Public Service Systems at Subnational and Local Levels of Government: a British-German-French Comparison

Abstract

The subnational and local levels of government have hitherto been largely understudied in comparative civil service research. Against this background, this chapter focuses on two central questions. First, we analyse whether and how the local public service can be distinguished from the central state/federal level of government and to what extent a ‘local public service system’¹ can be identified with specific structures and development patterns. Second, we question to what extent and due to what factors country-specific patterns and structures of local public employment, inherited from the past, have been subjected to major changes and ruptures diluting historically ingrained differences or whether those national peculiarities of local public services have been retained. In order to answer these two compound questions, we primarily draw on ‘qualitative’ approaches and restrict ourselves to three ‘cases’: Germany, France and Great Britain. These countries will be scrutinized and compared with regard to the predominant features and developmental patterns of public employment and human resource management at the local level of government. The case selection is justified here by the fact that these three countries represent important models of European administrative culture and crucial variations of decentralized institution-building and public employment in Western Europe, the analysis of which is essential to comparative public administration in general.