1. Lecture 2 The Development of Public Personnel Administration
Introduction to
Public Personnel Administration
Spring 2014 1

2. Today’s Learning Objectives
Understanding the evolution of the public personnel system
- Types of personnel system: Career civil service (직업공무원제) vs. Merit system (실적제)
- Types of employment: Patronage system (정실제) vs. Spoils system (엽관제) vs. Merit system (실적제)
Issues and concerns in contemporary public personnel system

3. Understanding personnel systems
Career civil service system (European countries; Korea)
- Rank-in person; closed; hiring generalists
- Employing young talented college graduates at the entry- level positions
Merit system (United States)
- Position classification; open; hiring specialists
- Employing candidates based on their specific qualifications

4. Understanding public employment
Patronage employment (competence and political responsiveness)
- Appointing public employees based on their socio- economic status (well-educated noblemen) and political affiliation
Spoils employment (political responsiveness)
- Employing political and financial supporters; hiring and firing on the basis of political loyalty and active support for the party or candidate
Merit employment (politically neutral competence)
- Selecting applicants who have job-related qualifications with political neutrality

5. Patronage system and government by elits: The early personnel system of US government
“Government by Gentlemen” ( )
- Appointment based on “fitness” to the office: good character, capacity to do the work, and conformity of the political perspectives and policy agenda with the chief executive
- Find similarities between the US patronage employment and Korean civil service employment??
Why was political patronage important during that period?
- To build the strong political coalition of governments for the integration of separated powers and the reinforcement of the current regime 5

6. The bright and dark sides of the US patronage system
The national government with a “good reputation for integrity and capacity”
President Jefferson: “Malconduct is a just ground of removal; mere difference of political opinions not”
Corruptions associated with partisan-based hiring at lower levels of government

7. Patronage vs. spoils (1829-1883) in US government
President Jackson’s reform doctrine of “rotation in office”
- Democratized approach to public service
- To build powerful political coalitions: presidential control of the federal patronage strengthened the office’s power in the constitutional system of separated power (Fish, 1904).
The spoils system
- Benefits: Bureaucratic responsiveness to elected officials and through them to public opinion
- Costs: Corruption of a partisan civil service and inefficiency. 7

8. Civil service reform and the US merit system
To correct corruption by partisan appointment; institutionalized administrative inefficiency and waste; ignored interests of electoral minorities
The 1883 Pendleton Act
- Created the U.S. Civil Service Commission and the merit system as the nation’s system of personnel (Ban and Riccucci, 2002).
The merit system: Neutral competence in government
- Driven by the desire to hire the most competent workers or to keep politics out of hiring process.
- Merit became the administrative expression and foundation of democratic government (Mosher, 1982). 8

9. The evolution of the US merit system
The influences of scientific management on personnel administration
1) The arrival of “modern” personnel administration
- Position classification, refined testing system, and quality improvement of public services.
Ex. Classification Act of 1923
2) The increasing demand for workers with professional skills and duties
The decentralization of personnel operations
- The Classification Act of 1949: agencies are responsible for position classification, evaluation, promotion, recruitment, and other personnel functions

10. The Principles of the merit system
Competitive examinations (representative bureaucracy and “rule of three”)
Relative security of tenure
Political neutrality of the civil service (isolated from partisan politics)
“Equal pay for equal work” or comparable worth
Higher attention on productivity, effectiveness, and efficiency 10

11. Merit System Strengths of the merit system
- Systematic and rational distribution of offices
- Remedies for the corruption and the continuance of administration
- Development of technical expertise crucial to the operation of the modern state
Weaknesses : Bureaucratization of public service
- Delivering unacceptable performance
- Mobilizing dangerous political power
- Abusing administrative power and oppressing the individual 11

12. Career civil service system in Korean government: Closed rank-in-person system
The short history of modern government in Korea (1948~)
Strong influence from the patronage tradition still remain in public personnel system despite the recent emphasis on merit (e.g., special skills and knowledge)
The recent civil service reforms to improve the personnel system
- Closed rank-in person Open position and position analysis
- Greater attention to hiring specialists with specific skills, knowledge, and ability (SKA) 12

13. New Public Management Reforms (NPM) in Public Personnel Administration
Osborne and Gaebler’s (1992) reinventing government movement in the Clinton administration
The NPM personnel reforms in Roh Moo-Hyun administration and Kim Dae-Jung administration
- Kim Dae-Jung administration (1998): Emphasis on competition and results by enhancing flexibility of the civil service system
- Roh Moo-Hyun administration ( ): Resumed the reforms from Kim Dae-Jung administration; established the Korean Civil Service Commission (CSC), as the central personnel agency

14. Source: Park, Chun-Oh and Jaehyun Joo. 2010
Source: Park, Chun-Oh and Jaehyun Joo “Control over the Korean bureaucracy: A review of the NPM civil service reforms under the Roh Moo-Hyun government. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 30 (2): 189—210.