Three selection models of civil service

Abstract

Modern public personnel administration has developed as a reform movement, in reaction to the abuses of the patronage system. The progressive reform movement emerged from the corrupt "machine politics," and was largely based on the need for administrative expertise and professionalism. Even the merit system, however, is not neutral or value-free (Thompson, 1983; Kranz, 1976; Rosenbloom, 1973). Kranz (1974) aptly captures this point: "throughout American history, the concept of merit in public employment has had a rubbery texture, stretching or contracting to cover the pervailing ethos, but at no time either before or after adoption of the civil service reforms of the 1880's has actual merit (defined as the ability to perform a specific job) prevailed as the predominant or exclusive method of selecting the American bureaucracy" (p.436). Obviously the merit system has always had many other considerations to compete with. Its substance has shifted in response to a variety of political and social forces (Mosher, 1982; Nigro & Nigro, 1980).