Why Civil Service Reforms Fail

Tactical choices in the design and implementation of civil service reform can determine whether it succeeds or fails. Yet researchers have paid scant attention to tactical issues in recent years. This paper considers three such issues: the scope of reform, the role of aid donors, and the leadership of reform. In each area it considers what sort of approach is likely to maximise the chances of success. However, the paper seeks to go beyond prescribing lessons, also looking at institutional and other reasons why reformers may be impelled to make the wrong tactical choices.