I’ve been reflecting on my last 50 years of efforts at reforming public service systems – seeing if there was anything I could add to what I’ve already written, particularly about one of my last projects - in China.
Initially I belonged to the school which felt that the bureaucracy had too much power. A combination of Thatcher, “Yes, Minister” and New Labour saw my attitude swing back to the political system. More recently, the technocrats seemed to have wrested power back – only for Trump and Brexit to remind us that “the people” also have a voice.
The grand old man of this field is B Guy Peters whose The Politics of Bureaucracy first came out in the 1970s, is now in its 5th edition and is considered the bible on this issue. He has been an inspiration and active presence since 1990 in the network of schools of public administration in central and eastern Europe (NISPAcee) – Politico-Administrative Relations – Who Rules? (2001) very much showing his influence. That this is still an important issue in the region is evident from recent publications such as The Principles of Public Administration produced by SIGMA (OECD) in 2016 and Quality of Public Administration – a toolbox for practitioners (EU 2017).
A lot of what the global community preaches as “good practice” in government structures is actually of very recent vintage in their own countries and is still often more rhetoric than actual practice. Of course public appointments, for example, should be made on merit – and not on the basis of family, ethnic or religious networks.
· But civil service appointments and political structures in Belgium and Netherlands, to name but two European examples, were – until very recently – influenced by religious and party considerations. Rules were set aside to keep religious and political blocks (or pillars) happy.
· In some countries indeed such as Northern Ireland (until recently). the form and rhetoric of objective administration in the public were completely undermined by religious divisions. All public goods (eg housing and appointments) were, until the end of the 20th century, made in favour of Protestants.
· The Italian system has for decades been notorious for the systemic abuse of the machinery of the state by various powerful groups – with eventually the Mafia itself clearly controlling some key parts of it. US influence played a powerful part in sustaining this in the post-war period – but the collapse of communism removed that influence and has allowed the Italians to have a serious attempt at reforming the system. At least for a few years – before Berlusconi scuppered it all
These are well-known cases – but the more we look, the more we find that countries which have long boasted of their fair and objective public administration systems have in fact suffered serious intrusions by sectional interests.
The British and French indeed have invented words to describe the informal systems which perverted the apparent neutrality and openness of their public administration –
· the “old boy network” which was still the basis of the senior civil service in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s a century after the first major reform.
· And the elitist and closed nature of the French ENArque system has, in the new millennium, become the subject of heated debate in that country – the system of senior civil servants moving to business was known as “pantouflage”. And Macron recently decided to close the school
It is clear that national european systems are becoming more politicised. This trend was started by Margaret Thatcher who simply did not trust the senior civil service to do what she needed. She brought in individuals who had proved their worth in the private sector and came into government service for a limited period of time (sometimes part-time and unpaid) to do a specific task which the Minister or Prime Minister judged the civil servants to be incapable of doing. Her critique of the UK Civil Service was twofold –
- first that those at the top were so balanced and objective in their advice that they lacked the appetite to help lead and implement the changes she considered British society needed; and
- second that those further down the ladder lacked the management skills necessary to manage public services. The Labour Government since 1997 inherited a civil service they considered somewhat contaminated by 18 years of such dominant political government – and had more than 200 such political appointees.
Such trends are very worrying for the civil service which has lost the influence and constraining force they once had. The two decades since then have seen national reputations for integrity challenged – the British judicial system, for example, took a battering after a series of revelations of judicial cockups and its policing has always been suspect. But it was 2015 before a book with the title ”How Corrupt is Britain?” ed by D Whyte appeared – followed a few years later by “Democracy for Sale - dark money and dirty politics”; by Peter Geoghegan (2020).
Conclusion; Too much of the commentary of international bodies on transition countries seems oblivious to this history and these realities – and imagines that a mixture of persuasive rhetoric and arm-twisting can lead to relevant, rapid and significant changes in the behaviour of the political and administrative elites. A bit more humility is needed – and more thought about the realistic trajectory of change. To recognize this is not, however, to condone a system of recruitment by connections – “people we know”. Celebration of cultural differences can sometimes be used to legitimize practices which undermine social coherence and organizational effectiveness. The acid test of a State body is whether the public thinks they are getting good public services delivered in an acceptable way!
The first wave of enthusiasm, in global bodies and academia alike, for anti-corruption (or “good governance” as it was more diplomatically called) strategies ended in the new millennium – when a note of realism became evident. It was at that stage that I realized that some of the best analyses were coming from the anthropologists
Bill Clinton was famous for his election mantra – “economics, economics, economics”. In similar vein, instead of “best practice”, consultants should be repeating “CONTEXT, CONTEXT, CONTEXT”
Further Reading
Shifting obsessions – 3 essays on the politics of anti-corruption Ivan Krastev (2004) Bulgarian political scientist exposes the hypocrisy behind the rhetoric
Syndromes of corruption – wealth,power and democracy Michael Johnson (2005) An American political scientist who has been involved with the Transparency International work does good comparative work here
Corruption – anthropological perspectives edited by D Haller and C Shore (2005) quite excellent collection of case studies
Confronting Corruption, building accountability – lessons from the world of international development advising L Dumas, J Wedel and G Callman (2010)
Unaccountable – how anti-corruption watchdogs and lobbyists sabotaged america’s finance, freedom and security ; J Wedel (2016) another anthropologist
Making Sense of Corruption; Bo Rothstein (2017) one of the clearest expositions – this time by a Scandinavian political scientist
comment from Patrick Cockburn on the corruption of the British political class
https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-power-elite.html
https://nomadron.blogspot.com/2021/03/corruption-outsiders-overview.html
