Politicisation, professionalisation, or both? Hungary's civil service system

Abstract

This paper aims to determine where the Hungarian civil service system might be situated on an imaginary merit system – spoils system scale. In doing so, the Hungarian system is analyzed from two angles. Firstly, regulation is scrutinized as it is manifested in the Civil Service Act. Secondly, practice is examined relying on available statistical and survey data. The author argues that, contrary to the conclusions of most of scholarly publications, the Hungarian Law is a pseudo-merit system law, not in fact preventing the prevalence of a spoils system. Practice generally reveals, however, features of a modestly politicized system with signs of increasing professionalization. The last two sections investigate the potential explanations for these somewhat surprising findings and whether the findings for the Hungarian civil service may be generalized to some or most of the Central and East European countries.

The Effectiveness of Administrative Reform in New Democracies

“…Globally, administrative change in CEE coincided with a reform movement in the Western Hemisphere dominated by the ideas of New Public Management (NPM). Yet the NPM trend remained foreign to reform efforts in the postcommunist countries (Dimitrova 2005; Gajduschek 2007; Goetz 2001), which chose to reform their administrations along the lines of the classical Weberian model of centralized hierarchy. Scholars offer several explanations for why the CEE administrative reforms remained so “curiously clear of the NPM approach” (Nunberg 1999, 264).…”

“…Although the new Eastern European laws vary in their particular features, the literature agrees on the existence of a common core in the design of the civil service models. Oriented along Weberian rational‐legal lines, the reform efforts pursued two major goals—depoliticization and professionalization of the state bureaucracy (Gajduschek 2007; Goetz 2001; Meyer‐Sahling 2004). 2…”

“…Although all postcommunist states underwent civil service reforms, as figure 1 shows, there was considerable variation in the timing of reform introduction. Hungary, widely considered a front‐runner in institutional reconstruction, passed its civil service law as early as 1992 (Gajduschek 2007; Goetz 2001; Meyer‐Sahling 2004). Estonia and Lithuania adopted new legislation by the mid‐1990s, and Bulgaria and Romania in 1999.…”

“…World experience had shown that formal institutions of oversight can be successful promoters of bureaucratic accountability (‐Grzymala‐Busse 2007). Therefore, a neutral merit‐based civil service system, the opposite of the communist nomenklatura, should enhance fair competition and honest policy making (Gajduschek 2007). Also, the adoption of administrative measures enabling public control over state resources would help strengthen the national economy (Center for the Study of Democracy 2006).…”

Civil Servants and Politics

“…Whole public administration organisations and/or whole segments of public sectors have been abolished and/or privatised, and large-scale staff reductions conducted. Fifteen to twenty per cent of civil service staff is cut periodically (Gajduschek 2007a). Whereas employment security, a sine-qua-non of merit systems, can be assured in 'normal periods', it is both politically and financially impossible in the circumstances of CEE countries.…”