Higher Civil Service Research Articles

Symposium Introduction: Competency and Higher Civil Servants

‘Competency’ is a word that seems to have crept into the language of public administration and policy relatively recently, although largely under the radar of academic scholarship in Europe. This article introduces a symposium of papers that address key questions about competency management: how and why has it become popular and what are the implications of the spread of ‘competency’ approaches? As the introductory paper, it outlines the intellectual background to competency approaches and outlines three interpretations of their development. One interpretation sees them as a passing fad; a ‘difference’ interpretation sees them as a common label for widely varying patterns and practices; and a ‘sameness’ interpretation treats competency management as a symptom of broader politico-administrative developments.

Book Review: Recasting West German Élites: Higher Civil Servants, Business Leaders and Physicians in Hesse between Nazism and Democracy, 1945-1955

Book Review: Recasting West German Élites: Higher Civil Servants, Business Leaders and Physicians in Hesse between Nazism and Democracy, 1945-1955

Is There a Premium for Elite College Education: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Japan

In a dramatic move to confront the prolonged and often violent student protests, the Japanese government ordered that every student repeat the school year at the University of Tokyo in 1969. The directive had the inadvertent effect of denying those graduating from high school in that year an opportunity to seek admission to the nation's foremost institution of higher education. This paper uses the highly unusual event as a natural experiment to examine whether graduates from the elite Tokyo university receive a preferential treatment in hiring and promotion in the high civil service. The University of Tokyo traditionally predominates as the chief supplier of elite bureaucrats. As a result of the 1969 incident, however, the entering class in the high civil service four years later in 1973 contained a significantly lower proportion of graduates from the University of Tokyo than in usual years. Comparing the career experiences of the entering class of 1973 with those of adjacent entry cohorts, we do find some evidence that where one went to school may matter in the hiring stage, but no significant evidence for a similar favoritism in promotion in later stages.

La « première » école nationale d'administration

ENA was born with the Liberation. Founded on a critique of the former regime, its aim was to unify the recruitment of the state’s high civil servants, to make it more democratic, and to renew the training program. From 1946 to 1958 ENA underwent no fundamental changes, thanks to a stable team of directors ; during that period the humanistic spirit of the Liberation prevailed, along with a profile of broad, general knowledge. Nonetheless, due to factors outside the school — the popularity of communism in particular — changes were soon to appear. Other recurrent problems also emerged, among them the difficulty of conciliating ranking with training.

Echoes of Administrative History: Three Cadences

Works by Samuel Finer, Oliver MacDonagh and Maurice Wright illustrate different dimensions of influence in the genre of administrative history. In chronicling the deeds of Sir Edwin Chadwick, a high profile nineteenth century civil servant, Finer demonstrated the purchase of (Benthamite) ideas upon the role and organization of government. No less so he set new standards in administrative biography, mobilising a wide range of primary and secondary sources. Oliver MacDonagh's contribution to administrative history was not so much a body of empirical material as an explanatory tool. Whatever its weaknesses, his model of government growth stoked controversy, providing a foil for his critics as well as inspiration for his advocates. The simple elegance of his model as an ‘ideal type’ gave it an extensive applicability beyond the period for which it was developed. Maurice Wright's work on the mid-nineteenth century Treasury was more in the Finer mould, setting new standards for the study of public agencies, based as it was upon a careful sifting of archive sources. Thus he successfully challenged previously held assumptions about the ability of the Treasury to control an important area of public expenditure. No serious scholar ever again took Treasury power at face value.

Anticipating Change in the Higher Civil Service: Affective Commitment, Organizational Ideology, and Political Ideology

Although both academics and practitioners recognize that relationships exist between cultural predisposition and support for reform, few attempts have been made in the public sector to gauge them. This study applies the concepts affective commitment, organizational ideology,and political ideology, as established in the organizational behavior literature, to data taken from higher-level federal civil servants at the inception of the Clinton Administration's National Performance Review (NPR). Quantitative analyses confirm the importance of affective commitment to support for NPR and demonstrate that affective commitment varies greatly with organizational type. The study also lends credence to the hypothesis that strong ideologies can prove resistant to induced change. Political ideology appears a relevant factor but only in select agency cultures.

Asia's Influence on Public Administration in the West

Those who hold top career administrative posts in most governments throughout the world are selected through highly competitive examinations. They form a prestigious cadre to which a nation's highest achievers aspire. Indeed, at the core of most developed, and many developing, political systems, is a bureaucracy headed by a “higher civil service, ”which we define as an elite corps of career public officials who fill key positions in governmental administration. Even militarily dominated polities often depend on a higher civil service at the apex of their administrative structures. Most of the highest civil servants are generalists, but technological developments have speeded their decline and the rise of specialists among them. In the United States, even a nominal higher civil service was not authorized until the Senior Executive Service was created by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, long after most countries formed such a system. In this paper, we trace the historical evolution elsewhere of higher civil service systems both to determine their influence on the United States and to understand better the peculiarities of the U.S. system.

Auschwitz, 1270 to the Present (review)

Book Reviews 161 advantage). And both Nazis and fascists harbored expansionist, imperial ambitions which the pacifist-minded French never indulged to the same degree. That said, many a reader will conclude that Winock's French-style authoritarian Nationalism still stands in close relation to fascism. The movements may not have been fraternal, but they did bear a striking family resemblance, sharing numerous common traits: a revulsion for democratic government, a taste for hierarchy and authority, a cult of leadership, and a willingness to use violence to exclude undesirables. The identity of the undesirables might have varied: the Italians worried less about Freemasons and Jews than the French. But they did not vary that much. Nationalist and fascist alike nursed a visceral hatred of communism, social democracy, and liberalism. The states ofcontinental Europe spawned a variety ofauthoritarian forms in the interwar decades: fascism, Nazism, Francoism, Salazarism. FrenchNationalism, while not identical to any one of these, deserves to be counted among their number. It is worth emphasizing, moreover, that French Nationalism was no marginal phenomenon. Winock discusses the Nationalist leagues and newspapers of the 1930s, which enjoyed a popular following comparable in size to that of socialism or communism. He is less concerned with the penetration of Nationalist ideas in elite milieux, among higher civil servants, Catholic clergymen, military officers, and businessmen. Yet the phenomenon was a significant one, as attested by the prominent role such elites played in the Vichy regime of Mart~chal Philippe petain. So, while Winock may be right to chip away at Sternhell's notion ofa "fascist impregnation," it still remains possible to speak of a Nationalist impregnation. Winock's effort to distinguish his vision of French Right-wing politics from Sternhell's works, but only up to a point. The distance between the two positions shrinks when the anti-democratic, anti-communist, and authoritarian characterofFrench Nationalism is stressed, when its power to attract a combination of popular and elite backing is highlighted. The nature ofthe modem French Right remains a troubled and troubling subject. For an accessible introduction to the debates in the field, Winock's book is an excellent place to begin. He takes a strong stand which prompts reflection and commands respect, even if it does not persuade in every detail. Philip Nord Princeton University Auschwitz, 1270 to the Present, by DebOrah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. 443 pp. $22.50. The Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp began as aPolish labor exchange. Later the Polish army commandeeredthe facilities for soldiers' barracks. The Webrmacht took over after the invasion of Poland in September, but, on 27 April 1940, leased it to the 162 SHOFAR Summer 2000 Vol. 18, No.4 Schutzstaffel for use as a holding pen for recalcitrant Poles pending their transfer to work camps. The new S.S. owners soon changed the temporary detention center into a permanent concentration camp. Materials at first were in such short supply that camp commander RudolfHoss even had to scrounge around for enough barbed wire to secure the camp's perimeter. Hoss also commissioned the camp's most lasting symbol: the forged-iron entrance gate with the infamous words "Arbeit machtfrei" (Work leads to freedom)-a false promise, to be sure, but one which underlined the camp's initial purpose. The Auschwitz area, which had not been part ofthe German Reich since 1457, now became part ofthe newly created province ofUpper Silesia. The area would be cleared of its native inhabitants and prepared for German "resettlement." Its resources would be exploited. Thus the concentration camp became a center for the extraction ofnearby sand and gravel resources, raw materials intended for Third-Reich building projects. Butjust as Auschwitz was acquiring a new present it also had a past, one stretching back 700 years, a past which, according to Dwork and van Pelt in this monumental study, coincided neatly with the Germanpassion for Drang aus Osten. Expansion to the East had its soul in "a return to the pristine, lost past of the Teutonic Order and Frederick the Great, and heralded a paradise to be regained." The First World War, the authors claim, made such imperium irresistible: "Many Germans believed that large annexations...

Assessing Moral Values for Higher Civil Service Selections in India

Assessing Moral Values for Higher Civil Service Selections in India

Romano Guardini: A Precursor of Vatican II by Robert A. Krieg, C.S.C.

BOOK reviews313 In order to comprehend the Republican anticlericalism in France, Larkin made an exhaustive study of the Vatican,Jesuit, Assumptionist, and French National Archives as well as the archives of the Grand Orient. The result is a detailed account of Vatican policy under Popes Leo XIII and Pius X. Leo XIII followed a policy of ralliement with republican France in the hope that France would aid him in regaining the papal territories lost in 1870. Pius X and his Secretary of State Raphael Merry del VaI followed a policy of seeking an accommodation with Italy rather than France. This policy created great difficulties for the French Church at the very moment of the crisis in the French Church over separation of church and state. Larkin's basic conclusion is that the French governmental policy aimed at keeping the prefectoral corps free of committed Catholics and this extended also to the ministries of Interior and Justice. Promotions of committed Catholics into ministries which required expertise such as public works, finance , commerce, andponts et chaussées were not so restricted. The army was a special case as at the beginning of the wave of anticlericalism there were large numbers of Catholic officers. It took major efforts of staunch republican officers to somewhat redress the balance. Throughout all of this period there were numerous notations in the personnel files describing the private lives of the officers in question as well as their wives and children. Of special interest was whether they educated their children in private or public schools. One conclusion is certain: Protestants and Jews were overrepresented in the higher civil service and Catholics grievously underrepresented. The author writes in a clear and forceful, often witty, style which is a joy to read. This valuable, well-researched, and remarkable work clarifies the churchstate problem such as the attitudes of the Vatican, the role of the Grand Orient in supporting republican policies, especially in the Affaire desfiches of 1904. The attitudes of Waldeck-Rousseau and Emile Combes in purging the civil service of practicing Catholics is well treated as is the complex role of Vichy. Walter D. Gray Loyola University Chicago (Emeritus) Romano Guardini:A Precursor ofVatican II. By Robert A. Krieg, CS.C. (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. 1997. Pp. vii, 270. $18.00 paperback.) The Italian-German theologian Romano Guardini (1885-1968) was an influential figure in the formative stages of the liturgical movement and a prominent contributor to the modern renewal of ecclesiology. As professor of Catholic Weltanschauung at the Universities of Berlin (1923-1939), Tübingen (19451948 ), and Munich (1948-1962), he held a series of specially designed appointments which both required and allowed him to teach outside the parameters of 314BOOK REVIEWS standard theological programs. Guardini developed a pattern of lecturing regularly on three distinct sets of topics: major themes of ethics and Christian anthropology ; the New Testament, not in a technical exegetical sense, but through reflections of a meditative nature; and interpretations of philosophical or literary texts of religious significance. This wide-ranging activity led to prolific publication , much of which was translated into the major Western languages, with the result that Guardini became one of the most widely read Catholic religious authors of the first half of the twentieth century. Interest in Guardini has subsided in North America, though the centenary of his birth and the publication of several dissertations have spurred renewed attention to his work in the German-speaking world.Yet the historical impact of his thinking on the Church remains significant. For these reasons, Robert Krieg, professor of theology in the University of Notre Dame and author of Karl Adam: Catholicism in German Culture (University of Notre Dame Press, 1992), seeks to introduce this prominent theologian to a late twentieth-century North American audience. After an introduction providing basic biographical information and locating Guardini theologically between Vatican Councils I and II, successive thematic chapters present his thought on seven topics of interest: revelation, the Church, the liturgy, faith and literature, Nazism, Jesus Christ, and the modern world. The usual pattern is to depict the historical and theological context of an aspect of Guardini's life and work, present (sometimes...

Réflexions sur les relations entre politique et administration en Afrique

Reflection on the Politics and Administration Nexus in Africa This paper reviews the problems posed at the interface between politicians and higher civil servants in Sub-Saharan African countries since independence. It argues that there has been more continuity than change in the patterns of relationships. Although the attempts to promote "unified" politico-administrative elites minimised conflicts in some countries during the single party era, it was at the expense of adequate development and utilisation of technical competence. In the other countries where separate domains of "political judgement" and "technical expertise" were recognised, neither was adequately developed in most cases, and the phenomenon of collusion in corrupt practices was widespread. Some of these problems have persisted while some changes are beginning to take root because of the emphasis on sound economic policies, political pluralism, and citizen empowerment.

East End, West End: Science Education, Culture and Class in Mid-Victorian London

In early nineteenth-century London scientific activity was located mainly in two areas, Westminster and the City. Westminster, with its learned societies, was the focal point of a largely gentlemanly science founded upon the expertise of the Westminster scientific elite, the gentleman scientists and the skilled Westminster artisans. In the city, the Guilds promoted instruction serving the many technically based manufacturing industries that existed in London’s East End, an area that was also home to a number of scientific societies and clubs serving the interests of those in the various trades. In the aftermath of the 1851 and 1867 Exhibitions, with a growing awareness of foreign competition in trade and industry, there was much pressure on the government to promote higher education in the sciences. This paper examines the cultural identities of three of London’s mid-nineteenth-century scientific educational institutions, two located in the West End, the Royal College of Chemistry and the Royal School of Mines as well as the City and Guilds of London Institute, located in the East End. In comparing them it will be shown that while the West End institutions show the infusion of gentlemanly ideals held by members of the government, high civil servants and the members of learned societies located near by, and the East End institution shows something of guild and trades ideals, their scientific cultures cannot be easily demarcated. These cultures were hybrids in which various shared ideals, differently weighted, were represented.

Whitehall's Disobedient Servants? Senior Officials' Potential Resistance to Ministers in British Government Departments

British civil servants have a clear constitutional duty to obey their ministers. Yet civil servants may be confronted with situations in which they believe, on the basis of their knowledge or expertise, that the course of action a minister favours would have sharply damaging consequences for the government or the country. What should higher civil servants do then? We use data gathered in two rounds of interviews with senior civil servants (Grades 1–3) in 1989–90 and 1993–94 to explore how far civil servants feel able to go in challenging either inappropriate ministerial requests for services or policies they believe to be sharply damaging. Senior civil servants are divided on the appropriate course of action in such circumstances.

The Higher Civil Service in the United States: Quest for Reform. By Mark W. Huddleston and William W. Boyer. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996. 229p. $49.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.

The Higher Civil Service in the United States: Quest for Reform. By Mark W. Huddleston and William W. Boyer. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996. 229p. $49.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.

Book Review: The Elite of the Elite: Permanent secretaries in the British higher Civil Service

Book Review: The Elite of the Elite: Permanent secretaries in the British higher Civil Service

Political appointees vs. career civil servants: A multiple principals theory of political bureaucracies

This paper analyzes a multiperiod delegation model with two principals and an agent. The purpose of the model is to explore the determinants of civil service structure, in particular, the use of political appointees (short lived agents) vs. civil servants (long lived agents). We see this process as a bargaining problem between two principals, Congress, a long lived principal, and the President, a short lived one. Our model is consistent with three aspects of the U.S. Civil Service: its evolution during this century, the high proportion of political appointees in the higher civil service with respect to its counterparts in occidental democracies with parliamentary systems, and the different scope of civil service coverage in local governments in the United States. We argue that these differences in the organization of civil services across countries and over time can be understood as the result of a game among multiple principals for the control of the bureaucracy, with the main determinants being the extent by which the legislative and executive bodies are aligned in their interests, who is politically more powerful, whether they have different political horizons, and to what extent political parties control their representatives at both the executive and legislative bodies. We model this interaction by letting the principals have different horizons. One principal lives through the entire game and faces a series of short lived principals. The emphasis of the model is on the choice of the agent, who can be either short or long lived. We analyze the optimal agent type from the perspective of each of the principals. Since a longer horizon agent can be better controlled by the long lived principal, the latter will prefer a long lived agent. The short lived principals, on the other hand, may prefer short or long lived agents. We show that if the two types of principals have opposed preferences in relation to the outcome of the agent's action, then the short lived principals will prefer a short lived agent. Otherwise, the short lived principal alive in the first period will also prefer long lived agents.

European dimensions of Finnish culture: A survey of international and European orientation of Finnish intellectuals

Abstract In‐depth interviews were used to explore the “Finnishness” and “Europeanness” of two generations of Finnish intellectuals and a comparison group of higher civil servants. Respondents (20 from each group) were asked to describe along ten dimensions of values and life‐style: (1) their national stereotypes of Finns and Finland and (2) their own trans‐cultural self‐identifications, in comparison with other peoples and cultures. Many traits were considered “genuinely Finnish”, yet an overall pattern of “Finnishness” with German working morale, “Nordic” official behavior, “Byzantine” politics and Western European lifestyle and arts emerged. Older intellectuals emphasized the Eastern (Russian) traits of Finnish values and life‐style, while younger intellectuals were more oriented to American and general cosmopolitan ways of life.

LES HAUTS FONCTIONNAIRES EN BADE PENDANT LA PREMIÈRE MOITIÉ DU XIXE SIÈCLE: RECRUTEMENT, CARRIÈRE ET ORIGINE SOCIALE

The author describes the way in which candidates entered the higher state administration in the German states during the first half of the nineteenth century. In the Grand‐Duchy of Baden a fifteen‐year training period was introduced in the beginning of the century (secondary education, university studies in law and an apprenticeship, each with a final examination). On the basis of examination documents and personal records it can be proved that the test results were of no importance for the appointment or the further career. The training period and examinations were only there in order to limit the number of candidates for the Civil Service. Appointment and career development of the higher civil servants depended on their practical skills and their relations to the Court, ministers and senior staff.

The national school of public administration in greece: A preliminary comparative study

This preliminary study seeks to identify some of the factors responsible for the hitherto limited success of the National School of Public Administration in Greece, which became operational in 1985. The School, modeled after the National School of Public Administration (ENA) in France, annually accepts into its four specialized tracks with their common core curriculum both civil servants and private citizens who succeed in its rigorous entrance competitions. The School represents an effort to identify administrative talent and offer specialized training in public administration toward upgrading the administrative capabilities of the Greek civil service. Some tentative conclusions point out that the limited success of the School is associated with its brief life span, its only partial acceptance by the unions of higher civil servants, its relatively legalistic program orientation, its inadequate emphasis on internships or learning by doing, the non-strategic placement of graduates, and the absence of an id...

Toward Gender Equality in the Korean Civil Service

This study examines public employment practices in contemporary Korea based on gender. Findings show that women are poorly represented in the Korean civil service. Although the distribution of women civil servants is increasing in the civil service as a whole, women are greatly under-represented in the higher levels. The ratio of females to males in the upper levels of civil service has not changed over time, and higher civil service positions are still overwhelmingly held by men in the General Service. Most women workers are concentrated at lower levels and segregated in traditionally women-oriented workplaces. Thus, it is necessary to recognize the need for equitable solutions to problems experienced differently by men and women in the Korean public sector. In addition, a brief review of the Japanese civil service is included for a cross-national comparison.