Politics and the administration 203positions on a merit basis had extended to over 40 per cent by the beginning
of the twentieth century. By 1932 the process of reform had progressed to
the point where 80 per cent of the service was taken out of the realm of
political appointment; although the New Deal and the war brought about a
resurgence of the number of unclassified posts, during the post-war years the
merit system forged ahead to the point where it now includes 85 per cent of
federal posts. Of the remaining 15 per cent, however, many posts could, in
their nature, not be brought under the system – posts abroad and temporary
or part-time posts, for example. There remain a substantial number of posts,
including many of the most important jobs in the executive branch, that are
at the disposal of an incoming president. Estimates have varied from 7,000
to 15,000 jobs; although this represents only a fraction of 1 per cent of the
total size of the civil service, it represents quite a formidable task of selec-
tion for an incoming administration. Furthermore, there is constant pressure
upon presidents to increase the amount of patronage available, particularly
when there is a change of party in office. President Eisenhower gave way to
such pressure in 1952 by declassifying some thousands of positions that had
recently been given security of tenure by the previous administration.
President Eisenhower also introduced a new category, a buffer zone, as it
were, between the great mass of career civil servants and the top-level politi-
cal appointees. It was argued that the new Republican administration found
it difficult to exercise control over policy-making posts near the top of the
service because they were filled with career officers who had been appointed
under the Democratic presidents of the preceding twenty years. A large
number of key posts were transformed into ‘semi-political appointments’:
posts occupied by advisers on policy, confidential assistants to the heads of
agencies, or people whose job was publicly to defend controversial policies.
Thus it is important to realise that the personnel of the federal government
is not divided simply into a thin layer of political appointees at cabinet level
directing the activities of the professional civil servants. Political appoint-
ments reach well down into the upper layers of the administrative hierarchy,
but to different levels in different areas. Indeed, within the same department
some appointments may be made under civil service rules, while others of a
similar grade may be political or semi-political in character.
The American civil service differs from the British, therefore, in that the
higher levels are not wholly professionalised, but it differs also in another
important way from the service that was established in Britain in the nine-
teenth century. The British service was divided into a number of different
classes, and the most senior of these – the administrative class – was com-
posed of officers who were generalists, able to move from one department to
another, advising ministers on policy and supervising its execution. Because
the service was fully professionalised, these civil servants became a perma-
nent, coherent body of top administrators, forming a distinct caste in the
hierarchy. The United States civil service was not divided in this way. It is a
unified structure, with a number of salary grades within which appointments