Eichbaum CShaw RH2007-122007AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, 2007, 66 (4), pp. 453 - 4670313-6647https://hdl.handle.net/10179/5713The 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.453 - 467ministerial adviserspublic sector reformrational choiceJournal article10.1111/j.1467-8500.2007.00556.x237651467-850014 Economics15 Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services16 Studies in Human Society