Structural, Functional and Cultural Aspects of the Greek Public Administration and Their Effects on Public Employees’ Collective Action

A comprehensive description and analysis of the historical roots and the current situation of the Greek Public Administration shows that, despite the weighty structural influences of the EU environment, the key characteristics of the Greek politico-administrative system remain unchanged. Human resource management, organizational development, relationships between the administrative and the political sub-systems and public policies as well, are persistently impregnated by particularism, self-interest and clientelistic rationality. While structural and functional reforms in Greek Public Administration repeatedly attempted to introduce changes on personnel management (recruitment and remuneration system, civil service code, training, etc.), the deep rooted cultural parameters guiding such issues (values, attitudes, behaviors, symbols, etc.) remain unchanged over time reproducing the dominant “non-Weberian” administrative ideal-type. The clientelistic mindset promotes exceptional access to public resources and leads the civil servant unions at the ministerial level to seek special agreements in order to strengthen benefits exclusively reserved to their professional branch. Instead of jointly negotiating generalized salary increases using the collective bargaining toolset of the Public Sector Trade-Unions Confederation (ADEDY) at a confederal rather than a departmental level, unions strive for separate bilateral settlements with the political leadership of each ministry promoting by this way the “collective clientelism”