Getting on track: civil service reform in post-communist Hungary Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling ABSTRACT This article explains Hungary’s status as a front-runner of civil service reform in post-communist Europe and assesses the consequences of the rst reform outcomes for the institutionalization of the politics–administration nexus. It examines the degree of formal politicization of the ministerial civil service inherent in the Civil Service Act of 1992 and argues that the formal legal framework provides important instruments for political intervention in civil service policy. Civil service reform had been on the agenda for almost a decade prior to the regime change, creating strong proponents of reform. The 1992 Act institutionalized a formally politicized politics–administration nexus and has shaped the practice of ministerial personnel policy and subsequent civil service reforms until 2001. The ideological divide in the party system and the absence of a ‘tolerant policy entrepreneur’ are likely to slow down the process of further civil service reform, while high levels of formal politicization are preserved. KEY WORDS Civil service; Hungary; new institutionalism; politicization; post- communism; public administration . INTRODUCTION Observers of the process of administrative transformation in post-communist Europe have long argued that administrative systems in the region are on a path towards gradual Westernization (Hesse 1993, 1998; König 1992; for a critique of this perspective, see Goetz 1995; Goetz and Margetts 1999). 1 More recent research on the ‘state after communism’ has demonstrated that public bureaucracies in post-communist Europe ‘have proved strikingly resistant to wholesale transformation, dashing notions that modern, “western-style” ad- ministrations could be installed with minimal effort and maximal speed’ (Nunberg 1999: 265). Furthermore, research that explicitly deals with the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats in post-communist central executives has found that politico-administrative relations are characterized by instability, as incoming governments show little willingness to continue to work with the administrative staff who had served their predecessors (Verheijen 2001). Journal of European Public Policy ISSN 1350–1763 print/ISSN 1466-4429 online © 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/13501760110098305 Journal of European Public Policy 8:6 December: 960–979