Women are underrepresented within political institutions, which can (negatively) impact policy outcomes. We examine women’s descriptive representation as politically appointed staff within ministerial offices. Politically appointed staff are now institutionalised into the policy process, so who they are is important. To date, collecting systematic data on political staff has proved impossible. However, for the first time we demonstrate how to build a systematic data set of this previously unobservable population. We use Australian Ministerial Directories (telephone records) from 1979 to 2010 (a method that can notionally be replicated in advanced democratic jurisdictions), to examine political advising careers in a similar manner as elected political elites. We find that work in political offices is divided on gender lines: men undertake more policy work, begin and end their careers in higher status roles and experience greater career progression than women. We find evidence that this negatively impacts women’s representation and their later career paths into parliament.

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Studies examining opposition transition to government processes and planning usually emphasise the responsibility of oppositions as a legislative institution and the role of party leaders. However, such approaches place too much emphasis on notions of responsible opposition and party leaders. They de-emphasise the importance of partisan considerations that shape transition planning or how party organisations have attempted to assert control over parliamentary parties. Drawing on archival materials, policy documents, and elite interviews, this study examines both public and internal transition to government strategies undertaken by the Liberal Party of Australia during their opposition years (1983)(1984)(1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996). The paper finds that while party leaders became more important over time, the party organisation's involvement remained significant. The Liberal Party transition planning focused primarily on cabinet processes, Australian Public Service (APS) organisation, particularly the senior bureaucratic level, and selecting political staff. In so doing, the Liberal Party anticipated many of the Hawke government's 1987 reforms to the APS. The Liberal Party was motivated by its desire to restructure the machinery and culture of government and to allocate sufficient political staff resources to government. Its aim was to better equip the party to achieve its political and ideological goals when next in government.

Westminster administrative systems were characterized by a clear separation between the political careers and roles of elected ministers and career civil servants. The former set the values or aims of the organization; the latter utilize those values when generating policy ideas. This separation provides what H.A. Simon calls "procedural rationality." The decision premise of public servants is (1) an apolitical commitment to government service, and ( 2) a commitment to advise on and implement the current government values, including expert advice using their personal and institutional memory and procedural knowledge. Using evidence from Australia and the United Kingdom, we track the de-separation of political careers. Policy advice increasingly comes from outside the career public service, including politically appointed special advisors. Furthermore, senior politicians are increasingly drawn from the world of special and external advisors. De-separation changes the decision premise of all actors, which we argue deleteriously affects the nature of policy formation.

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