Caught in the Act: The Smoking Gun View of Ministerial Responsibility

While any discussion of ministerial responsibility must in part focus on ministerial resignations, finding out when ministers resign is only the tip of the iceberg. A full assessment of ministerial responsibility would look at the relations between ministers and their senior bureaucrats, as discussed in Bill Blick’s article. It would look at the impact of managerialism on ministerial accountability, especially in the light of privatisation and contracting out. It would assess the impact of other mechanisms of accountability, including the senate. The subject of this article must always be put into a broader context. This article concentrates on ministerial resignations drawing on evidence from Britain, Canada, the federal government in Australia and the government of New South Wales. When do ministers resign?     

Fault Lines: The Effects of Bureaucratic Power on Electoral Accountability

This article introduces a new explanation for why citizens may fail to vote based on government performance. We argue that when politicians have limited capacity to control bureaucrats, citizens will not know whether government performance is a good signal of the incumbent's quality. We develop a selection model of elections in which policy is jointly determined by a politician and a bureaucrat. When politicians have incomplete power over policy, elections perform worse at separating good and bad types of incumbents. We test the theory's predictions using survey experiments conducted with nearly 9,000 citizens and local officials in Uganda. We find that citizens and officials allocate more responsibility to politicians when they are perceived as having more power relative to bureaucrats. The allocation of responsibility has electoral consequences: When respondents believe that bureaucrats are responsible for performance, they are less likely to expect that government performance will affect incumbent vote share.     

Bureaucratic politics and the translation of movement agendas

Research on social movement outcomes focuses on the publicly visible stages of government policymaking. It rarely opens the black box of government's translation of movement demands beyond the agenda‐setting stage and before their materialization into legislative bills. Using a bureaucratic politics perspective, we suggest that bureaucrats play a central role in translating movement agendas into concrete problems and policy solutions, which they tend to link with their bureaus' missions and existing programs. We further suggest that relative consensus among bureaucrats when coupled with politicians' disinclination to intervene in the translation process tends to advantage conservative interpretations of movement agendas. Conversely, interbureau confrontation and political intervention are associated with more radical policy responses. Empirically, we examine the responses of the Israeli government to the large‐scale mobilization, in 2011, surrounding the rising costs of housing and living. We build on archival research and interviews with senior bureaucrats located in 11 central‐government ministries.     

Where Did the Bureaucrats Go? Role and Influence of the Public Bureaucracy in the Swedish and French Pension Reform Debate

This article has two key objectives. First, despite having been considered as a key element to favor the expansion and elaboration of the welfare state in industrial countries, bureaucrats have been largely ignored by the "New" Politics of the Welfare State. This article demonstrates that bureaucrats still matter in times of retrenchment, because they can facilitate or obstruct various phases of the policy process. The degree of independence of the bureaucracy vis-à-vis the government, the government's level of dependency and trust on public expertise, the locus of ministerial power, and political deadlocks contribute to either accentuate or decrease the influence of the bureaucracy in the retrenchment of social policies. Second, these elements are analyzed via a comparison of the pension reform processes in France and Sweden. This article argues that the French bureaucracy, despite its high degree of centralization and powers, has been far less successful than its Swedish counterpart. The Swedish institutional structure, the predominance of social ministries in pension affairs, and the trust given to an independent agency account for this puzzling outcome.     

Politics and Administration: A Trichotomy?

This article compares changes in the education and career paths of senior federal civil servants in Canada between 1967 and 1987. It shows that there has been a marked trend toward managers with less formal education than had previously been the case and also a shift toward managers with less experience in the policy areas within which they are responsible for providing policy advice and program management. This finding is consistent with Osbaldeston's study of Canadian deputy ministers, and with studies of bureaucratic elites in other Western democracies. In an increasingly complex environment, problems facing government decision-makers require high levels of technical expertise. This requirement is central to Weber's concept of bureaucracy, and it has been used as an explanation for the increasing prominence of bureaucrats in the policy-making process. In recent decades, however, bureaucratic reforms have emphasized the administrative functions of senior managers at the expense of their technical roles. In Canada, at least, this process appears to have gone so far that it may have seriously compromised the capacity of senior civil servants to give informed advice and to make knowledgeable decisions about the policies and programs of their departments.     

Horizontal coordination in cooperative federalism: The purpose of ministerial conferences in Germany

ABSTRACT

Intergovernmental councils in Germany comprise 18 sectoral ministerial conferences and the prime ministerial conference as peak organization. They complement the Bundesrat as institutions of Intergovernmental Relations in the German system of cooperative federalism, dealing with matters of shared rule as well as self-rule. Based on expert interviews among ministerial bureaucrats, this contribution finds that contrary to conventional wisdom, vertical influence and autonomy protection are not their main purpose. Rather, they serve primarily information exchange and coordination. Still, the emphasis on either influence and autonomy protection or coordination and information as well as the directions of interaction vary across policy sectors. We further investigate constitutional allocation of power and party political composition as determinants on the specific purpose of ministerial conferences. The findings suggest that the allocation of power is more important than party political composition in explaining variation between sectoral ministerial conferences.     

Models of Executive Politics: a Framework for the Study of Executive Power Relations in Parliamentary and Semi–presidential Regimes

The study of executives politics has been characterized by dichotomous country–specific debates about whether there is, for example, prime ministerial or cabinet government. Recent work has established new terms for these debates leading to more pluralistic conceptualizations of executive politics. Nevertheless, this work has not created the conditions for rigorous cross-national comparison. This article establishes a framework to compare executive branch power relations. It identifies six models of executive politics comprising a comprehensive set of ways in which power may be distributed amongst chief executives, cabinets, ministers and bureaucrats. On the basis of this framework it is argued that it is necessary to engage in empirical observation to determine which models of government occur and to identify the reasons why these models emerge.     

Friction and bureaucratic control in authoritarian regimes

Democracies deliberately create “friction” in bureaucratic processes, using inefficiencies to mitigate the impact of government transitions and asymmetric information on leaders' ability to exert control. With far more centralized power, would authoritarians prefer less friction? We argue that they do not. In fact, excess friction is actively supplied to hinder bureaucratic coordination independent of or even in opposition to top-down control, leaving the central leaders the only player powerful enough to organize complex actions. Our analysis of data on the Chinese government indicates that bureaucrats are systematically sent to unfamiliar work environment, and that agencies that are more exposed to the resultant inefficiencies are also more likely to come under direct control by senior Politburo members. The pattern of targeted intervention indicates that bureaucratic control in authoritarian regimes is predicated not only on centralized power in general but also the deliberate supply of friction to obstruct independent actions from the bottom up.     

Disentangling Concepts of Ministerial Responsibility

Debates on ministerial responsibility have too often gone around in circles. The application of the principle is related to the incidence of resignations; analysis considers the reasons given for resignation or, rather more often, the reasons given for not resigning. The usual conclusions are that ministers resign occasionally when their personal involvement is unquestioned and when the prime minister determines that the political costs are less to let the minister go. But the ideas remain at a broad level because they relate to all the ministerial activities. This article seeks to disentangle these concepts, developing the ideas in Thompson and Tillotsen's article in this symposium, to see if a different set of concepts can better define this old notion.     

Portfolio Saliency and Ministerial Turnover: Dynamics in Scandinavian Postwar Cabinets

Why do certain ministers remain in their post for years while others have their time in office cut short? Drawing on the broader literature on portfolio allocation, this article argues that the saliency of individual portfolios shapes ministerial turnover. The main argument is that ministerial dismissals are less likely to occur the higher the saliency attributed to the ministerial portfolio since ministers appointed to important posts are more likely to have been through extensive screening before appointment. Importantly, it is also posited in the article that the effect of portfolio salience is conditioned by government approval ratings: when government ratings are on the decline, prime ministers are less likely to reshuffle or fire important ministers than when approval ratings are improving. To test these claims, Cox proportional hazards models are applied to a new dataset on ministerial turnover in Scandinavia during the postwar period. The results strongly support the proposition that portfolio saliency matters for ministerial survival, and that this effect is moderated by government popularity.     

MINISTERIAL ADVISERS: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE WHITLAM GOVERNMENT*

Abstract: Following the election of the Whitlam government in December 1972 changes in the composition, work and style of ministers' offices were substantial. Evaluations of the emerging pattern conflicted, often quite sharply. This paper surveys the pattern of staffing introduced by Labor and examines in particular the roles of ministerial officers as political and policy advisers. The paper also discusses recent experiences with ministerial staff in the United Kingdom and Canada, and makes brief reference to the use of ministerial staff by the Fraser government. Assessing the effectiveness of ministerial advisers is not easy. No straight forward measures of effectiveness exist. It is argued that, despite the ambitions of some ministerial staff during the Whitlam government, the role of ministerial advisers was essentially limited and confined. Ministers found them useful but few found them overwhelmingly so. While the Fraser government has reduced the number and visibility of ministerial staff it has retained the institutional underpinning of Labor's system. In the search for ways of assisting political parties to govern and to respond to changing situations, it is likely that ministerial staff with ability to advise on policy will receive further attention in the future.     

In the Wake of 'A Certain Maritime Incident': Ministerial Advisers, Departments and Accountability

This article considers the accountability of ministerial advisers and their relationship with departments in the light of 'the children overboard' incident. It argues that if ministers are not going to accept responsibility for the actions of their advisers then on those occasions the advisers should be separately accountable to the parliament. The article further suggests that the department heads have a particular responsibility for ensuring the integrity of ministerial advice, and proposes steps to reinforce their capacity to fulfil that responsibility.     

Innovation and Innovators Inside Government: From Institutions to Networks

Innovation and innovators inhabit an institutional space, which is partially defined by formal positions and partially by informal networks. This article investigates the role of politicians and bureaucrats in fostering innovation inside government and provides an empirical explanation of who the innovators are, whether this is mostly an attribute of position or role, or mostly an effect of certain forms of networking. The study uses original data collected from 11 municipal governments in Australia in order to define and describe the normative underpinnings of innovation inside government and to show the importance of advice and strategic information networks among politicians and senior bureaucrats (n = 947). Social network analysis is combined with conventional statistical analysis in order to demonstrate the comparative importance of networks in explaining who innovates.     

Public employment and the double role of bureaucrats

Bureaucrats in the government sector have a double role since they are both suppliers and demanders of public employment; they are publicly employed (supply labor) and they have an important say in deciding the size of the municipal employment (demand labor). In this paper we present and estimate a theoretical model that focuses on this double role of bureaucrats. The predictions from the theoretical model are supported by our empirical results: The estimates, based on data from Swedish municipalities 1990–2002, show that wages have smaller effects on the demand for bureaucrats than on the demand for other types of public employees. Actually, wages have no significant effect on the number of bureaucrats the municipality employs.     

The Attitudes of Senior Public Servants in Australia and New Zealand: Administrative Reform and Technocratic Consequence?

This article is in the tradition of comparative international research conducted over recent years into changing political-bureaucratic role relations. Its focus is the attitudinal orientation held toward various dimensions of their work by senior public servants in Canberra and Wellington. In particular, it is concerned to gauge officials' tolerance for pluralistic politics, their programmatic commitment, democratic sensibilities, and identification with conventions of ministerial responsibility. The study draws on and develops into four the two categories of public servants identified by Robert D. Putnam during the early 1970s in Western Europe. The information generated may be used as a baseline for future surveys of a similar type, which could identify changing patterns of distribution among the four basic categories: Political Bureaucrats, Classical Bureaucrats, Traditional Bureaucrats, and Technocrats. The present survey shows some significant differences between senior public servants in the two cities. In particular, those in Canberra are less programmatically committed than their Wellington counterparts, and considerably more “elitist” in their attitudes to popular involvement in policymaking. In both capitals officials are proactively rather than reactively orientated, a finding that may run counter to reformers' beliefs in the predominance of “Sir Humphrey Applebys.” The article goes on to relate the survey findings to major public sector changes that have taken place in both cities since the data for this article was collected. It speculates that, especially in New Zealand (but perhaps less so in Australia), these changes will see the emergence of more strongly technocratic attitudes among top public officials. Such attitudes may not sit easily with expectations that senior public servants be both politically accountable and managerially orientated. Finally, the four categories used in this study are related to the “images” of political-bureaucratic role relations developed in other comparative research.     

Policy preferences and ministerial structures: Immigrant integration governance in Western Europe, 1997–2017

This article tests an often‐stated assumption in the “machinery of government” literature: that government parties’ issue and policy preferences affect the ministerial structure. Using a new Dataset on Immigrant Integration Governance (DIIG) that documents the ministerial structure of immigrant integration in 16 Western European countries during 1997–2017, the analysis finds that divergence and change characterize the ministerial structure. The analysis finds that right‐oriented governments are more inclined to couple integration with immigration and justice than are left‐oriented governments, indicating different policy preferences. However, it does not find that governments with radical parties are more inclined to signal “integration” in ministerial titles. The study's comparative approach challenges the generalizability of existing knowledge on drivers of ministerial changes. Additionally, it fills a gap in current immigrant integration literature: the study of the horizontal governance structure.     

Ideology and Ministerial Allocation in the Major Government 1992–1997

This article evaluates the allocation of ministerial portfolios according to ideological disposition within the Major government of 1992–1997. By examining the ideological attitudes of Conservative parliamentarians towards three ideological variables – economic policy, European policy and social, sexual and moral policy – it will analyse the ideological balance of the government vis-à-vis the Parliamentary Conservative Party (PCP); the ideological disposition of those departing and entering government; and the ideological profile of the ministers appointed to the 'key' ministerial positions. The article will demonstrate the following: first, the Thatcherite 'right' were underrepresented at ministerial level, whilst the Tory 'left' secured a level of ministerial representation disproportionate to their numerical strength within the PCP; second, this was despite the fact that the process of ministerial appointments and departures gradually enhanced the representation of the Thatcherite 'right' of the PCP at the expense of the Tory 'left'; and finally, the 'perception' amongst the Thatcherite 'right' was that they were being marginalised in terms of the key ministries of state.     

DANGER ZONES OF CORRUPTION: HOW MANAGEMENT OF THE MINISTERIAL BUREAUCRACY AFFECTS CORRUPTION RISKS IN POLAND

This article examines the relationship between management of the ministerial bureaucracy and the risk of high‐level corruption in Poland. Four danger zones of corruption in the ministerial bureaucracy are distinguished, comprising the personalisation of appointments, the emergence of multiple dependencies, the screening capacity of the personnel system and the incentive of bureaucrats to develop a reputation of honesty and competence. Empirically, the article investigates the case of Poland from 1997 until 2007 and sets the findings in a comparative East Central European perspective. The article shows that corruption risks in the ministerial bureaucracy increased in most but not all danger zones after 2001 and, in particular, during the period of the centre‐right governments that were in office between 2005 and 2007. The increase in corruption risks is reflected in Poland's deteriorating corruption record during the same period. The conclusion discusses the findings with regard to alternative causes of corruption and the relationship between civil service professionalisation and corruption in other East Central European countries. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Innovation,voice, and hierarchy in the public sector: Evidence from Ghana's civil service

Research on innovation in government often focuses on ideas introduced by senior leaders or managers, but ideas from public servants themselves are an important and underexplored channel for improving performance in government bureaucracies. We provide new evidence on the potential for bottom‐up work process innovation, using data from 744 individual and team innovation plans and 51 qualitative interviews in Ghana's civil service. In contrast to common negative stereotypes of developing country bureaucrats, most officials do have meaningful ideas for improving performance. However, the overwhelming constraint to voicing these ideas is hostility by supervisors to new ideas from their subordinates. We argue that this anecdotally common yet understudied behavior is consistent with theories of psychological attachment to hierarchy rather than alternative theories rooted in material, structural, or cultural resistance to employee voice and innovation. We discuss implications for bottom‐up work process innovation in government and interventions to promote it.     

MINISTERIAL STAFF IN AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH GOVERNMENT

Abstract: This study examines the ministerial staff in Australian commonwealth government to discover what they do and how they assist ministers in achieving political control of departments. The data consist of interviews with ministers, departmental secretaries and ministerial staff. The study finds that ministerial staff offer policy advice in much the same way as found by James Walter in his study almost a decade before this one. But there does appear to be more emphasis on monitoring departmental implementation of policy and brokering positions within government than was the case in the earlier study. The study concludes that the relationship between ministers and their offices and the departmental secretaries is characterised by a conditionally cooperative approach, which is similar to that recommended by several public administration scholars.