In today’s context of global crisis and uncertainty, a study on the impact of globalization on civil servants may seem far removed from reality. Yet, while the COVID-19 pandemic has shown the limits of globalization in the form of vaccine nationalism and border closures, it has also, once again, shown its potential in terms of helping to save lives and improve livelihoods, through the global COVAX initiative and its roll out. Reviews of responses to the crisis have highlighted the need for more rather than less global action, and a greater role for transnational actors in addressing global issues. Additionally, the pandemic has reinvigorated the global debate on other issues, such as climate change, where there is also a renewed urgency for action. Hence, while the current global crisis may lead to a focus on different aspects of globalization (health and climate) to what we primarily discuss here (economic and governance), to us it is likely that the influence of globalization on the day-to-day work of civil servants will increase as a result. This of course will evolve more clearly in the years to come.
The origins of this work predate the current global crisis, and arose from a literature and source review done in the context of developing the Oxford Handbook of Global Policy and Transnational Administration (Stone and Moloney, 2019). One of the conclusions of this review (Raadschelders and Verheijen, 2019) was that the literature on the impact of globalization on civil servants is very sparse, and that there is a significant research agenda to be covered, especially in empirical research. This volume is our initial effort to begin building an empirical research base to understand the scope of the nature of ‘influencing and being influenced’ between national civil servants and transnational actors. To us, this is an important topic that needs far more attention, as an aspect of global governance that will determine the success of our ability to cope with the key global challenges of tomorrow and today, starting with meeting the objectives set out in the UN (United Nations) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Transnational actors today are increasingly diverse (classical international organizations, national organizations operating globally, non-governmental international actors, and so on) and engage with national civil servants in a growing variety of ways: through direct engagement (including formal
We would like to acknowledge the support of several colleagues without whom we could not have completed this work. First among them are the researchers that conducted the interviews for us: Amina Nadia Mnasri, Suha Shouqar, Youssef Khanfir, and Rabah Ounissi. All worked tirelessly to make interviewees comfortable with the innovative methods we applied, using vignettes to approximate real-life situations, and were instrumental in obtaining the evidence-based material that was needed to conduct the study. Martin Mlynar worked on collecting and mapping the data on performance indicators and financial engagements by international development partners, and transforming these into comparative graphs and material. Michael Frontczak thoroughly edited the manuscript. The Aiddata team shared with us some of the ‘raw material’ of the 2020 ‘Listening to Leaders’ survey. Most of all, of course, we are grateful to the 67 senior civil servants from the four countries for agreeing openly to share critical insights into their engagement with transnational actors and the impact of such engagements on their day-to-day work.
Tony Verheijen
Katarina Staroňová
Ibrahim Elghandour
Anne-Lucie Lefebvre
Antananarivo, Bratislava, Rabat, and Tunis, May 2021
