From public administration to public management and to governance - the implications for

After the Second World War, the tasks of the state evolved (especially in the social and education sector) and more and more people were recruited as civil servants. Consequently, public employment reached a new peak in the late 1970s and early 1980s. However, as a consequence of broadening the public sector, it also became less clear why civil service positions should be treated differently to those in the private sector. In fact, citizens, media and politicians have expressed more and more dissatisfaction with the public sector in general and campaign against the bureaucrats and expensive, slow, inefficient, and unresponsive bureaucracies. As a result, it has become increasingly difficult to argue why certain features of the traditional public services, such as pay, social security, working conditions, working

67 Guy Adams/Danny L. Balfour, In the face of administrative evil: Finding basis for ethics. In Jay M.

Shafritz/Albert C. Hyde, Classics of public administration, Sixth Edition, 2008, p. 566; Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil, Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2008.

time, the right to strike and social dialogue, etc., should be distinct from those in the private sector.

Today, as a consequence of growing criticism against the classical bureaucratic systems, no national administration represents the classical bureaucratic model anymore. In fact, the trend is clearly towards post-bureaucratic systems.

Table 5. Traditional bureaucracy: post-bureaucracy continuum score by EU Member State

0% = traditional bureaucracy, 100% = post-bureaucracy

Member State Score

Greece 7.2 Luxembourg 7.2 Cyprus 9.8 Ireland 13.6 Portugal 16.3 France 16.3 Germany 16.6 Belgium 18.6 Spain 19.1 Romania 19.8 Italy 20.4 Hungary 22.9 Austria 23.7 Lithuania 24.3 Poland 27.7 Bulgaria 28.9 Malta 29.3 Slovenia 29.5 Estonia (*) 38.8 Latvia (*) 40.2 Netherlands (*) 47.1 Slovakia (*) 51.0 Finland (*) 53.4 United Kingdom (*) 64.1 Denmark (*) 68.2 Czech Republic (*) 73.0

Sweden (*)

Mean 32.2

(*) Non-career system country

Source: Christoph Demmke/Timo Moilanen, Civil Services in the EU of 27, 2010

As we have seen, for a long time, discussions about the “status” were closely linked to the legitimacy of the civil service, hierarchical steering, obedience, loyalty and the rule of law.

These values and principles have a long history. However, in the course of time, other values and principles have become more important: efficiency, decentralization, responsibilisation, openness, “citizen orientation and – even more - performance. “To say that public organizations are under more pressure than ever to demonstrate performance is a cliché, but like many clichés, it is grounded in reality”⁶⁸.

In the meantime, more Member States also share the opinion that work in central public administrations is just an important profession like any other important profession. And, it is not of a higher value than other jobs (see chapter above). Also perceptions of administrative behavior have changed: Today, work in the public service is also much more complex and no longer dominated by the principle of rationality and hierarchy as Weber predicted. Moreover, most of the work carried out by the public servants should serve a variety of masters, but foremost the citizenry (and not exclusively the state (Leviathan)).

To state that the times of the traditional bureaucracy are over is tempting. In fact, it is highly unlikely that the traditional bureaucracy is coming back. However, it cannot be excluded that specific principles and aspects may return to the agenda. For example, the current trend towards decentralisation and fragmentation has resulted in new discussions about the need for a new public service ethos and more centralization and coordination in HR management, at least in some countries. Recently, the Member States have started adopting a model that balances centralized and decentralized delivery of human resources – shared services⁶⁹. Still, little is known about successes and failures of this instrument.

Much depends on the outcomes of reforms. In fact, many post-bureaucratic reforms in the national civil services do not show clear and positive results. Whereas some reform trends produce improvements, others simply bring about alternation or even deteriorations of working conditions and reform results. Thus, the reform outcomes do not indicate that the post-bureaucratic times are much better - in many cases they are simply different. The future will be a constant strive towards finding the right balance amongst competing values and principles: between standardisation and citizen-orientation, flexibility and the need for stability, autonomy, individualism and fairness, centralisation and decentralisation, secrecy and openness, hierarchy and responsibilisation, the call for new rules and deregulation, individual performance and equality etc.

68 Donald P. Moynihan, Identifying the Antecedents to Government Performance: Implications for Human Resource Management, in: Peters/Pieere, Handbbok of Public Administration, op cit, p. 71.

69 Sally Coleman Selden/Robert Wooters, Structures in Public Human Resource Nanagement: Shared Services in State Government, in: Review of Public Personnel Administration, Vol. 31, No. 4, December 2011, p. 350.

Figure 1. Relationship between the traditional bureaucracy - post-bureaucracy continuum and the corruption perception index

However, despite new uncertainties as to the effects of new NPM-reforms, most of the experts agree that also classical bureaucratic career systems have not reached their main objective at all. One of the main reason for the establishment of specific civil service systems and the need for a civil service status was to shield governmental employees from the influence of individual interests, reduce corruption and shield public employees from potential conflicts of interest. However, in the meantime, evidence has shown that classical civil service systems are not less corrupt and less politicized than “aligned” systems. In fact, the underlying reasons for corruption are less linked to institutional structures but instead to administrative culture, working conditions, leadership styles, fairness perceptions etc.

On the other hand, in those Member States where the differences between the public and private sector employment have been abolished or almost abolished, the legal status of public employees has little or no impact on the loyalty of the civil servant. This is because it would be wrong to assume that a public law status and specific organisational structures and working conditions automatically have a direct impact on individual behaviour. However, some Member States share the opinion that there is a direct link between the special status of civil servants, job security and principles such as loyalty, neutrality and impartiality.