There is no shortage of belief, both in the West and in the Global South, that the only chance to overcome the challenges facing the world is to entrust the helm of rule to meritocracy. The hopes are placed in meritocracy to protect ourselves from the dictates of plutocracy (the power of the wealthy and money), as well as the plague of populism, which would plunge us into a new type of ochlocracy.
The dispute about the role of democracy in selecting elites would be secondary, because what would be more important would be the effects of selection, i.e. entrusting offices to people with appropriate competences. The growing influence of technology on the organization of society’s life would necessarily ensure the primacy of qualifications in the selection of people for positions, because technology requires appropriate knowledge and mental acuity to be used well. Well, no idiot, even with the best connections, will be able to manage anything in the era of the new technological revolution.
Whatever we say about organizing the world order, we would like global institutions to be competent, and for the people employed there to be honest, efficient, conscientious and hard-working. That they would be more honest, more efficient, more conscientious and more hard-working than those who manage our national affairs. Because if it were the other way around, and global offices employed thieves, lazy, dull and inept people, what would be the benefit of relying on international institutions to solve our common problems?
For two hundred years, the Western world has been stuck in the cult of meritocracy. It was born with the Enlightenment ideal of a society based on knowledge and education. And Napoleon, proclaiming the principle of “la carriere ouverte aux talents”, wanted to break up the rotten structures of the feudal state, where offices were subject to inheritance, trade, and were used to corrupt people. The revolution did not pave the way for competence everywhere. For example, the United States initially followed the path of filling administrative positions based on political spoils and only at the end of the 19th century did it give priority to competences (Pendelton Reform Act). The industrial revolution and its subsequent waves forced management systems, including those of the state, to be subordinated to the paradigm of growth, development and accumulation. And this has been happening everywhere – not only in republics, but also in monarchies. And in the growth paradigm, the source of success was efficiency, effectiveness, creativity and dynamism. This is how meritocracy took over the West.
Of course, meritocracy was not a Western invention. It was consistently used by ancient China in accordance with Confucian teachings. It was spread to ancient India. However, the Eastern and Western understanding of meritocracy is still burdened with historical peculiarities. The Asian education system is focused on preparing candidates to pass exams. The Western system is supposed to prepare young people to achieve success. In Asia, meritocratic officials are supposed to focus on “passing the exam” every day; in the West, solving problems is not an end in itself, it is a means to success in life, i.e. to making a career.
Postmodernism gave meritocracy an almost religious dimension. Society has been taken over by the tyranny of personal achievement and professional success. The need for recognition has become a common driving force in affluent Western societies. And postmodernism promised everyone at least five minutes of fame. From an early age, people fall into a whirlwind of neurotic running, a rat race, pursuing new goals and chasing new successes.
In wealthy societies, and in the United States beyond any doubt, meritocracy has degenerated into a caricature. In the USA, bold claims have been made that meritocracy has merely become a cover for the new oligarchy of society. Critics of the American version of meritocracy point out that meritocracy favors the concentration of wealth, and the concentration of wealth deepens inequalities, causes ossification of society, and limits the possibilities of circulation on the social ladder. Meritocracy has produced an elite in which blood relations are stronger than the need for talent. Meritocratic criteria are used only when they work to the benefit of our children and kin.
In European societies, wealth concentration does not occur on such a scale and does not affect the functioning of meritocracy in such a devastating way. But the “elitization” of education does. Because meritocracy is intertwined with the paradigm of a knowledge-based society. Making ENA or Oxford a necessary gateway to a career disrupts social dynamics.
The degeneration of the meritocratic elite (either based on wealth or elite education) is one of the reasons for the increase in the support achieved by populist movements.
Both in Poland and Hungary, where populism has taken power in recent years, in the name of creating a new elite, previous losers, provincial frustrated officials, and parochial swindlers were widely promoted. In a blink of an eye, they grew from village mayors to managers of companies worth billions of zlotys, from petty accountants to managers of work teams of thousands of people, from store clerks to parliamentary leaders, from district advisors to ministers. These societies have not seen such a tsunami of nepotism in the name of replacing elites since time immemorial.
And in China, meritocracy has become an alternative to democracy. Because in the end, say the Chinese experts, it is all about the efficiency of managing the state and society. It is not so much their democratic credentials that legitimize the elites but their substantive value, i.e. qualifications. After all John Stuart Mills already wanted educated people to have more votes in elections than the “dark masses”.
International organizations were to become the highest level of meritocracy, its model, its Sevres gauge, its sovereign kingdom. An exemplary recruitment mechanism has been introduced in international organizations: very transparent, based on precise criteria, multi-stage, subject to evaluation and even appeals, excluding nepotism, cronyism and corruption.
Yet its use in practice sometimes produces not-so-desirable effects. It turns out that through an extremely dense sieve, sometimes inept people are recruited who are unable to cooperate with others, engage in mobbing, are sometimes psychopathic, succumb to corruption temptations, and are involved in moral scandals.
International organizations offer luxurious working conditions. The employment rules they create make them very attractive employers, even on the labor markets of wealthy Western countries. Of course, they do not offer the kind of income and status that a job in the financial or legal sector can offer in rich countries, but even there they are quite competitive compared to lucrative professions. Recruitment to the United Nations or the European Union generates mass interest and results in thousands of candidates for one position. De Gaulle was credited with advising the least clever officials to be delegated to work in Brussels institutions, but international positions turned out to have quite an attractive force. Even EU diplomacy has sometimes welcomed into its ranks quite outstanding individuals, even if only sometimes and only quite (outstanding). There is much to criticize about the concept of “international bureaucracy”, but it cannot be accused of lacking high recruitment standards.
And yet sometimes the selection turns out to be flawed.
I was an officer of three international organizations (OSCE, Council of Europe and European Union). I became quite familiar with the work of the UN and NATO secretariats, including their recruitment processes, due to my professional duties at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I have participated in selection panels many times and stood before them several times as well.
I believe that, in general, international institutions are characterized by a high professional and ethical level of the people working there, higher than in the offices of the vast majority of Member States, including Western ones. Especially at the middle management level, the quality of officials can be impressive. The situation can be worse at the highest and lowest (service) levels.
Good international bureaucratic patterns seep into national offices by osmosis. After Poland joined NATO and the European Union, we could see with satisfaction how the operating habits of the Ministry of National Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other institutions were improving. Accession to these organizations was also a good modernization impulse for our domestic bureaucracy. Years ago, I publicly suggested the possibility of delegating our officials for internships to international institutions only for purely training purposes. I supported the “Erasmus for All” initiative, hoping that sending our officials to Germany, Switzerland or Sweden would expand their professional horizons.
This does not mean that international bureaucracy works perfectly. My observations show that international bureaucrats, especially in the European Union, need much more time than domestic bureaucrats to prepare procedures for taking on a new task. The so-called run-up phase takes them much longer to launch action than it does for us in Poland. There is no end to analyzes and discussions on how best to perform a new task. But once the necessary algorithms are developed and launched, actions are taken smoothly and efficiently, without any failures. More efficiently than at home.
However, sometimes one may wonder how this higher level than in the case of national administrations is not reflected in the overall picture of the efficiency of the institution’s operation. And the term “Brussels bureaucrat” has become almost an invective. It has been made synonymous with mechanical, soulless, passive, ruthless action, detached from reality. Not only for the Polish perception of the actions of officials, the Brussels procedure still raises doubts, to say the least. Because there is no space for improvisation, voluntarism, and discretion to which we have become accustomed in the past era in the work of offices in our country?
The problem with the quality of international bureaucracy is real, although deeper than commonly circulating stereotypes. I once wrote, based on my sad observations from the work of international institutions, that I saw with my own eyes how meritocracy was turning into mediocritocracy.
There are several reasons for this.
Firstly, states do not want to have too competent people in international organizations, especially at management levels, but their own people. A clinical example is the European Commission, whose composition cannot be reduced because each country wants to have its representative in the Commission. Trust means more than competence. Moreover, this trust must be of such a sublime nature that countries put forward candidates who often embarrass themselves during hearings in the European Parliament with their dilettantism. Because the most important thing is that the candidate should be trusted by the delegating government. It’s not even about him taking care of our national interests there, but about at least keeping an eye on things. The fact that even the best person is unable to ensure the implementation of particular interests could be seen by seeing the impotence of the “Polish” Commissioner for Agriculture in taking care of the interests of Polish farmers in 2023.
Therefore, countries not only fight for the nomination of their own people for top positions, they also nominate their own people for minor positions. On several occasions, I observed Polish diplomatic managers vigorously seeking positions for certain people, and these were by no means the best Polish candidates we could field. But they gave a guarantee of trust. However, they often encountered stiff resistance from international decision-makers.
Another reason for weakness is the application of the quota principle, primarily geographic one. Countries ensure that the nationality of the staff reflects diversity and corresponds (approximately) to the size of the country. So sometimes it is not the best in terms of qualifications who emerge as winners from selection competitions. The country of origin decides.
But even worse effects are caused by the policies of countries, especially large ones, which do not want to entrust management positions in international organizations to people with strong character, independent, and therefore often unpredictable and not susceptible to external control. They prefer people who are careful, follow the mainstream, efficient, but without a missionary bent. And as a result they are often devoid of any charisma, but these are the costs of politics.
Something else produces even more disastrous results. My depressing conclusion from repeated involvement in selection processes suggests that international bureaucracies instinctively seek self-replication. Candidates who remind decision-makers of themselves and are a true reflection of their personalities will always have an advantage. Originality, uniqueness and unconventionalness rarely pay off. To support my thesis, I am even willing to admit that my successes in applying for positions in international organizations are the exception that proves the rule. And even then only to a certain extent. (It was a joke – my footnote).
I am a supporter of staff rotation in international institutions. When in 1993 I helped the first Secretary General of the OSCE create a career model in this organization, I strongly supported his proposal to offer all program (professional) employees contracts with a limited duration, and to offer indefinite (permanent) contracts only to service (administrative) employees (secretaries, clerks, drivers, etc.). However, such a model is difficult to maintain. The pressure from employees for the universal application of permanent contracts is enormous in all organizations. And it is supported by strong opinions from labour tribunals. Because temporary employment contracts weaken their chances of returning to the domestic labor market, because they prevent them from pursuing careers, because they demotivate them, because they discourage the best people from working in international institutions. These arguments do not convince me at all, even in relation to employees of specialized, technical institutions requiring specific knowledge and experience. Because it’s the opposite: unlimited-term contracts detach employees from reality, drain them of initiative and energy, fixate on pursuing a career, and cut off the flow of talented candidates, especially at the middle and higher levels. There is nothing like a healthy flow of personnel between international and domestic institutions. And it is more in the interest of international structures than national ones. But, as mentioned, permanent contracts (for an indefinite period) prevail in international organizations.
In the past, one could have hoped that such a group of international officials, created for life, would facilitate the consolidation of the cosmopolitan elite, which would become the public backbone of the global integration process. But it turned out that their influence was nonexistent. There is even an international federation of former international officials (FAFICS) since 1975, bringing together over 20,000 people of former employees, but it is primarily interested in caring for pension and social rights. It is not a leader in campaigns for better management of the world.
International bureaucrats do not want to be suspected of having a sense of mission (“there is nothing more dangerous than a bureaucrat with a mission”). There was once an attempt to create for the European Union the mythology of it being an instrument for resolving conflicts of interest between member states using a bureaucratic procedure. But any bureaucracy without political impulses becomes sterile. Any bureaucracy without public pressure degenerates.
The weaknesses and perversions of bureaucracy are described extensively and in detail. It would take a long time to list them. However, meritocratic bureaucracy remains the best management model, as Max Weber wanted it to be.
The new elite of the globalized world must be meritocratic. After all, there is no better way to achieve order and social justice than meritocracy. Also on a global scale. However, global meritocracy will not bear the burden it has used to bear in a united Europe, i.e. resolving tensions using bureaucratic procedures. Because this idea is culturally alien in too many regions of the world, especially in the USA.
There are already academic institutions and programs that aim to shape a new cosmopolitan global elite. But their diplomas are not a ticket to an international career.
The problem remains that only those who want to pursue a career, and really want it very much, have a chance for a career, including an international one. Not always those who deserve it. In international organizations, positions are only given to those who apply for them. In sports, in the sphere of culture, at the higher levels of business management, talents are actively sought after and vigorously attracted. Scouting is not practiced in public administration, and especially in international secretariats.
Moreover, competences are examined and evaluated by those who are already inside the institution, not by those outside to whom the institution provides service. Shy, modest, unsure of their worth, even geniuses, have no chance in international organizations. And what helps in climbing the career ladder is often unfortunately ruthlessness in pursuing the goal, even with the help of taking shortcuts, eliminating competitors, applying manipulation, even with the help of lies and other things considered immoral, but within the limits of law and procedures. And not everyone is suitable for this.
Often, during the recruitment process, it is possible to select a group of people with equal competences, comparable abilities, and the same skill level. Don’t let political, geographical or personal sympathies of the selectors decide. Let fate decide. It will always be fairer and healthier for the meritocracy. Let careers be fulfilled through rotation, not solely through promotions. Let temporary contracts apply. And of course, no dynasties or family connections in international institutions.
Today, in careers, when reality has accelerated so much, efficiency and performance are rewarded. I also saw this at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There was a time when what helped in a career was not so much wisdom and creativity, but constant readiness, organizational resourcefulness and speed (especially in responding to the boss’s e-mails).
Artificial intelligence may change competence paradigms. What counts will be what it lacks, i.e. creativity and moral sense. Because artificial intelligence will replace most bureaucratic activities. Even the smartest official cannot equal its skill. Also an international officer. But the more appreciated will be the competences that artificial intelligence will not be able to master for a long, long time.
