Confucians, Weberians, or Entrepreneurs? Comparing the Ethos of Civil Servants in China and The Netherlands

This paper assesses the validity of normative claims on how civil servant values in East Asian and Western European administrations differ. By triangulating quantitative and qualitative survey data from a sample of Chinese... [ view full abstract ]

This paper assesses the validity of normative claims on how civil servant values in East Asian and Western European administrations differ. By triangulating quantitative and qualitative survey data from a sample of Chinese (n=508) and Dutch (n=238) civil servants complemented with data from 42 in-depth interviews, we aim to answer two main research questions: “How and why do ideal-type and real-life rankings of civil servant values differ between Chinese and Dutch civil servants?” and “Do differences reflect administrative traditions of both countries?” Our findings demonstrate that similarities exceed differences between value rankings. Surprisingly, ideal-type value rankings are more similar than real-life rankings, with only few idiosyncratic differences reflecting administrative traditions. Chinese civil servants perceive institutional and systemic factors as reasons for incongruence between ideal-type and real-life rankings whereas Dutch civil servants emphasize meso-level factors such as organizational public management reforms.

Actually, the most important values that make a good civil servant in China and the Netherlands show considerable similarities; respondents aspired to an ideal civil servant ethos of both legality and virtuousness. Furthermore, the desirable values according to civil servants themselves in each country are not as traditional as their counterparts perceived. However, the influence of tradition on the real-life civil service remains; as shown by, for instance, the high importance of obedience and personal attachment in China versus Weberian loyalty and professionalism in the Netherlands. Respondents nevertheless held more similar opinions regarding values arising from modern, i.e. less traditional, approaches to public service. To conclude, the ideal civil servant value preferences do not clearly reflect the respective administrative traditions in China and the Netherlands, though tradition has a limited explanatory power in explaining the differences in real-life value rankings, and value perceptions and prioritizations in practice. We theorize on our results and we provide suggestions for a future research which examines the prospects of a Confucian public administration perspective as a complement to dominant Western perspectives which are often inadequate in convincingly explaining administrative practices in many parts of Asia.