Abstract The aim of this article is to explore and explain the 2012 civil service reform in Estonia. The study builds on the concept of public service bargain, which facilitates the operationalization of changes in the civil service system. Although public service bargain has attracted a lot of interest of public administration scholars, it has not been previously applied in the civil service research in Central and Eastern Europe. The theoretical part synthesizes previous literature on typologies of public service bargain, thus elaborating an analytical framework for the empirical study. The empirical study addresses the following research question: did the civil service reform change the public service bargain in Estonia and if so, how ? The empirical research was carried out by relying on desk research, secondary literature on Estonian administrative reforms and participant observation. The study builds partly on the materials collected for the EUPACK case study on Estonia. The analysis shows that the civil service reform brought along changes in all three components of public service bargain: reward, competency and loyalty, although the agency-type bargain was retained. The shift towards the managerial public service bargain is evidenced in the greater emphasis on flexibility in employment relations, the use of fixed-term contracts, increased private-sector-style practices at all levels of the civil service, an emphasis on performance management, and the reduction of job security. Despite the widespread criticism of NPM, the Estonian civil service reform presents a “textbook case” of managerial NPM-oriented reform. It is argued that substantially diminished rewards may contribute to a vicious circle of temporary civil servants, including problems with recruiting new officials and a further increase in their turnover, ultimately leading to a “temporary state”. The loyalty of civil servants may in turn shift towards instrumental, short-term and easily influenced or changing loyalty, thus challenging the fundamental values of democratic governance.

中文翻译：

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迈向管理公共服务的讨价还价：爱沙尼亚的公务员制度改革

摘要本文旨在探讨和解释2012年爱沙尼亚的公务员制度改革。该研究建立在公共服务议价的概念之上，该概念促进了公务员制度变革的可操作性。尽管公共服务讨价还价吸引了许多公共行政学者的兴趣，但它先前并未在中欧和东欧的公务员研究中得到应用。理论部分综合了以往关于公共服务讨价还价类型的文献，从而为实证研究阐述了一个分析框架。实证研究解决了以下研究问题：公务员制度改革是否改变了爱沙尼亚的公共服务讨价还价？实证研究是依靠案头研究进行的，关于爱沙尼亚行政改革和参与者观察的二手文献。该研究部分建立在为爱沙尼亚EUPACK案例研究收集的材料的基础上。分析表明，公务员制度改革带来了公共服务讨价还价的所有三个方面的变化：奖励，能力和忠诚度，尽管保留了代理形式的讨价还价。向管理型公共服务讨价还价的转变体现在：更加强调雇佣关系的灵活性，使用固定期限合同，在各级公务员制度中增加了私营部门风格的做法，强调了绩效管理以及减少工作保障。尽管对NPM提出了广泛的批评，但爱沙尼亚的公务员制度改革还是一个面向NPM管理改革的“教科书案例”。有人认为，大幅减少的报酬可能会导致临时公务员的恶性循环，包括招募新官员的问题以及人员流动的进一步增加，最终导致“临时状态”。公务员的忠诚度可能反过来转向工具性的，短期的，容易受到影响的或不断变化的忠诚度，从而挑战了民主治理的基本价值。