Introduction

Globalization has generated new challenges for nation states, not only in terms of responding to the substantive policy challenges that have emerged (environmental, economic, and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic), but also with respect to modalities of governance and decision making within executive institutions (ministries and agencies), and in broader institutional systems. Challenges include the need to respond to ever more sophisticated global performance indicators, building systems to ensure smarter use of information in EBPM, greater inclusion of stakeholders in policy making, and managing growing engagement with global partners. In this study we have reviewed how globalization affects civil servants, covering select key features of globalization (performance expectations, enhanced interaction and socialization, transparency and participation) and transmission channels (global performance indicators, direct interaction, and norms and principles derived from the open government movement), as well as filters that can mitigate or enhance global influence.

Taking countries that have gone through a rapid acceleration of global engagement because of economic, social, and political changes as case studies, we have moved beyond what previous analyses have covered,1 by looking specifically into how civil servants experience and respond to global pressures, and how these affect their working environment, including (perceptions of) their change in work roles, relations, accountability mechanisms, and values.

As discussed previously by Raadschelders and Verheijen (2019), the impact of globalization on civil servants can be studied either as a process of interaction or in terms of the impact that global events and developments have on civil servants (the financial crisis of 2008, the COVID-19 pandemic, and so on). Our interest in this study is primarily on the former, and on the ways in which globalization is influencing and shaping the functioning of institutional systems and the development of administrative capacity. For the latter, we used the following definition: ‘the ability to manage efficiently the human and physical resources required for delivering the outputs of government’ (Painter and Pierre, 2005, p 2). In this sense, effective global engagement requires more investment in civil servants’ professional development to allow them to become familiar with and able to respond to new challenges.