Civil Service

Information about Civil Service

The Roman civil service in action. Note the whip carried by the sergeant. The Virgin and St Joseph register for the census before Governor Quirinius, mosaic 1315–20.

A civil servant or public servant is a civilian career public sector employee working for a government department or agency. The term explicitly excludes the armed services, although civilian officials will work at "Defence Ministry" headquarters. The term always includes the (sovereign) state's employees; whether regional, or sub-state, or even municipal employees are called "civil servants" varies from country to country. In the United Kingdom, for instance, only Crown employees are civil servants, county or city employees are not.

Many consider the study of civil service to be a part of the field of public administration. Workers in "non-departmental public bodies" (sometimes called "QUANGOs") may also be classed as civil servants for the purpose of statistics and possibly for their terms and conditions. Collectively a state's civil servants form its Civil Service or Public Service.

Early civil services

No state of any extent can be ruled without a bureaucracy, but organizations of any size have been few until the modern era. Administrative institutions usually grow out of the personal servants of high officials, as in the Roman Empire. This developed a complex administrative structure, which is outlined in the Notitia Dignitatum and the work of John Lydus, but as far as we know appointments to it were made entirely by inheritance or patronage and not on merit, and it was also possible for officers to employ other people to carry out their official tasks but continue to draw their salary themselves. There are obvious parallels here with the early bureaucratic structures in modern states, such as the Office of Works or the Navy in 18th century England, where again appointments depended on patronage and were often bought and sold.

China

One of the oldest examples of a civil service based on meritocracy is the Imperial bureaucracy of China, which can be traced as far back as the Qin Dynasty (221–207 BC). During the Han Dynasty (202 BC–220 AD) the xiaolian system of recommendation by superiors for appointments to office was established. In the areas of administration, especially in the military, appointments would be based solely on merit.

After the fall of the Han Dynasty, the Chinese bureaucracy would regress into a semi-merit system known as the Nine-rank system, yet in this system noble birthright became the most significant prerequisite for one to gain access to more authoritative posts.

This system was reversed during the shortlived Sui Dynasty (581–618), which initiated a civil service bureaucracy recruited by written examinations and recommendation. The following Tang Dynasty (618–907) would adopt the same measures of drafting officials, and would decreasingly rely upon aristocratic recommendations and more and more upon promotion based on the written examinations.

However, the civil service examinations were practiced on a much smaller scale in comparison to the strong, centralized bureaucracy of the Song Dynasty (960–1279). In response to the regional military rule of jiedushi and loss of civil authority during the late Tang period and Five Dynasties(907–960), the Song emperors were eager to implement a system where civil officials would owe their social prestige to the central court and gain their salaries strictly from the central government. This ideal was not fully achieved since many scholar officials were affluent landowners and partook in many anonymous business affairs in an age of economic revolution in China. Nonetheless, gaining a degree through three levels of examination — prefectural exams, provincial exams, and the prestigious palace exams — was a far more desirable goal in society than becoming a merchant. This was because the mercantile class was traditionally regarded with some disdain by the scholar official class. This class of state bureaucrats in the Song period were far less aristocratic than their Tang predecessors. The examinations were carefully structured in order to ensure people of lesser means than candidates born into wealthy, landowning families were given a greater chance at passing the exams and gaining an official degree. This included the employment of a bureau of copyists who would rewrite all of the candidate's exams in order to mask one's handwriting and therefore make all candidates anonymous and unable to employ favoritism by graders of the exams who might be associated to them and recognize their handwriting. The advent of widespread printing in the Song period allowed many more candidates of the exams access to required Confucian texts which could be utilized in passing the exams.

Europe

The Chinese civil service became known to Europe in the mid-18th century, and influenced the development of European and American systems. Ironically, and in part due to Chinese influence, the first European civil service was not set up in Europe, but rather in India by the East India Company, distinguishing its civil servants from its military servants. In order to prevent corruption and favouritism, promotions within the company were based on examinations. The system then spread to the United Kingdom in 1854, and to the United States in 1883, with the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act.

Civil Services by country

United Kingdom

Main article: British Civil Service

The civil service in the United Kingdom only includes Crown employees; not those who are parliamentary employees. Public sector employees such as teachers and NHS doctors are not considered to be civil servants.

France

Main article: French Civil Service

The civil service in France is often considered to include government employees, as well as employees of public corporations.

Other countries

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Danish civil servants queuing after their foreign minister for an airport passport check

Other countries tend to use systems which vary between these two extremes. Germany makes a clear distinction, as in the U.S., between political and official posts (though the threshold is placed rather higher); also see Beamter.

Brazilian civil service is composed mostly of career servants, with nomination based on written examinations, but it is allowed for governants to freely nominate some posts, specially higher ones.

Employees of international organisations (e.g., the United Nations or the International Atomic Energy Agency) are sometimes referred to as international civil servants.

Other meanings

Civil service also means a form of legal conscientious objection. It should be noted that the Finnish "siviilipalvelus", Swedish "civiltjänst" and German "civildienst" all can be translated to "civil service".

References

Bodde, D. Chinese Ideas in the West http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/chinawh/web/s10/ideas.pdf
Brownlow, Louis, Charles E. Merriam, and Luther Gulick, Report of the President's Committee on Administrative Management. (1937) U.S. Government Printing Office.
P. N. Mathur. The Civil Service of India, 1731-1894: a study of the history, evolution and demand for reform (1977)
Kevin Theakston. The Civil Service Since 1945 (Institute of Contemporary British History, 1995)
Ari Hoogenboom. Outlawing the Spoils: A History of the Civil Service Reform Movement, 1865-1883. (1961)
Schiesl, Martin. The Politics of Efficiency: Municipal Administration and Reform in America, 1880-1920. (1977)
Van Riper, Paul. History of the United States Civil Service (1958).
White, Leonard D., Introduction to the Study of Public Administration. (1955)
Leonard D. White, Charles H. Bland, Walter R. Sharp, and Fritz Morstein Marx; Civil Service Abroad, Great Britain, Canada, France, Germany (1935) online

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