civil service: In Other Countries

Of the world's civil services, the most outstanding on several counts is still the British, extremely powerful because of its permanency, its extensive grants of power from Parliament, and its reputation for absolute honesty, although it is criticized for a lack of flexibility and for class exclusiveness in its upper ranges. A Civil Service Commission and the beginnings of a system of competitive examinations were established in Great Britain in 1855, and the influential Whitley Councils, representing both government employees and administrators in questions dealing with service conditions, were set up after World War II. British civil servants are strictly excluded from politics. In Communist nations, on the other hand, the official party and the civil service have tended to interpenetrate. The secretariat of the League of Nations and of the United Nations are possible precursors of an international civil service.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• In Other Countries
• In the United States
• General Development
• Bibliography

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