These documents have information on laws, contracts, and bidding processes, as well as on civil servants and their careers in public service. Automatic information extraction of these documents may contribute to public transparency, with two tasks being especially useful: the classification of the different segments of these documents, the so called acts; and the Named Entity Recognition (NER) within the acts. The variety of official gazettes and their patterns brings up the necessity of constructing different tools for specific gazettes. In this paper, we propose DODFMiner, a command-line interface tool to classify acts and extract named entities from the Official Gazette of the Federal District. The tool follows a 3-step approach: the pre-processing of the input data; text classification using rule-based systems with regular expressions; and NER with Machine Learning algorithms. It allows users to input JSON files and receive CSV as output, providing information that allows users to track government procurements through years, contracts duration and total amount, among others. We also propose a set of experiments to support the choice of models included in the tool, covering the classification and NER steps. Text classification achieved a mean F1-score of 0.778, while to the NER, we compared 3 different architectures, CRF with a mean F1-score of 0.851, CNN-biLSTM-CRF with 0.787 and CNN-CNN-LSTM with 0.841.

Cybersecurity Students’ Interest in Government Careers: Impact of Demographic Characteristics and Job Dynamics

A critical shortage of cybersecurity talent exists in the United States. The lack of personnel has resulted in increased competition for the cybersecurity professionals. As the field of cybersecurity has evolved, a significant salary gap has surfaced between public and private employers. With private employers paying higher salaries, it has become harder for government agencies to hire cybersecurity professionals. Different policies and programs have been developed by government agencies to address this barrier. The current study examines the employment goals of a sample of cybersecurity students (n = 156). Specific attention is given to the types of employers students want to work for as well as how students rate the importance of different job dynamics. A sizeable number of the students (n = 90) expressed interest in working in public service. Job dynamics most important to students included being treated with respect, having job security, knowing expectation, safety, and opportunities for improvement. The results show significant demographic dissimilarities as well as differences in the ways that public service-oriented students (versus students seeking careers with private companies) rated job dynamics. Bivariate analyses showed that female and first-generation cybersecurity students were more likely to express interest in public service careers, as were juniors, seniors, and graduate students. In addition, students whose mother worked for the government were more likely than students whose mother worked for a private company to express interest in working in public service careers. Multivariate analyses confirmed these results. Female cybersecurity students also rated the importance of job security, mission attainment, personal empowerment, teamwork, commitment to representation, and personal empowerment higher than male cybersecurity students. Those who expressed interest in working in public service careers rated the importance of personal empowerment, collaboration, and physical conditions higher than those seeking careers in private industry.

БАРНА МИКОЛА МИКОЛАЙОВИЧ – ВІДОМИЙ УКРАЇНСЬКИЙ ВЧЕНИЙ–БОТАНІК, ЦИТОЕМБРІОЛОГ, ЗАСЛУЖЕНИЙ ДІЯЧ НАУКИ І ТЕХНІКИ УКРАЇНИ, ПЕДАГОГ

Mykola Mykolaiovych Barna, who celebrated his 85th birthday on February 8, 2023, is a renowned Ukrainian scientist in the fields of botany, morphology, dendrology, and plant cytoembryology. He holds the titles of Academician of the Academy of Sciences of Higher Education of Ukraine, Merited Science and Technology Functionary of Ukraine, Education Excellence of Ukraine, Nature Conservation Excellence of Ukraine, and is an Honorary Member of the Ukrainian Botanical Society. He is also a scholarship holder of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, a Doctor of Biological Sciences, and a Professor at the Department of Botany and Zoology at Ternopil Volodymyr Hnatiuk National Pedagogical University.
 This article highlights Professor’s impressive 62-year career in production, research, education, pedagogy, and public service. He began as a lecturer and senior lecturer at the Department of Botany in 1971, became an associate professor in 1975, and a professor in 1996. He served as the head of the Department of Botany from 2002 to 2012 and as the head of the Department of Botany and Zoology from 2012 to 2014. Additionally, he held positions such as Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences from 1977 to 1985 and Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry and Biology from 1990 to June 2006.
 Professor M. M. Barna’s extensive scholarly output includes over 450 published works, including monographs, bibliographies, dictionaries, scientific publications, educational materials for high and secondary education institutions, and methodological recommendations. He has supervised the defence of seven PhD theses and served as an official opponent at academic councils for the defence of doctoral and PhD theses. He was a member of specialised academic councils at the M. G. Kholodny Institute of Botany of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the National Forestry University of Ukraine. For over two decades, he chaired the editorial board of the specialised scientific publication “Scientific notes of Ternopil Volodymyr Hnatiuk National Pedagogical University. Series: Biology.”
 Professor Barna's contributions also extend to initiatives such as the establishment of the Arboretum of Ternopil State Pedagogical Institute, the creation of the herbarium of the Department of Botany (now the “Herbarium-laboratory of plant morphology and taxonomy”), and the establishment of the laboratory of biology and ecology known as the “Holytskyi biostation of the university.” He played a crucial role in the realisation of the Biblical Botanical Garden on TNPU’s premises, turning this idea into a reality. Professor Mykola Mykolaiovych Barna's lifelong dedication to science and education has left an indelible mark on his field and the academic community.

"Beauty for Ashes": The Role of Mindfulness in Assisting Public Service Employees Undergoing Life and Career Challenges

"Beauty for Ashes": The Role of Mindfulness in Assisting Public Service Employees Undergoing Life and Career Challenges

Gendered student aspirations for public service careers

ABSTRACT This research aims to explore the factors influencing college students’ aspirations for careers in public service. More specifically, we examine how gender impacts public service sector preference, in terms of policy advocacy, government positions, and crime and policing as well as their likelihood to apply for such careers. Given a breadth of literature suggesting that women are averse to applying for competitive positions, we survey undergraduate students using mock-up job announcements with minimum qualifications greater than a bachelor’s degree. We find some differences in sector preferences and find that women were more likely to apply to public service positions upon graduation. Moreover, experiences related to leadership, coursework, family, qualifications, and learning behaviors influenced interest in specific careers and the likelihood of applying to careers in public service.

Empirical study of the factors of career motivation underlying the interest in a career of public administration

Aim: The aim of the study is to reveal the reasons behind the declining interest in the public administration career. The data of the Graduate Career Tracking System shows that a considerable part of the students graduating in relevant fields do not start a career in public administration, or leave the career in a short time. In this study I examine how the career motivation of the concerned young adults affect their intention to find a job in the public administration.Methodology: I conducted the questionary interviews in 2021 during the project of KÖFOP-2.1.5– VEKOP-16-2016-0000 "Strategical support for the personal supplies of the competitive public services". By completing the questionnaire, the participants had to rate it on a four-point Likert scale the carrier motivation factors, their interest in the public service career, the impact of university education and professional practice on interest in public service carrier. 114 students of the Faculty of Public Governance and International Studies of the University of Public Services participated in the study. 65 percent of the participants were female, 35 percent were male. 71 percent of the sample were full-time student, 29 percent were studying in correspondence courses.Findings: In accordance with my hypothesis the outcomes of the study confirmed that the participating students have an external rather than an internal career motivation, which has a negative impact on their interest in the career. The interest of the participants in the public services as a career showed a decreasing trend through their years spent in the university. This effect was most easily captured in the answers of the youngest, full time students. During the research I could identify three ways of motivation: strong, identified and extrinsic. In line with the expectations, the interest for the career of those having extrinsic motivation was the smallest and of those having strong motivation was the greatest.Value: The results of the research contribute to the understanding of the factors that determine the career choice of young employees. However further research is needed to discover why the external motivation of the participants is getting stronger during the years of university studies and how this tendency can be turned.

Veteran Status and Job Candidate Assessments in U.S. Local Governments

Advocates often present veterans as an untapped resource for local governments to boost the public service workforce. However, there is a lack of understanding of how human resource (HR) professionals value military experience when assessing candidate preparedness for a managerial career in public service. We examine how veteran status affects U.S. city and county HR directors’ evaluations of candidates for entry-level managerial positions in local government. Using an experimental design, we randomly assign candidate characteristics of veteran status and gender, and we observe HR directors’ assessments of candidate preparedness. Our findings reveal a premium on veteran status for candidate assessments relative to similar private sector experience in assessments of candidate experience. At the same time, the results are less conclusive when compared to similar public sector experiences. In addition, we find no clear evidence of disparate assessments of candidate preparedness as a function of candidate gender.

The Search for the First Americans: Science, Power, Politics. By Robert V. Davis Jr.

The question of who the First Americans were continues to evolve as new sites are found and dated, sometimes in previously unexplored regions (e.g., the continental shelf), and new technologies employed. Robert Davis offers a fresh take on the extensive and sometimes contradictory literature, on contentious claims, and on different ways of ways of knowing the past. As a non-archaeologist (a Ph.D. in science and technology, and a career in public service with the federal government), he has no vested interest in any particular interpretation. This volume, however, is not a review of the facts, but rather an interrogation of what various beliefs (Indigenous) and lines of evidence (Science) offer—to use Davis’s dichotomy here. He notes “This examination of the search for the First Americans is a case study in the complex relationships between the biological findings of science and the social importance of cultural beliefs” (p. x). This frames his approach, but he states equal interest in the “often fractious relationships across the sciences” and the “hegemonic and often racist assumptions… embedded in how science has been conducted” (p. x). Clearly there is a packed agenda in this volume.

Modelling Australian Public Service Careers

Modelling Australian Public Service Careers

Modelling Australian Public Service Careers

Modelling Australian Public Service Careers

Adaptation of Christian Pacifism by St. Ambrose of Milan in the Context of Christianity's Transformation into the State Religion of the Roman Empire

The theory of just war, its formation and development, in the late 20th — early 21st centuries becomes a popular topic. This is due to ethical paradoxes arising from the constant decline in tolerance to violence in modern society and the need to justify the right of the state to use violence. The focus of our research is the era of the transformation of Christianity into the state religion of Rome in the 4th century, during the reign of Emperor Theodosius the Great. Bishop Ambrose of Milan, who embraced both Roman and Christian traditions at the same time, made a career in public service, a faithful supporter of Theodosius and a minister of the church, left a literary legacy reflecting the complex processes of transformation of Christian anti-state radicalism and pacifism. Ambrose combines Cicero's doctrine of just war, epic admiration for bravery with the demand for Christian humility and self-sacrifice. As a participant in the political process, Ambrose was able to adapt the Christian view.

2022 Zellmer lecturer Krista Pedley reflects on pharmacy as the foundation for public service.

Rear Admiral Krista M. Pedley, assistant surgeon general and director of the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) Office of Special Health Initiatives (OSHI), says the training she received as a pharmacist was the perfect launch pad for her 22-year career in public service. “We are unique,” Pedley told her pharmacy audience September 13 as she delivered ASHP’s William A. Zellmer Lecture in Bethesda, MD. “No matter what role we play, we use our training and foundational values to rise to every occasion.” The William A. Zellmer Lecture Award was established in 2010 to recognize leadership in advancing public policy that improves medication use through the efforts of pharmacists. The annual lecture takes place during Policy Week, when members of ASHP’s policy-recommending councils and the Commission on Affiliate Relations travel to Capitol Hill to advocate for issues important to the pharmacy profession. Policy Week participants also drive the development of ASHP’s professional policies and lay the foundation for ASHP’s advocacy efforts.

Politicisation of the public service during democratic backsliding: Alternative perspectives

AbstractThis Research Note explores the issue of politicisation of the public service against the backdrop of the emergence of populism. A common feature of populist governments is a lack of trust in the civil service and its willingness to implement the populist political project. An important consequence of marginalising the civil service and its expertise in policy making is detrimental to policymaking. Also, increasing politicisation, that is replacing career public servants with people loyal to the populist regime, drains the public service of organisational memory on how to deal with policy issues. However, liberal democracies in many countries, too, have experienced increasing politicisation over the past decade, albeit within the confines of liberal democratic rules and norms. This emerging, more politicised model of the civil service assumes that neutrality can be an impediment to effective governance and that public servants should be committed to the program of the government. The civil service would be expected to support the government of the day actively and energetically, and therefore there would be fewer barriers. Thus, while politicisation in different forms is a feature of both liberal and populist government, the consequences of politicisation are different in the two regimes.Points for practitioners In liberal democracies, the civil service offers expertise to support politicians in the policy‐making process. Populist governments, emphasizing loyalty to the regime more than expertise, tend to increase the number of political appointees in the public service. Most of the populist leaders elected are political outsiders and do not want to be constrained by what they consider to be entrenched and self‐serving elites. The most pressing dangers for liberal democracy are when populist governments consider policies that would change political and social rights. Liberal democratic government, too, have increased political control of the public service although without altering the rules and norms of democratic governance.

The Effect of Veteran Status on Job Candidate Assessments in U.S. Local Governments

Veterans are often framed as an untapped resource for local governments to boost the public service workforce. While past recruitment efforts tend to draw a straight line from military experience to civilian careers in policing and emergency services, it remains unclear how HR professionals, more generally, weigh military experience when assessing candidate preparedness for a managerial career in public service. We examine how veteran status affects U.S. city and county HR directors’ evaluation of candidates for entry-level managerial positions in local government. Using an experimental design, we randomly assign candidate characteristics–veteran vis-à-vis non-veteran status and male vis-à-vis female–and observe HR directors’ assessment of candidate preparedness. Our findings reveal a premium of veteran status on candidate assessments relative to similar private sector experience, while results are less conclusive when the comparison is made to similar public sector experience. Additionally, we find no clear evidence of disparate assessments of candidate preparedness as a function of candidate gender