Journal Articles
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915
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Item ‘From ménage à trois back to pas de deux? Ministerial advisers, civil servants and the contest of policy ideas’(International Public Policy Association, 2020-03-02) Shaw R; Eichbaum CThe institutionalization of the role of ministerial advisers in most parliamentary democracies has transformed what was once à pas de deux between ministers and senior civil servants into a ménage à trois. This article assesses the impact of ministerial advisers on the contest of policy ideas. It makes a theoretical case for paying closer attention to this issue than has thus far been the case, and assesses civil servants’ perceptions of advisers’ influence on contestability. The core conclusion, which is at variance with much of the scholarship on ministerial advisers, is that advisers pose a greater threat to policy contestability than to civil service impartiality.Item Ministers, minders and the core executive: Why ministers appoint political advisers in Westminster contexts(Oxford University Press, 2014-07) Shaw RH; Eichbaum CPolitical advisers are now an established feature of the executive branch of government in the community of Westminster nations. However, there have been few attempts to establish why ministers appoint political staff, and even fewer that are empirically grounded in politicians' own experiences and reflections. The purposes of this article are to (i) establish ministers' motives for appointing political advisers, (ii) to theorise those motives through the lens of core executive studies and (iii) to assess the degree to which findings in one empirical setting enjoy wider applicability. Drawing on data from New Zealand, we find evidence that recourse to political advisers is one response to the multiple demands made of ministers in the context of contemporary governance; while that imperative has wider application, we also find that ministers' requirements are structured by personal and institutional variables which are contextually specific.Item Enemy or ally? Senior officials' perceptions of ministerial advisers before and after MMP(Victoria University of Wellington, 2006) Eichbaum C; Shaw RHThere is now a well-established literature on the various second-order effects of the adoption of proportional representation in New Zealand. One feature of the contemporary executive landscape, however, remains substantially under-researched. This article reports on research regarding ministerial advisers in New Zealand Cabinet ministers' offices. More specifically, it compares senior public servants' current attitudes towards ministerial advisers with pre-MMP speculation regarding the possible future influence of such advisers. The article concludes that while there are concerns about the possible long-term influence of political advisers, for the majority of senior officials working relationships with ministerial advisers are positive and productive.Item Ministerial advisers and the politics of policy-making: Bureaucratic permanence and popular control(Blackwell, 2007) Eichbaum C; Shaw RHThe advent of ministerial advisers of the partisan variety - a third element interposing itself into Westminster's bilateral monopoly - has been acknowledged as a significant development in a number of jurisdictions. While there are commonalities across contexts, the New Zealand experience provides an opportunity to explore the extent to which the advent of ministerial advisers is consistent with rational choice accounts of relations between political and administrative actors in executive government. Public administration reform in New Zealand since the mid 1980s - and in particular machinery of government design - was quite explicitly informed by rational choice accounts, and normative Public Choice in particular. This article reflects on the role of ministerial advisers in the policy-making process and, on the basis of assessments by a variety of political and policy actors, examines the extent to which the institutional and relational aspects of executive government are indeed consistent with rational choice accounts of the 'politics of policy-making'. The reader is offered a new perspective through which to view the advent, and the contribution of ministerial advisers to policy-making in executive government. © 2007 The Authors Journal compilation © 2007 National Council of the Institute of Public Administration Australia.