This revised and expanded edition of a benchmark collection compares how civil services around the world have adapted to cope with managing public services in the 21st century. The volume provides insights into multi-level governance, juridification and issues of efficiency and responsiveness as well as exploring the impact of fiscal austerity.

Is there a future without civil service and civil servants? This volume concludes a large comparative project that started in 1990. The book considers the changes in the past fifteen years, and looks to the challenges facing civil servants in the 21st century: performance, globalization and legitimacy. Given the lack of attention for civil servant "systems"as specifically public sector institutionalized arrangements in a political and societal context, this study fills a clear gap.

The role and position of the civil service as core actors in the public sector has been seriously questioned in recent years. This volume provides a comparative study of civil service systems in Asia, Western Europe and Africa. The cast of international contributors provide new insights.