Role in the Transition to Democracy

The wave of democratization that swept southern Europe, Latin America, and Eastern Europe in the mid-1970s and in the late 1980s brought to the fore the relationship between bureaucracy and democracy. In the democracies that have emerged in the last quarter of the twentieth century, the civil service may be far from responsive, reliable, and responsible. A civil service may be far from responsive, reliable, and responsible. A civil service that has been associated with an authoritarian regime can easily be considered illegitimate after the transition to democracy takes place. To prove it legitimate, the civil service must submit to the leadership of new democratic governments. Such governments often begin their terms in office by "cleansing" the ranks of the civil service of authoritarian elements. Thus the civil service of authoritarian elements. Thus the civil service in a new democracy is vulnerable, more so if it has traditionally proved to be inefficient.

Nevertheless, new democracies put a difficult double task to their civil service: to remain weak and pose no threat to democratic government and, simultaneously, to help legitimate the democratic regime by improving its economic performance over that of the previous, authoatarian regime. The evaluation of the performance of the civil service in a new democracy is based in a trade-off between these two demands.

In fact, additional conflicting pressures may be exerted on the civil service of a new democracy. The democratic state needs a civil service that is to a certain extent resistant to all governments in order to safeguard the well being, the security, and the defense if the people living within its territorial boundaries. This demand of the people living within its territorial boundaries. This demand clashes with drive of the government party (or coalition of parties) to use the capacities of the civil service freely to fulfill their election promises. For instance, nationalist governments may want to expand the state freely to fulfill their election promises. For instance, nationalist governments may want to expand the state beyond its boundaries, socialist ones to reform it, neoliberal ones to reduce its economic functions to a minimum. Political parties that govern in new democracies may use the civil service for any of these purposes, depending on their profile and the constraints they face once in power.
The removal of elements of the previous authoritarian regime from political institutions is part of the tradition to democracy, and its extent is heavily debated in young democracies. Still, if the democratic government dominates political institutions, like the legislature and the judiciary, and also permeates the civil service, democracy suffers from the reduction of multiple centers of power into a single one-that is, the governing elite. If, as is often the case after the new democracy is even more concentrated. Chances are that the civil service will become responsive only to the needs of the leadership of the governing party. Democratic consolidation, which followed the initial transition to democracy, leaves muchn to be desired in such circumstances.

Yet the permeation of the civil service by the governing Democratic Party (or coalition of parties) does not necessarily undermine the legitimacy or post authoritarian democracy. In post authoritarian democracies, civil servants cannot be fired all at once, even if they have been politically socialized to serve authoritarian governments. The recruitment of new civil service personnel, with records of resistance against the depend dictatorship, may serve as an injection of democratic legitimacy into a suspect body of civil servants. Otherwise, the existence of an intact civil service that is known to have collaborated with nondemocratic rulers may compromise any efforts to deepen and expand democracy. It should be kept in mind, however, that the deepening and expansion of democracy is often pursed by political elated only to extent that they can control the outcome of opening up institutions, such as the civil service, to democratic participation from below.
In the early phases of the transition to and consolidation of democracy, a state needs a strong government aided by a competent civil service for a number of reasons. During that time a competent civil service is instrumental in keeping at bay military and security forces and countering pockets of supporters of authoritarian rule in other institutions. Moreover, rarely do new democracies emerge amidst economic prosperity. New democratic governments often must grapple with economic stagnation or decline as they strive to consolidate democratic rule. Again, an efficient civil service may play a strategic role in economic recovery and thus contribute indirectly to the legitimating of the democratic regime.

In conclusion, a civil service, which in a new, unstable democracy must be weak in the face of alternating democratic governments and strong in the face of undemocratic challenges and economic adversity, feels strongly the difficulties of democratic consolidation. A young democracy that counts on competing democratic parties to consolidate life disagreeable and resort to the civil service as a pillar of democratic stability. The quest for democracy involves, among other things, striking a delicate balance between the elected government and the civil service.