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Friday, May 7, 2010

The System of Positions

The system of positions is an alternative to the career system, but it sometimes applied along with it. In the position system the needs of ministries and public agencies for new personnel are registered. Job openings are outlined, with descriptions of the duties and qualifications of each position. Public employees are hired on a limited contract; when their contract expires, they may be rehired or let go.

The civil servant in the position system does not have the special relationship with the states that the career civil servant does. Although the uncertainty of employment and advancement may be drawback for the position system, there are advantages. The position system is superior to the career system in that recruited employees have specialized skills, and the government enjoys flexibility in hiring similar to that of private enterprises (which hire by position). In the position system, civil servants are recruited not to begin a career period of time, under a contract comparable to those in the private sector. The position system is found into eh United States and, in a particular sense, was used in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

A strong anti-elite sentiment has permeated the organization of the civil service in the United States almost from the country's beginning. In the nineteenth century the American federal bureaucracy was highly politicized: civil service positions were handed out in exchange for political support, an allocation system known as the "spoils system". The abolition of the spoils system was accomplished gradually, beginning with the Pendleton Act of 1883.

In the United States today, job openings are announced in conjunction with job descriptions. Applicants pass through a selection process, based on merit; successful candidates are offered a contract that binds the administration to keep the employee in the same position. The employee may be transferred to other posts after the contract expires. Top positions are also open to competition, but in the late 1970s there was an effort to creator administrative elite, the Senior Executive Service, which included approximately the 6000 highest officials into eh civil service. Still, incoming presidents of the United States layers of the federal administration with temporary advisers. Some degree of politicization characterizes state and local-level administrations as well.

In Canada civil servants are appointed on the basis of merit; they are selected from an inventory of candidates who have successfully passed examinations and interviews in career areas of their choice. Having entered the civil service, Canadians may develop their career through promotion and transfer among several dozen of departments and agencies. Recruitment to new positions is accomplished through competitions, first within public service and then outside public service.

Compared with the career system, the system of positions, as applied in Canada and the United States, allows for more personnel mobility and perhaps a better match of person to task. Yet the position system offers less prestige for the high and middle ranks of the civil service and is vulnerable to wider politicization of the top echelons of the bureaucracy.
With significant variations the system of positions was also applied in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union under communism. Officially, employment in the communist public administration did not entail a special labor relationship, like the relationship, like the relationship between the civil servant and the state in the West.

In the Society Union, in particular, civil servants did not formally enjoy the guarantee of tenure or the prospect of a career in the administration. Once hired, civil servants could be fired or transferred, but in practice they occupied the same position for long periods of time. The content and development of a civil servants job was not specified in advance, but civil servants who showed competence and loyalty to the Communist Party were compensated with higher-ranking positions. On the whole, because of their access to better goods and services, Soviet civil servants enjoyed higher living standards than the majority of the population, and top bureaucrats had considerable privilege

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