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Masters in Public Management and Policy (PMP)


Master Thesis



SHOULD BRAZIL ABOLISH PUBLIC SERVICE JOB SECURITY?
A LESSON FROM OECD COUNTRIES





Thais Helena Semionato Bernardes


Masters supervisor: Prof. Dr. David Giauque
Expert: Prof. Dr. Yves mery

June 2013

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To Jesus Christ, my source of hope, meaning and love. May this degree glorify You.

My deepest gratitude goes also to my husband Tiago,
whose love and support was essential to the completion of this Masters.



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Abstract
Civil servants were once seen as the agents of the state sovereign power, with their special
status held as synonymous of an independent and stable public service. This no longer
seems to be the case, at least for the most part of OECD countries, where NPM-inspired
reforms have sought to normalise employment conditions in public and private sectors,
stripping civil servants of their traditional job security and even of their status altogether.
Within this context of de-privilegisation, a few OECD countries appear to be resisting
reforms, and civil servants job security remains unscathed in places such as Germany and
France. The present work points at institutional factors as the explanation for the
differences in reform outcomes, and seeks to draw lessons from the OECD experience in
order to determine whether job security will and should continue to be a reality in South
Americas largest emerging economy: Brazil.

Rsum
Autrefois considrs comme des agents du pouvoir souverain de lEtat, les fonctionnaires
du secteur public et leur statut spcial taient considrs plutt comme le synonyme d'un
service public indpendant et stable. Cela ne semble plus tre le cas, du moins pour la
plupart des pays de l'OCDE, o les rformes s'inspirant du NMP ont cherch normaliser
les conditions d'emploi dans les secteurs public et priv, en enlevant la traditionnelle
scurit d'emploi des fonctionnaires et mme leur statut spcial. Dans ce contexte de d-
privilgisation, quelques pays de l'OCDE semblent rsister aux rformes, et la scurit
d'emploi des fonctionnaires reste intacte dans des pays tels que l'Allemagne et la France. Ce
travail attribue aux facteurs institutionnels le rle principal pour expliquer les diffrences
dans les rsultats des rformes selon les pays. Il cherche aussi tirer des leons de
l'exprience de l'OCDE dans le but de dterminer si la scurit d'emploi sera et devrait
continuer tre une ralit dans la plus grande conomie mergente de l'Amrique du Sud:
le Brsil.
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Table of contents

Abstract .............................................................................................................................................. 3
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 5
2. The public servant status: tradition and reforms ................................................................... 6
2.1. The traditional civil servant status ............................................................................. 6
2.2. Issues regarding job security ....................................................................................... 9
2.3. The civil servant status: a trend towards flexibility? .............................................. 12
2.4. NPM-driven reforms ................................................................................................. 16
2.5. A new ideal-type: post-civil service ......................................................................... 19
3. Public service job security in OECD countries: an outlook .............................................. 23
3.1. Public service in OECD: a heterogeneous mix of countries ............................... 23
3.2. Reforms in public service status in OECD countries ........................................... 29
3.3. Analysis of the different reform trajectories .......................................................... 36
3.4. The abolition of job security in OECD countries public service ...................... 46
3.4.1. Abolition of job security in New Zealand ........................................................... 46
3.4.2. Abolition of job security in the United Kingdom .............................................. 47
3.4.3. Abolition of job security in Sweden ..................................................................... 49
3.5. Job security maintenance in OECD countries....................................................... 51
3.5.1. Job security in France ............................................................................................. 51
3.5.2. Job security in Germany......................................................................................... 52
3.6. Concluding remarks regarding job security in OECD ......................................... 54
4. Should Brazil abolish public service job security? A lesson from OECD countries... 57
4.1. An overview of Brazilian public service ................................................................. 57
4.2. Job security in Brazilian public service: origin and trends ................................... 63
4.3. Career civil servants and political appointments in Brazil ................................... 66
4.4. Reforms in Brazilian public service ......................................................................... 70
4.5. Lessons from the OECDs civil service reforms for Brazil ................................. 72
5. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 74
Bibliographical references .............................................................................................................. 76
ENGAGEMENTS DE LAUTEURE DU MEMOIRE ........................................................ 81

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1. Introduction
Once seen as agents closely connected to state sovereignty, and to notions such as the rule
of law and the principle of equality of treatment (Demmke and Moilanen, 2012), the image
of civil servants has taken a dramatic turn for the worse in recent decades. Today, civil
servants are the target of heavy criticism, mostly linked to the differences in their
employment conditions, which are perceived as a preferential treatment (Demmke, 2005).
Very often, civil servants are regarded as protected groups, separated from the rest of the
world (Demmke and Moilanen, 2012). But perhaps the most marked distinction between
labour law employees and civil servants - and probably the most obvious target for
criticism - lies in the advantageous job security of the latter.
As opposed to their private sector counterparts, civil servants are traditionally not linked to
their employers through ordinary labour law contracts: their relationship is unilaterally
established by a public law statute, and working conditions are often constitutionally
anchored (Bossaert, 2005). This means that civil servants enjoy a special status, usually
including life-time tenure that renders dismissal highly unlikely.
When first established, job security was based on honourable grounds. By granting civil
servants a special status along with its accompanying rights, legislators intended to shield
them from political influence and to guarantee stability in the public sector. Career systems
aimed to prevent patronage and nepotism, and tenure was seen as a means to ensure a loyal
and neutral staff, all in accordance to Weberian bureaucracy principles.
Suddenly, however, the same bureaucratic principles that guided public administrations all
over the world began to lose momentum. Stability and tenure became terribly old-
fashioned and were replaced in academic and political rhetoric for principles such as
flexibility and performance. Citizens, media and politicians alike became increasingly
opposed to government officials alleged lenient labour conditions, and began pressuring
for change. The legitimacy of such difference in treatment was also called into question.
The huge debate that ensued regarding public sector job stability was merely part of a
bigger picture, one that characterized mainstream reform initiatives and which gained
strength in the early 1990s. It was the dawn of the New Public Management (NPM)
paradigm.
As a response to criticisms, NPM-inspired reforms brought a series of hardships on civil
services all over OECD countries. One may even say that the current reform environment
that characterizes modern public administrations has never been as unfavorable for civil
servants. Such reforms have mostly intended to align working conditions in the public and
private sectors, encouraging the change, deconstruction and decentralization of the civil
service (Demmke, 2005).
In the present work, we shall discuss the origins of the debate around public service job
security in the context of NPM-inspired reforms, and its consequences for OECD
countries. Afterwards, we shall analyse the implications of similar developments in South
Americas largest emerging economy: Brazil. Our aim in this research is to ascertain
whether job security is still desirable in Brazilian public service.
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In order to assess this, the present work has been structured with the following research
methods: firstly, we shall proceed to an extensive literature review on the subjects of
traditional public service features, job security, public management reform, and reform
initiatives particularly related to civil service. With this information at hand, our next step
will be to investigate literature regarding public service reforms in OECD countries and the
trends identified within this group. The third part of our literary review shall focus on
Brazilian public service, assessing the changes that have occurred in the past decades in
public service and attempting to identify a trend for the future of the countrys civil
servants.
Our analytical framework will be focused mainly in institutional factors, which will provide
a basis for comparison between the different countries, and, later on, between Brazil and
OECD countries. Therefore, the approach presented in this work is that of neo-
institutionalism, in which the design of political institutions and the context of established
norms, values, relationships, power-structures and standard operating procedures is of
paramount value in the analysis of reforms in the public service (Hill, 2005; March and
Olsen, 1984). Our hypothesis here is that OECD countries and Brazils public service
reform trajectories will differ depending on the different institutional configurations that
either favoured or discouraged changes in the traditional public servant status. This
comparative analysis will be especially useful to demonstrate the occurrence of marked
differences according to each countrys specific institutional features.
Thus, the present work is divided into three chapters, the first one exploring the traditional
civil servant status and its inherent job security, as well as reforms that have tended to
suppress it. In the second chapter, our focus will be on the experiences of selected OECD
countries, which provide a rich patchwork of different institutions, as well as different legal
and administrative cultures. The third and final chapter will present Brazilian public
service, the origins of job security in this country and how the traditional public servant
status has been shaped by different reform initiatives over the years. Finally, we will
attempt to compare the developments in OECD to those found in Brazilian public service,
in an effort to draw lessons that could point to the most probable trajectory for Brazil in
this matter.

2. The public servant status: tradition and reforms
2.1. The traditional civil servant status
Intrinsic to public management reform, as authors Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) insightfully
indicate, is the tendency to associate novelties with good things, while the ancien rgime is
linked with nothing but negative features. While this works in rhetoric, empirical evidence
seems to contradict the notion that only good things have come with change. But before
analysing the content and the impacts of public sector reforms, and those initiatives
specifically related to human resources, it is important to clarify what characterizes
traditional public service.
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First of all, one should define the term civil servant. According to the OECD (2005),
public servants or civil servants refer to government employees of central government
organisations under core public service rules and paid from public funds. (OECD,
2005:159). Although in theory this is a fairly simple definition, in practice there are several
complicating factors. After all, as we shall see throughout this research, not all government
employees are civil servants, although paid from public funds. Furthermore, it is very
difficult to delimitate what the OECD calls core public service rules, and even core
activities of the public sector have become hard to define. For the purposes of this
research, the use of the term civil servant will be related to a specific set of rights and
obligations that are granted to a share of the workforce in public administrations, which
bear what we call a civil servant status. In summary, we refer to those whose relationship
is unilaterally established by a public law statute, which grants them a specific set of
entitlements and obligations that usually differ sharply from ordinary private sector labour
conditions.
Authors Demmke and Moilanen (2012) have traced back the origins of civil service in
Europe. According to their research, the first civil servants in European history were
knights. Posteriorly, civil servants were the servants of the sovereigns and of the nobility
then, they had no rights and could be dismissed at the will of their masters. As for the
public law status, the authors believe it goes back to the French revolution and to the
writings of Friedrich Hegel (Demmke and Moilanen, 2012:35-36). But of course, civil
services modern origins lie in the ideal-type of rational/legal bureaucracy proposed by Max
Weber (Weber, 1947, cited by Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011:71).
Basically, traditional civil service was linked to the authority of the state, and it was
characterized by a set of conditions that aimed to produce a certain ethical status for civil
servants, who should be committed to the public good, neutrality, impartiality and to
observing confidentiality and displaying expertise (Demmke, 2005:43), since they were
agents entrusted with the task of working for the common interest. According to the
OECD (2005), all OECD countries have special arrangements for employees in the core
public service designed to promote or preserve values that societies consider important for
those engaged to enforce the law or otherwise carry out the collective will (OECD,
2005:160).
These special arrangements usually meant that the recruitment of civil servants was to be
conducted through impartial means, often consisting of standard testing and placement
systems, the famed concours, in which candidates would submit to entry-level exams in
order to work for government. Once appointed, civil servants were entitled to a career and,
after undergoing a probationary period, they would be granted life-time employment.
Furthermore, as mentioned, civil servants employment relationships would not be
established by contracts, but by unilateral public law statutes. The statute would establish a
special bond between the person and the state, binding her to a public interest (Demmke,
2005:55). Often, employment conditions would be regulated by special laws or even by the
constitution, meaning that changes in legislation would be required in order to modify
them. All of this implied that dismissal was virtually excluded, only possible in rare
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occasions and with a right of appeal before a specific, often administrative court (Bossaert,
2005:6-24). The typical or base-case civil service is summarized in the table below:

Table 1 Base-case of civil service
Recruitment - Specific recruitment procedure, usually through a standard testing
and placement system.
Employment
conditions
- Tenured, career-based systems, with no political influence in
appointment, and very limited possibility of dismissal.
- Public servants are expected to stay in public service more or less
throughout their working life.
- Employment conditions are part of a specific framework (statute),
which also establishes specific ethical obligations.
- Separate, specific social security system.
Promotion - Promotion is based mainly in terms of seniority and qualifications.
- Promotion occurs within the organisations fixed career system.
Dismissal - Dismissal is more or less excluded.
- Right of appeal against dismissal decision exists and is exercised
before specific courts.
Source: based on Pollitt and Bouckaert (2005), Demmke (2005), Bossaert (2005) and
OECD (2005).

Probably one of the most striking features of civil service consists in its job security.
Emery, Clivaz et al. (1997) claim that security of tenure is the feature par excellence of the
civil servant status (Emery, Clivaz et al., 1997, cited by Emery and Wyser 2005:4). In spite
of the fact that life-time employment may be regarded as a privilege today, this institute was
introduced with the noblest of intentions: to protect civil servants against political influence
and to guarantee a neutral and impartial civil service. Not only that, but tenure would also
guarantee continuity and stability in the public service, once civil servants were not
threatened by dismissal (Bossaert, 2005:9). According to Demmke (2005:9), job security
principles intended to protect existing public employees from changes in government and
lobbying from the private sector, thus guaranteeing equity, transparency and security. No
one could argue against that. Or so was thought.
Soon, enough, however, researchers began to question these traditional civil service claims.
Demmke (2005), for instance, seemed sceptical about the alleged neutrality of civil
servants. The author wrote that () like employees in the private sector, public officials
are never neutral in their work. They bring their social origin, socialization experience,
attitudes and behaviour (Demmke, 2005:52). He then reformulates the term neutrality,
seen as inadequate and perhaps not even possible at all, for the absence of corruption and
political indoctrination. Even when politicization is concerned, the author does not seem
convinced that a career system alone would be enough to guarantee the absence of political
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influence. With these questions at hand, Demmke (2005) is reluctant to accept that Webers
bureaucrats do actually exist, and is unsure that administrative culture alone would be
enough to create the typical Weberian civil servant.

2.2. Issues regarding job security
As we have seen, job security consists in a very important feature of the civil servant status,
traditionally linked to concepts such as the rule of law, state sovereignty and the principle
of legality (Demmke and Moilanen, 2012). In its base-case, civil servants who enjoy job
security are entitled to a life-time job in their organisation, and can only be dismissed under
very difficult circumstances, that usually entail serious misconduct, and do not include
economic downturns, budgetary pressures or even poor performance in some cases.
There have also been claims that job security would be a form of compensation for
generally lower salaries in the public sector in comparison to private sector employment,
although Demmkes (2005:121) comprehensive study found no evidence of the kind,
except for top management positions or senior-level pay. But this institutes source of
legitimacy really is the alleged differentiated public sector environment that, in Demmke
and Moilanens (2012:1) words, justified the need to produce a certain ethical status for
civil servants. Henceforth, job securitys purpose would be to provide protection against
individual and political pressure, as well as to provide continuity and stability in the
execution of public organisations tasks. Life-time tenure would protect civil servants
independence, shielding them against political patronage and other interferences:

Writers on public administration have long suggested that without a specific
status, legal protection, life-time tenure and special ethical rules our societies
would be open to terrible corruption () and this would undermine the
capacity of the state to rule society. (Demmke, 2005:102)

Career, tenured systems would thus carry precious public service values, such as
predictability, stability, rationality and equitable treatment (Demmke, 2005: 25). Naturally, a
few questions do arise in this matter. The first one to be addressed is who exactly should
benefit from this status. The answer to this question has traditionally been related to issues
such as the nature of the tasks conducted, the duties and the exercise of sovereign powers.
But as Demmke and Moilanen (2012:88) put it, today, public administrative jobs range
from the exploration of outer space to sweeping the streets. The argument is certainly
valid for groups such as police officers or judges, but does not hold for many civil servants,
who do not exercise public powers and often carry out merely technical tasks (Demmke,
2005:37).
This leads us to enquire whether a special status is necessary for the entire range of civil
servants. In practice, there are as many answers to this question as there are case studies. In
some states, only civil servants employed in core functions such as regulation, monitoring,
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auditing and functions of sovereign and external representation are granted a special status
(Demmke, 2005: 102). Other states are more prone to include various categories of staff
into this group, and in some there are even differences in status among the same class of
professionals, leading experts to question whether it is even reasonable for civil servants to
have a specific status, given that employees and civil servants alike perform the exact same
tasks.
A second question pertains to the so-called public service ethos. Demmke (2005) sustains
that traditional positions in literature elevate public employees motivations and maintain
they are more ethical than private employees (Demmke, 2005:62). Supporting that claim is
a multitude of papers on Public Service Motivation, with empirical evidences of
differentiation between public and private sector motivation, and which sometimes fail to
convince.
Formal theories about Public Service Motivation can be traced back to 1990, when Perry
and Wise crystalized an ancient and widespread sentiment that civil service was not
necessarily driven by self-interest into an alternative theory about public servants
motivation: PSM. Subsequently, in an article dated from 1997, Perry studied the
antecedents of PSM, by formulating a series of propositions in order to support his theory.
A few years later, Perry (2000) refined this theory, proposing it as an alternative for existing
motivational theories, and empirically demonstrating its explanatory power in the public
sector by integrating the PSM concept into US national surveys that seemed to corroborate
his hypothesis. Following that, a series of studies ensued, presenting results that reinforced
the usefulness of PSM in more commitment from employees, whistleblowing behaviour,
among others.
Basic Public Service Motivation theories sustain that civil servants are intrinsically rather
than extrinsically motivated, that is, more drawn to the characteristics of their tasks than to
external factors, including financial rewards. But PSM is not a simple theory, as human
motivation is a very complex phenomenon itself. And early on, the PSM method and
measurement were put to the test by scholars such as Bradley E. Wright (2001), who by
using an Occams razor approach to PSMs explanatory power, sought in other (perhaps
simpler) motivational theories the answer for outcomes in public service. In the aftermath,
although some of the theoretical aspects of PSM were deemed too complicated, Wright
acknowledged that the PSM theory had its merits and added value to the motivational
literature.
Complicating this discussion is the fact that several authors have found that civil servants
have security-minded personalities and are attracted by job security in public service.
Considering that job security is in itself an extrinsic factor, it is hard to make up a coherent
conclusion to this discussion. The fact is that job security is definitely an attractive feature
of public service, and as Demmke (2005:71) writes: () job security is an essential
motivational factor when applying and working in the public service. Basically, it remains
an important factor in attracting and retaining staff.
A third and final question in this matter is related to the issue of performance. Attacks on
job security are partly based on suspicions that it may negatively affect performance, ()
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since employees do not fear dismissal or sanctions in the event of poor performance
(Demmke, 2005:104). A study by Ichino and Riphan (2004) even found a correlation
between job security and absenteeism in Italy, claiming that tenured employees would
present significantly higher absenteeism compared to workers who do not enjoy a similar
degree of job protection. And even a brief look into the OECDs (2010) numbers on
absenteeism (Table 2) indicate that countries where job security is very limited, as Australia,
Sweden, New Zealand and the Netherlands present considerably lower figures in
comparison to countries where job security is still well preserved, as in the case of
Germany, Belgium and France. As absenteeism is an indicator for worker effort and
productivity (Ichino and Riphan, 2004:3), it certainly has an effect on performance.

Table 2 Average number of working days public employees are absent on sick leave per
year (2009 or latest available year)

Source: OECD (2010)

In spite of these attacks, Demmke (2005:15) highlights that very few studies have actually
been conducted in order to compare performance in public and private sectors, and that
existing studies do not provide solid evidence that private organisations have better
performance in comparison to public ones. In fact, Demmke (2005:15) writes, public
organisations score better in regards to respect, non-discrimination, equality and dignity in
the workplace (). Comparing performance in both sectors, is of course, quite
challenging, considering the variety and specificity of government tasks, but existing
studies encounter serious difficulties in proving that these problems exist (Demmke,
2005:100).
But when performance is concerned, we come, once again, to the issue of motivation.
Performance is closely related to motivation, and the latter has not yet been convincingly
explained by a single theory. Existing theories are highly disputed, making it truly
challenging to provide a satisfactory assessment of a direct link between the possibility of
lay off and performance. Nonetheless, Demmke (2005:105) sheds some light on the issue,
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by bringing evidence that fear of dismissal would not be a very good basis for motivation
as positive incentives seem to be more effective in this purpose. Founded or not, notions
that job stability are negatively connected to levels of performance have guided public
service reforms that aimed to provide more flexibility to the employment relationship in
public sector, rendering the possibilities of dismissal fairly easier as before. Flexibility, as
Virtanen (2000:44) writes, is considered to be, in part, a means of increasing efficiency,
reducing costs, obtaining value for money, raising the quality of service and bringing about
a stronger customer orientation. It assumes, nonetheless, a view of public employees as
essentially self-interested, and in a constant search for job security, higher rewards and
advancement opportunities (Virtanen, 2000:44).

2.3. The civil servant status: a trend towards flexibility?
To understand the claims that flexibility is a trend in public sector employment, one must
first turn its attention to the concept of labour market flexibility itself. In this sense,
authors Farnham and Horton (2000) explained that regulated labour markets are truly a
novelty. Until much of the early 20
th
century, labour markets were mostly unregulated and
flexible. It was only after World War II that regulations regarding employment
relationships were generally introduced in most European countries (Farnham and Horton,
2000:4).
This was not different for European public sectors in general, where a special legal status
was granted to public officials, and laws specifying work conditions were enacted.
Contemporary to employment regulation was the rise of the welfare state in European
societies. After the Second World War, several European countries took over an expanding
welfare role, fed by rising public expenditure, increasing taxes and growing levels of public
debt. This, of course, led to an increase in the number of public servants, in order to
implement the vast range of social policies, and to execute ever-increasing tasks. According
to Demmke (2005:4), public employment reached a peak in most European countries
around the late 1970s and early 1980s. Nowadays, governments are much bigger than they
were in past decades a study by the OECD (2011) shows that on average they account
for over 45% of the GDP (4% more than before the 2008 economic crisis).
A few decades later, with the advent of meagre growth rates and with the rise of the global
competitiveness imperative, governments saw themselves obliged to adopt retrenchment
policies and to decrease expenditure levels. In this environment, flexibility made its way
back into political discourse (Farnham and Horton, 2000:18). Basically, labour market
flexibility presented itself as a much required alternative to market rigidities that hindered
growth and optimum employment rates, and it promised greater efficiency and
competitiveness, guaranteeing spontaneous market adjustments to structural economic
change (Farnham and Horton, 2000:7). The rationale behind flexibilisation implied that
both governments and market suffered from the same malaises and should thus turn to
flexible working conditions in order to improve performance, productivity and efficiency
(Farnham and Horton, 2007:8, 17). In essence, pressures for flexibilisation, as put by
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Bossaert (2005:9), were essentially tighter public finances, from one side, and the pursuit of
greater efficiency and increased performance, from another.
Amidst the human resources flexibilities debate, Atkinson (1984) famously proposed the
flexible firm model, characterized by the segmentation of an organisation into a
()primary core workforce, conducting the organisations key activities, surrounded by a
cluster of secondary, peripheral groups with a range of alternative contractual and working
time arrangements (Farnham and Horton, 2000:8). From that came the notion of a core
group with greater employment security, while nonetheless functionally flexible, followed
by marginal groups that granted numerical flexibility. It was not long before reforms
proposing more flexible working practices were proposed for the public sector, including
fewer constraints in hiring and dismissing employees, greater mobility and others.
Consequently, traditional civil service, seen as the prototype of bureaucratic rigidities, was
to be the target of heavy criticism.
In fact, civil servants have been criticized since they were first instated, as a few authors
recall. Reputed lazy, self-interested and plainly inefficient, it seems that the old stereotypes
about civil service could not be dissipated even after over 5,000 years of existence
(Demmke, 2005:20; 47). In fact, these prejudices constitute a true myth in public imaginary
(Emery and Giauque, 2005:686).
There is, of course, a gap between the opinions of experts and public opinion. Demmke
(2005:100), for instance, has provided evidence that the notion that public service suffers
from excessive poor performers is unfounded. Not surprisingly, major criticisms are often
associated with the said privileges of public employment, and above all with job security
(Emery and Giauque, 2005:686). As Demmke (2005:4) noticed, job security and other
advantages of civil service contributed to the attractiveness of public sector jobs, but did
nothing to improve the image of civil servants.
Although some authors have run to the defence of civil servants, and claimed negative
popular views of bureaucracy were completely unjustified, the fact is that those critical
voices have become more audible in recent decades, to the point that one could speak of a
crisis of legitimacy of the civil servant status (Demmke, 2005:8). The civil servants image
as a protected group, set apart from the outside world was sharpened within a matter of
years (Demmke and Moilanen, 2012:50).
As an answer to such legitimacy crisis, a series of on-going reform measures have brought
change, deconstruction and decentralization of traditional civil service patterns. As Pollitt
and Bouckaert (2011:95) point out, there is an unequivocal trend towards de-
privilegisation and away from the original trusteeship that characterizes civil service.
In this sense, the current global economic crisis has done anything but help. As Pollitt and
Bouckaert (2011:89) write, it () ushered in hard times for many civil servants in many
states. In recent years, civil servants in crisis-struck countries have had their salaries cut,
frozen, have had their pension rights mitigated and have seen their numbers reduced by
downsizing. With severe budget constraints and the perception of staff as cost factors
according to data from the OECD (2011), public sector salaries account for on average
24% of government expenditures and 11% of the GDP - reforms have brought tough
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times on civil service in many countries (Demmke and Moilanen, 2012:2). In summary, the
pressures brought by the crisis put public finances under strain and public sector
employment under scrutiny (OECD, 2011). Figure 1 presents an outlook of fiscal
consolidation requirements in OECD countries, showing that reducing government
expenditures is a concern even to countries with moderate sized governments.

Figure 1 Fiscal consolidation requirements are unrelated to the size of government

Source: OECD (2011).

With this, a few researchers have observed that the traditional concept of public service as
a single, unified employer is vastly disappearing (Demmke, 2005; Pollitt and Bouckaert,
2011). Some have claimed that clear distinctions between public and private sector tasks
no longer exist (Demmke, 2005:6). What empirical research actually demonstrates is
basically a difficulty in defining civil service today, due to the variety of employment
conditions in OECD countries public sectors.
Demmke (2005), for instance, notes that many times, it is possible to observe differences in
status for a same profession in a given country, as is the case with teachers in Germany,
where while some are civil servants (Beamte), others are merely public employees or
workers (Angestellte or Arbeiter) that lack tenure and other specific statutory benefits
granted to their peers. Situations such as these have led many to question the legitimacy of
a public servants special status.
As it seems, the distinction between public and private sector employment (whether they
are actually that different from one another) is at the heart of this debate. In a report by the
OECD (2005:159), researchers claimed that while wider governance values justified
distinctiveness in civil service in the past, many areas of public employment have lost their
uniqueness and have thus become quite similar to private sectors general employment. As
Demmke (2005:4) writes, it is less and less clear why civil servants occupying positions in
fields such as education, research and social security need to be treated different than those
workers in the private sector.
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In the same trail of thought, Farnham and Horton (2000:5) write that as the public sector
expanded and employment increased, different employment statuses were created, some of
which were not regulated by public law but by civil law, as in the private sector. The
differentiation of employment regimes within public sectors meant that the boundaries of
specific civil service tasks became increasingly blurry.
There are several arguments in favour of and against alleged differences between public
and private sector employment, and they are mostly related to the controversy of whether
public and private sector organisations are more different than alike. Emery and Giauque
(2005:689-691), for instance, advocate for the existence of such differences. According to
these authors, the content and meaning of public employment is the basis for
differentiation of public sector employment and the grounds for its specificities. Their
basic argument is that, due to its specific tasks, environment, and purpose, the public sector
cannot be managed in the same manner as the private sector.
Their argument is a valid one. One does not have to look very far to find evidence that the
public sector is run by a different, political logic. Some services, as argued by the authors,
may not be profitable, or even cost-effective, but they simply cannot be abandoned, or at
least in the short run, since public policies must be in principle accessible to all in an
equitable manner. This is the case of a hospital or a school in a small municipality, for
example. Furthermore, many of civil services tasks cannot be submitted to competitive
forces, as they constitute prerogatives of state, and such is the case of tax collection, police
and justice (Emery and Giauque, 2005:691). Of course, there is great difference even
between public organisations, as Demmke (2005:9) highlights, () a ministry works in a
totally different work climate and under different parameters than a police station, a judicial
court, an inspection body or a local authority.
Another argument raised by the authors relates to their claim of the existence of a specific
public service ethos. According to them, strong values linked to the common interest
would form the core of public servants professional identities, differentiating them from
private sector employees (Emery and Giauque, 2005:692). This specific ethos, with clear
and distinctive ethical obligations of civil servants, was thought to be of utmost importance
to ensure that public service would not be an instrument for the political elite (Demmke,
2005:55).
Such claim is nonetheless contested by Demmke (2005:9), who questions the alleged
disparities in work ethos and work motivation in the public and private sectors, arguing
that there are more similarities than differences between them, although admitting to the
existence of differences. As far as the differences are concerned, Demmke (2005) mentions
specifically those connected to accountability; the fact that public service is aimed at public
interest and not primarily at financial gain; the greater submission to legal and political
constraints; the greater possibility of direction and intervention from political actors and
authorities; and the distinctive internal and external pressures, such as the political
situation, new legal developments and stakeholder pressure. He also acknowledges
distinctions in time perspective, public scrutiny, the role of press and media, and the
legislative and judicial impacts (Demmke, 2005:12-18).
16

Nevertheless, the author believes that boundaries between public and private organisations
are becoming less and less defined, following that it has become more difficult to defend
differences in organisational structures. He writes that () for a considerable time,
organisational structures were very different in the public sector, and the need for specific
civil service was undisputed. Demmke (2005) cites authors such as Max Weber and
Herbert Simon as advocates of this point of view. According to him, these authors have
often stressed the commonalities among organisations and have suggested that public
agencies and private firms are more alike than different (Demmke, 2005:9). Present
conditions have seen an erosion of these differences, especially due to a change in
principles, and to a lesser extent, in values (Demmke, 2005:45). This change of principles
and valuation will be the object of our analysis in the following section. Our claim is that
the main force behind this paradigm shift is NPM ideology.

2.4. NPM-driven reforms
In their seminal book, Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) identify different waves of public
management reform. The first wave, tracing back to the late 1960s and 1970s, was
characterized by a modernist optimism that focused on planning and rational strategic
policy-making as the solutions for a more efficient public administration. A somewhat
disillusioned second wave followed in the 1980s, as a result of the global economic
downturns of the late 1970s. The basic doctrine behind it was that governments had
become overloaded and that Western welfare states had become unaffordable, ineffective,
and overly constraining on employers and citizens alike (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011:6).
This second wave of reform became widely known as New Public Management (NPM),
and it was felt throughout many OECD countries. Despite claims that directions of reform
are incoherent, authors Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) aggregate it as a two-level
phenomenon. According to them, NPM is, at the higher level a general theory of doctrine
that the public sector can be improved by the importation of business concepts, techniques
and values, while at the lower level, it is a bundle of specific concepts and practices,
characterizing the loose and multifaceted nature of NPM (Boston, 2011:17). Within NPM
thinking are a greater emphasis on performance; the measurement of outputs; the
substitution of hierarchical structures by contracts; the introduction of market-inspired
mechanisms such as performance-related pay and competitive tendering; the change from
the user paradigm to a customer of public services approach, among others (Pollitt and
Bouckaert, 2011:10).
In terms of its ideological sources, Bach and Bordogna (2011) write that NPM is based on
public choice theory, principal-agency theory and transaction cost economics, which share
an assumption that all individuals are self-interested and seek to maximize their own utility
(Bach and Bordogna, 2011:2282). According to the authors, four basic policy components
can be identified in the NPM orthodoxy: first, a redrawing of efficient boundaries of the
public sector, marked by privatization and outsourcing of services; second, a structural
reorganisation aimed at shifting internal governance from bureaucratic and hierarchical to
17

market-type mechanisms, in which the creation of agencies managed by contract-based
forms or regulation are one of the highlighted features; third, a set of measures aimed to
empower public managers through managerial techniques and practices from the private
sector; and fourth, measures that sought to reform regulation of the employment
relationship (Bach and Bordogna, 2011:2284). The latter will be the object of more
detained analysis for the purpose of the present research.
New Public Management found the reasons for slowness and inflexibility in the law-
governed nature of bureaucracy, and its structure was deemed responsible for the alleged
poor performance levels (Demmke, 2005:44). Indeed, it can be said that great part of the
slowness in public organisations is due to the fact that they function under specific
procedures that aim to produce accountability in terms of budget, fairness (as is the case of
competitive tendering) and due process (Demmke, 2005:23). Bureaucracies, writes
Demmke (2005:24), will never be able to compete with private-sector companies in terms
of flexibility, because they are designed as a guarantee for legal certainty, standardised
treatment and correctness.
Centralisation, hierarchy and rigidity were now seen as supporting organisational and
individual poor performance (Demmke, 2005:10). In terms of human resources, NPM
doctrine sustained that traditional bureaucratic structures produced a bureaucratic
personality (Demmke, 2005:46-47). It sought inspiration in the private sector for new tools,
instruments and methods in human resources management and organisational restructuring
(Bossaert, 2005:4). Simply put, traditional principles of personnel administration are no
longer seen as sufficient incentives for a civil service that places stronger emphasis on
individual and organisational performance (Bossaert, 2005:10).
According to Emery and Giauque (2005:681), public sector employment has been
transformed by pressures exerted by NPM in almost all OECD countries, and
transformations have had a qualitative and a quantitative effect (Emery and Giauque,
2005:684). The first effect can be summarised by the assertive that public and private sector
employment conditions are aligning, in a process of so-called normalisation. This means
that an increasing percentage of civil-law regulated employees can be observed in many
countries, and that changes have been made in the content of statutes, which are now more
aligned with private sector conditions (Emery and Giauque, 2005:685). The second effect is
translated in the decrease of civil servants numbers in most OECD countries, which has
ranged between 1 and 4% between 1990 and 2001 (Emery and Giauque, 2005:681; 684).
Figure 2 shows that decrease in public employment is expected in 26 of OECDs countries
in over 50% of agencies and ministries.





18

Figure 2 Anticipated changes in employment levels in more than 50% of agencies and
ministries (2010)

Source: OECD (2010).

Similarly, Bossaert (2005) identifies specific trends in human resources management,
among which are a greater flexibilisation of personnel management and the reduction or
even straightforward abolishment of a separate legal status of civil servants overall less
job guarantee, planned paths and job security (Bossaert, 2005:11). Another common
development identified by the author is the introduction of instruments such as evaluations
which render possible the termination of civil servants employment on the grounds of
poor performance (Bossaert, 2005:19-22), evidencing a shift to enhanced and individualised
accountability (OECD, 2005:158). Finally, mobility is identified as a major trend in reforms
as a means to prevent loss of motivation by staff who stay too long in the same position
(Bossaert, 2005:37).
Again, this normalisation process is driven by the alleged superiority of private sector
employment conditions over public sector ones, as NPMs philosophy is based upon the
belief in supremacy of market mechanisms, and in competition and self-interest as the
drivers of work motivation (Emery and Giauque, 2005:689). As Bach and Bordogna (2011)
write, NPM sought to dissolve these differences and could be expected to challenge many
features of public service employment relations (Bach and Bordogna, 2011:2285). In this
context, the authors anticipated a double process of convergence in the reform agenda, the
first being between public and private sector employment relations within each country,
and the second consisting of convergence in the public sectors of different countries, but
in reality they verified that nave expectations of convergence have not been confirmed
(Bach and Bordogna, 2011:2282).
In terms of reform implementation, we come before a widely heterogeneous scenario. A
report by the OECD (2005) tells us that arrangements produced radically different results,
because of variations in national context, institutional and constitutional arrangements,
culture, leadership and management (OECD, 2005:160). Emery and Giauque (2005:686)
and Bossaert (2005:4) also attribute the differences in developments to political-
19

administrative culture, claiming that reforms had a deeper penetration in countries where
the philosophy of NPM found a related public sector culture, while this was much weaker
in those places where it was less compatible. In chapter 2, we shall further analyse the
differences in reform implementation as well as possible explanations for this
phenomenon.
The fact is that the authors generally point towards a trend of normalisation in OECD
countries, consisting of a shift in the direction of more flexible private law contracts with
less job security and away from traditional public law statutory civil service (Bossaert,
2005:7). However, alignment faces problems linked to the irreducible specificity of public
service tasks, as researchers verify that public and private sector do not resemble one
another as much as anticipated, despite claims that the challenges faced by both sectors are
more or less similar (Bossaert, 2005:9). The result of this process, it seems, is the
emergence of a great deal of confusion and paradoxes (Emery and Giauque, 2005:689).

2.5. A new ideal-type: post-civil service
Changes in civil service brought by NPM-inspired reform have been so drastic that some
authors, such as Emery and Wyser (2005:2) have announced the rise of a new ideal type
one might call post-civil service (Emery and Giauque, 2005, cited by Emery and Wyser,
2005:2; Schedler and Proeller, 2000). But are we in fact entering a post-civil service era? In
chapter 2, we shall analyse empirical data that should confirm or reject this hypothesis. For
now, it is important to discuss the new dilemmas, trade-offs and paradoxes that may arise
in introducing flexibilities in human resources management.
For once, an interesting aspect is that of civil servants psychological contracts. According
to Emery and Wyser (2005:4), () similar to the legal contract, the psychological contract
consists of a certain number of expectations, often implicit but fundamental in the
reciprocal commitment of the parties to the negotiations, which the employee develops
towards his employer and vice-versa.
Generally speaking, a psychological contract is the outcome of a more or less consensual
agreement, although informal, unwritten and open to interpretation. From the
psychological contract arise a series of expectations from both parties, which will be
evaluated according to experiences in the employment relationship (Emery and Wyser,
2005:4).
In this psychological contract, the obligations are not defined by the organisation, but
subjectively by the individual, who observes the organisations actions and interprets them
unilaterally (Lemire, 2005:6). A breach of the psychological contract, as write Emery and
Wyser (2005), can happen when one party believes that their expectations have only been
partly, or not at all met by the other party (Emery and Wyser, 2005:4).
What scholars have recently claimed is that the psychological contract as we knew it has
been significantly transformed in past years (Sharpe, 2003, cited by Lemire, 2005:4). Lemire
(2005) tells us that until the 1990s, stability reigned in most hierarchically organized and
20

bureaucratic organisations, and employees were assured a permanent job in return for their
loyalty, their commitment to work and reasonable levels of performance. Furthermore,
employees could count on job security, career progressions and raises in salary from time
to time. In summary, the old psychological contract was pretty clear:

en change de sa pleine et entire participation au meilleur fonctionnement de
lorganisation, celle-ci offre lindividu la possibilit dy construire
progressivement lensemble de sa carrire, le travail satisfaisant ou suprieur
entranant ponctuellement des promotions auxquelles se conjuguent de
nouveaux dfis et de nouvelles responsabilits (Capelli, 1999; Lemire et al.,
2003; Sims, 1994). (Lemire, 2005:4).

From that it follows that the new rules governing employment in public and private sectors
have brought an abrupt shift of the previous conditions toward more precarious work
relationships, altering psychological contracts as well.
Ethical issues can also arise. So far, researchers have not been able to determine whether
the special status of civil servants and job security in particular, are strongly related to
loyalty, neutrality and impartiality, meaning that losing the first could seriously compromise
the latter. Demmke (2005) does not seem to believe so. In his empirical research, he found
that in states where the civil servant status had been abolished, this had no impact on
loyalty (Demmke, 2005:36).
Disagreeing to his position are Emery and Giauque (2005), who believe that the public
ethos is in striking contrast with neo-liberal philosophy, producing contradictions and
conflicts of interest (Emery and Giauque, 2005:690). The normalization of working
conditions would thus bring ethical, philosophical and political problems, and the
introduction of market values would contribute to a complete redefinition of public
servants identities. To the authors, public service values are simply not compatible with the
new ideology.
This is also the view of authors Emery and Wyser (2005:9-12), who predict reform
outcomes to be: a broken future; the loss of a frame of reference; chaotic organisational
principles; short-term activism that prevents all planning, excellence of management
becoming an end in itself; a disrupted control system; a disputed system of recognition,
among others. They also point to a survivors syndrome in countries where severe
downsizing has occurred, and where staff must do more with less (Emery and Wyser,
2005:3).
The arising of new dilemmas was also brought up by Demmke (2005:10), who writes that
if a public organisation were to function like a company, the principles of democracy,
legality, equality, fairness and non-discrimination would suffer and other values would
become important. On the other hand, private organisations do have a moral dimension,
and () business ethics and public sector ethics share at least some basic values and
21

norms (Van den Heuvel et al., 2002, cited by Demmke, 2005:50). This is also Virtanens
(2000) view, according to whom:

Paradoxically, emphasis on motivation based on self-interest may open ways
to intentions and behaviours that are in contradiction with many values of the
public service ethos which is still supported throughout the public services. It
is clear that the new entrepreneurial culture engendered by NPM can
encourage unethical behaviour. (Virtanen, 2000:44)

As appealing as the concept of flexibility may be, it may also bring uncertainties.
Eliminating traditional career systems would mean that recognition could be inequitable or
simply lacking (Emery and Wyser, 2005:14). The new system could possibly produce much
dreaded patronage and political favouritism.
When impacts are concerned, there is a thick layer of scepticism surrounding reforms.
Empirical data shows that above all, there are several uncertainties and inconsistencies, and
that less bureaucratic structures are not necessarily more efficient (Demmke, 2005:25;
Demmke and Moilanen, 2012:41). Concerning impacts on performance, as mentioned, it is
difficult to ignore the problems with the proposition that a threat of dismissal would
constitute a good way to ensure higher performance (Demmke, 2005:105), and it needs
further investigation by research. This is also the position of Bossaert (2005), who claims
reduction of employment security is not an efficient instrument for increasing performance
in the great majority of civil services.
What cannot be denied is the fact that the attractiveness of the public sector as an
employer may be severely jeopardised after reforms (Demmke, 2005:22). For all we know,
job security is still a great selling point of public sector employment (especially in times of
economic uncertainty) and a very important extrinsic factor of motivation (Demmke,
2005:64).
Other possible consequences raised by Bossaert (2005) are uncertain salary and career
development, excessive turnover, lack of organisational continuity, and a threat to
traditional civil service values (Bossaert, 2005:33). According to Virtanen (2000), this
uncertainty appears to be affecting public servants commitment to work and public service
in general. The author writes that although the salaries of higher public servants have not
been competitive in western countries for several decades, compared to salaries in the
private sector, public servants drew part of their motivation from the security related to
their careers, as well as morally and politically challenging work. (Virtanen, 2000:42-43).
As a result, when the flexibility mechanisms of new HRM make work resemble more the
work done in the private sector without similar prospects in terms of salary improvement,
commitment may weaken. (Virtanen, 2000:43). Loss of commitment, Virtanen (2000:43)
writes, could produce negative outcomes such as a reduced quality of public services, a
reduced attractiveness of public service to the most able members of society, and even a
reduced performance, which is clearly a contraction if we consider that to enhance
22

performance was a huge driver behind reforms in the first place. Nonetheless, empirical
data confirming those suspicions is still very scarce.
As for the question of whether government and business values are contradictory, there
does not seem to be a convincing answer at hand either, due to lack of empirical evidence
to validate any of the hypotheses. Demmke (2005:50) writes that if they are in fact similar,
intermingling would not pose a threat, as interaction would not lead to a loss of integrity.
But evidence to contradictory effects (for instance in declining morale and work
satisfaction) does exist, and cannot be denied (Demmke, 2005:98). What is certain is that
many reforms have produced new problems, while not necessarily solving old ones
(Demmke, 2005:56).
Demmke and Moilanen (2012) also warn that too much flexibility and decentralization
may be detrimental, and unlimited mobility of officials may have negative effects in
building competence, mutual trust and long-term commitment (Demmke and Moilanen,
2012:6-7). In other words, there is a need to find the right mix.
Finally, the OECD (2005) provides very sound advice, when stating that () if countries
look to the private sector for models in modernising public employment they must not
forget that the fundamental purpose of the public service is government, not management
(OECD, 2005:160). It is easy to get lost in the means and to throw out the baby with the
bath water when it comes to human resources management reforms. And at least for the
moment, there has been more rhetoric than results (Farnham and Horton, 2000).

23

3. Public service job security in OECD countries: an outlook
3.1. Public service in OECD: a heterogeneous mix of countries
Traditionally, greater job security was granted in public employment rather than in the
private sector. In fact, according to the OECD (2005), guaranteed life-long employment
used to be the norm in OECD countries public sectors. But is this still the case? The
present chapter aims to investigate changes related to job security that have occurred in the
past decades in OECD countries public employment. Of course, one has to acknowledge
the incredible diversity between the different OECD countries, given that they did not
share the same conditions prior to the changes brought by reforms, and, as we shall see
later in this chapter, neither did they converge into a single model, especially in regards to
job security.
An interesting feature for the purpose of this analysis is the share of public employment as
a percentage of the general labour force. As can be seen in Figure 2, the average
employment in general government for the OECD is a little below 15% of the labour
force, but with considerable differences within OECD. While countries such as Switzerland
have public employment figures slightly over 5% of the labour force, almost a third of
Swedens workforce is employed in its enlarged public sector.

Figure 2 Employment in general government as a percentage of the labour force (1995
and 2005)

Source: OECD/CEPD and Labour Force Survey (2006).

It can also be inferred from Figure 2 that public employment has generally dropped in
comparison to the general labour force in OECD countries from 1995 to 2005, although at
different paces. As Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) write, different countries entered the
1980s with contrasting legal and cultural assumptions about the nature of public service
() yet despite differences of starting line, most countries suffered similar pressures, and
24

were obliged to find some response (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011:88). The fall in public
employment can be attributed to some extent to the mentioned pressures, resulting in a
series of measures (including downsizing) in an attempt to tackle issues of budgetary
constraints and flexibility in human resources management.
The countries structure of public employment is also quite different, as can be seen in
Figure 3. Whereas in countries with a unitary structure, such as New Zealand, government
employment at the central level reaches figures close to 90%, Switzerland, with its
fragmented federalism, has less than 10% of its public sector workforce employed by the
central government.

Figure 3 Distribution of general government employment between the central and sub-
central levels

Source: OECD (2011).

As for the size of the public sector, figures for the general government expenditures as a
percentage of the GDP also indicate differences, with considerably smaller public sectors in
Australia, New Zealand and Switzerland, as presented by Figure 4.






25

Figure 4 - General government expenditures as a percentage of GDP (2009) in selected
European countries

Source: OECD National Accounts Statistics (2011). Data for the other major economies
(excluding Russian Federation) are from the IMF Economic Outlook (April 2011).

The differences within the structure of public service itself are even sharper. By assessing
the situation in European Union member countries, studies by Bossaert (2005), Demmke
(2005), and Demmke and Moilanen (2012) paint a very interesting picture of European
public service. For instance, in the United Kingdom, Slovenia and Finland there is no
entitlement to life-long employment in civil service whatsoever. In Sweden, less than 1% of
the public sector workforce enjoys life tenure, mostly restricted to judges. The same is true
for the Netherlands and Denmark.
Furthermore, in virtually all European Union member countries there are differences
among workers in the public sector translating into different status and employment
regulation. This means that not all public employees are civil servants under a public law
status, but many are under ordinary labour law regulation as contractual staff. In fact, there
is great diversity in the contractual forms in the public sector, those being unlimited, fixed-
term, ad-hoc or even seasonal contracts, not to mention discretionary political
appointments. Lifetime tenure is a privilege extended only to statutory civil servants,
though, at least formally speaking. In OECD countries, there are marked differences in
terms of the percentage of civil servants. Some states employ only a small percentage of
their public employees as civil servants, while other states have almost exclusively civil
servants in their national public services. Figure 5 below presents the percentage of
statutory civil servants with entitlement to lifetime tenure in European states.
When differences between employment conditions of civil servants and other public
employees are concerned, the table below (Table 3), elaborated by Demmke (2012),
provides an interesting outlook on European public service.
35,30
54,22
56,25 55,99
47,50
50,86
51,87 51,40
41,91
46,24
55,16
33,74
51,64
42,18
38,76
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30
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50
60
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i
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B
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a
z
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%
26

Figure 5 - Percentage of statutory civil servants with life-long employment in selected
European countries

Source: Bossaert (2005).

Table 3 - Main differences between civil servants and other public employees by issue and
Member State
(1 = different, 2 = similar)

Source: Demmke and Moilanen (2012).
0,00%
10,00%
20,00%
30,00%
40,00%
50,00%
60,00%
70,00%
80,00%
90,00%
100,00%
Legal status Recruitment Job security Careers Salary Discipline Dialogue Strike Pension %
Germany 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 100
Lithuania 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 100
Estonia 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 89
Hungary 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 89
Ireland 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 89
Romania 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 89
Cyprus 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 89
Slovakia 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 2 78
Belgium 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 78
France 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 78
Greece 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 78
Luxembourg 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 78
Spain 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 78
Italy 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 2 67
Poland 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 67
Austria 1 2 1 2 1 1 2 1 1 67
Malta 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 67
Portugal 1 2 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 56
Latvia 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 2 2 44
Netherlands 1 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 1 44
Slovenia 1 1 2 1 2 2 2 1 2 44
Bulgaria 1 1 2 1 2 1 2 2 2 44
Denmark 1 2 2 2 2 1 2 1 1 44
Sweden 2 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 33
Finland 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 22
Czech Republic 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 0
United Kingdom 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 0
% 89 74 74 70 63 56 52 48 44
27

At one of the extremes, German civil servants work conditions completely differ from
those of contractual peers; at the other extreme, British civil servants work conditions are
no different than those of British public employees. It seems quite curious, though, that
there should even be a distinctive civil service status in that case.
On the same direction, the possibilities of dismissal of civil servants can vary considerably
in European countries. Termination for economic or structural reasons, for instance, is
possible in Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, the UK, Denmark and Estonia, where civil
servants do not have security of tenure. On the other hand, civil servants cannot be
dismissed due to economic or structural reasons in countries such as Germany, France,
Spain, Greece, Ireland and Luxembourg, where security of tenure is alive and well
(Bossaert, 2005:24).
As for dismissal in the event of poor performance, many countries have adjusted
regulations in order to allow it in this case (as is the case of France, Belgium and Greece),
but in several countries (including Germany, Spain, Ireland and Luxembourg) dismissal is
done solely according to disciplinary regulation, meaning that only acts such as severe
misconduct are acceptable as grounds for termination, whereas in countries with no life
tenure dismissal in case of poor performance is quite similar to what is practiced in the
private sector (Bossaert, 2005:22).
The table below provides an interesting summary for the employment status in selected
OECD countries, including differences in status between public and private sector
employees, levels of job security and type of employment, proving that conditions are
indeed very diverse depending on the country.

Table 4 Comparative Analysis on Employment Status
Issues Criteria Countries
Legal status on
employment (different
rules in public and private
sector)
Yes Australian, Canada, Finland,
France, Hungary, Japan,
Norway, Netherlands,
Poland, Switzerland, United
States
No New Zealand
Job security
(compared with private
sector)
Dismissal difficult but
possible
France, Japan, Poland
Dismissal possible under
certain conditions
Canada, Finland, Hungary,
Norway, Netherlands,
United States
Similar line with private
sector practices
Australia, New Zealand,
Switzerland
28

Type of Employment Job for life, fixed term France, Japan, Poland
Permanent, fixed term Australia, Canada, Finland,
Hungary, New Zealand,
Norway, Netherlands,
United States
Fixed term Switzerland
Source: based on OECD (2001).
Finally, Demmke and Moilanen (2012) elaborated a continuum of traditional bureaucracy
versus post-bureaucracy, ranking European countries according to a set of indicators,
including legal status, career structure, recruitment, salary, and tenure systems.

Figure 6 Traditional bureaucracy: post-bureaucracy continuum score for selected EU
states (0= traditional bureaucracy; 100= post-bureaucracy)

Source: Demmke and Moilanen (2012), p.41.

The authors thus deem Scandinavian countries and the UK as the ones closest to a post-
bureaucracy type, while countries where traditional civil service features are still strong are
classified as being closest to the traditional bureaucracy type. Our next step is precisely to
identify the trends and reforms that lead to such differences in the public servant status in
OECD.



0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
29

3.2. Reforms in public service status in OECD countries
In the first part of this research, we saw that a series of reforms have swept over OECD
countries in the past decades, in order to achieve two goals: to make public administrations
more effective and efficient for service delivery, and to contribute to fiscal consolidation
plans through the reduction of operational expenditure (OECD, 2011:36). We also saw that
the inspiration for many of the changes concerning human resources management in
public sectors came from the belief in the superiority of private sector practices. As
Farnham and Horton (2000) wrote, there was a () wide-spread acceptance by many
political authorities that private-sector management practices are good and efficient,
while public service ones are bad and inneficient and that traditional bureaucratic systems
of public administration should move closer to the private management model (Farnham
and Horton, 1996b, cited by Farham and Horton, 2000:19-20).
Reducing public service job security and introducing a range of labour flexibilities was part
of the New Public Management proposition for a more efficient and responsive public
sector (Virtanen, 2000). As Ridley (2000:31) writes, () flexibility involves dismantling
barriers, in law and practice, allowing managers greater freedom in posting and above all
opening career choices for staff. Inherent to the NPM managerial discourse, flexibility is
all about empowering managers: () the debate about flexibility has largely focused on
ways in which organisational structures, work processes and employment practices can
enable managers to increase their own control over human resources in the workplace
(Ridley, 2000:33). To Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011:91), the directions of change () were
to make careers less secure and to encourage larger inflows and outflows of staff so that a
smaller and smaller proportion of civil servants were lifers (). This type of
normalization, however, has not been followed by all countries, as the authors indicate, as
countries such as France, Germany and Belgium remain resistant to those tendencies, with
civil servants still being a distinct category legally, culturally and politically (Pollitt and
Bouckaert, 2011:94).
Furthermore, we mentioned in Chapter 2 that NPM-inspired reforms have produced
quantitative as well as qualitative effects. As to the first, empirical evidence indicates that, in
most OECD countries, there is a clear trend toward reducing public employment. Table 5
shows, for instance, the share of public employment over the labour force of several
OECD countries, most of which presented considerable reductions in a ten-year period.
Of course, the reduced shares of public sector employment in the general employment
could also mean the growth of private sector employment, which is the case for a few
countries, but Table 6 confirms that, in fact, there have been active government efforts in
order to reduce staff numbers in many OECD countries. More than 5% decrease in public
employment has been observed for instance in Australia, Germany, Finland, New Zealand
and Sweden.



30

Table 5 Share of the public employment over the labour force (%)

Source: OECD (2002).

Table 6 Evolution of total public employment from 1990/91 to 2000/01

Source: OECD (2002).

Thus, as far as the quantitative dimension is concerned, the trend is confirmed by the
OECD (2002; 2005) and by Farnham and Horton (2000:19), who observe that ()
throughout western Europe and the US, the size of the public sector workforce has tended
to fall during the last 20 years, although the decline varies widely. This numerical
reduction has been achieved through a series of measures, including privatization,
contracting out, and non-replacement of staff on retirement or exit and greater numerical
flexibility, as the authors write. Interesting, though, is the fact that Demmke and Moilanen
(2012) found that the group of workers suffering the most reductions is that of civil
servants. On the other hand, the percentage of labour law employees in public sectors is
31

rising, at least in European countries. Civil servants positions are being reserved for core
areas, according to the researchers, resulting that generally, the civil servant status is
becoming more and more restricted.
As to the qualitative dimension, Bossaert (2005:33) points to the growing significance of
fixed-term contracts. A major difference being that temporary staff is not only restricted to
less qualified work in the public sector, but consists today also of qualified professionals for
expert advice. Demmke and Moilanen (2012) point to the fact that as many employees take
tasks that traditionally were related to civil servants exercise of public power, and as this
concept becomes very difficult to define, questions arise about the legitimacy of the civil
servant status and the fairness of treatment.
Examples of qualitative changes in civil service brought by reforms are abundant. Table 7
provides a summary of reform initiatives undertaken in OECD in the past decades as well
as the current developments in civil service status.

Table 7 Reforms and current development of civil service status in selected OECD
countries
Country Reform initiatives Current development of civil service status
A
U
S
T
R
A
L
I
A

- 1983 Amendment of the Public
Service Act;
- 1987, 1993, 1995 Guidelines or
Official Conduct of
Commonwealth Public Servants;
- 1990 Guidelines on Appraisal of
Performance of Senior Executive
Service;
- 1999 Public Service Act.
- The ratio between ongoing and non-
ongoing employees is more or less the same
since 1996. Neither ongoing nor non-ongoing
employees are guaranteed life-long
employment. Ongoing employees may be
retrenched if they are not needed following a
change in workplace needs.
N
E
W

Z
E
A
L
A
N
D

- 1988 State Sector Act;
- 1989 Public Finance Act;
- 1991 Employment Contracts Act.
- By 2005, 93% of staff were on open-term
contracts, and 7% on fixed-term contracts.
- All members of the Senior Executive Service
have to reapply for their own jobs after five
years (except for the heads of ministries) and
are bound by performance-related contracts.
32

U
K

- 1992 Civil Service (Management
Functions) Act;
- 1993 Civil Service Management
Code;
- White Papers The Civil Service:
Continuity and Change (1994) and The
Civil Service; Taking Forward
Continuity and Change (1995).
- The civil service makes use of both fixed-
term and casual appointments alongside its
permanent staff in order to give managers
flexibility to meet genuine short-term needs
sensibly and economically.
- In the central public administration there is
no right for lifelong employment.
U
S
A

- 1978 Civil Service Reform Act
(including the creation of a senior
Executive Service);
- 1994 Federal Personnel Manual
abandoned;
- 1994 Federal Workforce
Restructuring Act;
- After 2001 President G. W. Bush
introduced new private sector
forms of employment for staff in
the Departments of Homeland
Security and Defence.
- American civil service is still a mix of highly
professionalised and depoliticised civil service
at its lowest levels, and highly politicised and
rather volatile officials at the top,
characterising its typical spoils system.
I
T
A
L
Y

- Reforms of public employment
law in 1993 and 1997;
- 1998 decree allows political
bodies to make top official
appointments;
- 2009 tightening of rules to
enforce annual performance
rankings.
- The reforms from 1993 contractualised the
basis of most civil servants employment,
meaning that staff would from then on be
governed by private labour laws.
- Some categories of professionals remain
however under a public law status and were
excluded from the privatization process (e.g.
judges, state advocates, military personnel,
police officials, diplomats, prefects and to
some extent professors and researchers).
33

F
R
A
N
C
E

- Basic general public service
statute revised in 1983, but not in
an NPM-inspired direction;
- 1989 Prime Ministerial circular on
public service renewal included
some personnel reforms;
- Mid-1990s proposed personnel
reforms helped provoke extensive
public sector strikes;
- In 2007 a series of reforms were
launched by President Sarkozy,
designed to ensure, inter alia, that
only 50% of those civil servants
who were retiring would be
replaced.
- Modernisation of French public service is
not like that carried out in other countries.
Not much change has taken place, and in
some degree rights related to the civil service
status have been extended to contractual staff,
since contractual staff is even subjected to the
framework of administrative law.
B
E
L
G
I
U
M

- 1994 new civil service statute;
- 1997 introduction of a personnel
appraisal system;
- 2000 Copernicus reform plan
includes many aspects of personnel
management.
- Steps were taken to reduce difference
between public sector and private sector
employment, but to limited extent.
- Six-year mandate system for managers
(Director General, and two levels below) was
implemented.
G
E
R
M
A
N
Y

- 1989 law amending working
provisions for civil servants;
- 1994 Public Service Reform Act
introduces possibility of working
part-time;
- 1996 amendments to the law
relating to federal civil servants.
- Administrative reforms in the early 1990s
were driven by fiscal deficits due to the
reunification and its consequent need to make
savings through downsizing, but reforms so
far have proven to be rather soft when it
comes to personnel management.
- Despite attempts to increase flexibility in
personnel management practices, the German
system is still relatively rigid compared to
other countries, and the prospects of
fundamental changes in the German public
service are rather limited due to constitutional
characteristics.
- The traditional dual employment structure of
German public service remains in place, with
civil servants (Beamte) under public law and
public employees (Angestellte) and public
workers (Arbeiter) subject to private sector law
and public sector industrial relations.
34

S
W
I
T
Z
E
R
L
A
N
D

- 2000 Federal Personnel Act
enters in force in 2002;
- 2012 Amendment to the Federal
Personnel Act is proposed.

- As from January 2002, there are no more
civil servants. Federal Personnel Act was
accepted by popular vote on 2000 and entered
into force in January 1
st
2002, bringing more
flexibility with 5-year maximum fixed-term
contracts as well as indefinite term contracts.
Reforms brought work conditions in the
public sector close to those in the private
sector. All federal staff has employee status
with the exception of a small category of
personnel such as members of federal appeals
commissions.
- An amendment to the Federal Personnel Act
was accepted by the Parliament on December
2012, proposing more flexibilities in
dismissing employees and more
harmonization with ordinary civil law.
T
H
E

N
E
T
H
E
R
L
A
N
D
S

- 1992 privatization of the general
pension fund for public employees;
- 1993 delegation of detailed
negotiations on labour conditions
from ministry of Home Affairs to
eight sectors (state, judiciary,
municipalities, etc.);
- 1998 extension of Senior Public
Service terms to all 1,500 top
management positions.
- 1998 publication of an Advice
Relating to Civil Service Status
report, recommending further
normalisation in the civil service.
- In the Netherlands major social services
were traditionally provided not directly by the
government, but by not-for-profit
organisations funded by the government, due
to the countrys pillared society.
- In the central public administration there is
no right for lifelong employment, civil
servants being dismissible in case of
redundancy.
- In the early 1990s steps were taken to
normalise the status of government
employees.
- The Netherlands has civil service laws and
civil servants are employed on a basis of
unilateral appointment. However, labour
relations are highly normalised, meaning
public employment has as much conformity
with the applicable market regulations as
possible.
- A unified civil service no longer exists,
following a decision in 1999 to divide the
public sector into 12 sectors.
35

F
I
N
L
A
N
D

- 1994 State Civil Servants Act
confirmed civil servant status as the
primary form of employment in
state administration but also aimed
at converging conditions of service
between civil servants and
contracted employees;
- 2005 pensions for state employees
brought closer to system for
private sector pensions.
- In jobs of permanent nature, permanent
contracts/employment relationships are used,
but there is no tenure, i.e. there is always a
possibility to give notice if there are legal
grounds (such as economic and productive
reasons). There is also a possibility to use
fixed-term contracts if needed on operational
grounds.
- In the central public administration there is
no right for lifelong employment.
- Only a few differences remain between civil
servants and contracted employees, related to
appointment procedures, official appointment
and promotion criteria, the legal versus the
contractual base of task definition, legal
responsibilities and possibilities for
employment continuation.
S
W
E
D
E
N

- 1990 modification of Public
Employment Act;
- Public sector pensions made
more like private sector pensions.
- Traditional bureaucracy system prevailed
until the mid-1960s (with tenure being
constitutionally guaranteed until 1965), after
which it has been transformed into a flexible
post-bureaucratic structure.
- With the exception of very few positions
(such as judges), all lifelong employment in the
Swedish Government administration has been
replaced by employment on a permanent
contract basis. This means that government
employees are under the same legislation for
employment protection as any employee in
Sweden.
- More than 95% of government staff is
employed under a permanent contract basis.
Source: based on Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011), pp.88-95, OECD (2005), Burnham (2000),
Murray (2000), Ridley (2000), Rber and Lffler (2000), Demmke and Moilanen (2012) and
data from the Swiss Confederations official website.

Looking into the table, two groups are clearly distinguishable. The first one is that in which
public service conditions have been normalized to such an extent that they have become
quite similar to those of private employment. The other group consists of countries which
have proposed modernisation in public service, although to very different extents, and
never completely aligning with the severity of measures proposed by the first group.
36

Generally speaking, when it comes to civil service reform in OECD, we are in agreement
with Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011:95), who argue that there is a strong, dominant (although
not universal) trend towards de-privilegisation and away from trusteeship. Of course, as
the authors highlight, in virtually every system, a few groups are exceptions to the trends
as is the case with judges, prosecutors and diplomats, who have not been affected in their
status in several countries. In the following sections, we shall identify this trend more
carefully, in an effort to identify a clear pattern, and in doing so, we shall investigate
reforming countries in the OECD that best embody the different groups of reform
mentioned above.

3.3. Analysis of the different reform trajectories
In table 7, we could see a small sample of the different scope and depth of reforms in
OECD countries, specifically in the realm of public service, but the differences are also
quite remarkable for administrative reform as a whole, as argued by Pollitt and Bouckaert
(2011) in their seminal book Public Management Reform. In it, the authors provide a
thorough assessment of the different reform approaches and outcomes in several countries
and try to find an identifiable pattern for administrative reforms. Farnham and Horton
(2000:17) agree to this approach when writing that throughout the public services in all
OECD countries, the full range of flexibilities () are in evidence, although there are
differences reflecting the varying types of political system and the varied contingencies of
public organisations, leading to different civil service structures. To the authors, a series of
variables would explain distinctions in reform trends and style in different countries, such
as culture, political institutions, legal framework, public service traditions and managerial
structures and style. In essence, the different features of a countrys politico-administrative
regime would definitely account for a great part of the differences in public sector reform.
In order to assess these differences, we shall first proceed to an analysis of public
management reforms in general, to then specifically study reforms in personnel
management, and finally, to reforms in job security in OECD countries, in a search to find
common ground for the differences in all three aspects. Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) resort
to five key features of public administration systems in order to identify and explain the
contextual differences of reforms in the different countries, and these features will guide
our work as well.
The first two features are those of state structure and the nature of executive government.
Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) consider them to be very important features defining reform
outcomes. To the authors, the more majoritarian and the more centralized a country is, the
greater the speed and scope of public sector reform (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011:55). In
table 8, selected OECD countries are classified into these groups.



37

Table 8 State structure and the nature of executive government

NATURE OF EXECUTIVE GOVERNMENT
Majoritarian Intermediate Consensual

STATE
STRUCTURE
Centralized
(unitary)
New Zealand
UK

France Italy
The Netherlands
Intermediate Sweden


Finland
Decentralized
(federal)
Australian
Canada
USA
Belgium
Germany

Source: Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011), p.55, based on Lijphart (1999).

However, the recent changes in the political landscape of a few of these countries have
brought a great deal of confusion when attempting to classify them. The United Kingdom,
for instance, is no longer as centralized as it was in the past, with the recent devolution of
power to Scotland and Wales, and the creation of a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh
Assembly, that resulted in a semi-federal structure in Britain, within a constitutionally
unitary framework (Flinders, 2005: p.78-79). Similarly, The Netherlands has presented
very marked changes towards a more majoritarian system (Hendricks & Michels, 2011).
These developments in political systems show that placing countries into fixed categories
such as these can prove a very difficult task.
Moving on to administrative culture, Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) recall the existence of
two strong models, first brought up by Pierre (1995): the Rechtsstaat and the Public Interest
model (as well as the Napoleonic model as a sub-family within the Rechtsstaat model), as an
important factor for differentiating of the countries reform trajectories, showing just how
different these can be. Table 9 below summarises the main characteristics of both types of
administrative culture.




38

Table 9 Main characteristics of Rechtsstaat and Public Interest administrative culture
models
Rechtsstaat Public Interest
Prototypical countries: Germany, Belgium
and France
Prototypical countries: New Zealand,
Australia, the UK, USA
State as a central integrating force
within society;
Focal concern of the state are the
preparation, promulgation, and
enforcement of laws;
Most senior civil servants are trained
in law;
Creation of a large, separate body of
administrative law;
Bureaucracy is rule-following and
precedent-based;
Actions of public servants and
citizens are set in a context of
correctness and legal control;
A hierarchy of administrative courts
performs oversight;
Important values include respect for
the authority of law, attention to
precedent, equality before the law.
Less extensive and dominant role of
the state within society;
Government regarded as a
necessary evil, with powers
preferably reduced to a minimum;
Ministers and officials must
constantly be held to public account;
Law is in the background, it is not
the focal point;
Senior civil servants are generalists,
qualities such as flexibility and
pragmatism are highly valued;
Civil servants are seen as citizens
that work for government, rather
than a cadre with a higher mission to
present the state;
Process of government is oriented
towards public interest and seeks to
obtain public consent/acquiescence;
The government plays the role of a
trusted referee mediating competing
interest groups;
Important values include fairness
and independence of the play of
sectional interests.
Source: based on Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011), p.62.

As the authors write, these two distinct administrative cultures translate into very different
public sector reforms: in countries following a Rechtsstaat logic, reform would face
resistance and would generally be slower than in Public Interest countries, and, in fact,
empirical data seems to confirm this especially for the prototypical countries listed in Table
9. The reason for this is the fact that Rechtsstaat systems face a great deal of difficulty in
switching from legalistic procedures to a managerial and performance-oriented perspective,
meaning that any restructuring would require considerable changes in legislation that
sometimes are politically unviable or simply undesirable (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011:63).
39

The greatest problem with this kind of classification is that its perspective is perhaps too
black and white. In their revised edition of Public Management Reform, Pollitt and
Bouckaert (2011) admit that categorizing states within Rechtsstaat and Public Interest
models of administrative culture is no longer as useful or even interesting, since most civil
service systems are mixtures today (Demmke and Moilanen, 2010:9, cited by Pollitt and
Bouckaert, 2011:63). Examples of mixed countries include the Netherlands, Finland and
Sweden. Most importantly, while several countries have shifted away from this legalistic
form, they seem to have migrated to a system different than that of Public Interest, as we
shall discuss later on in this chapter.
Other important features of politico-administrative regimes raised by Pollitt and Bouckaert
(2011) are Minister/Mandarin Relations and the Diversity of Political Advice. The first can
be thought of as the type of bargain between the two groups. To the authors, there are two
possible ways to treat civil servants they can either be treated as trustees or independent
technocrats, or as agents for the politicians. Figure 7 below shows how these bargain
relationships can develop in different countries. To the authors, bargains of the B2a type
have become more common, while those of B1a and B1b (the French civil service being an
example hereof) are not as usual as before. As mentioned before, the trend of reform is
generally to shift away from trusteeship, and toward more a civil service of accountable
agents entrusted with direct responsibilities.

Figure 7 Some types of public service bargain

Source: Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011), p.96, elaborated by Hood and Lodge (2006), p.21.

40

As for Diversity of Political Advice, this feature refers to the main channels through
which the ideas that fuel public management reform come (Pollitt and Bouckaert,
2011:49), whether being from a small elite or from various sources. Table 10 summarises all
of these features for a set of OECD countries, showing that the various differences
between them present a great challenge to identifying distinctive patterns that may
determine the paths of public service reform.

Table 10 Types of politico-administrative regimes: five key features of public
administration systems in twelve selected OECD countries
State structure Executive
government
Minister/
Mandarin
Relations
Administrative
culture
Diversity of
Policy
Advice
AUSTRALIA Federal
Coordinated
Majoritarian Separate
Mildly
politicized
Public interest Mainly civil
service until
1980s
NEW ZEALAND Unitary
Centralized
Mildly
fragmented
Majoritarian
(until 1996)
Separate
Not
politicized
Public interest Mainly civil
service
UK Unitary
Centralized
Coordinated
Majoritarian Separate
Not
politicized
Public interest Mainly civil
service until
1980s
Recently
think tanks,
consultants,
political
advisers
USA Federal
Fragmented
Intermediate Separate
Very
politicized
Public interest Very
diverse:
political
appointees,
corporations
, think tanks,
consultants
ITALY Unitary
Increasingly
decentralized
Coalition Politicized Rechtsstaat A broad
mixture
41

FRANCE Unitary
Formerly
centralized
Coordinated
Intermediate Integrated
Fairly
politicized
Predominantly
Rechtsstaat
Mainly civil
service.
Some
consultants
since 2000.
BELGIUM Federal Consensual
(though
becoming
more
polarized)
Politicized Rechtsstaat Mainly
consultants
and
universities
GERMANY Federal
Coordinated
Intermediate Separate
Fairly
politicized
Rechtsstaat Mainly civil
service (plus
a few
academics)
SWITZERLAND Federal
Fragmented
Consensual Separate
Mildly
politicized
Rechtsstaat A broad
mixture
THE
NETHERLANDS
Unitary
Fairly
fragmented
Consensual Separate
Fairly
politicized
Originally very
legalistic, but
has changed to
pluralistic/
A broad
mixture:
civil
servants,
academics,
consultants,
other
experts
FINLAND Unitary
Decentralized
Fairly
fragmented
Consensual Separate
Fairly
politicized
Used to be
Rechtsstaat but
now more
plural
Mainly civil
service
SWEDEN Unitary
Decentralized
Intermediate Separate
Increasingly
politicized
Originally
legalistic, but
has changed to
corporatist
A broad
mixture.
Corporatist
processes
bring in
academic
experts,
business
people, and
trade unions
42

Source: Pollitt and Bouckaert, (2011), p.50. Canada was replaced by Switzerland. Additional
data on Switzerland based on Klti et al (2007).
Considering all of the features and the reform trajectories, Polllitt and Bouckaert (2011) do
see distinctive patterns that they crystalise in the form of a classification. For starters, the
authors do not feel that all of the countries have followed the NPM path of reforms. They
write:
Clearly, many of the developments we have cited in this process possess an
NPM-ish flavor, especially moving towards private sector types of employment
contract and the introduction of performance-related pay. Yet at the same time
we have noted the reluctance of some states Germany, for example, and to a
lesser extent France and the Nordic states to go very far down this road. In
those cases the vision has seemed to be more NWS-ish: that it is important to
keep the public service somewhat distinct from private sector employment and
to continue to endow at least some parts of it with special status and
protection. (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011:95)

Their interpretation is thus that in the case of continental Europe, the countries would not
constitute laggards of the NPM reform, but a distinctive reform model could be seen in
these countries, a model denominated by them as the Neo-Weberian State (NWS). In
summary, the NWS would represent a particular instance of path dependency, one in
which the image of a strong state is still well placed and that still can be used to generate
positive political returns (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011:120). This model would bear
distinctive features that differentiate it from the NPM model and to the familiar NPM
recipe of disaggregation plus competition plus incentivisation (Dunleavy at al., 2006:97-
102, cited by Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2001:119) as summarised in the table below:

Table 11 Elements of the Neo-Weberian State reform model
Weberian
elements
- Reaffirmation of the role of the state as the main facilitator of
solutions to the new problems of globalization, technological change,
shifting demographics, and environmental threat;
- Reaffirmation of the role of representative democracy (central,
regional, and local) as the legitimating element within the state
apparatus;
- Reaffirmation of the role of administrative law suitably modernised
in preserving the basic principles pertaining to the citizen-state
relationship, including equality before the law, privacy, legal security,
and the availability of specialized legal scrutiny of state actions;
- Preservation of the idea of a public service with a distinctive status,
culture, and to some extent, though perhaps not as much as in the
past terms and conditions.
43

Neo
elements
- Shift from an internal orientation towards bureaucratic rule-following
towards an external orientation towards meeting citizens needs and
wishes. The primary route to achieving this is not the employment of
market mechanisms (although they may occasionally come in handy)
but the creation of a professional culture of quality and service;
- Supplementation (not replacement) of the role of representative
democracy by a range of devices for consultation with, and the direct
representation of, citizens views (this aspect being more visible in the
northern European states and Germany at the local level than in
Belgium, France, or Italy);
- In the management of resources within government, a modernisation
of the relevant laws to encourage a greater orientation on the
achievement of results, rather than merely the correct following of
procedure. This is expressed partly in a shift in the balance from ex-
ante to ex-post controls, but not a complete abandonment;
- A professionalization of the public service, so that the bureaucrat
becomes not simply an expert in the law relevant to his or her sphere
of activity, but also a professional manager, oriented to meeting the
needs of his/her citizen/users.
Source: Pollitt and Bouckaert, (2011), pp.118-119.

In this context, the authors would identify two clearly different paths in terms of
administrative reforms: the first, the NPM path, followed mainly by Westminster countries
that were considered the marketisers of NPM, or core NPM countries; and the second,
the NWS path, followed by continental European countries, generally called
modernisers, although being divided into managerial modernisers and participatory
modernisers.
According to Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011), these two obvious groupings would nonetheless
intermingle with hybrid cases and cases that are difficult to classify, the United States being
a typical example thereof. Although the country presents some undeniably strong elements
of modernisation, and at least in the field of rhetoric it is a marketiser, it does at the same
time present legalistic and bureaucratic features, and a very incoherently reformed and rigid
civil service, with a merit system that in theory () provides a national framework for
recruitment and job classification, while in practice, only 15% of the federal governments
new career employees enter through the systems standard testingand-placement
procedure (Kettl et al., 1996, p.1, cited by Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011:94). Of course, the
USAs federal structure permits that the states adopt very different practices, providing
researchers with a heterogeneous scenario. In the state of Georgia for example, in 1996,
public service has undergone one of the most thorough transformations ever recorded.
The entire public service has been privatized there, with preliminary evaluations bringing
ambivalent results, to say the least (Demmke, 2005:110).
44

Other cases of hybridity to some extent are present in features of reforms in the
Netherlands, Finland and Sweden, which although being clear NWS countries, have
ventured into deeper NPM reform territory, even if in a selective manner.
Continental European modernisers would hold the state as an irreplaceable integrative
force in society with () an operative value system that cannot be reduced to private
sector discourse of efficiency, competitiveness and consumer satisfaction (Pollitt and
Bouckaert, 2011:117).
Table 12 below shows the two distinct groups of reform trajectories, the countries that
compose them, the general characteristics of reforms undertaken by each of them, and the
trends perceived in civil service reform. When looking into the trends in civil service
reform it is easy to perceive that for each of the reform trajectories there are different
directions taken by reform. Our perception is that alignment has occurred more markedly
in NPM marketisers, where currently public employees enjoy very similar conditions to
those of private sector workers, and where security of employment no longer exists.

Table 12 Reform trajectories in selected OECD countries
Reform
trajectory
Countries Characteristics Trends in civil service
reform
New Public
Management
(NPM)
Marketisers:
Australia, New
Zealand, USA
(to some
extent), the
United
Kingdom
- Marketisers: envisaged an
entrepreneurial, market-
oriented society, with a light
icing of government on the
top.
- Alignment of
employment conditions
in public service with
those of the private
sector.
- Abolishment of civil
servants special status
and of lifetime tenure.







Neo-
Weberian
State (NWS)
Managerial
modernisers:
France,
Belgium, Italy,
Switzerland,
Austria,
Germany (at the
local level)
- Neo-Weberian states with
emphasis upon the
modernisation of
management.
- Central European NWS
favoured a professional
state, modern, efficient and
flexible, yet still uniquely
identified with the higher
purposes of the general
interest.
- Reform has come later
and more gradually to these
- Maintenance of
traditional civil servant
status and tenure for the
top, career civil servants.
- Diversity of
employment relations in
the public sector (civil
servants, public
employees and
temporary, contractual
staff) with very different
employment conditions.
- Increase in numbers of
contractual, flexible
45

countries. staff.
Participatory
modernisers:
Finland,
Sweden, the
Netherlands
- Neo-Weberian northern
states with emphasis on
citizen participation.
Reform here has a stronger
citizen orientation and a
participatory flavour.
- Northern NWS foresaw a
citizens state, with
extensive participation
facilitated by a system of
public law that would
guarantee rights and duties.
- Normalisation of
employment conditions,
bringing them closer to
those in the private
sector.
- Public sector workers
in central government
enjoy similar
employment conditions.
- Tenure is either non-
existent or restricted to a
very limited category of
civil servants.
Source: based on Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011:94-120), Demmke and Moilanen (2012),
Demmke (2005), and Bossaert (2005).

As for continental European, neo-Weberian states, we disagree with Pollitt and Bouckaert
(2011) when they write that () they continue, in modern form, a high status for the top,
career civil servants. It is our belief that managerial and participatory modernisers have
had different trajectories in this matter, with changes in public service status being far more
significant in the latter, and with huge differences even within each group. Switzerland and
Italy are a great example of that. With Switzerlands 2002 abolishment of the traditional
civil servants status and Italys 1993 almost complete privatization of civil service, these
countries are perhaps closer to the NPM trajectory as far as civil service reform is
concerned, although in public management reform as a whole they remain in their NWS
managerial modernisers group. Discussing Italy in particular, authors Pollitt and Bouckaert
(2011) highlight, nonetheless, that even though the terms of civil service employment
have been brought somewhat closer to those prevailing in the private sector, there are still
significant differences, especially for more senior grades and that marketising ideas in the
country are volatile (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011:94).
We also disagree with Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) in regards to northern European states
such as Sweden and Finland. To the authors, Finland and Sweden have made provisions
for performancerelated pay, and for more decentralized and results-oriented styles of
personnel management. Yet these countries have not more than marginally dismantled the
essential unity of the civil service (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2011:94). Our view is that
changes in the unity of civil service in these countries have been anything but marginal,
especially in Sweden, where it may not even be possible to talk of a unified civil service
anymore. As Murray (2000) writes: there is no such thing as a civil service in Sweden. ()
A civil or public servant is employed by a specific agency or by a ministry, not by central
government as such, and an agency employee has a job for as long as there is work to be
46

done at the agency (Murray, 2000:174). In Finland, after reforms of the mid-1990s,
agencies have wide powers to both establish and abolish civil service and contracted posts
within the limits of their budget (Kiviniermi and Virtanen, 2000:85). Another strong
tendency is to restrict civil service to core activities, no longer employing them in sectors
such as health and education.
The final outlook is that there has been great diversity in reform trajectories, especially in
civil service reform, and trying to group these trajectories in defined patterns can prove a
difficult task. Pollitt and Bouckaerts (2011) classification seems to hold for the moment,
although empirical analysis shows that the changes in public servants status and job
security in OECD are perhaps too diverse to allow an optimum classification. As a result,
individual reform instruments cannot be ascribed exclusively to a single trajectory, as
Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011:124) warned. But overall, these trajectories seem quite distinct
for the Anglo-Australasian-American core NPM enthusiasts, participatory modernisers in
northern Europe and managerially oriented modernisers in central Europe. To quote Pollitt
(2008): there is a kind of path-dependency, but there is more than one path (Pollitt,
2008:40-51).

3.4. The abolition of job security in OECD countries public service
Several countries in OECD have abolished security of tenure for public service in the
scope of reforms of the past decades. For instance, in Sweden, Denmark and the
Netherlands, only judicial officers are appointed for life (Bossaert, 20005). In the United
Kingdom, Slovenia and Finland there is no entitlement to life-long employment in civil
service. According to Bossaert (2005:4), in Scandinavia and the United Kingdom there has
been a very pronounced desire for more efficiency, productivity and competitiveness,
where public and private sector have traditionally been more permeable and where the
philosophy of NPM has encountered a related public sector culture. Switzerland is also a
good example of complete alignment between the public and private sector employment
conditions, with the abolition of the traditional civil servant status at the federal level in the
early 2000s and with a new context of objective insecurity related to the employer (Emery
and Wyser, 2005:6). In Italy, a decree adopted in 1993 determined that all civil servants
(with the exceptions of judges, diplomats and a few others) would be governed by general
labour law.
In order to better understand how this process of normalization and abolition of job
security in the OECD occurred, we have chosen a few interesting examples in order to
assess this process and its outcomes: that of New Zealand, the United Kingdom and
Sweden.

3.4.1. Abolition of job security in New Zealand
New Zealand, as we have seen, is a major NPM marketiser, and is perhaps the country
which has most enthusiastically implemented NPM-inspired reforms following the 1980s.
47

In regards to public service, as Bale and Dale (1998:105) recall, planners believed that the
problem was not with bureaucracy (), but with the incentives themselves. Reforms
consisted in an attempt to replicate incentive structures of the private sector in the public
sector, and laws were implemented for that effect in the late 1980s.
As a consequence, department heads lost their permanent tenure, and would from then on
be appointed for five-year fixed terms, while public sector employees were placed under
the same regulations as the private sector (Bale and Dale, 1998). Managers were
empowered and were given as much autonomy as typical private sector CEOs, being able
to hire and fire staff according to the needs of the department. The obliteration of different
rules governing public sector employment meant that all employees would then be
contracted, whether by open-term contracts or fixed-term ones.
In general, the views regarding public service reform are positive. Authors Bale and Dale
(1998), collaborating in a World Bank publication considered that human resource
management had improved measurably in New Zealand (Bale and Dale, 1998:112) and
deemed this experience a best practice from which developing countries could learn
(Bale and Dale, 1998:118).

3.4.2. Abolition of job security in the United Kingdom
Traditionally, the British public service was regulated by a system of public-sector
employment contracts. The inexistence of a separate statute regulating public employment
and providing a legal distinction between employment regimes in both sectors has made
restructuring easier than in other OECD countries. It was only in 1991 that the British
High Court decided that civil servants were employed by the Crown under contracts of
employment, reducing some of the uncertainty regarding the legal status of civil service
employment, but still with no civil service law. As Farnham and Horton (2000:5) write,
these contracts were largely regulated by centralised, national collective agreements, which
were incorporated into the individual contracts of employment of those working in the
public sector. The system was extremely close to the practices of the private sector, and
only a small minority of senior civil servants and armed forces were not included in it. This
minoritys employment rules were not regulated by a public law statute, though, but by a
very peculiar system of royal prerogative (Farnham and Horton, 2000:5).
Until much of the 1970s, British public service was characterized by a highly centralized
personnel system, standardized employment practices, paternalistic style of management
and collectivist patterns of industrial relations (Horton, 2000:211). Furthermore, public
service had and internal labour market that provided career structures and possibilities of
promotion for staff. Another interesting characteristic of British public service prior to
flexibility reforms and public organisations is that it would operate in excess of national
minimum standards, seeking to act as model employers in order to attract and retain staff
and set an example of good employee relations (Horton, 2000:211). Most importantly,
there was high employment security even for contractual employees, meaning that ()
staff were not driven through patronage or fear of losing their jobs but rather by loyalty or
48

the realisation that by conforming they would eventually be rewarded with promotion
(Horton, 2000:211). Ridley (2000) writes that although in in the UK () civil service
never had security of tenure in law, as employment was at the will of the Crown, (it) had it
in practice. Also, as there was no single civil service law regulating employment
conditions, personnel policies were determined by several codes related to each public
service.
All of these traditional features were to be challenged throughout the 1980s and 1990s,
with the NPM paradigm replacing the traditional bureaucratic model. In contrast to job
stability, planned career pathways and employment security of the past, the public sector
resorted to more open recruitment, and diverse modes of employment and working
patterns (Fowler, 1993, cited by Horton, 2000:213). Also, the public sector no longer
aspired to be a role model employer, eliminating job security and the former attractions of
progression. There was a clear shift from a view of public servants serving the state and
public interest to human resources which need to be used efficiently and effectively
(Horton, 2000:214).
Reforms in the 1980s and 1990s promoted a considerable downsizing of the British public
sector and introduced a range of flexibilities including temporary and fixed-term contracts,
as well as wider possibilities for dismissing underperforming managers to dispel the
perception that civil servants have jobs for life (Horton, 2000:215).
Analysing the outcomes of changes in public service, Horton notes that the former
unified civil services have been fragmented, giving way to particularism, individualism and
competition between rival businesses; that as individual contracts and performance
management take hold, individuals become more organisationally oriented rather than
committed to the service or their profession; that these changes are definitely affecting
behaviour in the public sector, with the job-for-life expectation no longer being part of the
psychological contract and with employees accepting greater uncertainty in their jobs and
career structures () although not without high levels of stress (Horton, 2000:230).
Moreover, the author highlights problems of coordination related to fragmentation, as well
as high levels of dissatisfaction and low morale in public service.
On the other hand, the author recognizes that there is evidence of greater efficiency due to
elimination of over-staffing and praises the enhanced capacity to control costs (Horton,
2000:231). So there are mixed results regarding changes in public service in the United
Kingdom. Finally, the table below shows how the United Kingdom responds to the
allegations that differences are required in public service, drawn from a questionnaire
elaborated by Demmke (2005), showing the nations current position in this matter.





49

Table 13 Are differences between the public and private sector necessary? The case of
the United Kingdom
Where should differences remain
between civil servants and private
employees? Where are they necessary
and where not?
The case of the United Kingdom
1. Specific ethical requirements, e.g.
taking an oath, specific principles,
codes of ethics, rules on conflicts of
interest, values).
2. Specific status and contractual
situation, e.g. life-time tenure, more
difficult to dismiss civil servants.
3. Pay and Social security, e.g. should
civil servants be paid differently to
comparable positions in the private
sector?
4. Organisational structure, e.g. is there
a need for a more hierarchical,
bureaucratic and formal
organisational structure?
5. Recruitment, e.g. is there a need for
a specific recruitment system and
procedure, specific knowledge and
studies required?
6. HRM (need to centralise certain
responsibilities in HRM), e.g. pay,
right to strike, social security,
working time.
7. Working conditions, e.g. should
there be more variation in working
time?
1. There are specific codes of ethics.
However, all people have ethical
requirements and must abide by the
law. Other groups, too, e.g. bankers
have other codes of conducts.
2. No life-time tenure, still no civil
service act.
3. Recognition that public service is
competing in the market, no further
differences necessary.
4. Process of levelling of hierarchies in
both the private and public sector.
5. Recruitment should fit the purpose
but there is no explicit reason for
differences.
6. Centralisation only in the senior civil
service.
7. No need for specific working
conditions, but civil service should
lead, e.g. in fairness, equality, ethics,
etc.
Source: Demmke, 2005:59-60.

3.4.3. Abolition of job security in Sweden
To Demmke and Moilanen (2012), Sweden is the ultimate best practice model: a true
example of a country that managed to introduce flexibility into its civil service without
precarisation. Famous for its large public sector, Swedens public service could be
characterized as a traditional bureaucracy until the mid-1960s. Public servants were granted
security of tenure by a constitutional provision that was only amended in 1965 and since
50

then the country has undergone considerable transformations toward a flexible post-
bureaucratic structure (Murray, 2000:169).
Considerable efforts were made in the late 1970s in order to reduce pay differentials in
public and private sectors and to render salary structures more flexible, since changes in
pay were decided upon central negotiations and pay grades were very rigid. From 1985
onwards, a series of reforms were implemented in order to enhance political control of the
administration as well as its efficiency, resulting in the provision of greater autonomy to
agencies, controlled by performance requirements and measurements of results as the new
focal points of accountability. This devolution evolved to such an extent that government
agencies today are completely free to hire and fire staff and set pay rates at their own
discretion (Murray, 2000:171).
It may seem that the fact that there is no ceiling on pay rises and that pay raises are set
individually could provide a favourable environment for patronage and feathering of ones
own nests, but Murray (2000) explains that agency autonomy is the secret for the good
functioning of the Swedish administration. To the author, the private enterprise model in
Swedish government means that each agency head works as a true private sector Chief
Executive Officer, and each agency must decide how much it can afford to pay and still
make a profit, and training and incentives are provided in order to ensure this. One of
these incentives is the reduction of the terms of service of agency heads and the possibility
of removal by the Cabinet should they fail to perform (Murray, 2000:175-176).
Furthermore, agencies are given a yearly limit for expenditure that is connected with the
budget, and floor payments are negotiated collectively between the public sector unions
and a special agency created specifically for this purpose, completely controlled by the
other agencies (thus avoiding political involvement of the Cabinet in salary disputes).
Public service employees today are subject to general labour legislation that is valid to both
private sector and government alike. Although a special law for government employees
exists, it does nothing more than add a few special rules for public sector activities. There
is no unity in civil service, and even the term civil service can be misleading when
describing Swedens public sector workforce, since there is no special procedure for
recruitment (such as competitive entry exams), and civil servants are employed by a
specific agency or ministry, and not by central government (Murray, 2000:174).
There is absolutely no security of employment in Sweden with the exception of judges,
which account for less than 1% of the public service, meaning that dismissal can occur for
reasons such as shortage of work, misbehaviour on the employees part, and poor
performance, but firing must always be based on objective grounds provided by clearly
established rules (Murray, 2000:175). Contracts are usually permanent, with an indefinite
term, although agency heads have six-year term contracts, which can be renewed for three
years at a time. Finally, as Demmke (20005) puts it, in Sweden, organisational structures do
not matter: () what is more important for establishing an efficient and effective civil
service are good working conditions, an appropriate administrative culture, openness,
accountability, fairness and legal correctness () (Demmke, 2005:58-59). And more
51

importantly, there is very little evidence that local services deteriorated because of the
changing status (Demmke, 2005:56).

3.5. Job security maintenance in OECD countries
Changes do not seem to be as dramatic as many have thought, however. Analysing the
European scenario, Bossaert (2005) showed that the trends of alignment with private sector
have not affected the life tenure principle in many countries, while recruitment and pay
systems were increasingly influenced by private sector practices. At the time of her study,
Bossaert (2005) found that only Austria and Estonia had plans for reform in this regard.
Furthermore, with the varied conditions of workers in the public sector, job security does
not pertain only to civil servants, but it is an issue even for non-statutory workers, as is the
case of some employees under labour law whose conditions pertaining job security (at least
in practice) are very close to those of civil servants in Germany, Luxembourg, and Belgium,
for instance (Bossaert, 2005: 29-33).
Demmke and Moilanen (2012) mention that civil servants still enjoy a very high degree of
job security in countries such as Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Ireland and
Luxembourg, while Bossaert (2005:4) adds that reforms that deeply transformed civil
service are not generally compatible with the existing culture in those countries.
Since France and Germany are known as countries with highly effective and efficient
public services, as well as a highly qualified personnel (Demmke, 2005:25), we shall focus
on them when analysing countries that are maintaining job security in public service.

3.5.1. Job security in France
France has a considerably large public service with about 25% of the countrys workforce
being engaged in public employment. French public service enjoys a positive image and has
a feeling of self-esteem (Burnham, 2000:98). Furthermore, for many, French civil service is
an element of territorial cohesion in the Republic.
As Burnham (2000) writes, moves toward more flexible structures occurred mainly in
regards to public enterprises, and even then changes could only be successful when officials
(in France Tlcom or the Post Office, for example) were guaranteed that their work
conditions would not be worsened. Overall, modernisation of French public services is not
like that conducted elsewhere in OECD countries, and the archetypical French public
servant is still a full-time tenured official. Tenure in France means that the official is
entitled to a permanent post, and should that post be abolished, then it is the
administrations duty to find him a new post at the same grade (Burnham, 2000:101).
Not all jobs in the French public administration are occupied by tenured civil servants,
though. Exceptions are provided by the public service statute allowing discretionary
appointments for individual or political preference. Employees appointed for these
discretionary posts are given indefinite term contracts that can be revoked at any time.
52

Another exception is the provision regarding fixed-term contracts for temporary posts,
which can be exercised by ministries and local government in case no existing corps is able
to fulfil this function (Burnham, 2000:102). Jobs without tenure are nonetheless called
emploi prcaire, which possesses a negative connotation, and Burhnam (2000) warns that
such contractual arrangements can be so cumbersome in central government that they are
not synonymous with greater flexibility, since in practice few contracts can be justified on
the basis that no public servant can fill the post, resulting that only very specialised senior-
level jobs fulfil these requirements, or they are used for basic, seasonal jobs with low wages.
In essence, contracts are not generally used as a form of replacement for tenured officials
(Burhnam, 2000:103).

3.5.2. Job security in Germany
Reforms in federal German administration have been very restricted, with alterations in
human resources management reduced to soft personnel management instruments, such
as employee surveys, performance agreements, to name a few (Rber and Lffler, 2000).
For Rber and Lffler (2000:116), reform in German public service is difficult to achieve,
civil service is quite inflexible when compared to that in the United Kingdom, and the pace
of reform is simply quite different.
Of course, federalism and local self-government produce varied conditions and peculiar
cultures within Germanys public administration. At the local level, financial pressures and
direct contact with citizens provided more favorable conditions for modernisation of
organisational structures, characterizing Germanys bottom-up process of modernisation
(Klages and Lffler, 1995, cited by Rber and Lffler, 2000:120). Nevertheless, write
Rber and Lffler (2000:117), the core elements of German civil service are relatively
uniform for public servants at all levels of government. In fact, Germany has one single
civil service, as opposed to the case in many federal states.
Germanys civil service has what authors call a dual structure, meaning that part of the
public sector workforce is under public law (the civil servants, or Beamte) while public
employees and public workers (Angestellte and Arbeiter) are subject to private sector laws and
public sector industrial relations (Demmke, 2005). It is, however, quite difficult to explain
the varying work conditions of these groups, since sometimes the same type of
professionals have different statuses. The conditions are, nonetheless, quite substantial, as
can be seen in the table below, which compares civil servants employed under public law
and employees under private law contracts:





53

Table 14 Differences between civil servants employed under public law and employees
under private law contract in German public administration
Civil servants Public employees
Legal regime Public law (Civil Servants Act) Private law
Appointment Official announcement
(Ernennung durch
Hoheitsakt)
Common labour law
Employment
regulation
Regulation through law Regulation through contract and
labour legislation
Principle guiding
working
relationship
Obligation to provide welfare
rights principle
(Alimentationsprinzip)
Mutual exchange principle
(Gegenleistungsprinzip)
Right to strike No right to strike Right to strike, sometimes
restricted for
some categories of staff
Specific ethical
obligations
Loyalty and neutrality No obligations set by law
Job security Job for life Unlimited contract or limited
contract
Career development Career system System with other
organisational
characteristics
Pension Special pension schemes General pension scheme
Source: based on Demmke and Moilanen, 2012:22.

This dual employment structure is historically grounded, and may have made perfect sense
in the past, but as Rber and Lffler (2000:118) write, it has become less and less relevant,
since the boundaries between the two categories () have become increasingly blurred in
practice. In spite of this, abolition of the civil service status is simply not an issue in
Germany, and the countrys civil service system has proven very stable and resistant to
major changes over the years. This can be attributed in part to the fact that modernising
current conditions would require constitutional amendment, which demands a great deal of
political will that is simply nonexistent in this case - adding to that, Rber and Lffler
(2011) mention that civil servants are over-represented in Parliament, making matters even
more difficult as far as change is concerned.
The diagnosis given by the authors is that the system is likely to undergo only incremental
changes and developments in certain elements and features (Rber and Lffler, 2000:123).
54

Overall, German public servants still have a high degree of job security, and this will most
likely remain so.

3.6. Concluding remarks regarding job security in OECD
In spite of the peculiarities that mark each country in OECD regarding reform in public
service, we can borrow Demmke and Moilanens (2012:100) observation for European
countries and expand it to the OECD as well: reforms have brought less government
employment, different government employment and core government employment.
Downsizing has affected virtually all OECD countries, even those on the conservative
front of reforms such as Germany, where it was conducted through transfers from
overstaffed authorities and with very few new appointments as the workforce aged
progressively (Rber and Lffler, 2000:127).
The differences between public sector and private sector employment are also lessening.
For example, legislation is becoming more flexible and fixed-term contracts are becoming
more prevalent. The employment status of civil servants is increasingly similar to that of
employees generally in 16 OECD countries (OECD, 2004:3). As Demmke (2005) writes,
whereas in most European countries, the status of civil servant has survived all reforms,
the specific nature of such a status is diminishing (Demmke, 2005:118). This is related to
the trend toward relaxation of job security for all sorts of employees in European states.
There has also been a true proliferation of different types of personnel in many
countries, such as career officials without tenure or under labour law, personnel hired on a
temporary basis, or with contracts for an indefinite time period, as Demmke (2005:7)
writes.
By aligning with private sector practices, the public sector is gradually moving away from
the traditional role of model employer. Not all authors seem to hold a negative view of
this phenomenon, though. Demmke and Moilanen (2012:5), for instance, claim that
perceptions that central administrations should be seen as havens of job security need
revision in todays flexible world.
As for the core government employment aspect, it is visible in figures that show that
contractual employment is rising, while traditional civil service is decreasing and being
limited to core activities. Ridley (2000), however, warns against considering the use of
contractual employment in public service as a step toward more flexibility and less job
security, at least when European countries are concerned. He writes: in continental
Europe, contractual employment has often been used not to promote managerial
efficiency, or make conditions of service more flexible, but to increase the size of personnel
beyond what budget laws allow for established posts or beyond the numbers specified for
particular categories or grades of officials in civil service laws (Ridley, 2000:28). This form
of contractual employment would not, however, offer more flexibility than the statutory
status, as in many cases, employees would have as much security as tenured peers, as well
as the same level of payment and conditions of employment in countries such as Germany
and Belgium. In France, he writes, contractual staff is even subjected to public rather than
55

labour law, meaning that disputes involving contract staff were decided by administrative
courts. This goes to show that contractual systems are not to be automatically considered
as allowing greater managerial freedom to fire undesirable staff: in much of continental
Europe, where security of tenure until retirement age is guaranteed for career officials,
employees seem to have acquired similar rights and it is often hard to distinguish the two
groups in this respect. (Ridley, 2000:29).
In terms of job insecurity, the private sector is certainly more experienced in this matter, as
Emery and Wyser (2005:3) write, due to the nature of work relationship and frequent
reorganisations they have to conduct in order to be competitive. This comes, of course,
at a cost, since several studies, such as that of Burgard et al. (2009), indicate health risks
related to employees feelings of insecurity toward their employment.
As for the effort of identifying a common pattern of reforms, many authors believe this is
no longer pertinent (OECD, 2005), as more and more countries fail to fit a category. As
Demmke (2012) observes, national administrations no longer have a single coherent
conceptual framework for public service. We, however, tend to think that Pollitt and
Bouckaerts (2011) categories of reform for OECD countries still have explanatory value,
since the groups of NPM marketisers, NWS-modernisers and NWS-participatory countries
do seem to share similar characteristics when it comes to civil service reform as well. This
view is in agreement to what Bach and Bordogna (2011) argue, that is, that variations in
reforms cannot be simply conceived in terms of leaders and laggards, but in different
directions of change.
By investigating countries where civil service has undergone thorough reform, many
lessons can be drawn. For instance, many would advocate the view that ensuring the
promotion of specific values in public service does not depend on the existence of a civil
servant status, a view that is perfectly defendable by looking into the case of Sweden, where
labour law ensures the promotion of such values just as well as any other statutory public
service state. As Demmke and Moilanen (2012:4) write, it is more important to have
rules, working conditions and ethics-trust mechanisms in place that allow () efficient,
effective, impartial and democratic public administrations () The status question is still
linked to national tradition and national structures. Embracing this view, Demmke (2005)
vehemently says that civil servants are not different because they are civil servants. The
author attributes differences in mentality, motivation or job attitude to individual
characteristics and to the sector in which people work, rather than to the existence of a
specific legal status or work in a specific organisational environment. The specific features
of public service, claims Demmke (2005:63), are not due to a specific legal status.
It is not accurate to say, however, that these countries where bureaucratic structures have
been replaced are quicker, more attractive, more effective and more efficient ()
(Demmke, 2005:25). As Demmke and Moilanen (2012) assert, there is no evidence
pointing to a better public service performance in flexibility adopting countries.
On the other hand, Demmke and Moilanen (2012:103) basically argue that countries like
France and Germany have absolutely no compelling reason to abolish civil service status
(and here we add tenure rights as well), apart from budgetary pressures, since civil service is
56

highly performing in these countries, where, according to Bossaert (2005:18), the
advantages of life-tenure still seem to outweigh its disadvantages.
In essence, we subscribe to the view of OECD (2005), that () there can be no ideal type
of public employment because different societies face very different risks and problems
(OECD, 2005:161). It is undeniable, though, that the policy environment has suffered
considerable change in the recent decades. Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) and Demmke and
Moilanen (2012:1) agree, for instance, that from the notion of government, public sectors
in OECD countries tend to shift to a more governance approach. As Demmke (2005:4-
5) writes, civil servants were once regarded as agents intended to uphold the rule of law
and to implement government policies. However, as the author observes, public policies
today are administered through increasingly complex networks, decentralised governance
structures, PPPs and cooperative ventures, making it more challenging to fit the old notion
of civil service to the new policy environment.
Finally, OECD countries have yet to face considerable challenges with regards to public
service, with a workforce ageing at a very fast pace (OECD, 20008), as well as severe
recruitment and retention difficulties, with civil services that strive to maintain themselves
as employers of choice, while pressures for more flexibility and normalization seem to push
in an opposite direction.
In the following section, we shall proceed to the analysis of Brazilian civil service,
investigating job security in this country, as well as reform directions undertaken in the past
decades. With the data concerning OECD at hand, we expect it will be possible to draw a
few lessons from civil service reform for Brazil.
Our hypothesis is that the trends observed in OECD regarding normalisation between
public and private sectors will not be observed in Brazil, due to a recent past of patronage
and nepotism that is linked with contractual employment. It is our expectation that
Brazilian institutions of the post re-democratisation period are more in the direction of
strengthening traditional meritocratic civil service and job security, in response to the
negative image related to precarious employment. Furthermore, we suppose that existing
institutional settings are hostile to reforms aiming to reduce job security and mitigate the
public servant status, limiting the possibilities of reform in this area.

57

4. Should Brazil abolish public service job security? A lesson from OECD
countries
4.1. An overview of Brazilian public service
Brazil is a country of continental proportions with astounding 8,514,215 km2, making it the
fifth largest nation in the world, and with about 190 million inhabitants it also has the
worlds fifth largest population. A federative republic, Brazil has a total of 26 states and a
Federal District located at the capital Brasilia, as well as over 5,500 municipalities. Brazils
political system is presidential, with the President acting both as head of state and head of
the federal government, elected for a four-year term, with the possibility of re-election for
an additional term.
Brazil is South Americas most influential country and emerging economic giant, and in
spite of the global economic crisis of 2008, it has delivered a remarkable performance in
economic, social and financial terms in recent years, due to continuing macroeconomic
consolidation, an improved external liability position and an adequate short-term policy
response (OECD, 2009, cited by OECD, 2010). The countrys economy has also been
growing at a faster pace than developed, crisis-struck OECD countries, and improvements
in social developments have been praised by international organizations. Data from the
United Nations show that, from 1980 to 2011, Brazils Human Development Index (HDI)
increased by 30.8 per cent.
A report from the OECD (2010) attributes part of this success to Brazilian public service.
To researchers, the Brazilian public sector has played a crucial role in promoting stability
and setting up the conditions for economic and social development, even more during the
two successive Lula administrations (OECD, 2010:11).
In Brazil, total public employment accounts for 11% of the labour force, including state-
owned enterprises, which is about half of the OECD average, and is a small figure even in
comparison to neighbouring countries such as Argentina and Chile. Although modest in
size, Brazilian public service has experienced a considerable increase in the past decades,
growing a remarkable 15% between 2003 and 2007. Recent administrations have expanded
public servants contingents in order to improve access to public service and overcome
government capacity weaknesses, especially in health and education. The expansion
occurred after several years of stagnation and restrictions on staff numbers and costs, and
was only made possible by recent high levels of economic growth (OECD, 2010:22). The
table below shows the interesting developments regarding civil service numbers since the
1990s.





58

Table 15 Brazilian federal public administration from 1991 until 2010: evolution of
figures for active civil servants, retirements and entry by public competitive exams
Economic
and political
context
Year Total active
civil servants
(military
excluded)
Retirements
in that year
Entry by
public
competitive
exams in
that year
Variation
(%) of
active civil
servants
Crisis and
stagnation
(Collor and
Itamar
governments)
1991 661,996 46,196 - -2.8
1992 683,618 21,190 -
1993 654,723 14,199 -
1994 641,564 17,601 -
State reform
(FHC
1

government)
1995 630,763 34,243 19,675 -10.5
1996 606,952 27,546 9,927
1997 578,680 24,659 9,055
1998 564,320 19,755 7,815
Fiscal
restriction
(FHC
government)
1999 545,333 8,783 2,927 -2.7
2000 536,321 5,951 1,524
2001 531,296 6,222 660
2002 530,662 7,465 30
State
capacity
enhancement
(Lula
2
)
2003 534,392 17,453 7,220 7.3
2004 538,077 6,486 16,122
2005 548,210 5,789 12,453
2006 573,341 6,658 22,112
2007 573,727 5,186 11,939 4.8
2008 583,367 10,654 19,360
2009 601,117 10,384 29,728
2010 630,542 13,722 36,600
Source: Source: Cardoso Jr. and Nogueira (2011).

Figure 8 shows the share of public employment over total employment and total labour
force and population in selected countries, placing Brazil at the more modest side of the
spectrum. Figure 9 indicates the share of public sector employment in total employment in

1
Refers to the government of President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
2
Refers to the government of President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva.
59

Brazil over time, and Figure 10 shows the absolute numbers of Brazilian active public
servants over the past two decades.

Figure 8 Public sector employment as a share of total employment, the labour force and
population in selected countries

Source: OECD, 2010.

Figure 9 Share of public sector employment in total employment in Brazil over time
3


Source: OECD, 2010.




3
Data for 2005 are drawn from Pessoa, Eneuton et al. (2009), Emprego pblico no Brasil: comparao
internacional e evoluo recente, Comunicado da presidncia, Instituto de Pesquisa Econmica Aplicada
(IPEA), No. 19, 30 March. Data are for employment in both general government and public corporations,
and are not differentiated.
60

Figure 10 Active federal civil servants 1991 until 2010

Source: Cardoso Jr. & Nogueira (2011).

As far as costs are concerned, Brazilian public service is expensive. According to the
OECD (2010), Brazilian public service costs about 12% of the GDP, slightly above the
OECD average, and accounting for 28% of all compensation costs of employees in the
Brazilian economy (OECD, 2010:58). This high percentage is not merely representative of
higher salaries in the public sector, but rather of a peculiar salary structure in Brazil,
characterized by low remunerations in the private sector for a particular set of tasks, allied
with a higher proportion of qualified positions in the public sector, and to a policy of
higher salaries for certain categories of civil servants in core positions with the aim of
attracting and retaining only the best professionals (OECD, 2010:21). The latter explains
why Brazilian government is certainly an employer of choice, especially at the federal level.
Figure 11 shows the compensation of general government employees as a percentage of
GDP (data from 2006) and share of general government employment in total employment
(data from 2005). As can be seen, although the compensation costs are quite similar to
those of OECD countries, the share of general government employment over total
employment is very low in relative terms.











61

Figure 11 Compensation of general government employees as a percentage of GDP
(2006) and share of general government employment in total employment (2005)

Source: OECD, 2010.

Table 16 shows the average monthly income of Brazilian civil servants in minimum wages
by gender and for each level of government. The differences between the average salaries
are quite striking, with salaries at the federal level being far superior to those at state and
municipal levels. It is interesting to notice that, in 2011, the International Labour
Organization calculated the Brazilian legal minimum wage to be of US$ 286.00 in purchase
power parity (PPP) terms, making the gap between salaries at the different government
levels even more striking.

Table 16 2010 average income of Brazilian civil servants by gender and by level of
government (in minimum wages)
Year 2010
Level of government Men Women
Federal 11.1 12.2
State 6.2 4.6
Municipal 3.0 2.7
Average monthly income
(in minimum wages)
5.5 3.9
Source: Cardoso Jr. and Nogueira (2011)

As for the distribution of public service within the different levels of government, active
Brazilian public service at the federal level represents about 18% of total government
62

employment, while states accounts for over 46% of employment and municipalities employ
a little over 35% of the public sector workforce. Table 17 shows the distribution of public
employment in Brazil for each government level as well as the numbers of retirees and
pensioners.

Table 17 - Employees, retirees and pensioners in Brazilian civil service (per government
level)
Government level Active civil
servants
Percentage Retirees Pensioners Total
Federal
4
1,118,360 18.43% 529,563 448,376 2,096,299
States
5
2,793,050 46.03% 1,144,698 384,509 4,322,257
Municipalities
6
2,156,676 35.54% 401,793 151,111 2,709,580
Total 6,068,086 100% 2,076,054 983,996 9,128,136
Source: OECD, 2010.

In terms of the functional distribution of public service, Table 18 shows the division of
civil servants at the federal level. Direct administration refers to the services located in the
administrative structure of the Presidency and the ministries, the so-called central
government. It is also possible to see the share of active, retirees and pensioners in the
public administration.

Table 18 Percentage of civil servants at the federal level, according to the division
between the different organs/units of federal administration and their situation
Federal Governments division of
powers
Percentage of federal level civil
servants according to division
between different organs/units
Total
Active Retirees Pensioners
Executive 51.9 27.4 20.8 100.0
Civil 48.2 31.1 20.7 100.0
Direct Administration 37.0 33.5 29.5 100.0
Public autonomous entities 60.5 29.0 10.5 100.0
Foundations 60.7 27.4 11.9 100.0

4
Data from June 2008; does not include public servants from State-owned enterprises or mixed economy
societies.
5
Data from the states.
6
Refers to 1,900 municipalities with their own social security regime.
63

Brazilian Central Bank 47.6 48.4 4.1 100.0
Public companies
7
100.0 - - 100.0
Mixed economy societies 100.0 - - 100.0
Military 54.8 22.3 23.0 100.0
Federal Public Prosecutor 86.1 9.9 4.0 100.0
Legislative 72.3 20.3 7.3 100.0
Judiciary 80.9 14.4 4.7 100.0
Total 54.0 26.5 19.5 100.0
Source: MPOG (2012).

4.2. Job security in Brazilian public service: origin and trends
The specialised literature tells us that, since immemorial times, Brazilian bureaucracy has
been affected by commonplace contracting out of the merit system in order to fill
temporary positions (dos Santos, 2009:11). Political appointments have been present
throughout the entire process of formation of federal bureaucracy permanent staff, and
despite efforts to reduce numbers of this kind of staff, dos Santos (2009) writes that those
efforts were merely cosmetic and that discretionary positions have always been numerous
and have become some sort of exchange currency in the governments search for
political support. Also commonplace was the use of these positions for patronage and
nepotism.
The first civil service statute in Brazil was established in the late 1930s, and it brought
rights and regulations for statutory civil service such as competitive entry exams as a
requirement for admission, the stipulation of salaries and numbers of positions by law, and
job security. Then, statutory civil service coexisted with several other contractual forms (de
Arajo, 2007:151).
In 1943, the Labour Laws Consolidation (CLT) - the main source of labour regulation for
the private sector in Brazil - was enacted, excluding the application of its labour regulations
to statutory civil servants, but regulating nonetheless employment of contractual staff in the
public administration.
Civil servants working conditions were regulated by a statute, first by the one enacted in
1939, then by a new one enacted in 1952, and finally, law n.6185 of 1974 established that
only civil servants exercising activities of sovereignty (such as diplomacy, police, tax
collection) would be regulated by a statute, all others being submitted to ordinary labour
law. This led to a great increase in the number of labour law-regulated civil servants.

7
It is important to mention that employees of public companies and mixed economy societies are hired
under labour law and are not entitled to job security.
64

Moreover, the new law established the prohibition of strike or unionization in public
service.
Soon enough, the extension of the labour law employment regime to the public sector led
to the understanding that by hiring personnel under labour law, the administration would
be in turn exempt from conducting competitive entry exams, offering plenty of
opportunity for opportunistic behaviour, patronage and corruption. Furthermore, the
absence of objective criteria determining exactly which careers would be under statutory
civil service and which under labour law created a true dichotomy in the extent that
personnel with the same attributions and functions had different employment regimes (de
Arajo, 2007:157).
With the enactment of the Constitution of 1988, a single legal regime for public sector
employment was established (with levels of government being able to choose whether to
adopt the statutory or labour law regime), although a few years later this disposition was
revoked through constitutional amendment n.19 of 1999, that allowed all levels of
government to introduce different types of regimes of employment, with the exception of
a few careers which constitutionally must be regulated by a statute (Pietro, 2000).
However, since 2008, the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) revoked
8
constitutional
amendment n.19, meaning that new recruitments in the public sector must be done
exclusively under a statutory regime. All permanent positions in the public administration
must thereby be under the statutory regime, and even temporary workers employment
relationships must be regulated by a specific law enacted in each government level, since
ordinary labour law can no longer regulate their employment relationship after the
mentioned Supreme Court decision. It should be mentioned that all employees who had
been recruited under labour law before the said decision continue to be submitted to it, as
the Courts decision is valid ex nunc (thus not retroacting).
In summary, Brazilian civil service regulation has suffered several alterations throughout
the years, and the current legal provision is that all civil servants must be submitted to
statutory regulation, the single legal regime having been re-established by the Brazilian
Supreme Court in 2008, in which labour law regulation was discarded as a regulatory
instrument for public sector employment.

Table 19 Historical background of public service job security in Brazil
Historical
event
Situation Socio-economic context
Federal law
n. 2942 of 1915
Civil servants employed for over
ten years can only be dismissed through an
administrative procedure.
Structuring of the
Brazilian public
administration, aiming to
support the country's
industrial modernisation.

8
The decision was proferred in the context of a precautionary measure (medida cautelar) in the scope of a
direct lawsuit of inconstitutionality (ADI) n. 2135-4/DF.
65

The 1934
federal
Constitution
Job security is guaranteed to every
civil servant employed for over ten years or
two years for those who entered public
service through competitive examinations.
Authoritarian,
populist regime.
Structuring of the
labour regulation in Brazil.
Decree-law
n. 200 of 1967
Expansion of the government-
owned enterprises.
Creation of the legal entities of
foundations and autarchies.
More flexibility in the procedures of
contracting and dismissing public employees -
establishment of a separate labour law regime.
Military regime
promotes political
and administrative
centralization.
Implementation of
government policy of
"substitution of imports" and
protectionism.
The 1988
federal
Constitution
Job security is granted to civil
servants admitted through competitive
examinations with over two years of
employment.
Job security is extended to those with
five years of employment, despite not
entering civil service through competitive
examinations.
Institution of a single legal regime for
all civil servants, government levels being able
to choose which legal regime they would
apply.
During discussions in the constituent
assembly, suggestions were made to abolish
civil service job security, but no vote has been
conducted on the matter.
Political opening.
Fiscal crisis of the
State.
Decentralization of
the public administration.
Growth in political
participation and higher
demand for social policies
Increase in the civil
servants' esprit de corps.
President
Collor
government/
1990-1992
In order to contain public sector
expenditures, positions are
suppressed in public administration, but a
decision of the Supreme Court grants
"redundant" civil servants a right to their full
salary.
Worsening of the
fiscal crisis.
Efforts to decrease
size of the public sector.
Large numbers of
civil servants file for
retirement.
Constitutional
revision of
1994
2% of the total amendment
suggestions by Brazilian citizens and
2.5% of those from elected officials referred
to the matter of job security.
Due to an agreement between
government and parties no change was
promoted on this matter.
Worsening of the
fiscal crisis.
Economic
globalization.
66

President
FHC
government/
1995-2002
Proposals are made to grant public
employment more flexibility and to
suppress job security altogether, but fail to be
implemented. Instead, probation period to
achieve job security goes from two years to
three years of employment.
Introduction of performance
management evaluations and tools, as well as
other NPM-inspired management
instruments.
More mobility is granted to civil
servants.
Redundant civil servants are
remunerated proportionally to the time of
employment.
Few entry exams are promoted and
civil service figures drop.
Globalization.
Containment of public
expenditures.
State reform.
Suppressing of the
State's role as enterpriser.
Privatizations in the
public sector.
Constitutional
amendment
of n.19 of 1999
The Constitutional provision that
established a single legal regime regulating
employment in the public sector is revoked,
allowing government at all levels to apply
statutory and labour law regimes
simultaneously. This provision would be
cancelled by the Supreme Court in 2008, and
the single legal regime would be re-
established, extinguishing the possibility of all
new labour law regulated employment.
The possibility of dismissal in case of
insufficient performance is established.
Efficiency is included in the list of
constitutional principles regarding public
administration.
Same as above.
President
Lula
government/
2003-2010
State capacity is enhanced especially in
sectors of education and health.
Increase in entry exams with large
numbers of recruitment.
Salary increases.
Greater rigor for temporary
contracting in public administration and
enforcement of the merit system.
Economic recovery
and improvement of the
macroeconomic outlook.
Further development
of social policies.
Source: based on Machado and Umbelino (2001).

4.3. Career civil servants and political appointments in Brazil
In Brazil, as highlighted by Bueno de Azevedo & Loureiro (2003), the traditional
bureaucratic model is often perceived as a healthy alternative to the patronage and
nepotism that characterized Brazilian public administration in the past. In order to break
with the pattern of corruption and patronage that prevailed until the end of the
67

authoritarian military regime in the mid-1980s, clear advances have been made in Brazilian
legal framework favouring the merit system, and sure enough, many of them have been
anchored in the 1988 Constitution.
The 1988 Constitution is the most important legal instrument regulating civil service in
Brazil. It establishes the rights and duties of Brazilian public service, and it contains
extensive provisions regarding competitive entry examinations (article 37, subsections I to
III), pay (article 37, subsections X to XV), retirement benefits and pension schemes (article
40), job security (article 41), as well as principles of conduct for public service (article 37,
caput). The 1988 Constitution definitely constitutes a ground-breaking piece of legislation
for Brazilian civil service. Enacted three years after the end of the military regime (1964-
1985), it granted all employees in the public sector an ample right of unionization and
strike
9
. These rights are often exercised by public servants, whose unionization rate is of
about 55% (OECD, 2010:97).
As mentioned, the 1988 Constitution also anchored the right for job security to all civil
servants at all levels of government with more than five years of service, including those
who had been hired without going through competitive public examinations, and it
established mandatory competitive examinations for all new hiring in the public sector.
According to article 41 of the Constitution, job security can be obtained by all civil servants
in Brazil after three years of probation, after which dismissal can only occur due to
disciplinary issues or, since a constitutional amendment dated of 1998, due to poor
performance verified in periodic performance assessments, those being subject to appeal
and the right to a full and fair hearing.
Guiding the provisions regarding civil service in the Constitution are the principles of merit
and morality. The strict competitive examinations that grant entry into public service
eliminate political patronage that tainted the image of Brazilian civil service in the past, and
job security is seen as guaranteeing impartiality, political neutrality, and continuity in civil
service. According to the OECD (2010), academic merit assurance is robust and there are
ample oversight and recourse mechanisms. Legal and constitutional provisions relating to
employment in the public service, such as implicit tenure, reinforce the independence,
political neutrality and continuity of the public service (OECD, 2010:232). As emphasized
by the OECD, constitutionally guaranteed job security provides Brazilian civil service with
independence, political neutrality and continuity (OECD, 2010:232).
By establishing public service job security for all civil servants, legislators aimed to create
the conditions for a stable, independent and meritocratic career-based civil service.
Professional, statutory and permanent civil servants were to be the rule, and exceptions
were provided by the Brazilian federal Constitution. The first one of these refers to
discretionary appointments. The Brazilian Constitution established in article 37 that these
discretionary, commissioned appointments were to be filled in positions of higher level
management and assistance, foreseeing even a quota of such positions to be filled only by
career civil servants. This provision, however, lacks proper regulation until today, since no
law has been enacted in order to establish specific conditions for those appointments,

9
Provided that minimum service rules in the sectors of security, health and transport are guaranteed.
68

resulting that individuals outside of civil service ordinarily fill positions that do not exactly
fit to the description from article 37.
At the federal level, there are about 46,000 discretionary positions, about 18% of which can
be filled by applicants from outside of civil service (dos Santos, 2009:17-18). These
positions are divided into DAS positions and commissioned functions, the latter being
exclusively filled by civil servants. The DAS system, an acronym for Direo e
Acompanhamento Superiores or High Level Management and Assistance, is comprised of
about 20,000 management and senior positions as well as assisting positions that can be
filled by civil servants but also by individuals from outside of civil service (dos Santos,
2009:17). According to Praa et al. (2011), DAS positions were first implemented during
the military dictatorship in 1970 and kept alive in the 1988 Constitution (). DAS
appointees are responsible, along with the minister, for the most important decisions taken
in each ministry (Praa et al., 2011:145). But DAS appointments lack transparency, since
no competition takes place and individuals do not have to demonstrate competence
requirements in order to obtain positions. Nevertheless, some flexibility is provided to the
system.
Furthermore, at least to some extent, DAS appointments are an instrument of political
bargain. Praa et al. (2011) write that the proportional, open-list system that characterizes
Brazilian politics results in an extremely fragmented congressional representation in Brazil,
in which no single party holds more than twenty per cent of the seats in the lower
chamber. Consequently, the Head of the Executive needs to constantly negotiate support
from the political parties, using bureaucratic appointments as a bargaining strategy (Praa et
al., 2011: 145). Besides political purposes, discretionary appointments play an important
role in controlling bureaucracy. Dos Santos (2009) writes, for instance, that political
appointments are useful instruments for officials who wish to leave their mark during
their term of office, and who need to exert minimum vertical controls over career civil
servants in order to achieve this. In this matter, we recall Hood and Lodges (2006) nature
of political bargain classification, which is very interesting to the extent that political
appointees holding discretionary positions conduct agency-type bargains, as they are seen
as servants of political masters, while career civil servants conduct trustee-type bargains,
since they are more independent. The situation is further complicated when career civil
servants exercise political appointments when their trusteeship character can be
compromised by partisan loyalty.
In quantitative terms, dos Santos (2009) argues that the number of discretionary
appointments in Brazilian public administration is perhaps excessive. The already
mentioned 20,000 DAS positions are three times the equivalent of the spoils posts in the
United States, and virtually eighty times the number of discretionary posts in the United
Kingdom. The author claims that patronage and nepotism are closely connected with this
incredibly high number of discretionary positions (Aylln and Guerrero, 2005; cited by dos
Santos, 2009), and suggests there should be a clear definition of the cases in which these
positions could be freely filled in order to avoid political appointment as a rule. Moreover,
he believes that in order to prevent patronage, positions of higher hierarchical level should
be exclusively filled by permanent civil servants. Whenever political attachment and loyalty
69

is not vital to the implementation of the elected governments specific programs, he writes,
higher level management and assisting positions should be provided by professional civil
servants (dos Santos, 2009:15). The World Bank follows a similar line, suggesting that
recruitment procedures for these positions be institutionalised with more objective
measurements of qualification and more transparency (OECD, 2010).
The second exception refers to temporary positions, in which no public competition is held
and entry is done through a simplified process. These positions are to be filled in case of
exceptional public interest alone and on a temporary basis, although in practice this is not
always the case. Besides interns and substitute teachers, many posts are currently occupied
by outsourced staff and staff that execute permanent functions in spite of being temporary
or precarious workers, giving leeway to nepotism and patronage.
Discretionary and temporary employees are not entitled to job security and can be
dismissed at any time. In practice, though, as discretionary positions are open-term, it is not
unusual that non-civil servants (especially in lower positions) retain their jobs for the rest of
their lives. Fixed-term contracts (temporary workers) are the exception to this, and figures
for Brazil and OECD countries of these types of contracts can be seen in Figure 12 below.

Figure 12 Short-term employees in the central government of selected OECD member
countries and Brazil

Source: OECD (2008), the State of Public Service, OECD Publishing, Paris, p.24.

As far as trends for Brazilian public service, scholars in the field notice a tendency of
strengthening of the traditional, tenured bureaucracy system. As Praa et al. (2011) write, in
70

2005, a decree established that 75% of the lower-level DAS positions and 50% of the
higher level DAS positions had to be occupied exclusively by civil service career
bureaucrats. Official data shows that, in October 2008, more than 71% of all DAS
discretionary positions were filled by civil servants (Moraes, 2010). Cardoso Jr. and
Nogueira (2011) tell us that from 1995 until 2010, the percentage of civil servants in all
three levels of Brazilian public administration rose from 78.5 per cent to 90 per cent.
Finally, it is interesting to see that the main pressures on civil service are no longer for
downsizing and controlling costs related to staff compensations. According to Bueno de
Azevedo & Loureiro (2003), what currently concerns reformers is to provide more
efficiency in service delivery and accountability in Brazilian public sector. In the following
section, we shall investigate reforms undergone so far in Brazilian public sector, in order to
assess whether it is following a particular path as has been the case for OECD countries.

4.4. Reforms in Brazilian public service
As documented by the OECD (2010), Brazil has been through several phases of public
administration reform since the 1980s. These phases had very different emphasis, though,
under the successive governments: () first the re-establishment of traditional values
such as merit, continuity and probity; then a focus on cutting staff numbers at the
beginning of the 1990s; followed by a restructuring of the public administration and the
introduction of performance incentives (OECD, 2010:24). Unfortunately, these reforms
were quite disconnected and many of them remained incomplete.
Under many years of political centralisation, especially during the military regime (1964-
1985), reforms in Brazil tended to be top-down, and public service at the central level was
(and still is) reputed to be the model of professional civil service, holding the best salaries
as well. It was also during the military regime that Brazilian indirect administration
(government-owned enterprises, foundations, autarchies and mixed economy societies) was
enlarged, giving leeway to the establishment of labour law regulated public employees.
Later on, as we have seen, labour law would end up regulating most civil servants
employment conditions until the advent of the 1988 Constitution.
After re-democratization, the 1988 Constitution established provisions that aimed to
decrease patronage and nepotism in the public sector, determining competitive entry exams
as mandatory for all new hiring in public service, but granting job security to all employees
with over five years employment in public administration.
In the 1990s, subsequent governments were forced to reduce public expenditures as the
economic outlook was of stagnation, high unemployment and overall unenthusiastic
macroeconomic indicators. Both Presidents Collor (1990-1992) and Fernando Henrique
Cardoso (1995-2001) cut back the size of public service at the federal level, by not
promoting competitive entry exams as large contingents of public servants retired.
Early discussions regarding the flexibilisation of public service in Brazil arose in the mid-
1990s, when President Fernando Henrique Cardosos government initiated discussions
71

regarding the alteration of the constitutional provision that established public service job
security. The reforms under FHCs government seemed to be quite influenced by New
Public Management theories, with a strong rhetoric emphasizing the need to provide public
service with more efficiency and effectiveness and by introducing incentives and planning
structures along managerialist lines (OECD, 2010).
In 1995, a Guiding Plan to the Reform of the State Apparatus (Plano Diretor da Reforma do
Aparelho do Estado) was enacted, specifying the objectives and guidelines for redefining
Brazils public administration. This plan emphasized the need for more efficiency as well as
empowerment of ministries in formulating policies and controlling administration,
providing managers with more room for manoeuvre (OECD, 2010:47). As mentioned, one
of the proposals consisted of obliterating security of tenure altogether. In practice,
however, the implementation of this and other proposals would require constitutional
amendments, which generally did not occur. The legacy of this reform period is only
translated into the constitutional amendment n.19 of 1999, which included efficiency as
one of the constitutional principles regarding public administration, and included the
possibility of dismissal due to insufficient performance. Nevertheless, performance
management is not a major part of careers in civil service and remains very limited.
From 2003 until 2010, the Lula administration prioritised macroeconomic stabilisation,
the promotion of social inclusion, recovery of growth, investment in infrastructure
projects, and the fight against corruption (OECD, 2010:48). Public management reforms
focused on performance were not seen as a priority in this period, and the government
sought to fill a capacity gap in the public sector after years of insufficient staff. Several
entry exams were conducted and careers had their salaries adjusted.
Generally, civil service in Brazil still holds traditional values very strongly, as these are truly
ingrained in public service culture. Statutory civil service is the rule in public employment,
competitive exams being established as the predominant form of entry. On the other hand,
there is, perhaps, an excessive quantity of discretionary positions that are often filled by
civil servants themselves, but that allow some bargain in Brazils highly fragmented
political system and consequently some partisan behaviour and patronage.
Reforms of the 1990s introduced new values such as performance and efficiency, but were
unable to implement considerable changes in the meritocratic and tenured civil service
system, which enjoys a fairly good image as the opposite of the patronage and nepotism
that dominated public service in the recent past.
The one criticism made by a OECD (2010) report relates to the lack of strategic vision of
reforms so far, and their discontinuity throughout the years: the priority for Brazil, they
write, should thus be to define an HRM strategy based on a solid long-term vision of how
core values should evolve (OECD, 2010: 42). To these researchers, there is plenty of
room for reforms seeking better cost-effectiveness, as outcome indicators for government-
financed programs in Brazil are relatively poor in comparison to the OECD.


72

4.5. Lessons from the OECDs civil service reforms for Brazil
In the traditional versus post-bureaucracy continuum elaborated by Demmke and Moilanen
(2012:41), Brazil would most likely rank among countries such as Germany, Belgium,
Luxembourg and France. Brazil has a strong statutory civil service, with well ingrained core
traditional values such as merit and job security, the latter certainly being part of civil
servants psychological contracts.
In fact, a recent decision by the Brazilian Supreme Court conveys this message very well. In
2011, the Court deemed in its Extraordinary Appeal (RE) 598099 that candidates that had
been approved in entry exams, within the number of positions established in the entry
competitions rules, were entitled with the right to be appointed to these positions. That is,
even before being hired by the public administration, selected candidates had a right to
their position, and could not simply be dismissed should the administration change its
mind regarding the admissions.
Unlike countries such as Germany and France, civil servants figures did not tend to drop
in the past decade, but the contrary has occurred. In fact, from 2002 until 2010 absolute
figures for civil service have risen over 18%. This of course, is representative of a true
capacity gap that recent governments were able to fill thanks to an improved
macroeconomic scenario of economic growth and development. Since the 1990s, public
service had seen its figures drop dramatically due to a fiscal crisis that persisted for several
years.
Another difference between the trends seen in Brazil and in OECD countries in general is
the fact that contractual forms of employment are not seeing any increase in the country,
but on the contrary, the career-based system has been consistently enforced over the years,
with the exception of a brief period of NPM-rhetoric that tried to impose changes during
the FHC government (1995-2002), but that in practice brought no major changes to the
tenured system. Unlike OECD countries, career-based tenured employment is not
retroceding to core functions of government, but is the rule for employment in the public
sector, including in health and education sectors, which in turn have been de-privileged in
several OECD countries.
As far as exceptions to statutory, tenured civil service, are concerned, there are basically
three. The first one concerns employees contracted under labour law in government owned
companies and mixed economy societies, such as the Brazilian Post and publicly owned
banks, for instance, who were recruited through competitive entry exams nonetheless.
Although a Supreme Court decision in 2008 determined that no future hiring in the public
sector could be regulated by labour law, employees hired under this legal regime prior to
the Courts decision are still subjected to it. Dismissal of these employees should thus at
least in theory follow the same rules applied in the private sector. However, the position of
courts in the matter of acquired job security is still disputed and controversial.
The second category of exceptions is that of temporary workers hired to fulfil an urgent
need of the administration in case of public interest. These workers must also undergo
entry exams, although simplified, and are submitted to specific laws regulating their
employment relationship since the already mentioned 2008 Supreme Court decision
73

established that labour law could no longer discipline this employment relationship.
Furthermore, efforts have been conducted by public prosecution authorities in order to
curb this type of contracting whenever it seems to be dispensable or illegal.
The last exception and perhaps the most significant is that of discretionary appointments,
which do not require any entry examination or even demonstration of qualifications,
providing leeway for political partisanship and patronage. This type of appointment exists
in all levels of government, and in federal government alone there are over 40,000 such
positions, a very high figure in comparative standards, considering that it is far superior to
that observed in the USA and the UK, for instance. The persistence and quantity of such
discretionary positions can be attributed, nonetheless, to the highly fragmented political
system in Brazil, in which appointments in central government are often part of the bargain
instruments of the Executive in order to obtain support from political parties. A mitigating
factor is that a huge proportion of these positions are actually filled by career civil servants
(partisan or not), guaranteeing professionalism at least to some extent. It could also be
argued that discretionary appointments provide a much needed flexibility to a highly rigid
career, tenured, system, with the possibility of dismissing individuals in management
positions that prove unfit for the task.
From all the reform trajectories of the countries analysed in the OECD, Brazil seems to
resemble the most the case of France, where some rhetoric has been present but minor
changes have actually been implemented. There, as in Brazil, civil servants have a strong
esprit de corps, and job security is seen as a positive feature guarding the State from patronage
and abuse. Most importantly, perhaps, is the ingrained Rechtsstaat administrative culture that
prevails in both nations, meaning that major changes in the civil servant status would
require constitutional amendments and extensive legislative review, proving costly in
political terms and reformers being able to count on fierce resistance against any type of
precarisation of working conditions.
The limited scope and measure of reforms could be attributed to some extent to the
consensual and decentralized state in Brazil, but certainly other factors connected to
cultural and economic backgrounds would also play a role. Empirical research has not been
conducted to date in order to verify this. Furthermore, it would seem quite premature to
point to a particular path of reforms which Brazil most likely will follow. Reforms so far
have not been very consistent and have changed emphasis depending on the government
in place, with some reforms reaffirming traditional values while others tried to bring NPM-
inspired rupture with very limited success.
The efficiency discourse has made a debut in Brazilian agenda in the 1990s, leaving its mark
in a constitutional amendment in 1999, but with no major impacts for civil service.
Favourable economic conditions have kept this type of discourse far from the political
agenda in the past two administrations, but OECD (2010) studies as well as media and
public perception seem to find that there is plenty of room for a more cost effective public
administration. Removal of tenure, however, is not likely to occur, since the alternative to
tenured public employment leading to some inefficiency is not appealing, due to past
74

patronage and corruption in Brazilian civil service. In simple terms, the medicine would be
worse than the illness itself.
5. Conclusion
NPM-inspired reforms tended to hold a negative view with regards to public service job
security, and as a result, tenure has been abolished in several countries. The empirical
evidence presented in this work showed that civil service reform outcomes are however
very distinct in OECD countries, resulting in a highly heterogeneous scenario. Generally
speaking, it is hard to overlook a very strong trend towards normalisation of employment
conditions in private and public sectors, with a rise of precarious contractual employment
in most OECD countries.
Overall, countries featuring a legalistic, Rechtsstaat-type of administrative culture seem to
be more prone to retaining traditional civil service characteristics, while Public Interest
countries have unceremoniously stripped civil service of job security and often of its
distinctive status as a whole. But the difficulty to ascribe several countries into this
classification has led to the realisation that it is perhaps too simplistic and that it has a
reduced explanatory value.
Following Pollitt and Bouckaerts (2011) classification, we have identified specific trends
that could be attributed to a set of institutional characteristics which shaped reform
trajectories in OECD. To these authors, countries have not exclusively followed the NPM
path of reforms, and cannot thus be typified as reform frontrunners and laggards. In
reality, some countries fit an entirely different reform model, denominated by the authors
Neo-Weberian State (NWS), which can be divided into managerial and participatory
countries.
In examining their classification, we went a step further in identifying different trends in
reforms, specifically those concerning public service. Contradicting Pollitt and Bouckaerts
(2011) allegation that all NWS countries maintain a high status for the top career civil
servants, our findings indicate that managerial and participatory moderniser NWS countries
present very distinctive outcomes. In participatory countries such as Sweden, Finland and
the Netherlands there has been considerable normalisation of employment conditions, with
job security virtually extinguished. On the other hand, countries ascribed to the managerial
modernisers group, such as Belgium, France and Germany have practically maintained
traditional civil service structures. Switzerland and Italy, although classified in this same
group, have presented such drastic de-privilegisation that they would be more suitably
placed in the NPM reform path in this matter. After a thorough analysis of several OECD
countries, our feeling is that national tradition and structures do seem to play a major role
in inhibiting or favouring reforms related to job security.
When shifting our analysis to Brazil, we have found that this is also the case. In South
Americas largest emerging economy, civil service has undergone considerable changes
over the past decades, and contracting out of the merit system has been traditionally linked
to political patronage and corruption.
75

To overcome this, the 1988 Brazilian Constitution established mandatory competitive entry
exams and job security as a rule both seen as the key to a professional and stable public
sector workforce. Despite a considerable number of spoils posts that owe their existence
to an extremely fragmented political system, the trend in Brazil does not seem to be
towards abolishing job security or the public service status, but quite on the contrary, it
seems to be in the direction of improving civil servants conditions and increasing its
figures. Recent NPM-inspired reforms have proved unsuccessful in their attempt to
remove job security, since the required constitutional amendments could never be
achieved.
Overall, the OECD experience fails to convince countries such as Germany and France
that normalisation would be the path to a more efficient public service, and, likewise, there
is absolutely no compelling reason for Brazil to follow this path, with institutional factors
proving to be quite hostile to reforms in this sense, in both cases.
Of course, a set of limitations have to be considered along with these conclusions. Above
all, the ambitious scope of the present work is a two-edged sword. On the one side, it
provides an ample overview of public service job security and its trends in OECD and
Brazil, while on the other, the attempt to condense this enormous range of information
may have resulted in important omissions and oversimplifications. Another considerable
limitation is the fact that classifying countries into typologies proves to be a difficult task in
a context of extreme institutional diversity, to a point that one may inquire whether
comparing institutions still actually makes any sense. We seem to believe so, but criticisms
in this direction have risen over the past years.
Finally, the present work has laid the foundation for vast possibilities of future research.
For instance, to our knowledge, no quantitative research comparing reform outcomes in
public service has been conducted so far, but only timid attempts, such as those of
Demmke and Moilanen (2012), who produced a traditional bureaucracy versus post-
bureaucracy continuum, which could certainly be further developed. Comparative OECD
country analysis lacks this sort of quantitative empirical research when civil service reform
is concerned.
Moreover, the identification of patterns of civil service reform, with a set of comparable
institutions could be improved in order to provide a clearer typology of countries,
enhancing the explanatory power of such a classification. Specifically regarding Brazil, we
have identified numerous possibilities of research, especially those regarding public service
performance, motivation and the differences between career workforce and political
appointees. The information provided by future studies in this area could present evidence
confirming or otherwise refuting the findings of the present work, in which a few gaps
most certainly exist.




76




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81

ENGAGEMENTS DE LAUTEURE DU MEMOIRE

Je dclare par la prsente que jai ralis ce travail de manire autonome et que je nai utilis
aucun autre moyen que ceux indiqus dans le texte. Tous les passages inspirs ou cits
dautres auteur-e-s sont dment mentionns comme tels. Je suis conscient-e que de fausses
dclarations peuvent conduire lIDHEAP me retirer le diplme MPA.
Ce travail reflte mes opinions et nengage que moi-mme, non pas les membres du jury
qui mont accompagn-e dans cette recherche.
En tant quauteur-e, jai la possibilit de disposer de mon texte selon mon gr. La diffusion
du texte avec le logo de lIDHEAP ne peut se faire quavec laccord spcifique du jury.
Par ailleurs, jaccepte que mon mmoire soit consult par les tudiant-e-s de lIDHEAP, de
mme que par des personnes extrieures, qui seraient intress-e-s par le sujet que jai
dvelopp, sous rserve dune dclaration spcifique de confidentialit.
Lausanne, le 14 mai 2013.


Thais Helena Semionato Bernardes

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