Civil Service Systems and the Challenges of the 21st Century

Abstract

In the first edition of this book (The Civil Service in the 21st Century, Raadschelders, Toonen, and Van der Meer, 2007) we noted that between the early 1990s and the mid-2000s civil service systems (CSS) had come under intense scrutiny. The role and position of the civil service as core actors in the public sector had been seriously questioned by political pundits and other actors in society and academia. It seemed that the central position of civil servants in the political-administrative and societal systems was eroding and that the supposed monopoly of the civil service in public service delivery had gradually broken down. Some visionaries even expected the demise of the civil service as we know it (Demmke, 2004, 2005; Demmke and Moilanen, 2010). As we now know, this particular prophecy was grossly exaggerated, reflecting the author’s wish rather than an empirical fact. In fact, as we can see in several of the updated and renewed chapters in this volume, the fiscal crisis that has troubled many countries has resulted in popular rejection of political officeholders and a strengthening of the social and professional status of civil servants. Of course, it cannot be denied that, owing 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.