Civil service reform dilemmas: Politicization and normative limits in Ethiopia

Though it lacks a universally accepted meaning and instead described by attributes such as competence, merit, administrative continuity, and political insulation, & accountability, Civil service originated with the existence of organized human life. While only the scope & functions of the public service change over time, its importance maintains its continuity. Changes in civil service usually occur through civil service reform, a set of intervention mechanisms developed & implemented to increase the efficiency & effectiveness of civil servants & thereby improve the quality of public services. Despite the centrality of the civil service and its reform, skepticism about the relationship between politics and administration persists, and no durable maneuver has been found to strike a delicate balance between politicians' desire to politicize the civil service and bureaucrats' quest for self-aggrandizement. As a result, CSR has never been a frictionless endeavor. This thesis aimed to examine the politics-administration relationships during CSR, covering a period between 1991 and 2018. To this end, it examined dilemma situations in which public service elites attempt to uphold the principles of legality, truthfulness, professional standards, and political neutrality in the face of political influence from those elected and appointed. The study used purposive civil service reform as a theoretical perspective and supplemented it with a descriptive research method. In addition, a mixed research approach was adopted because it allowed for data triangulation from primary and secondary sources. Furthermore, 211 samples with a confidence level of 95% and a margin of error of 5% were drawn from 840 public administrators selected from ministries, commissions, and institutions and interviews were conducted using a vignette questionnaire. In addition, ten respondents from academia and ten from politics were selected for in-depth interviews using availability and snowball sampling, respectively. The study found that political executives play a more significant role in CSR in Ethiopia than their counterpart bureaucratic elites, and political leaders set the critical reform criteria at the top. The research has also shown that despite guidance mechanisms for reform implementation, there is a lack of adequate upward communication between political and civil service elites during CSR. Moreover, the study shows that civil service elites have neither the dilemma nor the courage to resist any attempt by political leaders to take actions related to CSR that might undermine the normative boundaries of legality, truthfulness, professional standards, and political neutrality. Also, the poor pay, submissive administrative tradition, lack of independent watchdog organizations, and lack of democratic culture exacerbated the politicization of civil service in general and CSR in particular. Indeed, the de-politicization of the civil service and the reform process requires a genuine political commitment to keep the relationships between politics and administration within legally and morally acceptable limits. Moreover, it is suggested that structurally strengthening the public sector, ensuring representativeness and its diversity accommodativeness, and thus moving toward a true meritocracy would improve the relationship between politics and administration. Furthermore, this study suggests that clarity and contextualization of reform programs from the outset are crucial to avoid excessive politicization. Finally, it has been proposed that the establishment and main functions of the civil service be defined in the country's primary laws to protect it from arbitrary political interference and improve formal accountability systems. Key Words: Civil Service, Public Service, Civil Service Reform, Bureaucracy, Public Service Reform, Civil Service Elites, Civil Service Politicization, Civil Service Reform Politicization, Public Sector, Bureaucratic Elites, Political Executives