1 Elite Building or Not? Senior Civil Service in Slovakia Katarína Staroňová Comenius University, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Institute of Public Policy, Bratislava, Slovakia Paper prepared for PSA conference, specialist group on Executive Politics and Governance Sheffield, UK, April 2015 Abstract A growing number of countries are introducing a distinct narrow group of civil service with specific processes for recruitment, management, remuneration and accountability that differ from those applied for general civil service. This core civil service is usually called senior civil service which can be formally recognized by law or not recognized formally but specific processes are being utilized anyway. This paper explores Senior Civil Service (SCS) in Slovakia after the adoption of the Civil Service Laws. The focus is on the characteristics of the formally recognized senior civil service institution in Slovakia (nominated civil service) that was introduced in 2003 and did not sustain for a long time. Instead, not formally recognized type of senior civil service was developed “posts of superior importance”. The paper explores SCS following the Helmke – Levitsky framework of informal institutions. It argues that due to ineffective formal civil service structures informal institution of politicization occurs. Key Words: senior civil service, coordination, Central Europe 1. Introduction The structure of central government, civil service systems and politico-administrative regimes differ from country to country in order to best accommodate its goals and tasks. These tasks may change in time and space and the subsequent civil service reforms are directed at reshaping the overall system. Some of the reforms were aimed to improve the overall efficiency and effectiveness in line with the new public management (Pollitt and Bouckaart 2004, Osborne and Gaebler 1992). In Central and Eastern Europe, the civil service reforms were adopted at different points of time, although all countries were in a similar situation after the fall of communism, lacking a professional and depoliticized civil service system. Often the adoption of civil service legislation serves as a milestone for civil service reform. Nevertheless, whatever the reason for the reform, Pollitt and Bouckaart (2004) argue that in all countries, major reforms usually involve politico-administrative relations, i.e. both executive politicians and senior civil servants who are responsible for the execution of the policies. Nevertheless, it might not be clear who makes up the senior civil servants (SCS) or “mandarins”. The term senior civil service has different meaning among scholars: most of the academia uses senior civil service for determining the highest hierarchical level, for some these include also politicians (e.g. Hood and Peters 1994, 2003 use the term high public officials for “politicians, judges and senior bureaucrats” p.1), while some include only top ministerial bureaucracy (e.g. Meyer-Sahling 2008, Meyer-Sahling and Veen 2012), though admittedly politicized in CEE countries. For others the term determines the managerial position of chief executives of agencies or ministries (e.g. Beblavý 2001). Yet another interpretation is that SCS is only the elite core group of civil service (e.g. Halligan 2012, Kim 2007, Dror 1997), formally or informally distinctive from ordinary civil service (Kuperus, Rode 2008) and which is very small in size: 0,2 – 3% of the overall civil service (Halligan 2012). It is the