Skip to main content
Book cover

The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant pp 1–19Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Depicting Public Servants in Authoritarian Regimes

Abstract

This chapter examines how public servants in authoritarian regimes are depicted in the media. The site of enquiry is Central Asia. It begins by defining what a “public servant” means in this post-Soviet context and challenges the conventional boundaries between elected politicians and career public servants. This, in turn, casts doubt on the traditional political-administrative dichotomy as a way of considering their respective roles. Using content analysis of critical incidents involving public servants from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan, the authors juxtapose reports from the state media, independent sources, and social media to compare how officials are portrayed. The chapter concludes that state media is used to deify prominent public servants. Social media, on the other hand, while offering an alternative voice for citizens to hold public servants to account, is used in malign ways to reinforce control and a mechanism to cynically court international public approbation that authoritarian regimes are becoming more open, transparent, and accountable.

Keywords

  • Authoritarian regimes
  • Central Asia
  • Political and administrative elites
  • Public servants

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

References

  • Baidildayeva, D. 2018. Internet censorship in Kazakhstan: More pervasive than you may think, Open Democracy: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/internet-censorship-in-kazakhstan/. Accessed 15 Mar 2019.

  • Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Transformation Index. 2018. https://www.bti-project.org/en/home/. Accessed 18 Mar 2019.

  • Cepeliauskaite, G., and R. Petrauskiene. 2017. Factors determining trust in civil service in Lithuania. Public Policy and Administration 16 (3): 405–423.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • de Graaf, G. 2010. The loyalties of top public administrators. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 21 (2): 285–306.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Dukalskis, A. 2018. Authoritarian public sphere: Legitimation and autocratic power in North Korea, Burma and China. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dukenbaev, A., and V. Tanyrykov. 2001. Politico–administrative relations in Kyrgyzstan and Central Asia. In Politico-administrative relations: Who rules ? ed. T. Verheijen, 175–202. Bratislava: NISPAcee.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freedom House. 2019. Freedom in the world. https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/ABRIDGED_FH_FITW_2019_Report_FINAL.pdf. Accessed 2 June 2019.

  • Freedom House, Freedom on the Net. 2018. https://freedomhouse.org/report-types/freedom-net. Accessed 15 Mar 2019.

  • Freedom House, Nations in Transit. 2018. https://freedomhouse.org/report-types/nations-transit. Accessed 12 Mar 2019.

  • Frolova, E., T. Ryabova, and O. Rogach. 2017. Bureaucrat image in Russia. Journal of Advanced Research in Law and Economics 8.1 (23): 52–58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gawthrop, L. 1997. Democracy, bureaucracy, and hypocrisy redux: A search for sympathy and compassion. Public Administration Review 57 (3): 205–210.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Habermas, Jürgen. 1991. The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Trans. Thomas Burger with Frederick Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Internet World Statistics. 2018. https://www.internetworldstats.com. Accessed 3 Mar 2019.

  • Janenova, S., and Knox, C. 2017. Civil service reform in Kazakhstan: Trajectory to the 30 most developed countries? International Review of Administrative Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852317722397.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Janenova, S., and Knox, C. 2019. Combatting corruption in Kazakhstan: A role for ethics commissioners?. Public Administration and Development

    Google Scholar 

  • Knox, C. 2019a. Public sector reforms in Central Asia. In Global encyclopedia of public administration, public policy, and governance, ed. A. Farazmand. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_3656-1.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knox, C. 2019b. Development evaluation in authoritarian states. Development Policy Review

    Google Scholar 

  • Knox, C., and Janenova, S. 2019. The e-government paradox in post-Soviet countries. International Journal of Public Sector Management. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-08-2018-0173

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Nezhina, T., and T. Zaytseva. 2018. A public servant: To be or not to be. The determinants of employment decisions among the Russian MPA students. International Journal of Public Administration 41 (1): 72–82.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • O’Connor, K., Janenova, S., and Knox, C. 2019. Open government in authoritarian regimes. International Review of Public Policy 1 (1):65–82

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • O’Connor, K., Knox, C., and Janenova, S. Bureaucrats, Authoritarianism, and Role Conceptions. 2019. Review of Public Personnel Administration:0734371X1988800

    Google Scholar 

  • Peters, G. 1988. Comparing public bureaucracies: Problems of theory and method. Alabama: The University of Alabama Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1997. Bureaucrats and political appointees in European democracies: Who’s who and does it make any difference?’. In Modern systems of government: Exploring the role of bureaucrats and politicians, ed. A. Farazmand, 232–246. London: SAGE Publication.

    CrossRef  Google Scholar 

  • Rystina, I., A. Sadu, B. Bulegenova, M. Onuchko, and A. Kozhakhmetova. 2017. The state service of the Republic of Kazakhstan at a new stage of development. Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues 20 (3): 1–11.

    Google Scholar 

  • Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. 2018. https://www.transparency.org/cpi2018. Accessed 18 Mar 2019.

  • United Nations in Kazakhstan. 2018. http://kz.one.un.org/content/unct/kazakhstan/en/home.html. Accessed 10 Mar 2019.

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Public Policy, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan

    Colin Knox & Saltanat Janenova

  2. International Development Department, School of Government, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Saltanat Janenova

Authors
  1. Colin Knox
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Saltanat Janenova
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Colin Knox .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Acton, ACT, Australia

    Prof. Helen Sullivan

  2. UNSW Australia, Campbell, ACT, Australia

    Prof. Helen Dickinson

  3. College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Hayley Henderson

Section Editor information

  1. Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK

    Peter Matthews

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Knox, C., Janenova, S. (2020). Depicting Public Servants in Authoritarian Regimes. In: Sullivan, H., Dickinson, H., Henderson, H. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03008-7_55-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03008-7_55-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-03008-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-03008-7

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Political Science & International StudiesReference Module Humanities and Social Sciences