The Politics of Appointment of Top Civil Servants: Career Backgrounds and Civil Service Politicization in the Czech Republic

This contribution seeks to answer the question whether the new civil service legislation that entered into force in 2015 in the Czech Republic led to the depoliticization of the country’s ministerial bureaucracy. To that end, we compare the career backgrounds of top civil servants before and after the entry into force of the new Civil Service Act. The article examines the career backgrounds of the persons appointed as ministerial deputies between 2013 and 2018, focusing on their last “pre-deputy” jobs and considering a broader set of their career attributes. A focus on the previous job reveals that even before the law was introduced, bureaucrats constituted the largest share of appointees, and their share even increased with the new legislation. The incidence of deputies appointed directly from party-related jobs dropped considerably. However, when a broader set of career attributes is considered, the share of partisans among the pre-2015 deputies nearly matches that of the career bureaucrats. Ostensibly political careers among the post-2015 deputies declined but remain significant. Hence, there has been a decline in the open politicization of the ministerial bureaucracy after 2015. Party political effects also matter, as the new ANO party, after entering the executive, has taken a different approach to top bureaucratic appointments than the other major governing Czech parties. Typically, deputies appointed into the positions under the ANO’s control would not have links to the party itself but would be recruited via non-party channels, e.g. from pre-political networks of the ANO ministers and leaders. Consequently, though less politicized by party agents, the current Czech system is more a product of choices made by government ministers of the day than a stable arrangement resulting from firmly established norms and rules.

«To the table and to the apartment»: additional payments to dignitaries of Nicholas I

The article is devoted to the analysis of additional monetary payments for the higher bureaucracy of the Russian Empire of Alexander I and Nicholas I. this issue is not sufficiently studied in domestic and foreign historiography. Researchers either did not specifically consider additional monetary payments, or did not allocate a specific group of Ministerial bureaucracy. The Ministers, together with the Emperor, determined the political course, and as the permanent entourage of the monarch, they formed the “face” of the reign. Under Nicholas I, many Ministers held high positions for more than 10 years. The basis of monetary income of Russian officials was a salary by rank or position. In addition, there were additional payments: canteens, apartments, runs, and other money. For Junior officials, the amount of these payments was strictly regulated. For Ministers and adjutants-General, it depended on the Emperor’s attention to a particular person. In the article, special attention is paid to the Minister of state property P. D. Kiselev as a fairly typical figure for the era of Nicholas I. Additional payments to P. D. Kiselev can be compared with the amount of the annual salary. The basis of its capital was a one-time grant of 600,000 piastres as a reward for the administration of Moldova and Wallachia, which turned the average local nobleman into a rich nobleman. Despite legal regulations that set the Ministerial salary, Ministers of equal rank could receive different salaries and additional payments. Dependence on cash payments were made by the Russian Ministers from the nobles to officials. This indicates the gradual modernization of the state apparatus of the Russian Empire, the formation of a regular bureaucracy.

Funkenschlag zwischen Wissen und Macht

This study conducts a systematic analysis of the processes involved in, effects of and challenges posed byacademic consulting in German foreign policy, based on 24 guided interviews with experts. For this purpose, what these leading figures from politics, ministerial bureaucracy and consulting say allows the author to reconstruct their involvement in the aforementioned consulting. In the course of this analysis, the study does not focus solely on the situation in the consulting industry that it highlights, but recommends consultants a series of courses of action, which endows the study with great practical relevance. This complements the study's aim by providing a consulting model devised by the author which is in line with the ideas of American pragmatism, to which the author continuously links the study's findings with the aid of the methodology of grounded theory. In this way, he is able to productively combine a sound theoretical basis with practical conclusions, which makes this book incredibly relevant for all those working in consulting.

Culinary Politics in Japan: The Shokuiku Campaign

In 2005, the Basic Law of Food Education (shokuiku kihon-hō) was enacted in Japan in response to a rise of lifestyle-related conditions and a high dependency on food imports. The enactment of this law was followed by a nationwide food education campaign—referred to as the shokuiku campaign—in collaboration with the ministerial bureaucracy and a number of food-related NGOs. In this article I assess how the Japanese state has revived the historical concept of food education (shokuiku) in the wider context of food governance. Shokuiku originated in the Meiji period (1868–1912) when food education provided nutritional guidelines that sought to enable Japanese citizens to cope with the demands of modernity. These objectives have shifted. The current revival of shokuiku is an anti-globalization force that seeks to improve the nation's eating habits and support ailing rural economies.

Ensuring political responsiveness: politicization mechanisms in ministerial bureaucracies

Although politicization is a perennial research topic in public administration to investigate relationships between ministers and civil servants, the concept still lacks clarification. This article contributes to this literature by systematically identifying different conceptualizations of politicization and suggests a typology including three politicization mechanisms to strengthen the political responsiveness of the ministerial bureaucracy: formal, functional and administrative politicization. The typology is empirically validated through a comparative case analysis of politicization mechanisms in Germany, Belgium, the UK and Denmark. The empirical analysis further refines the general idea of Western democracies becoming ‘simply’ more politicized, by illustrating how some politicization mechanisms do not continue to increase, but stabilize – at least for the time being. Points for practitioners The claim of increasing politicization of the interaction between ministers and civil servants is often made in research and government practice. As the completely neutral bureaucracy is a myth rather than empirical reality, all democracies have to balance demands for both neutral expertise and political responsiveness. The latter often involves the introduction of politicization mechanisms. Politicization comes in a variety of forms, and the article develops a typology covering formal, functional and administrative politicization. Further it empirically demonstrates how politicization mechanisms not only increase, but how they develop and interact, altering balances of neutrality and responsiveness in potentially conflicting ways.

German Social Stratification

This chapter discusses social stratification in Nazi Germany. Since the abolition of all popular representation, the political decisions in Germany were reached by compromises between the leadership of the Nazi Party, the Army, the ministerial bureaucracy, and the representatives of certain powerful business groups. The economic groups usually kept in the background, although their voice in the fundamental decisions of policy-making was just as strong as, and perhaps even stronger than, that of the government (state and Party). The chapter provides an overview of five ruling groups in Nazi Germany: the leadership of the Nazi Party and affiliated organizations; the top strata of the governmental and political bureaucracy; the High Command of the Armed Forces and its representatives; the leadership of big business; and the landed aristocracy. It also looks at the ruled social groups, which include artisans, civil servants, and peasants.