Abstract

This contribution seeks to answer the question whether the new civil service legislation that entered into force in 2015 in the Czech Republic led to the depoliticization of the country’s ministerial bureaucracy. To that end, we compare the career backgrounds of top civil servants before and after the entry into force of the new Civil Service Act. The article examines the career backgrounds of the persons appointed as ministerial deputies between 2013 and 2018, focusing on their last “pre-deputy” jobs and considering a broader set of their career attributes. A focus on the previous job reveals that even before the law was introduced, bureaucrats constituted the largest share of appointees, and their share even increased with the new legislation. The incidence of deputies appointed directly from party-related jobs dropped considerably. However, when a broader set of career attributes is considered, the share of partisans among the pre-2015 deputies nearly matches that of the career bureaucrats. Ostensibly political careers among the post-2015 deputies declined but remain significant. Hence, there has been a decline in the open politicization of the ministerial bureaucracy after 2015. Party political effects also matter, as the new ANO party, after entering the executive, has taken a different approach to top bureaucratic appointments than the other major governing Czech parties. Typically, deputies appointed into the positions under the ANO’s control would not have links to the party itself but would be recruited via non-party channels, e.g. from pre-political networks of the ANO ministers and leaders. Consequently, though less politicized by party agents, the current Czech system is more a product of choices made by government ministers of the day than a stable arrangement resulting from firmly established norms and rules.

中文翻译：

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任命高级公务员的政治：捷克共和国的职业背景和公务员政治化

摘要

该文稿旨在回答以下问题：2015年在捷克共和国生效的新的公务员制度立法是否导致该国的部长级官僚机构去政治化。为此，我们比较了新《公务员法》生效前后顶级公务员的职业背景。本文考察了2013年至2018年间被任命为部长级代表的人员的职业背景，重点是他们最近的“副职”职位，并考虑了其更广泛的职业属性。对以前工作的关注表明，即使在颁布法律之前，官僚仍是被任命者中最大的一部分，而随着新立法的实施，官僚的份额甚至有所增加。直接从与党有关的工作中任命代表的比例大大下降。然而，当考虑到更广泛的职业属性时，2015年前代表中游击队员的比例几乎与职业官僚的比例相称。在2015年后的代表中，表面上的政治职业下降了，但仍然很重要。因此，2015年后部长级官僚机构的公开政治化程度有所下降。党派的政治影响也很重要，因为新任ANO政党进入行政机构后，采取了与其他主要执政捷克人不同的方式来担任高级官僚任命派对。通常，被任命为由ANO控制的职位的代表与党本身没有联系，但会通过非党派渠道招募，例如从ANO部长和领导人的政治前网络中招募。因此，尽管较少受到政党特工的政治化，