Promiscuously Partisan? Public Service Impartiality and Responsiveness in Westminster Systems
Public servants in Westminster countries are being drawn into the limelight by demands from their political masters that they publicly defend policies. Critics suggest these conditions undermine the capacity and willingness of senior public servants to manage the enduring Westminster tension between...
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Published in | Governance (Oxford) Vol. 29; no. 4; pp. 517 - 533 |
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Main Authors | , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Oxford
Blackwell Publishing Ltd
01.10.2016
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Public servants in Westminster countries are being drawn into the limelight by demands from their political masters that they publicly defend policies. Critics suggest these conditions undermine the capacity and willingness of senior public servants to manage the enduring Westminster tension between serving elected governments and remaining nonpartisan. Interviews with senior officials from Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom challenge this pessimistic view, showing that officials consistently stress the importance of not “crossing the line” when dealing with their elected masters. Two exploratory case studies are presented—one of an Australian ministerial department (Treasury) and another of a Canadian quasi‐autonomous agency (Statistics Canada)—in which public servants faced pressure to defend controversial government policies. These cases show how contemporary public servants actively interpret, establish, and defend the line between appropriate responsiveness and inappropriate partisanship in Westminster systems. |
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Bibliography: | Australian Research Council - No. DE130101131 Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of Tasmania Centre for Governance and Public Policy, Griffith University ArticleID:GOVE12224 istex:3CFB369299C36F4AF3C0316D6E47712016D62CC4 ark:/67375/WNG-9T9NHRZR-V ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0952-1895 1468-0491 |
DOI: | 10.1111/gove.12224 |