Role of the Civil Service in Democracy

The role of civil servants in democracy is a long debated question, which was lucidly considered by Weber in his discussion of the bureaucratization of the contemporary state. On the one hand, Weber perceived bureaucracy as a correlate of democracy in the sense that the existence of a civil service, staffed on the basis of merit, contributes to the day-to-day contact between citizens and the bureaucracy. More specifically, the selection and promotion of civil servants according to achievement criteria is a guarantee of the application of universal criteria in the distribution of goods and services by the state to its citizen.

On the other hand, the executive of laws, typically formulated by the government and passed by the legislature in modern democracies, is left to the civil servants. These individuals' interests, related to their personal, ideological, and corporate biases, may find their way into the implementation of the policies of the political elites that have won the confidence of the electorate. In other words, the strategic position of civil servants in democratic political strategic position of the civil servants in democratic political systems, and the leeway they enjoy in the interpretation of systems, and the leeway they enjoy in the integration of laws - particularly in the Nobel situations or when there are conflicts of interest - may allow them to deflect the import of policies initiated by legitimate governments. In short, politicians can carry out the will of electorate only with the help of the civil service, who are not periodically evaluated by the electorate as politicians are, may be able to circumscribe the options of the electorate.

The civil service, then, can be perceived as a potential threat to democracy. The sources of the threat can be found in the growing size of the modern state, the accelerating intervention of government in the economy, and the secrecy and increasing technically of state activities, which together may remove bureaucratic activities from the reach of democratic control. In particular, the growth of bureaucracy, evident in the rise of the numbers of civil servants over time, has long and judicially been considered a factor that can lead a time, has long and justifiably been considered a factor that can lead to a replace to nondemocratic government. The legislature and the judiciary, let along individual citizens, have difficulties monitoring decisions made in the silent corridors of the civil service.

A relevant questions concerns the extent to which the civil service is responsive, reliable, and responsible, as part of the executive branch of government in a democratic regime. A responsive civil service caters more to the needs of the citizens than to its own tendencies to reproduce and grow. A responsive civil service caters more to the needs of the citizens than to its own tendencies to reproduce and grow. A reliable civil service delivers services that measure up to the standards of international economic competition and diplomacy and to the expectations of the democratic government in power as to the thorough implementation of its policies. A responsible civil service is held accountable by the majority of the electorate through the exercise of the right to vote and other forms of political participation. Furthermore, a responsible civil service refrains from discriminating against the parliamentary minority and against social groups who traditionally possess fewer resources, such as social status (racial or ethnic minorities) or political pull (women or the poor), than others.