ABSTRACT
Bureaucracies at all levels of government are seeking to reform and even eliminate their traditional civil service systems. Since 1996 Georgia has ended tenure for new hires and for those promoted to management positions. This chapter summarizes why it may make sense to end tenure in the US civil service. Tenure was originally developed mainly to protect the civil service from the depredations of the political parties. The traditional party organization (TPO) index developed by Mayhew denotes parties with substantial autonomy, stability, hierarchy, influence over candidate nominations, and reliance on material rather than purposive (idealistic) incentives. Even in an at-will employment environment, state and local politicians will not attempt to use for patronage high-capacity public agencies; indeed, the career executives of such agencies may have the political clout to resist such demands. Reform employs three variables that involve patronage demand variables and bureaucratic capacity: Corrupt, TPO, and grade point average.
