Is there space for senior civil servants hybrid management models across political- administrative systems?

Abstract

Bureaucracy is, nowadays, synonymous with inefficiency, ineffectiveness, impersonality, stiffness as well as selessness, wastefulness or even corruption. Despite the negative connotation of the word bureaucracy is in fact an essential structure for the implementation of public policies. It is difficult to conceptualize a governmental model without the existence of such a structure. Therefore, the question that remains up to date since the end of the nineteenth century has to do with the balance and relationship of political and administrative powers. Formally, there is a clear separation between the political and the administrative functions and roles. However, in practice, this crystal relationship gives place to a more complex reality according to the specificities of each country. Taking this into consideration, this paper analyzes the evolution of the senior civil servants selection processes according to the main models of State and Administration. Other aspects addressed include the political-administrative dichotomy and the relationships between administrative actors (traditionally selected for a long period) and political actors (elected for a short period by citizens). Although these relationships are, in a theoretical approach, quite clear and “crystal”, according to the formal tasks of each actor, in practice they are not clear and these two actors are mutually dependent: political actors rely on civil servants’ knowledge and civil servants are under the authority of elected politicians. This issue is relevant when analyzing both the legitimacy of the civil servants’ power and their independence and neutrality towards political bodies. Firstly, it poses the question of democratic legitimacy, considering that senior civil servants hold some informal power that can influence and determine the design, implementation and evaluation of public policies and, consequently, its original meaning. Secondly, it raises issues of administrative neutrality and independence because, in a limit situation, the proximity and inter-permeability relations between political and administrative actors enhance the discussion about the administration impartiality as well as the socia representativeness of public policies. Considering this context this paper identify the main models of interaction between political and administrative actors were identified, in a theoretical perspective. However, these are extremist and idealistic models that disregard the potential combinations of more than one model. For this reason and according to the identified political-administrative macro-configuration models, representative cases were selected in order to identify specificities of senior civil servants’ selection and the recruitment processes, as well as selection and public employment typologies. This paper also points some proposals in order to get a more integrated strategic selection and management policy for the senior civil servants, aiming at the improvement of transparency, legitimacy and merit among the selection processes.