Published: 2018-03-15

Political Loyalty or a Technocratic Approach? Local Government Appointments in the USA: A Research Project on Legal History

Katarzyna Maćkowska
Zeszyty Prawnicze
Section: Artykuły
https://doi.org/10.21697/zp.2017.17.3.02

Abstract

Summary

This article is on the evolution of the standards for the appointment of local government officers in the United States. A tendency may  be observed in such appointments to balance the two main criteria, a candidate’s loyalty and his qualifcations. I also make some remarks on New Public Management. In the first part of the article I consider the colonial period, examining the legal sources to determine and discuss the regulations which defined the characteristics candidates for public service were required to have, and the situations in which an officer could be dismissed. I refer to the bibliography for this issue. I continue with a discussion of the influence of the state constitutions on the way the criteria for appointment developed, particularly before the proliferation of the home rule charters, which endowed local communities with a structural autonomy. Te latter half of the 19th century brought major changes in the legal status of local communities, due to urbanisation and the growth of municipalities. At this time criticism of the spoils system helped to bring the civil service system into local government, in a process endorsed by judicial rulings. I discuss this point in the last part of the article.

Keywords:

local administration in the U.S., appointment of local government ofcers, the loyalty criterion, the civil service.

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Citation rules

Maćkowska, K. (2018). Political Loyalty or a Technocratic Approach? Local Government Appointments in the USA: A Research Project on Legal History. Zeszyty Prawnicze, 17(3), 47–77. https://doi.org/10.21697/zp.2017.17.3.02

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