T. H. GREEN AND THE ETHICS OF SENIOR OFFICIALS IN BRITISH CENTRAL GOVERNMENT

This article is an attempt to move away from microeconomics in the study of administration and to concentrate on British administrative ethics from a philosophical perspective. Thus, ethics is used here not in the sense of the ethics of managers dealing with accounts but as the ‘science’ of ranking moral values. The intention of the article is to examine how political theory can be used to help illustrate the dilemmas of public servants working in a climate which is distinctly hostile to disinterested ideals. The ideas of T. H. Green, the English Idealist philosopher who contributed so much to our understanding of public service, form the basis of the theoretical discussion, and the work of senior officials in Whitehall is the material used for illustrative purposes. Where do the loyalties of civil servants lie? What are their duties and responsibilities to ministers? To whom, for what, and how are civil servants accountable?     

Devolution and Local Government: Evidence from Scotland

Devolution in Scotland has had a major impact upon local government. Local government, at both political and managerial levels, perceives central government in the shape of the Scottish Executive to be closer (geographically and politically) and more open to local government in terms of access to ministers and civil servants. However, Scottish central–local relations continues to be characterised by a sense of mistrust of local government, especially among civil servants and a continuing desire for central control of key policy agendas. Equally, the policy process continues to display features of fragmentation across major policy areas. Moreover, Westminster has not yet departed the scene of Scottish politics in both financial and policy terms but also in the enduring presence of a Westminster ‘political culture’     

The Study of Public Administration in Hong Kong and Macao: Evolutionary Paths and Implications

Comparatively speaking, the birth and the growth of public administration programmes, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, in Hong Kong and Macao have been a response to the increasing need for the training of students and civil servants in the discipline of public administration. Since the 1990s, the proliferation of Master of Public Administration (MPA) programmes in both the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions can be explained by the demand for local people to govern the two places in accordance with the principle of ‘one country, two systems’. The content of various MPA programmes also reflects the changing political and administrative circumstances; its public administration focus has been accompanied by core courses training students from a variety of disciplines, ranging from public finance to economics, from public policy analyses to globalization, and from regional planning to a deeper understanding of mainland Chinese government and politics. In both Hong Kong and Macao, some graduates from both the Bachelor and Master programmes have joined the civil service or enhanced their skills in public sector management and governance. Although the medium of instruction varies from one university to another, their programme objective shares one thing in common: the imperative of training existing civil servants and students to join the governments of Hong Kong and Macao. This paper compares and contrasts the development of public administration programmes in Hong Kong and Macao and examines its theoretical implications for the changing relations between politics and public administration.     

FRAGMENTED BUT FORCEFUL: DUTCH ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCES AND THEIR INSTITUTIONAL EVOLUTION

This article is an attempt by three (relatively) young scholars to make sense of the broad field of public administration (PA), in The Netherlands, with particular emphasis on Dutch administrative sciences. The one essential fact about the Dutch administrative sciences is that they lack a real essence, both in institutional and in paradigmatic terms. They are fragmented – yet forceful. Nevertheless, we will argue, they must recast their position in relation to practitioners and other academics if they are to maintain their strength. We start by highlighting the development of The Netherlands itself, moving on to Dutch public administration and Dutch administrative sciences. We explore the historical Dutch emphasis on ‘pragmatic morality’. After this rough historical overview, we move on to contemporary features of Dutch administrative sciences, features which explain why these sciences have become fragmented, yet forceful – as well as why this force is threatened. We conclude with a perspective on the future of the field and will argue in favour of a renewed emphasis on ‘pragmatic morality’ within scholarly circles.     

Ministers and Top Officials in the Dutch Core Executive: Living Together,Growing Apart?

This paper reports the results of a comprehensive, qualitative (100 interviews; 9 interactive workshops) study among Dutch ministers and top departmental officials. Its key question is how both groups conceive of their respective roles and working relationships. This question became a high‐profile issue in the late 1990s after a series of overt clashes between senior political and bureaucratic executives. To what extent does the old, Weberian set of norms and expectations concerning the interaction between politics and bureaucracy still govern the theories and interaction patterns in use among ministers and top officials within the core executive? What new role conceptions are in evidence, and how can we explain their occurrence and diffusion in the Dutch core executive?     

Generalists and specialists in executive politics: Why ambitious meta‐policies so often fail

This article contributes to the politics of policy‐making in executive government. It introduces the analytical distinction between generalists and specialists as antagonistic players in executive politics and develops the claim that policy specialists are in a structurally advantaged position to succeed in executive politics and to fend off attempts by generalists to influence policy choices through cross‐cutting reform measures. Contrary to traditional textbook public administration, we explain the views of generalists and specialists not through their training but their positions within an organization. We combine established approaches from public policy and organization theory to substantiate this claim and to define the dilemma that generalists face when developing government‐wide reform policies (‘meta‐policies’) as well as strategies to address this problem. The article suggests that the conceptual distinction between generalists and specialists allows for a more precise analysis of the challenges for policy‐making across government organizations than established approaches.     

The Relationship Between Civil Servants and Politicians in a Post‐Communist Country: A Case of Slovenia

In modern democracies, civil servants have outgrown their classic role as implementors of the orders given by politicians as their masters. They now play an increasingly important role in the exercising of authority – a role which depends to a great degree on politicians themselves. Based on classical politico‐administrative divisions, the main hypothesis of this paper is to claim that, in the case of the post‐communist country of Slovenia, politicians are in charge of policy‐making and possess a dominant role over high‐ranking civil servants, who are mere implementors of policy. To verify this hypothesis, we use several mutually complementary methods and techniques, among them detailed empirical research. We find that the relationship between members of Slovenia's administrative and political elite does show competitive traits, but the conflict between the two groups is not such that would lead to a win‐lose situation. Both high‐ranking civil servants and politicians do in fact have a role as important and irreplaceable actors in the policy‐making process.     

NEW PUBLIC MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC EDUCATION: A CATALYST FOR THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF SWEDISH SCHOOL PRINCIPALS

New Public Management (NPM) is one of the most significant reforms in public welfare in recent times. Making individual civil servants more dependent on the directions of the local manager than on common professional standards, previous sociological research argues that NPM results in a ‘deprofessionalization’ of civil servants. Taking a somewhat different approach, recent public administration research indicates that NPM may, at the same time, enhance the professional status of welfare managers. By integrating the literature on the sociology of professions and public administration, this article develops a theoretical framework for understanding the influence of NPM using the example of a professional project for school principals in Sweden. Taking a process‐oriented methodological approach, the result shows that Swedish school principals gained increased support for their professional project by the introduction of NPM. The article argues that NPM can function as a catalyst for welfare managers' professional projects.     

BUREAU SHUFFLING? THE REVIEW OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN NORTHERN IRELAND

The Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement of 1998 resulted in the return of devolved government to Northern Ireland and, with it, a decision by the Executive and Assembly to conduct a radical review of public administration. The review is now reaching its final stages and this paper considers the likely outcomes. It both argues that the parameters of the review will limit its impact and describes the reform proposals as either structural changes or administrative rationalization, both devoid of a wider modernizing approach to improving public services. In Northern Ireland, the on/off nature of devolution could result in ‘one of the major tasks for devolved government’ (according to the Northern Ireland Executive) being implemented by Direct Rule ministers.     

CHANGES IN PUBLIC SERVICE BARGAINS: MINISTERS AND CIVIL SERVANTS IN DENMARK

The concept of public service bargain (PSB) has been reintroduced in recent times to the study of public administration to analyse the division of roles between ministers and the civil service in the context of public service reforms ( Hood 2000, 2001, 2002 ; Hood and Lodge 2006 ). The empirical investigation of the concept of PSB in general and changes in PSBs in particular is, however, limited. This article addresses this limitation by investigating what causes changes in public service bargains, particularly with respect to the provision of advice. As argued by Hood, we demonstrate how changes in PSBs can be explained by a combination of changes in the environments of ministries as well as the interests of the political actors. Furthermore, we point to the professional qualifications of civil servants as well as their interests as causes of change which, until now, have not received sufficient attention in the PSB literature. The article is based on a longitudinal case study of PSB between ministers and the permanent civil service in Denmark.     

EXPLAINING RADICAL POLICY CHANGE: THE CASE OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENERGY POLICY UNDER THE BRITISH LABOUR GOVERNMENT 2006–10

An innovative framework combining the ‘multiple streams’ (MS) and ‘punctuated equilibrium’ (PE) models of agenda‐setting is used to explain the transformation of UK climate change and energy policy under the Labour Government between 2006 and 2010. The coupling of the problem, politics and policy streams by policy entrepreneurs (MS), and changes in policy image and institutional venues (PE), were critical in opening a policy window, disrupting the existing policy monopoly and enabling radical policy initiatives. The case study suggests two revisions to the models: (1) policy windows can remain open far longer than either model typically predicts; and (2) party politics, especially where party competition generates a ‘competitive consensus’, can be important for both initiating and prolonging policy change in parliamentary systems. An important factor typically overlooked by both models is the significant policy entrepreneurship role that government ministers can play, particularly when an issue becomes part of their ‘narrative identity’.     

THE DIFFICULT TRANSFORMATION OF STATE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION IN PORTUGAL. EUROPEANIZATION AND THE PERSISTENCE OF NEO‐PATRIMONIALISM

Portugal has been characterized by a late discontinuous democratization process. This contribution discusses the case of state and public administration reform in Portugal by using approaches from democratization, modernization and Europeanization theories. In order to understand the Portuguese case, the concept of ‘neo‐patrimonialism’ is used. We characterize Portuguese public administration as still having ‘neo‐patrimonial’ features, and therefore is still in transition from old closed‐minded practices such as particularistic decision making or clientelistic relationships to new open‐minded ones. The ‘new’ governance agenda combines new public management instruments and a growing flexibilization of public administration towards networks with non‐statal actors and has certainly led to some improvement in the quality of the services associated with public administration. Although is still too early to assess, top‐down and horizontal Europeanization processes, particularly since the late 1990s, may have contributed to a more reflexive approach in moving towards a more endogenous strategic vision based on the needs of the Portuguese state and public administration.     

The partisan–professional dichotomy revisited: Politicization and decision‐making of senior civil servants

Politicization has an ambivalent reputation among public administration scholars. While considered an effective instrument to safeguard political control over ministerial bureaucracy, partisanship of senior civil servants is likewise associated with patronage and is deemed detrimental to professionalism and meritocracy. To scrutinize this contradiction, the article examines how the party‐political background of senior civil servants influences their decision‐making behaviour. Two theoretically derived conceptions of loyalty are therefore put to the test: responsiveness and responsibility. Effects are captured by using the vignette technique in 40 in‐depth interviews with former senior civil servants from ministerial departments at federal and state level in Germany. The results are surprising in so far as they reveal that politicized senior civil servants act neither more responsively nor less responsibly than their non‐politicized peers. These findings challenge common assumptions and call for a more refined analysis of the conditions under which politicization leads to negative effects.     

WHAT IS GOVERNANCE IN THE ‘PUBLIC INTEREST’? THE CASE OF THE 1995 PROPERTY FORUM IN POST‐CONFLICT NICARAGUA

‘Public interest' (synonymous here with ‘common good’ and ‘public good’) is a central concept in public administration. In an important, basic sense, we evaluate the effectiveness of governments in terms of whether their policies are detrimental to, or benefit, public interest. However there are problems operationalizing public interest: it seems a concept that is simultaneously indispensable yet vague. While difficulties operationalizing public interest are widely understood, a further problem is insufficiently acknowledged. This is that many features underpinning public interest (a tradition of citizenship, stable government, a rule of law, basic infrastructures) are taken for granted in established democracies. However, in other contexts we cannot assume these. Examining what public interest means in developing countries can be useful to identify these taken for granted assumptions, and to re‐examine this ubiquitous and enduring concept. We do this through a case study of land rights reform in post conflict Nicaragua.     

SITUATING ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITY: A COMPARISON OF MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN AND MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC ADMINISTRATIVE THOUGHT

Contemporary studies of administrative thought allow only a limited range of viability for medieval and non‐Western thought on the subject of public administration. This tendency belies the wealth of thought embedded within this broad literature. This paper investigates the matter of administrative accountability and responsibility through the lens of a comparative theorist of historical administrative thought. In order to assess the explanatory potential of early and non‐Western administrative studies, two texts have been chosen, both previously unanalysed in conjunction (to the best of my knowledge) from the perspective of the administrative theorist – John of Salisbury’s Policraticus and Abu al‐Hassan Al‐Mawardi’s Al‐Akham al‐Sultaniyya w’al‐Wilayat al Diniyya (The Ordinances of Government). Through an analysis of ideas of delegation and responsibility within these texts, the paper seeks to develop a critique of the place of revealed religious authority in the solution to the questions ‘who are administrators responsible to?’ and ‘what are administrators responsible for?’     

Interpreting the World of Political Elites

This paper uses an interpretative approach to analyse the relationship between ministers and officials. It argues that generally, the relationship between ministers and civil servants is harmonious. This can be explained by the fact that both sets of actors tend to draw from the same tradition, the Westminster model. The Westminster model can be understood as the building block from which both ministers and civil servants develop narratives that shape and condition their actions. In the case of ministers, the dominant narrative drawn from the Westminster model is what we refer to as that of 'historical impact'. In the case of civil servants, their dominant narrative, again drawn from the Westminster model is conditioned by the need to provide an account that continually emphasizes how they have acted with 'constitutional propriety'. Generally, these two contrasting narratives do not lead to conflict between ministers and civil servants. However, a serious breakdown in the relationship between ministers and civil servants can occur when either one or both sets of actors draw on a tradition other than the Westminster model, or when they appeal to a different narrative within the Westminster model which shapes their subsequent behaviour and actions.     

THE IMPACT OF FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ON WHITEHALL

This article examines whether the UK Freedom of Information Act 2000 has changed Whitehall. Based on a two‐year, ESRC‐funded study, it evaluates the impact of FOI on five characteristics of the Whitehall model: the culture of secrecy, ministerial accountability to Parliament, civil service neutrality, the Cabinet system, and effective government. Proponents of FOI hoped that government would be less secretive, more accountable and more effective; critics feared that civil servants would lose their anonymity, and collective Cabinet responsibility would be undermined. Drawing on interviews, media analysis, case law and official documents, the article finds that the impact of FOI is modest at most. It is not powerful enough to do much good or much ill, and the feared ‘chilling effect' on candour and record‐keeping has not materialized. Leaks do more damage than FOI disclosures. But ministers remain apprehensive about the effect of FOI on Cabinet records and discussions.     

THE VALUE OF THE REMUNERATION OF HIGH CIVIL SERVANTS IN BRITAIN IN THE 20TH CENTURY AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

The article traces a large real and comparative decline in the rewards of high civil servants in Great Britain over the 20th century, accelerating since about 1970. It relates this to developments in the market for ‘high quality’ graduates and to changes in public and governmental attitudes which have affected the size, organization and role of the civil service. It discusses possible causes of the decline in top rewards in terms of three explanatory approaches suggested by social scientists – the ‘institutional’, the ‘cultural’, and the views of the ‘Chicago School’. Finally, following an examination of changes in the way senior British civil servants are now recruited and remunerated, it considers possible outcomes in terms of effects on the part they can play in the governmental process.     

Duopoly,court politics and the Danish core executive

This article applies the ideas of the core executive and court politics to Danish coalition and minority governments. It asks two questions. Do these ideas travel beyond their Westminster origins? What are the dilemmas confronting the Danish executive and its court politics? The analysis is based on documentary sources and 22 elite interviews with cabinet ministers and permanent secretaries. It identifies a duopoly of Prime Minister and Minister of Finance as a distinctive variety of court politics. It identifies the key dilemmas confronted by the Danish executive; namely trust, political support and politicization. It concludes that court politics provides unique insights into the workings of Danish government. The article is a contribution to the comparative analysis of the court politics of governing elites. It shows that the focus on court politics is not only useful for majoritarian Westminster systems but also for the analysis of consensual parliamentary democracies.     

Short notes on some books received

This article challenges the thesis that local‐level bureaucrats need be part of any ‘dominant coalition’ at the village level. Based on a case study of Egyptian agricultural officials, the paper argues that local bureaucrats may well be more useless than dominant in any political or economic sense. In rural areas in which local officials lack the resources (supplies, funds) to do their jobs, they may well be quite inconsequential. In such situations their position as ‘public servants’ may be appropriated by members of the rich peasantry, who have no particular need to work closely with resource‐poor local government staff.