Civil Service Systems and the Challenges of the 21st Century

Abstract

During the past decades’, civil service systems (CSS) have come under intense scrutiny. The role and position of the civil service as core actors in the public sector has been seriously questioned by political pundits and other actors in society and academia. Allegedly, the central position of civil servants in the political-administrative and societal systems is eroding. It is argued that the supposed monopoly of the civil service in public service delivery has gradually broken down. Some visionaries even expect the demise of the civil service as we know it (Demmke 2004; 2005). Perhaps this particular prophecy is grossly exaggerated, sooner reflecting the author’s wish than an empirical fact. Yet, it cannot be denied that, due to a variety of reasons, CSS have increasingly been influenced by a range of internal and external pressures prompted by changes in the institutional context. These internal and environmental changes will be examined in this volume and will be introduced in this chapter. Taken together, these changes supposedly amount to a new, more fragmented order in the public domain generally referred to nowadays as multi-level governance. In this supposed new order, governments and CSS have to find their place. Although there appears to be some common understanding in the scientific community with respect to the nature of these wide-ranging change processes, the analysis of the actual consequences for CSS has received less attention.