Public administration unit 2 concepts

¶ … civil service reform itself is still an ongoing process, not yet perfected to a point that satisfies all parties. Even the past reforms have been littered with dissent and the need for further revolutions regarding civil service suits, culminating in two different forms of systems: the merit system and the spoils system. While the spoils system generally gains a horrendously bad reputation, it is without doubt a catalyst that brought about positive reform. And while the merit system has a genuinely "good" idea behind it, there is still basis for concern regarding the ultimate movement toward corruption. In either case, the reform acts brought about by the government regarding civil service have continued to rise up for the benefits of the public service workers.

It is evident that throughout history, there had been ongoing ping-pong relations between presidential administrations and the partisan process. In both the Unit 2 Lecture (2011) and Cayer's "Evolution of the Public Personnel System" (2004), the notion of civil service reform reared its head whenever there was dissent within a particular system of civil service. This seems to be particularly true whenever the president clashed with Congress, always fighting for control over public service personnel. Whether or not the president favored a spoils system or a merit system, there was always the underlying idea of which system currently puts presidential power over the collective Congress.

The spoils system had been a favorite of many presidents looking to fill their administrations with loyal service workers. Thomas Jefferson was a vanguard for this movement, though Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln were known aficionados of the method (Cayer, 2004). This type of system enabled presidents to award loyal followers certain government positions at the sacrifice of competence. The spoils system hinged on the basis that like-minded individuals would facilitate a more agreeable and thus capable government (Cayer, 2004). On the other hand, the merit system garnered the opposite. This method undertook to gradually erode the notion of "loyalty vs. competence" and sought to hire civil servants through applicant skills and relative competence. The merit system downgraded the bureaucratic government and focused on a more egalitarian concept of civil service (Cayer, 2004).

Both the spoils system and the merit system fostered positives and negatives, outlined by Cayer (2004). It is true that the spoils system was an injustice to those who could out-work the loyal followers, but it is also true that the spoils system enabled the reformations seen within the Civil Service Acts of 1883, and later on in 1978. The merit system had undergone to create a more egalitarian system of public service (Cayer, 2004), but it also created an impasse between supervisor authority and worker's independence; the supervisor is weakened and the worker has therefore gained too much independence (Cayer, 2004).