This volume attempts to analyse and interpret the new realities in the development of politico-administrative relations, and poses the question to what degree new patterns of coalition government and management have started altering traditional systems and notions of politico-administrative relations. The case studies presented here give particular attention to CEE states, as the majority of them have developed political systems that favour the emergence of coalition governments. This study both provides an inventory of shifting realities in coalition politics and its impact on civil service development and poses the question how a new equilibrium between changes in the mode of political governance and the quest for stability in civil service development can be found.