9th February 1999

(2,112 words)

In attempting to use civil servants to serve their political ends, governments undermine their capacity to implement the policies of the state. Discuss.

"The opposition aren't the opposition. They're only the opposition in exile, the civil service are the opposition in residence." Jim Hacker MP, courtesy of the BBC.

The core feature of democratic states is the ability of the people, through elections, to change those that have power. Governments should be able to be removed and replaced without the many operations of the state coming to a halt in the change-over period. Equally, it seems only responsible for the elected officials, elected often by their support for a party platform to be properly informed on issues that they are largely ignorant of, yet that they will have to make major decisions over. For these reasons, some form of permanent civil services are present in the US, the UK and Germany. There are some differences between these three states, but there are enough similarities that this question can largely be discussed in general terms. This civil service must carry out a dual role. The first of these is to supply ruling politicians with information and suggestions for making policy proposals. The second role is to enact the decisions of the executive or legislature. In following out this dual role, it could be said that the civil service is implementing the policies of the state, so this question must address in what ways governments are undermining the ability of civil servants to carry out each of these two roles in the traditional manner.

This would, however, perhaps be a simplification of any model of the civil service. The question implies that the natural state of affairs are corrupt, self-motivated politicians fighting against the machine-like neutrality of the civil service who are working selflessly to implement the legitimate power of the state. The role of the civil service as having its own agenda and interests, so itself acting to reduce the implementation of state policies must also therefore be looked at. Indeed, in a reversal of roles, it must be seen if governments in fact act to control such actions of the civil service in order to implement the policies of the state. It seems a contradiction that a government responsible for generating a policy would seek to undermine its execution. If a government is acting in such a way, further questions must be raised. The first is to question if in fact the policies being followed by governments are indeed their own, that they support, that they are not simply mouth-pieces for vastly unaccountable bureaucracies. This would be related to the first of the dual roles of the bureaucracy. The second question to be asked if it appears that governments are undermining the civil service, could such action be being done to prevent the civil service from failing to carry out the policies as ordered. This relates to the second, implementational role of the civil service.

The suggestion that I wish to make strongly is that the greatest of any government's political ends is to be successful. Any government will seek to do this by the implementation of their policies, which they believe will be best for their country. In order for these initiatives to be successful, they must make sure that the machines of government implement these effectively. If they believe that the machine has its own agenda, it would be acceptable to try and change it in order for it to adequately serve the government's legitimate power. For this reason, it will be suggested that using civil services for their own political ends may not undermine, but instead better empower the system to carry out the policies of the state. In order to discuss this, it is necessary to look at how the civil service and elected politicians interact in each state as well as looking at the various interests that each has.

In the primary role of a bureaucracy, that of shaping government policy, the key strengths are expertise and information. The resources available to a government department to consult and research are far larger than those available to politicians. A politician's resources, usually through a party, are channelled into electioneering, into gaining power, not into learning how to use it. Politicians, because of their appetite for winning elections, are often linked closely to certain organisations, those from whom they need votes, such as ethnic groups or trade union members, or those from whom they need cash. For this reason, their consultation in forming policies is often limited. Worse still, political policies are increasingly being formed by reading opinion polls and by use of focus groups. A truly neutral civil service would be able to rise above these pressures and present politicians with alternative policy proposals which have been formed through consultation with a genuine cross-section of interested parties. Further, because of the longevity of civil servants within departments, they also have the ability to offer personal expertise about issues and a knowledge of the practicalities of implementation. For this reason, it seems only just that the civil service should have some control over their democratically elected masters. Whilst it is often necessary for a member of government to authorise key decisions, most proposals of the civil service in all three countries pass through unchallenged. This seems reasonable, the workload of ministers is large enough that it is unnecessary to meddle in uncontraversial areas of policy. This is characterised more fully in the German model. Mayntx and Scharpf identify six criteria that senior civil servants must use to see if they should give policies 'executive attention'. These revolve greatly around 'political' importance, such as if a prominent politician has raised objections to the plans; those that are likely to provoke public criticism or those surrounding a personal interests of a minister. It is assumed that the bureaucracy can be trusted in other areas to implement the needed policies.

When, therefore, politicians try and surround themselves with political advisors, rather than typical civil servant officials, it can be seen to be undermining the bureaucracy's ability to carry out some of these functions. Again, politician advisors can be assumed to be more partisan than the bureaucracy and less open to delegation from a variety of sources. The need also to follow policies which are more 'media friendly' and high profile than before would also be a pressure on the service. Such intervention and would weaken their ability to carryout the tasks that would traditionally be trusted to them. Even in the UK, where there is traditionally seen to be limited scope for political appointments in the civil service, promotion of certain sympathetic bureaucrats at the expense of those who seemed more sceptical of the government's radical program was seen throughout the Thatcher years. Another action that was taken in this era was the growth of quasi autonomous non-governmental organisations (QUANGOs). Such groups were often based around political appointments and were made to be separated from the institutional structure, and so control of the civil service. By politicising the civil service there is a suggestion that its legitimacy is diminished when it tries to implement policies as groups see it not as a machine of constitutional government, but instead as a partisan tool. This contrasts with the United States. In the US, the system is far less uniform than Germany or the UK across departments, with the executive given extensive powers of appointment within the bureaucracy. This implies that there is a natural partisanship in departments, yet the balance of the practicalities of government requiring that much of the staff are retained for their expertise. In this case, political influence is to be expected and so has evolved into the machine. Germany, however, still seems to have remained untouched by politicisation of the bureaucracy. This is largely to do with the constitutional constraints on the powers of politicians to move civil servants around and the weak nature of executives which are in coalition.

In such ways it does therefore appear that by using the bureaucracy for political ends, the capacity of the bureaucracy to help in the production of policies which are best for the state and free from partisan considerations are undermined. It must now be looked at if there is a need for politicians to act in such a way.

The first generalisation about civil services is specifically relevant to Germany and the UK, as some suggest the classless society of the US (sic) is immune to such criticisms. This relates to the configuration of the personnel in the civil service. In the UK the word 'Oxbridge' sums up the stereotype of the civil service. Although there are not comparable (in establishment placing, not educational standard) institutions in Germany, the tests to gain access to the service and the tradition of family connections have much the same effect. Further, the predominance of lawyers in the German civil service highlights certain social consistencies. Such embedded lack of representation for society as a whole must move to encourage the bureaucracy to act in a way beneficial to certain social classes. In Germany, the former Prussian Junker class is often pointed to as being strong, although there is some constitutional imperative to have a service somewhat representative of the Lander. Such observations suggest that politicians, who are theoretically representative of the people's interests, if not their social standings, should be able to undermine civil service action in order to pursue their policies.

The second strand of this argument is related to departmental interests. Here, the United States is welcomed back into the comparison as a system where particular interests are represented particularly strongly in certain departments. This is perhaps predictable. Because the political heads of departments are not largely responsible to the legislature, but instead to a very busy President, they can be seen as largely untouchable. Congressional committees have some power over departments, but often these are seen as part of the problem of interests. Except for their own survival and an increase in their budget, departments often have their own agendas. This can be for many reasons and often hard to spot, because, often working closely with a particular interest group is not a sign of that group's power over the department, but instead a sign of the departments willingness to follow a policy in a particular direction. Cases can be seen in the UK, such as the Department of Transport's emphasis on road haulage above rail. Again, the monopoly of information that a civil service often has, enables it to 'persuade' politicians to carry on these agendas. In the US, the phenomena of impenetrable 'iron-triangles', between departments, congressional committees and interest groups have been identified. In such cases, by constantly following policies which seem beneficial to all parties, the relationships become embedded. This is especially relevant because of the relative permanence of each of these groups. Whilst accepting some cases of such simple relationships, Hugh Heclo suggests more complex 'interest networks' in his analysis. This does however still manage to give great power to unelected officials.

The importance of both these two variations of bureaucracy interest is that not only can bureaucrats help form policy, but they are also charged with its implementation. If their interests encourage them to not follow out such tasks, they can have a great effect on state policy. For this reason it could be acceptable for politicians to highlight civil service failures and to have powers over officials which lay outside the traditional 'inside' channels. Whilst protected by the constitutional imperatives to curb the power of the politicians, civil servants have the capabilities to greatly undermine the whole system of democratic government.

It is therefore clear that there must be a balance stuck in judging the relationship between executives and bureaucracies. Both groups have their own interests and have much to gain by exploiting the different strengths that they have over the other. It is clear that politicians overly politicising the bureaucracy might have the effect of polarising departments towards partisan objectives. Equally, it might be able to counteract the entrench institutional leanings of the civil service and so serve a role of balance, so leading to better implementation of the policies of the state. Scrutiny of the implementation of policies is one that is traditionally done internally. By politicising such areas, in what some might describe as being for 'political ends' they might be better able to implement policies decided by elected politicians. The importance of stressing the correlation between government's 'political ends' and the 'policies of the state' it does seem clear that the undermining of the bureaucratic machine is necessarily against state policies.