Linchpin or bag carrier? A study of the importance of the role of the parliamentary private secretary to the prime minister

Finch, Tim

doi:10.1080/13572339608420475

Cited by 1 publication

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“…Our survey did not include menial tasks such as keeping ministers’ calendars updated (or carrying their bags (Finch )), and that is a limitation in our research design. The impression from respondents’ free‐text comments to the survey, however, is that bag‐carrying‐type tasks are comparable to the high‐end tasks just discussed: they are performed regularly by only a minority of political appointees – albeit by the least influential rather than the most influential ones.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The limited number of questions regarding tasks and assignments also affects the number of roles we can find. In other words, if there are ‘bag carriers’ (Finch ) among Norwegian political advisers or (less likely) among state secretaries, we have not found them, because we have not looked for them. Some political advisers do score low on all our measures of high‐status tasks, which suggests that we could add bag carrier to our role set.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Political appointees in executive government: Exploring and explaining roles using a large‐N survey in Norway

Askim

Karlsen

Kolltveit

2016

Public Administration

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Political appointees in executive government have received increased scholarly attention in recent years. However, few studies have covered non-Westminster systems, and apart from classifications that systemize variation in assignments, theorizing about appointees has been limited. Using large-N survey data, the article finds three distinct roles among political appointees in Norway: 'stand in', 'media advisor' and 'political coordinator'. The article then combines insights from research on political appointees with insights from core executive studies (CES) to explain why political appointees perform one role or another. The empirical results support the notion that roles of appointees within the core executive depend on where they sit, supporting the asymmetric power model within CES. The results also show that appointees' roles within the executive depend on their personal experience, supporting the notion of a resource exchange between ministers and their appointees in the mould of the resource-dependency perspective within CES.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%