9 - Designing Civil Service to Unleash Public Passion

Summary

The chapter concludes the book by synthesizing key arguments from previous chapters and making comprehensive arguments about redesigning civil service systems. Previous chapters are examined to question if prior analysis was too optimistic. The chapter discusses processes for advancing the civil service reform agenda, including leveraging small wins to achieve incremental change and aiming for comprehensive reforms. Two examples of navigating comprehensive change, Georgia and South Africa, are discussed. Finally, research surrounding the integration of public service motivation and civil service reform is reviewed. An analysis of systematic programs of field experiments and macro-research about variations in national performance precedes a discussion of the dark side of public service motivation. The chapter concludes with a call for further scholarly scrutiny of public service motivation-related policies to be supplemented with real-world experimentation.