Ministerial advisers in executive government: Out from the dark and into the limelight

Abstract

Ministers increasingly rely on advisers for support and advice.In many countries, these political aides are labelled differently.Generally, they serve as close confidants to their political masters and operate in the 'shadowland' between politics and bureaucracy.Scholarship has dragged the ministerial advisers out of the dark and described their background and functions. Still, the field of scholarship has a Westminster bias, is characterized by single case studies, and remains under-theorized. The lack of comparative focus and theoretical underpinnings can be explained by the complex nature of ministerial advisers. This introductory article suggests a definition for ministerial advisers and reviews the extant literature on these important actors. The main argument is that the extent and relevance of ministerial advisers in executive government merits integration into mainstream public administration and political science theory and research.

Bubbling up or cascading down? Public servants, political advisers and politicization

“…The development has not gone unchallenged. The case against advisers includes that they disturb bilateral relations between ministers and officials and freeze civil servants out of the policy process (Askim et al 2017; Hustedt et al 2017). The most trenchant criticism is that they can compromise civil service impartiality by, for instance, interfering in departments' internal operations or by directing officials not to furnish advice deemed contrary to a minister's political interests.…”

“…There are many strands to the growing literature on political staff in parliamentary democracies (Eymeri‐Douzans et al 2015; Hustedt et al 2017; Shaw and Eichbaum 2018). One is that advisers appointed on the basis of partisan considerations threaten civil service impartiality.…”

Ministers, Minders and Mandarins

“…This generational shift, the chief features of which are a broad empirical base, closer attention to matters of theory, and more comparative research, has since gained momentum. In 2015 a special edition of the International Journal of Public Administration appeared dedicated to new directions in studying ministerial advisers (Shaw and Eichbaum 2015), while in June 2017 Public Administration published a special issue consistent with second-wave imperatives (Hustedt et al 2017). More recently, the Ministerial Advisers Research Group -which includes scholars from European and Westminster parliamentary democracies (including all who feature in this volume) -has begun to coalesce with the aim of building a research community engaged in comparative research on ministerial advisers.…”

Where Comparative Public Administration and Comparative Policy Studies Meet

“…At the individual level, comparative civil service research (Aberbach et al, 1981;Page and Wright 1999) and political advisors research (Hustedt et al, 2017) Organizational political capacity in turn has mainly been approached from the comparative study of public service bargains between politicians and bureaucrats (Hood and Lodge, 2006).…”