Our in class discussion of the French term pantouflage (literally, from "bedroom slippers") made me curious to know the equivalent English translation for the concept of government workers migrating to the private sector in search of more lucrative jobs.
Translator discussion board suggestions range from the bulky, "scheme used by senior civil servants who graduate from France's top schools at no cost to themselves and move to top-paying jobs in the private sector" to the more manageable "revolving door" process. As for etymology, one translator posits that "the idea is that you move between the administration and the contractor so comfortably they have your slippers waiting for you".
"Revolving door" seems to be the preferred term in the US. For example, the organization Clean Up Washington has published a report entitled "A Matter of Trust: How the Revolving Door Undermines Public Confidence in Government— And What To Do About It". The report outlines a variety of scenarios in which individuals migrate from the public to the private sector, or vice versa, along with the equally problematic custom of former elected officials morphing into lobbyists.
One of the most egregious examples they cite is that of Darleen Druyun, who was "found guilty of manipulating Defense Department procurement decisions to benefit Boeing while she was negotiating a job with the company".
The most serious consequences of this pantouflage seem to be an erosion of the public trust, especially in the impartiality of government, and an erosion of the morale of public sector workers as they see former colleagues benefiting financially from insider information and contacts.
A recommendation that has been adopted in some US states to combat the revolving door is the imposition of a "cooling off"/ recusal period of up to 24-months, whereby former public officials would have to wait on the sidelines before working in private areas related to their previous jobs.
According to the Italian group Anticorruzione, France has been combatting pantouflague by increasing the "role of ethics committees which are to advise administrative bodies on the compatibility of the proposed private activities of their civil servants and subordinate staff".
John Hunt
Great photo and very interesting comment. Blondel in Davis et al. gives pantouflage a respectful commentary, as it "gives the civil service, idirectly, as substantial influence on the whole of the economic life of the nation" (p. 173-174).
ReplyDeleteYet as John H notes it should probably be seen more as revolving door corruption. When I worked for NYC a previous head of the city agency I worked in had in her last days given a substantial increase in funding to a nonprofit agency, and then left to become CEO of that agency!! Thankfully her actions caught up with her and she was forced to resign.
John C
PS. The Prime Minister of France is Francois Fillon. Who knew? He and Sarkozy never attended the Grandes Ecoles See: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/f/francois_fillon/index.html
From Slippers to Boots
ReplyDeleteUpon reading Maryann’s Pantouflage post and John’s comment thereto, I immediately recalled the reference to the word sabotage in our Managing Organizations in the Public and Not-For-Profit Sectors XMPA course (PAF 9120) in the context of malicious employee retaliation in relation to organizational change. The word sabotage is derived from the French word sabot, meaning wooden shoes or shoes with a wooden sole but with a flexible shank, that were used to damage machinery during labor disputes.
Also coming readily to mind was the incident of an Iraqi correspondent hurling his shoes at President George W. Bush narrowly missing him. In the Arab culture it is a sign of contempt to show someone the soles of your shoe, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7782422.stm
as when the sole is exposed when a person sits with a leg folded over a knee. http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/politics/2008/12/16.html
The older students may recall on October 12, 1960, when Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe on his delegate table at the United Nations in protest to Filipino delegate Sumulong’s accusation of the USSR’s imperialistic actions in Eastern Europe. There are several different versions of this account with no media footage that captured the event, with many who claim it never happened. http://www.stinkyjournalism.org/editordetail.php Khrushchev was President John F. Kennedy’s counterpart during the Cuban missile crises.
And who can forget the 5,400 shoes of Imelda Marcos of the Phillipines. In a March 31, 1986 Times magazine article, Lance Morrow reported that if she “changed her shoes three times a day, and never wore the same pair twice, it would take her more than two years and five months to work through her shoe supply . . . Why accumulate so much--2,700 pairs of shoes, 3,000 women--if there is no use for all of them? How much gold is enough? Only a sane person would think to ask. An Eskimo hunter who kills only the game necessary to feed his family would have been horrified by Theodore Roosevelt, who could not have consumed more than one ten-thousandth of the animals he slaughtered. Roosevelt loved hunting the way that Imelda loves shopping. He loved the kick of the gun and the smell of the powder. He loved the antlers. The same sportive hormones may be active in Imelda. Nature is filled with wild waste, unthinkable redundancies. Why does nature toss off a billion sperm when only one of them is necessary to fertilize a human egg? Imelda's shoes, ecologically baffling, are part of the mystery of life.”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,961002,00.html
Has the depletion of resources and or actions by developed nations in times of plenty resulted in narrowing comparative frameworks and limited the dimensions of development extended as a “helping hand” by the “developed” nations to the developing ones, or inevitably created realignments, political, economic and cultural, potential and real?
The state of our and the worldwide economy has forced many workers to “slip” into different types of employment; or unemployment if they got “the boot.”
LucindoS
I only remembered the actual word pantouflage in class (it's a function of the Baltimore catechism). It was the 'other' John who came up with the sheep slippers (likely owing to his Irish background)!
ReplyDeleteComparativists may be interested in the Japanese term amakudari, which translates as 'the descent from heaven'.
ReplyDelete