The Prime Minister's Office in France: A Changing Role in a Semi-presidential System

In France since 1958, it is possible to identify three different types of political leadership: pure presidential government, limited presidential government, and prime ministerial government. These three leadership types are the result of the semi-presidential nature of the Fifth Republic. Under each of the three different forms of leadership, the role of the prime minister's office has changed. Following a brief presentation of the functions of the two components of the prime minister's office, his cabinet and the General Secretariat of the Government, the changes which the office has undergone are identified. While the role of both of the components of the office varied according to the different types of political leadership, it is concluded that, because of its distinctive structure and functions, the role of prime minister's cabinet has been subject to the greatest amount of variation.     

Banality in Politics: Margaret Thatcher and the Biographers

There are numerous biographies of Margaret Thatcher, but as yet no full-length study has been written by a political scientist. This is a disappointing omission from the literature, and reflects a general tendency to undervalue biographical studies. One result has been the production of scholarly work on the Conservative party between 1975 and 1990 which is unduly abstract and often misleading. Equally, although some excellent biographies have been produced – and Thatcher's memoirs are among the best of their genre – the unique perspectives of political science can yield some fascinating insights into her career, her party and the changing nature of British government. This article traces some of the crucial interactions which influenced Thatcher – her family background, her experiences within the Conservative party, her electioneering and her conduct of government. It concludes that although Thatcher's personality developed as a result of these encounters, as an adult she affected institutions far more than they affected her. This raises interesting, but not insuperable challenges for political scientists. Individuals do matter, and their influence can be appraised within a broader context. Ironically, it seems that complex characters conform more readily to generalisable norms of political conduct; Thatcher, by contrast, broke many of the accepted rules precisely because her personality was so banal.     

The Third Way Project in Britain: The Role of the Prime Minister's Policy Unit

The reputedly pragmatic Prime Minister's Policy Unit focuses on 'what works', but has also sought to elaborate the governing philosophy of the 'third way'. By explaining what the government is doing and why, the third way is meant to improve electoral performance and policy co-ordination, enhance democracy and unite the party. This article identifies conflicts within and between these goals. It concludes that electoral concerns and party unity have been paramount for the Policy Unit.     

A Capacity for Central Coordination: The Case of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

For the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C) the year 1987 can now be seen as pivotal in marking a clear end to a period of transition in coordinating structures in the Australian Public Service (APS) that had lasted roughly 20 years. The abolition in 1987 of the Public Service Board, formerly a powerful coordinating agency, is the most obvious marker of the change. The PSB's departure left the Secretary of PM&C with a role that is now often described as ‘head of the public service’. More broadly, the 1987 changes to the machinery of government both formalised and enabled a sea‐change in PM&C's role. Before 1987 a large policy initiation and development project would usually have been considered as beyond PM&C's scope. Since then, extensive and direct policy development work by PM&C has become common. The continuing debates have been over whether PM&C actually delivers in these roles (an empirical question) and how far it should play them (a normative issue). In this article we itemise the capacity, both continuing and developing, which PM&C has to support policy development. Traditional coordination mechanisms are an important part of this armoury and PM&C has long experience of most of them. However policy initiation and development calls for other tools which PM&C has had to develop over the past few decades. There is scope for conflict between the coordination and initiation/development roles. Understanding how a central agency like PM&C carries out each of them and balances the two can potentially contribute to debates on organisational design. We also address the normative issue: whether the growth of prime ministerial impact is a result of an increase in public service support or a cause of its increase ( Walter and Strangio 2007 ) and whether it should be restrained. We accept that the new developments give prime ministers the capacity to oversee policy arenas where once they could not, but regard this as a consequence as much of demand from above as of ambition within the department.     

Innovative Leadership and Policy Change: Lessons From Thatcher

This article employs the concept of Innovative Leadership to challenge the literature on policy change, particularly its skepticism about executive-led policy innovation. It examines evidence of innovative leadership under the Thatcher governments in the face of the social, governmental, and economic and secular factors normally believed to structure policy choice in democracies. On the basis of this it considers the opportunities/resources available to executives wishing to pursue innovative leadership. The conclusions are qualified by reference to system-specific and environmental factors which may circumscribe Innovative Leadership.     

Of paradigms and power: British economic policy making since Thatcher

How do ruling policy paradigms persist over time and why do they often undergo significant internal ideational changes? While the impact of Peter Hall's approach to policy paradigms on the study of governance has been immense, there is a burgeoning consensus that a “Kuhnian” understanding of paradigms makes punctuated equilibrium style shifts the only game in town. While Hall's approach can account for inter‐paradigm change with reference to exogenous shocks, it does not allow for significant ideational shifts to occur intra‐paradigm. To remedy this, we place ideational power dynamics at the heart of the study of policy paradigms. We demonstrate the general applicability of our approach by examining the evolution of British macroeconomic policy‐making since 1990. We show how key policy‐makers were able to employ their institutional and ideational power to reinterpret and redefine the dominant neoliberal understanding of the economy to match their own specific ideas and policy priorities.     

Advising Australian Federal Governments: Assessing the Evolving Capacity and Role of the Australian Public Service

Internationally, there have been persistent complaints that the policy capacity of governments has declined. This critique is widely accepted, including in Australia, but for the most part, such claims are assertions, made without reference to empirical evidence and data. This introduction to the Special Issue examining the Policy Advisory Capacity of the Australian Public Service considers these assertions and proposes an approach and methodology to test the discourse of declining policy capacity in Australian federal government. It introduces six case studies from across the spectrum of the Commonwealth government's responsibilities. The Special Issue concludes with an article by Evert Lindquist and Anne Tiernan assessing the ability of the APS to support decision‐making through its policy advising functions and its preparedness to meet the challenges of 21st century governance.     

The Australian Public Service and Policy Advising: Meeting the Challenges of 21st Century Governance

This concluding article summarises the case study findings comprising the Special Issue on ‘Advising Australian Federal Governments: Assessing the Evolving Capacity and Role of the Australian Public Service’, identifies and discusses cross‐cutting issues, and considers strategic implications for future practice and research. It reviews key findings from six case studies – Treasury, Prime Minister and Cabinet, Intergovernmental Relations, Housing, the BER Stimulus program, and Defence – and assesses the policy advising capacity of the Australian Public Service, with a focus on the policy‐political interface between governments and officials. Putting recent experience in historical context, it considers the performance of the Commonwealth's policy advisory system, the impact of prime ministers and centralisation, the link between advising and analytic capacities, the system's resilience and readiness, whether recent dissatisfaction over APS advising reflect lack of capacity or a culture clash, and the responsibility for ensuring high‐quality policy advice. It recommends developing a more systematic approach to assessing policy advising capability, building on recent APS reforms.     

Margaret Fuller's Rome and the problem of provincial American democracy

ABSTRACT

Margaret Fuller's visit to Italy as a correspondent for the New York Tribune at the time of the 1848 revolutions gave her a unique perspective on them, not only as a feminist intellectual but also as a commentator on the American relationship with revolutionary Europe. In her Tribune writings she addressed issues at once more partisan and more global than those she had covered inside the United States, including the political condition of Italy as a subject state under Austrian imperial control, and as an object of ridicule by many American observers, and the condition of American slavery. Italian peoples and slaves, in her mind, were, like women, oppressed by a transatlantic patriarchy whose prejudices allowed only for white males to enjoy political independence. Fuller called for American support for the Roman republic, but her sympathies did not reflect the thrust of American opinion. Many Americans did not believe Italians were capable of maintaining republican self-government, which was different, they alleged, from their own version, part of the inheritance of the American Revolution. That heritage conferred a unique American revolutionary ‘exceptionalism’. For these Americans, the 1848 revolutions provided evidence that Europe was impulsive, reactionary and flawed; they saw in them confirmation of the superiority of American race relations and democratic society. After her death in 1850, the American Civil War would confirm Fuller's implicit sense that the United States and Europe were more alike than many Americans of her generation believed or realized. Her critique of American attitudes to the prospect for democracy in Italy provides perspective on the ambiguity of American global leadership today.