2016考研英语阅读题源经济学人文章：提升公务员工作动力

• 2025考研英语全程班 早鸟3班
• 2025/2026考研网课 免费体验集训营（线上/线下）
• 2025考研专业课复习资料「真题▪笔记▪讲义▪题库」

每年考研英语阅读篇章很多都取材于经济学人，因此2016年考研复习之初，一定要从基础打好，稳扎稳打。下面分享《经济学人》文章，希望大家能够多看、多练，提升阅读能力!

2016考研英语阅读题源经济学人文章：提升公务员工作动力

Reforming Leviathan

处于改革浪潮中的庞大机构

Mandarin lessons

政府官员的经验之谈

Governments need to rethink how they reward andmotivate civil servants

政府需要重新思考如何去奖励和提升公务员的工作动力。

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

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。

There has long been taxpayer fury when big projects go awry. Berlin's new airport is threeyears 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 servicesare delivered—think of “massively open online courses” in education—but also the way they canbe measured. Social networks enable users to grumble about hospital waiting-times andmathematics results. Perhaps the biggest pressure is the passing of time: private-sectorworkers are incredulous as to why civil servants should escape the creative destruction thathas changed other offices around the world.

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。

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—compete with the private sector for the bestgraduates. But elsewhere even elite departments, such as the US Treasury and Britain'sForeign Office, struggle (or lose high-flyers quickly). The mandarins and their political mastersneed to change tack.

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。

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

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。