Bureaucratic Élites in Western European states. A comparative analysi of top officials

Book abstract:

This volume 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. It 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 the tendency to recruit from outside the civil service. The book also examines whether wider social changes, such as the democratization of education, the growth of interest groups, and the increasing importance of the European Union have an impact on the higher levels of bureaucracy and produce similar patterns of change throughout Europe.

The wide coverage of this book gives a mix of different types of administrative system which are generally assumed to be very different- 'southern' and 'northern' systems; federal, unitary, and regionalized systems; systems with reputations for extensive patronage in public services and systems and systems with reputations for excluding such patronage; cabinet-based systems and those without such forms of political supervision. The eleven chapters presenting the position of senior officials in each country depict a picture of diversity while the conclusion seeks to answer the central question of how the political status of senior civil servants in modern states is developing.