Introduction -- Loyalti as a virtue -- Loyalty as a virtue in organizational life -- Loyalty in public organizations: normative considerations -- Is the question: how much? Or to what? -- Public service loyalty: empirical considerations -- Getting loyalty right

In this article, the author argues against the idea that there is "growing evidence" of "a higher degree of passive and active disloyalty of federal bureaucrats duly elected government of the day" (Hubbard and Paquet, 2009: 64). Maintains that there is no solid evidence to support that proposition. In fact. I think the evidence shows otherwise. Displays a public service that is completely loyal to the elected government of the day - but too often on a narrow rather than a broad way. This leads to a paradox that is critical to understand for the future of the public service. The narrow loyalty to the government of the day that has become characteristic of the federal public service does lead to a sort of disloyalty. But it is a disloyalty of a very different kind – a disloyalty to something other than the elected government of the day, but equally important, a disloyalty to its own mission and values, and to the public interest – especially the public interest in an impartial public service.