Bureaucratic Elites in Western European States: A Comparative Analysis of Top OfficialsEdward C. Page, Vincent Wright OUP Oxford, 1999 M12 9 - 300 pages Bureaucratic Elites in West European States provides valuable information about the structures and composition of the higher civil service and its position in the political structure through a comparative analysis of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Greece, Denmark, and Sweden. The book explores how higher civil service has developed in the light of the massive changes in European societies in the past thirty years. Changes include the size of the top level of the civil service, the growing social diversity of its ranks and well as the tendency to recruit from outside the civil service. The book also examines how wider social changes, such as the democratisation of education, the growth of interest groups, and the increasing importance of the European Union impact on the higher levels of bureaucracy producing similar patterns of change throughout Europe. |
Contents
| 1 | |
1 A Description of the Greek Higher Civil Service | 13 |
Still the Primacy of Corporatism? | 32 |
An Ossified World | 55 |
4 The Senior Civil Service in France | 65 |
5 Senior Officials in Austria | 90 |
6 The Senior Civil Service in Belgium | 121 |
Institutional Change and Positional Differentiation | 147 |
Common terms and phrases
academic degrees administrative state secretary agencies Austria background Belgian Belgium Berlin British civil service Bundestag bureaucracy cabinets ministériels candidates career cent Chancellery Committee competition contacts coordination countries culture decentralization degree Denmark departmental directors economic élite European European Union executive federal ministries formal functions generalist grade grands corps hierarchy higher civil servants higher civil service Hondeghem implementation important increasing institutions interdepartmental internal junior ministers leadership London managerial ministerial cabinets Ministry of Finance organization organizational ÖVP pantouflage PASOK permanent secretary personnel policy-making political appointments political parties politicians politicization posts private sector professional public administration public employees public sector rank reform regional responsibility role Rosenthal salary selection senior civil servants senior civil service senior officials senior public managers social SPÖ staff status structure Table top civil servants top officials top positions traditional women