2016年考研英语阅读材料:Reforming Leviathan

　　THE French call them hauts fonctionnaires, the Germans Beamte im h?heren Dienst and the British, somewhat more economically, know them as “mandarins”. The senior echelons of civil services are a powerful arm of the state. They implement the reforms dreamed up by politicians, and design public services ranging from welfare systems to prisons. Compared with private-sector bosses, the bureaucrats who manage the public sector tend to be less well paid but have more cushioned lives, with more secure jobs and far less pressure to improve productivity. Now the mandarins face change.

　　There has long been taxpayer fury when big projects go awry. Berlin's new airport is three years overdue and predicted to cost 6 billion (8.1 billion), three times the original estimate. But voters, and thus politicians, are especially intolerant of civil-service inefficiency nowadays. One prompt is austerity. Another is technology, which is changing not only how public services are delivered―think of “massively open online courses” in education―but also the way they can be measured. Social networks enable users to grumble about hospital waiting-times and mathematics results. Perhaps the biggest pressure is the passing of time: private-sector workers are incredulous as to why civil servants should escape the creative destruction that has changed other offices around the world.

　　The reform of the public sector is a huge project, but people are at the centre of it. Government is a service industry, and there is a basic talent problem. A few civil services―Singapore's is the obvious example―#pete with the private sector for the best graduates. But elsewhere even elite departments, such as the US Treasury and Britain's Foreign Office, struggle (or lose high-flyers quickly). The mandarins and their political masters need to change tack.

　　Too many civil servants, especially in continental Europe, swirl around a bureaucratic Gormenghast but rarely leave it. Nearly four-fifths of German senior public servants have been in public administration for more than two decades. The French state under Franois Hollande is governed by a caste of unsackable functionaries, resistant to reform. One reason many officials be#e stuck is their generous pension deals: making pensions portable should be a priority. But career structures also must adapt.

　　Most civil services still tend to be gerontocracies, where age and seniority are synonymous. New Zealand has dismantled the system of rigid hierarchies and pay-grades that spawned the likes of the phlegmatic Sir Humphrey in the BBC #edy “Yes Minister”. Instead, it appoints departmental chief executives in its ministries, who sign contracts to meet specific targets and can be dismissed if they fail. Singapore's civil servants are frequently sent out to private-sector jobs. Britain has appointed a senior figure from the oil business to run the agency that deals with large-scale state projects. The idea is that private-sector experience in areas such as contract management and negotiation can help avoid disasters like Berlin's airport.

　　All this appeals to right-wing politicians. But the corollary of better performance is higher pay. The British government's chief operating officer announced this week that he is leaving for a lucrative #mercial job. Singapore, which runs a far leaner government than America, pays its best people 2m a year. No Republican congressman would tolerate that, which is foolish. The cost of higher salaries is offset by saving money on costly consultants to mop up failing projects.

　　There is one area where less change would be useful. To plan careers, you need a long-term strategy―and democracy throws up change every election. In Britain health-care officials talk about successive “re-disorganisations”. One reason for authoritarian Singapore's success is that its voters have miraculously always chosen the party founded by Lee Kuan Yew since he took control in 1959. Voters elsewhere are less obliging. New Zealand has tried to counter this by boosting the powers of a state-services #missioner, whose duties include one of lasting “stewardship”. That could be a useful model for elsewhere―especially America, where too many senior positions are filled by political appointees (who then take months to get confirmed by Congress). Mandarinates have their faults, but somebody needs to keep Leviathan working.

　　参考译文:

　　法语中称呼他们为官方人员，德语叫做高级公务员，英国则各位简短称呼公务员为政界要员。公务员的高层人员是国家的一个强大的臂膀。他们实现政客对于改革的设想，并构思计划公共服务，涵盖面从福利制度到监狱。与私营部门的老板相比，负责管理公共部门的官员往往不太高薪，但拥有更多的缓冲生活，更安全的工作，对于提高工作效率方面，其承受的压力远不如私营老板。现在的政府高级官员们面临着改变。

　　长期以来，大项目出差错时纳税人会因而感到十分愤怒。柏林新机场建设已有三年逾期，并且预计耗资60亿欧元(81亿人民币)，三倍于原来的预算。但在现今，选民和政客尤其无法忍受公务员服务效率低下。其中一个提示便是紧缩政策。另一个则是技术，这不仅正在改变公共服务的提供方式―思考“大规模开放式在线课程”的教育―但同时也是在思考他们可以被评估的方式。社交网络让用户有机会抱怨医院候诊室漫长的等待时间和自己的数学成绩。或许最大的压力是时间的流逝：私营部门的工作人员对于为何公务员要逃避已经改变了全球政府各部的创造性破坏表示质疑。

　　公共部门的改革是一项庞大的工程，需要以人民为中心。政府是一个服务行业，并且存在一个基本的人才问题。一些民事部门―如新加坡的民事部门就是一个明显的例子―他们能够与私营部门竞争优秀人才。但在其他地方，即使是精英部门，如美国财政部和英国外交部，也同样存在斗争(或很快失去极高报负者)。政府官员和他们的政治领导者需要改变策略。

　　太多的公务员，尤其是在欧洲大陆的公务员，他们漩涡在具有官僚政治的古老王国歌门鬼城身旁，但很少会选择离开它。近五分之四的德国高级公务员已经在公共管理中工作超过二十年。整个法国处于奥朗德状态，由固若金汤的社会团体所管辖，他们抵制改革。其中一个原因是，很多官员被慷慨的养老金交易卡住：使得养老金可携带成为一个必须考虑的优先事项。但是，职业结构也必须作出适当改变。

　　大部分公务员还是倾向于老人统治，这一词是年龄和资历的同义词。新西兰已经剔除了坚硬的等级和付费等级制度，这两种等级产生了类似于冷漠的汉弗莱爵士在BBC喜剧中的台词中“是，首相”这种制度方面的喜好。相反，它任命在其各部委部门的行政首长，负责签订契约，以达到特定的目标，并在他们失败时可以予以取消。新加坡的公务员被频繁地派遣到私营部门就业。英国已任命来自石油行业的资深人物来运行国家大型项目所涉及的机构。我们的想法是，在诸如合同管理和谈判领域私营部门的经验，可以帮助避免像柏林机场所发生的灾难。

　　这一切都吸引了右翼政客。但更好成绩的必然结果是更高的薪水。英国政府的首席营运官在这个星期宣布，他将要胜任一份利润丰厚的商务工作。新加坡，其运行比美国更为精简的政府，付给其最佳胜任者200万美元一年的薪酬。没有共和党议员能够容忍这一点，他们认为这是愚蠢的想法。更高的工资成本是由节约资金成本聘请高昂费用的顾问以扫荡失败的项目而抵消的。

　　在有的地方发生更少的变化是有用的。要规划职业生涯，你需要一个长期的战略―民主党在每一次选举中都抛出改变的承诺。在英国，其卫生保健官员谈相继出现的计划混乱。独裁新加坡的成功原因之一是在于它的选民已经奇迹般地始终选择由李光耀在1959年掌权开始创办的一党。其他地方的投票人则没有表现如此殷勤。新西兰一直试图通过提高一个国家的服务专员的权力而抵制这种情况，这些服务专员的职责包括其中之一的持久的“管家”权力。这可能是在其他地方是十分有用的模式―尤其对于美国，在那里太多的高级职位由政治性任命的官员填补了有益的模式(他们需要数月才能通过国会得到证实)。官职有其缺点，但需要有人来维持庞大体系的运作。