Abstract
Introduction
This article discusses the concept and typology of Public Service Bargains (PSB), as first introduced by Schaffer (1973), and further developed by Hood and Lodge (2006). We consider the usefulness of the concept for studying the impact of administrative reforms on the role and position of top civil servants. Further we present the articles in this special issue, and portray the international collaboration from which they result. We conclude with some remarks on the contribution of this special issue to the theory and concept of Public Service Bargains.
Evolving Public Service Bargains
In this special issue, we build upon Hood and Lodge’s (2006) description and analysis of the relationship between politicians and civil servants in terms of Public Service Bargains. Hood and Lodge describe political-administrative relationships as implicit or explicit bargains in which politicians gain some degree of loyalty and competency from civil servants, and civil servants gain a place in the government structure, responsibility and rewards. With the concept of bargains they build on Schaffer’s (1973) indication of the understanding between elected politicians and appointed bureaucrats as it developed in the UK during the nineteenth century. Hood (2000a; 2000b; 2001) and Hood and Lodge (2006) established a typology of Public Service Bargains, as they identified Schaffer’s bargain as only one out of several types of existing bargains.
The first typology by Hood (2000a; 2001) distinguished two major forms of bargains: the systemic and the pragmatic bargain. In a systemic bargain, the role of the public service is part of a fundamental constitutional settlement, while in a pragmatic bargain, rights and duties of public servants are a more or less convenient agency arrangement between politicians and bureaucrats. Subtypes of the systemic bargain are: the consociational and the Hegelian bargain. Subtypes of the pragmatic bargain are: the Schafferian, the hybrid and the managerial bargain.
The second typology by Hood and Lodge (2006) also distinguishes between two major types of bargain: the trustee and the agency bargain; the trustee bargain corresponds to the systemic bargain and the agency bargain to the pragmatic bargain (Hood, 2002) In a trustee bargain public servants are expected to possess a certain autonomy and defend the public good. In an agency bargain, public servants are the agents of the political principal and act upon their will. Major sub-types in this type of bargain are the serial loyalist bargain (public servants serve different consecutive principals) and delegated bargains (public servants have a high degree of autonomy). The serial loyalist is equivalent to the Schafferian bargain in the first typology, and the delegated bargain resembles the managerial bargain. In this special issue, both typologies are used.
The concept of Public Service Bargains takes into account how a number of institutional aspects impact on the power relations between actors. This makes it possible to describe the differential impact of political-administrative traditions on the position and role of top civil servants in different countries. As such, the typology of Public Service Bargains is a useful tool for comparative research. Following the historical-institutionalist idea of path dependency, we can expect the characteristics of the pre-existing Public Service Bargain to help shape the impact of administrative reforms on the role and position of top civil servants today. As Hood (2002) points out, Public Service Bargains might also differ in the extent to which they leave room for maneuver for top civil servants to act strategically. In turn, Public Service Bargains themselves are also amenable. Analyzing the senior civil service through the lens of Public Service Bargains then is a promising avenue for understanding convergence and divergence in the context of public management reforms. While the characteristics of the inherited Public Service Bargains will impact on the opportunities available to reform the public service (Hood 2002), the Public Service Bargains themselves are also impacted by public sector reform.
The articles in this special issue test in how far the typology of Public Service Bargains is a useful tool not only to analyze relationships between top civil servants and political actors, but also to analyze how the role and position of top civil servants in the management of the civil service has been challenged as a result of administrative reforms. Since the New Public Management era of the 1980s and 1990s, several generations of reform have been introduced in government systems. In this context, a specific question for empirical analysis taken up in this special issue is in how far Public Service Bargains in different countries have evolved towards a more managerial type of bargain, built around the notions of managerial competencies, individual performance agreements, and ex post control, and if so, what is in turn the impact of these changes in Public Service Bargains on the organization and management of state administrations.
International collaboration
The articles presented in this special issue result from international collaboration. For a substantial number of the articles research was performed in the context of the MANDATE-research network. 1 Bringing together scholars from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and UK, the MANDATE-research aimed at empirically validating the Public Service Bargain typology, and exploring the impact of managerial reforms in the public sector on the Public Service Bargain of top civil servants (see also Hondeghem, 2011). In the Mandate project data was gathered by means of the same methodology in the countries involved. More information on this methodology is provided in the articles included in this special issue.
In a later stage of the research, the MANDATE-research network was opened up to other scholars through organizing a panel on Evolving Public Service Bargains, at the ECPR 2011 Conference in Reykjavik. All articles in this special issue were presented and discussed at the panel’s meeting.
The articles in this special issue include comparative studies as well as case studies. Most of the articles are based on desk research, interviews with top civil servants and/or politicians, and survey data.
Contributions to this special issue
The special issue starts with the four articles which are part of the MANDATE research project.
The first article by Hondeghem and Van Dorpe deals with the question of the impact of performance management systems for senior civil servants on the strength of the managerial PSB. The performance management system is operated by means of the performance management cycle, which includes four phases: planning, monitoring, evaluation and acting. In case there is a strong respectively weak result-based control in most of the phases of the performance management cycle, we can speak of a strong respectively weak managerial PSB. In case of a mixed assessment, there is a moderate managerial PSB. The research shows that the Anglo-Saxon countries (UK, Canada) have stronger managerial PSB’s than the European continental countries (the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark). This is partly linked to the distinction between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ performance contracts which refers to a different approach to human behavior in organizations.
The second article, written by Hansen, Steen and de Jong, concentrates on the relation between New Public Management, PSB and the challenges of interdepartmental coordination. They hypothesize that a managerial PSB limits the role of top civil servants in interdepartmental coordination since their focus will be on departmental objectives instead of whole-of-government issues. As a result, countries with strong managerial PSB should face more severe problems of interdepartmental coordination. The hypothesis was only confirmed to a certain degree. Two important reasons account for this. First, coordination problems are more related to basic features of the politico-administrative regime (e.g. fragmentation) than to recent administrative reforms. Second, counter-balanced mechanisms or structures might have been set up to cope with the problem of interdepartmental coordination as a result of administrative reforms.
In the third article, Bourgault and Van Dorpe look at the managerialist reforms in Belgium, Canada, Denmark and the Netherlands and examine whether these reforms had an impact on the identity of top managers. The research distinguishes between personal, role and social identity as these dimensions are closely linked to the PSB components. With regard to personal identity, it was found that the profile of top managers has changed in terms of educational background. With regard to role identity, it was found that the manager role has gained importance, although there is a persistence of the bureaucrat and policy advisor role. As to the social identity, there is a trend to top managers identifying themselves primarily with their department as they are responsible for obtaining departmental goals. In some countries such as Canada and the Netherlands this danger of fragmentation, however, is alleviated by initiatives of corporate management and interdepartmental mobility.
The fourth article, contributed by de Visscher and Houlberg Salomonsen, looks at the PSB from a multiple-bargain perspective. Although the main actors in a PSB are the politicians and the administrators, in most of the countries nowadays a ‘third’ party is involved, namely the political advisors. This actor varies from a limited number of advisors executing specific tasks (as is the case for example in Denmark) to large ministerial cabinets fulfilling substantial policy and management roles (as is the case in Belgium). The question thus is how this third party has an impact on political-administrative relations. The conclusion of the research is that in Denmark, the ‘ménage à trois’ is complementary and cooperative as there is a functional differentiation between the political advisors and the bureaucracy. In Belgium, however, the power relationship is in favour of the minister and his/her cabinet due to the involvement of the cabinet in all stages of the policy process.
The last three articles expand the discussion on PSB geographically and thematically. Van der Meer, van den Berg and Dijkstra analyze the changing legal position of civil servants, which is an important aspect of the PSB. Following the theory of Hood and Lodge (2006), it is to be expected that the legal position will evolve in the direction of private sector regulations. However, different paths are found. Some countries (such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland) move towards an elimination of special civil service rights and responsibilities. In other countries (Germany, Belgium, France) the status quo is maintained. In still other countries, the distinct character of the public service is reinforced; this is the case for Eastern European countries where the installation of a Weberian-inspired civil service legislation was part of the Europeanization process. Britain, which was an example of a state without statutory civil service provisions, has also recently strengthened the legal basis of the civil service.
The sixth article, written by Halligan, sketches the evolution of the PSB of Australian senior public servants (specifically the secretaries of departments), over the last thirty years. It is clear from this article that PSBs are not to be considered as static arrangements. Although the core responsibilities of secretaries remain the same over time (policy advice, management and guarding the public interest), the priorities might change. In the Australian case a clear shift was observed in the eighties to a more prominent position of the managerial role as a result of New Public Management. At the same time there was a trend towards strengthening the political executive. However, because of the deficiencies of short-term politics, a return to traditional verities is now seen. This has found its expression in the stewardship role of the secretaries, which recognizes that secretaries have a part to play in long-term policies and whole-of-government objectives.
The seventh and last article, written by Burns, Peters and Li, applies the PSB model to the case of Hong Kong and investigates the utility of the framework in a non-Western setting with a different political and administrative tradition. The research showed that Hong Kong moved from a primarily trustee-type bargain with some agency elements during the high colonial era, into what has become a delegated agency bargain with some trustee characteristics nowadays. This evolution was the result of radical changes in the governing structures, namely the establishment of the POAS system in 2002 that created separate roles for politicians and bureaucrats. As a result, the basic components of the PSB evolved. The POAS negatively affected the promotion prospects of the senior civil servants, which is an important aspect of the reward component. In terms of competencies, a more managerialist orientation and training was observed. Loyalty was expected to the government of the day, although in reality, a significant proportion of senior civil servants continued to see themselves as arbiters of the public interest.
Concluding remarks
One of the objectives of this special issue was to develop further the concept, the theory and the typology of Public Service Bargains. What have we learned? We limit ourselves to five lessons.
First, it is clear that the concept of Public Service Bargain is an interesting concept to analyze the relationships between the political actor and the administrative actor. A bargain, however, is preferably to be conceptualized as a multi-actor arrangement which involves different actors at both sides. Second, the typology of Hood (and Lodge) is not always easy to apply. Depending on which aspect is taken into account, sometimes a country ends up in another category. This is also clear in this special issue. Third it would be wise to refine some of the categories, otherwise there is a risk of all countries ending up in the hybrid category. This is especially the case as managerialist reforms are influencing public service bargains in different countries, albeit to a different extent. Fourth, there is not a linear evolution from one type of PSB to another. In fact, layering of PBS’s is observed. A new type of bargain often comes in over the old type of bargain. Fifth, bargains are only one aspect of a whole institutional system. Effects of a specific type of bargain might be compensated for by other aspects of the institutional system.
Researchers most of the time end with their conclusions: more research is to be done …