scholarly journals Do Left-Wing Governments Decrease Wage Inequality Among Civil Servants? Empirical Evidence from the German States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Björn Kauder ◽  
Manuela Krause ◽  
Niklas Potrafke
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Wage Inequality ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
German States

scholarly journals Do Left-wing Governments Decrease Wage Inequality among Civil Servants? Empirical Evidence from the German States

2021 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-135
Author(s):  
Björn Kauder ◽  
Manuela Krause ◽  
Niklas Potrafke
Keyword(s):  
Wage Inequality ◽  
The United States ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Future Research ◽  
State Governments ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Federal States ◽  
Inequality Measures ◽  
Government Ideology ◽  
German States

We investigate whether left-wing governments decrease wage inequality among civil servants. The data are based on the salaries of civil servants in the German states. Since a reform in 2006, German state governments are allowed to design salaries of civil servants. We employ encompassing data for pay levels and professions including judges, professors, policemen, and administrators and distinguish between levels of operating experiences. We use six wage inequality measures comparing salaries across pay levels and operating experiences. The results do not suggest that left-wing governments were more active in decreasing wage inequality among civil servants than the center or right-wing governments. Cabinet members are civil servants themselves and decide on their own salaries: government ideology is also not shown to predict the salaries of cabinet members. Because left-wing governments are perceived as taking action against income and wage inequality, future research should employ data from other federal states such as the United States to examine how government ideology influences the salaries of civil servants.

Policy advisory styles in the francophone Belgian civil service

2018 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-478 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Aubin ◽  
Marleen Brans
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implementation ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Information Sources ◽  
Civil Service ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Policy Advice ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Administrative System ◽  
Policy Work ◽  
Internal Information

In a context of the rising importance of ministerial advisers, this article provides empirical evidence about the nature of involvement of civil servants in policy work. Based on a survey of graduated civil servants in francophone Belgium, it shows that civil servants are much involved in policy work even in a politico-administrative system characterised by strong ministerial cabinets. Belgian francophone civil servants are ‘incidental advisors’. They are less process generalists than issue specialists who mostly deal with policy implementation. Their policy advisory style oscillates between ‘rational technician’ and ‘client advisor’. Despite a low institutionalisation of policy advice in the civil service, civil servants significantly serve the ministers in the policy formulation (for harmonization) phase, supplying information and analysis and participating to the writing of policy-related texts. Points for practitioners The francophone Belgian case shows the importance of policy tasks conducted by civil servants. It also provides evidence about the importance of in-house policy-analytical capacity as it shows that civil servants primarily rely on internal information sources and consultation when involved in policy formulation.

scholarly journals „Der schnellste Jude Deutschlands“. Sport, Moderne und (Körper-)Politik im bewegten Leben Alex Natans (1906–1971)

STADION ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-218
Author(s):  
Kay Schiller
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
World War ◽  
Nazi Regime ◽  
World Record ◽  
Political Activist ◽  
Athletic Success

This article deals with the biography of the elite Jewish-German sprinter, sports writer and left-wing political activist Alex Natan, „the fastest Jew in Germany“ (Alfred Flechtheim) during the 1920s. Hailing from an assimilated family of the Berlin Jewish-German middle class, Natan was for most of his active career a member of the bürgerlich sport movement, running for SC Charlottenburg Berlin. He achieved his greatest athletic success as a member of the club’s world-record equalling 4x100-meter relay squad in 1929. In addition to Natan’s athletic achievements, the article pays particular attention to his career as a left-wing sports journalist; his participation in the anti-Nazi resistance of civil servants in the Reich Vice Chancellery in 1933/34; his emigration to Britain in 1933; his four-year internment during World War II; the resumption of his journalistic career in the postwar period; and his support for the 1972 Munich Olympics. By focusing on his confrontations with Carl Diem and Karl Ritter von Halt, the article also engages with Natan’s vocal opposition to the rehabilitation after 1945 of sport functionaries who had collaborated with the Nazi regime.

Bureaucratic Shirking in China: Is Sanction-based Accountability a Cure?

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Wenyan Tu ◽  
Ting Gong
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Civil Servants ◽  
Performance Information ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Government Officials ◽  
Blame Avoidance ◽  
Original Survey

Abstract This study analyses the intricate relationship between sanction-based accountability and bureaucratic shirking. Drawing on an original survey conducted among Chinese civil servants, it addresses the question of whether sanction-based accountability can effectively regulate the conduct of public officials and provide a cure for bureaucratic shirking. The study identifies the characteristics of shirking behaviour in the Chinese bureaucracy and distinguishes three major patterns: evading responsibility, shifting responsibility and reframing responsibility. The findings indicate that sanction-based accountability may contain some obvious and notorious slacking types of behaviour, such as stalling and inaction, but government officials may distort or reframe their responsibilities to cope with accountability pressure. Empirical evidence suggests that owing to some “strategic” adjustments in bureaucratic behaviour, flagrant shirking is replaced by more subtle ways of blame avoidance, such as playing it safe or fabricating performance information. Sanction-based accountability therefore does not offer a panacea for bureaucratic shirking.

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