Organizing Central Government

2020 ◽  
pp. 123-140
Author(s):  
Caroline Howard Grøn ◽  
Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen
Keyword(s):  
Coming Out ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
The Political ◽  
Formal Organization ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
The Way

With the Danish civil service coming out on top in numerous international ratings, it seems worthwhile considering what characterizes the way it works and the central institutions on which it is built. In this chapter, we argue that the Danish central government is built on a relatively weak, formally institutionalized foundation. Rather, we argue that when looking at questions such as formal organization and interactions between politicians and civil servants, we find pragmatic solutions to some of the central challenges. In terms of the size and organization of central government, we find a number of different solutions. In addition, we find an ongoing adjustment of the way civil servants and politicians interact. We discuss this finding and argue that such a pragmatic approach may come with many advantages in terms of day-to-day effectiveness and responsiveness to changing political needs. However, it also demands a lot from the political and administrative actors in the system to ensure that pragmatism does not turn into ‘anything goes’.

Administrative elites in the Netherlands from 1980 to 2011: making the invisible visible

2014 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 726-745 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jos Raadschelders ◽  
Frits M. Van der Meer
Keyword(s):  
Public Management ◽  
New Public Management ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Service Level ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
The Public ◽  
Management Group ◽  
New Public ◽  
Administrative Elites

The Dutch top civil service level has seldom been described in ‘elitist’ terms; befitting a country with a strong egalitarian social culture. Though formally open to outside recruitment, in practice the (top) civil service in central government is a rather closed system. There is relatively little occupational mobility between these civil servants and political officeholders, and virtually none between the public and the private sectors. However, some initiatives have recently been taken to improve this external mobility. New Public Management has had little impact upon the structure and functioning of the Dutch administrative elites. More important for the positioning and functioning of these civil servants has been the creation of the Senior Executive Service, and, within the SES, the top management group. By creating this career system at the very top of the civil service at the central level, the elite nature of the top civil servants has been reinforced. Points for practitioners The structure and functioning of the Dutch civil service has not been influenced by New Public Management (NPM). The rotation of positions at the top, through the Senior Public Service, is mainly inspired by the effort to decrease the compartmentalization of government departments. What has changed is the environment in which higher civil servants work, with Parliament, media and citizens demanding fast and tangible results.

3. The UK government

UK Politics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 45-67
Author(s):  
Andrew Blick
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Uk Government ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Way

This chapter concentrates on the UK government, the part of the UK political system responsible for creating policy and putting it into effect. The chapter looks at the nature of the UK government, and the way it is made up of ministers, and civil servants and departments. The chapter also looks at the types of ministers, their legal and political powers, and the rules applying to them. The chapter assesses the constitutional position of the civil service, and its relationship with ministers and Parliaments. It also describes the departmental structure of the UK government and the so-called arm’s-length bodies within it. The chapter presents a number of perspectives on the way in which power operates within government and considers how the various ideas play out in reality. The chapter revisits the issue of Brexit but this time in the context of the civil services and ministers.

scholarly journals Rethinking the Role of International Civil Service on Sustainable Development in Africa: Issues, Challenges and the Way Forward

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
C.J Igbokwe-Ibeto ◽  
I.L Nnaji
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Common Interest ◽  
Qualitative Research Design ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way ◽  
Group Interests

International civil servants are expected to provide leadership that could translate into practical gains for all human societies across the globe. They are to use their creative talents, knowledge and experience to bring these goals to pass in the life of the people of the world, particularly in developing countries. While they have embraced these goals, the extent to which they have accomplished them is still a matter of debate. Therefore, within the framework of structural-agency theory, the paper examined international civil service (ICS) and sustainable development in Africa with the aim of identifying issues, challenges and the way forward. The article employed the methods of qualitative research design as well as exploratory and descriptive perspectives. The researchers also consulted different sources to ensure quality of the article. Subsequently, relevant sources of this research were fairly and professionally scrutinised, understood and tested with the available literature for the purpose of the research. Inter alia, it included scan-reading, comprehensive and critical reading and writing down ideas. Authoritative scholarly sources were reviewed, during a desktop study. The aim was to identify the relevant publications and apply them in the research. This article argues that international civil servants are expected as a philosophy to pursue the corporate interests of the people rather than their own personal or group interests. This is why they are fondly called servants of the state and the world community respectively.  However, it appears personal and group interests have found its way into common interest. It concludes that if the ICS is to make any impact on the campaign for rapid socio-economic development of the world, the ICSs need to be proactive and interventionist in order to arrest the increasing decline in socio-economic and political development across the globe and most especially in Africa.

Administrative Neutrality in the Wake of Trumpism

2021 ◽  
pp. 009539972110098
Author(s):  
Richard C. Box
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
The Political ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
The Past ◽  
Trump Administration

“Unprecedented” is a much-overworked word in recent descriptions of U.S. politics, but it is difficult to avoid in reflecting on the past 4 years in public administration. Federal civil servants whose work contradicted Trump administration ideology were sidelined, the administration introduced a new employment category that would seriously weaken civil service protections, and government at all levels now functions in an environment of widespread public belief in conspiracy theories and nonfactual disinformation. The article describes changes in the political context of the work of public professionals and examines effects on the important role characteristic of administrative neutrality.

From Office-Holding to Civil Service: the Genesis of Modern Bureaucracy The Prothero Lecture

1980 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 91-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. E. Aylmer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Printing Press ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Characteristic Features ◽  
Competitive Entry

One of the historian's most difficult tasks is to distinguish between mere alterations of idiom, fashion or expression, and substantive changes of attitude and behaviour from one epoch to another. Efficient reforming ministers and officials can be found at work in English central government in (I should guess) every century from the twelfth (if not earlier) to the twentieth. Yet are these men and their achievements as important in explaining the development of administration as technological innovations such as new kinds of paper, the printing press, shorthand writing, the typewriter and the duplicating machine, and finally the telephone and its electronic successors? The most characteristic features of bureaucracy in the everyday, commonsense usage of the term—pen-pushers at desks, jacks-in-office, delays, high-handedness, form-filling, record-keeping, and so on—can of course be found many centuries before there was a modern civil service; that is, one with competitive entry examinations, grades, salaries, security of tenure, retirement pensions and the rest. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the description ‘persons in offices’ or simply ‘officers’ was normal, rather than office-holders, while the designation ‘civil servants’ was slow to take hold even during the nineteenth century.

scholarly journals Divided Culture and Constitutional Tensions: Brexit and the Collision of Direct and Representative Democracy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Blick ◽  
Brian Salter
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Cultural Divide ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Eu Referendum ◽  
The Way

Abstract This article considers connections between two aspects of Brexit: the cultural divide exposed and amplified by the European Union (EU) referendum of 23 June 2016 and the prolonged and intense period of multiple and overlapping constitutional tensions that followed the referendum. The referendum revealed the existence of two contrasting cultural groupings. Each was defined by a cluster of values that extended beyond attitudes towards the particular question of EU membership, and to which issues of citizenship were central. The manifestation and crystallisation of this cultural divide through the direct democracy of the referendum led directly to constitutional turmoil. Parliamentarians as a group found themselves misaligned with those who voted in the referendum producing a conflict between the principles of direct and representative democracy. Brexit has generated tensions between and within different institutions of the constitution and arguments about what the rules were, and what they should be. Areas on which these conflicts and disagreements have focused included the Civil Service, the courts, the Cabinet, Parliament and even the monarchy. The political shock of Brexit, therefore, had inherently constitutional characteristics. They are likely to continue to manifest themselves, shaping the way the constitution operates and changes in future.

Codes of Ethics, Disciplinary Codes, and the Effectiveness of Anti-Corruption Frameworks: Evidence from a Survey of Civil Servants in Poland

2020 ◽  
pp. 0734371X2094942 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling ◽  
Kim Sass Mikkelsen
Keyword(s):  
Civil Service ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Codes Of Ethics ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Ethics Codes

What is the effect of disciplinary codes and codes of ethics on containing corruption in the civil service? We assess whether both tools are effective and whether they interact to reinforce each other. Using a unique survey of central government civil servants from Poland, we find that, where applied in practice, disciplinary and ethics codes reinforce each other to contain kickbacks as one form of corruption in the civil service. By contrast, disciplinary codes and codes of ethics on their own are not strongly associated with kickbacks in central government ministries. The paper concludes that anti-corruption tools work most effectively when managers have multiple consistently implemented tools at their disposal.

scholarly journals DAMPAK PELANGGARAN ASN ATAS SE Menteri PANRB N0. B/2355/M.PANRB/07/2015 DALAM LAYANAN BIROKRASI

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
Syaefullah
Keyword(s):  
Civil Service ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Code Of Ethics ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
The Political ◽  
Service Agency ◽  
Dominant Group ◽  
Government Bureaucracy ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Government

The side of the government bureaucracy to the political power or the dominant group makes the bureaucracy not sterile. Many viruses continue to irritate it like; impartial service, far from objectivity, too bureaucratic, etc., as a result they feel stronger themselves, immune from supervision. The descriptions above may be concluded that the neutrality of the bureaucracy will always be associated with political elements and political power; in this case the political element is defined as the power to make decisions, while the political power is all political aggression in the form of political parties. With the issuance of Law Number 5 of 2014 concerning ASN, in which the law has been regulated and determined in the form of restrictions and sanctions that will be received by a member of the ASN Public Servants and Government Employees with this Work Agreement (PPPK). By looking at the phenomena or opinions above, the writer tries to give a little review of the various impacts that will occur on the roles and functions of civil servants ASN and PPPK if they are not neutral in bureaucratic services as follows: 1. Community interests are distorted, 2 Services are not optimal, 3. Position placement tends to see the involvement in the election, 4. The position of the bureaucracy is filled by incompetent civil servants. That in order to maintain the neutrality of ASN in the election, it is very necessary: There is a strengthening of the ASN Code of Ethics with clear and firm limitations, There is a guarantee of protection in maintaining the neutrality of ASN; Collaboration with BKN is established to provide administrative sanctions in the form of not being promoted to ASN, Construction of KASN cooperation, Regional Civil Service Agency (BKN) with Regional Civil Service Agency (BKD) as a source of information in the regions, and Bawaslu to oversee the election and election throughout the Republic of Indonesia. Access to reporting or advocacy on issues of centralization in all parts of Indonesia, as well as guarantees for reporters;

Leone de' Sommi and Jewish Theatre in Renaissance Mantua

2009 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-19
Author(s):  
Donald Beecher
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Social Negotiations ◽  
Renaissance Artist ◽  
The Way

This is a study of a Renaissance artist and his patrons, but with an added complication, insofar as Leone de' Sommi, the gifted academician and playwright in the employ of the dukes of Mantua in the second half of the sixteenth century, was Jewish and a lifelong promoter and protector of his community. The article deals with the complex relationship between the court and the Jewish "università" concerning the drama and the way in which dramatic performances also became part of the political, judicial and social negotiations between the two parties, as well as a study of Leone's role as playwright and negotiator during a period that was arguably one of the best of times for the Jews of Mantua.

“I'd make thee eat the mischief thou hast vented”: Discourse of Law in Ben Jonson's Catiline His Conspiracy

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-45
Author(s):  
Akihiko Shimizu
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Gunpowder Plot ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
Legal Procedures ◽  
The Way

This essay explores the discourse of law that constitutes the controversial apprehension of Cicero's issuing of the ultimate decree of the Senate (senatus consultum ultimum) in Catiline. The play juxtaposes the struggle of Cicero, whose moral character and legitimacy are at stake in regards to the extra-legal uses of espionage, with the supposedly mischievous Catilinarians who appear to observe legal procedures more carefully throughout their plot. To mitigate this ambivalence, the play defends Cicero's actions by depicting the way in which Cicero establishes the rhetoric of public counsel to convince the citizens of his legitimacy in his unprecedented dealing with Catiline. To understand the contemporaneousness of Catiline, I will explore the way the play integrates the early modern discourses of counsel and the legal maxim of ‘better to suffer an inconvenience than mischief,’ suggesting Jonson's subtle sensibility towards King James's legal reformation which aimed to establish and deploy monarchical authority in the state of emergency (such as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605). The play's climactic trial scene highlights the display of the collected evidence, such as hand-written letters and the testimonies obtained through Cicero's spies, the Allbroges, as proof of Catiline's mischievous character. I argue that the tactical negotiating skills of the virtuous and vicious characters rely heavily on the effective use of rhetoric exemplified by both the political discourse of classical Rome and the legal discourse of Tudor and Jacobean England.

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