A qualitative study of the relationship between external agents and policy professionals within the Swedish administration. The thesis has its starting point in the study "Makt utan mandat" and strives to explain what happens with the political process when more external agents enter the political market. The theoretical base is the policy process and lobbying researchers Hall & Deardorffs model which argues that when external agents exist on the political scene, the influence of political appointees decreases. The model is tested against empiric material, derived from nine qualitative interviews performed on individuals who, in different ways, participate in the policy process. The interviews were conducted during the autumn of 2015. In summary one may argue that the political power in Sweden has changed due to the fact that more external agents and the policy professionals, has entered the political market, and the thesis proves, with limited empiric material, that political appointees and lobbyists participate in the same phase of the policy process.

Florida reformed its civil service system with the passage of the Service First Initiative of 2001, resulting in a unique organizational setting by altering the employer-employee relationship, yet little academic research explored the power tactics used by politicians and political appointees in order to gain subordinate compliance in unique organizational environments. Using French and Raven’s bases of social power theory and Raven’s interpersonal power interaction model as the foundation, the primary purpose of this stratified cross-sectional study of politicians and political appointees in Florida was to explore whether certain demographic factors are predictors of the extent to which French and Raven’s “hard” and “soft” power tactics are used. Survey data were collected using the interpersonal power inventory, political predisposition measure, and a self-developed demographic information form from 354 political appointees and state employees and were analyzed using simple multiple linear regression. Findings indicated the usage of the power tactics is consistent Ravens original research with influence agents preferring the soft power tactics over hard. Findings also showed that age and race (notably African American) are statically significant predictors of usage of soft power tactics of expert, referent, informational, the legitimacy of dependency, personal reward and harsh power tactics of personal coercion, legitimacy of reciprocity and equity (p <.05). Positive social change implications resulting from this study include recommendations regarding development of leadership programs to reduce the reliance on the use of harsh power tactics in order to increase organizational and personal outcomes within Service First Initiative organizations.

Scholars have long examined the inherent trade-offs between control and capability when presidents politicize the executive branch through their appointment powers, including through political appointments to federal agency leadership positions. Empirical research over the past few decades connects high ratios of appointees to career leaders with decreased agency performance and higher voluntary turnover at the career senior ranks. However, less attention has been dedicated to the effects of such appointments on the attitudes of the civil service workforce, factors which has been shown to influence organizational performance. Employing a study of the U.S. Department of State, I evaluate the relationship between degree of agency politicization and self-reported measures of engagement, motivation, and job satisfaction among civil servants. Analysis suggests that the ongoing reliance on outside political appointees in senior leadership by successive presidents impedes the State Department's efforts to build and sustain positive workforce attitudes. This study examines the effects of the institutionalized use of outside appointments on the broader federal workforce, presenting a new perspective for scholarly understanding of the dynamics at play when presidents politicize the agencies they are entrusted to lead. / Doctor of Philosophy / U.S. presidents frequently use their appointment powers to exert control by placing trusted outsiders in positions of authority in federal government agencies. However, research has repeatedly shown that agencies with large numbers of outside leaders can struggle to perform effectively and lose experienced career civil servants at higher rates. While a connection between appointee leadership and performance is well established, researchers are less certain of what factors actually causes it to develop. In particular, little attention has been given to understanding the opinions of career employees of a federal agency about working within such a system or how those attitudes might help explain their behaviors at work. Through a study of one agency, the U.S. Department of State, I examine appointee-career relationships by exploring career employees' thoughts on leadership at the State Department, going beyond attitudes about specific leaders to evaluate whether using outside appointees to lead agencies creates barriers to employee recruitment, retention, and performance. The analysis suggests that, while the institutionalization of political appointments provides a president with greater control over an agency, the constant churn created through reliance on outsiders for leadership may harm an agency's ability to achieve its goals by undermining employee trust in leaders and the agency itself.

Doctor of Philosophy / Security Studies Interdepartmental Program / Jeffrey J. Pickering / In 2008, Ambassador’s Neumann and Pickering wrote letters to Senator’s Obama and McCain, with recommendations on qualifications for US Ambassador’s. Both Senator’s had recently received their party’s nomination for President, and Neumann and Pickering took the opportunity to suggest qualifications they believed were necessary for US ambassadors to perform their diplomatic tasks better. Their letters suggested that career ambassadors perform better, and they recommended that political appointees be limited to ten percent. The historical average has been roughly thirty percent. They also recommended that ambassadors have previous regional experience, and be knowledgeable about the countries in which they would be assigned, as well as speak the local language. What their letters were missing was evidence these traits actually make a difference in how well ambassadors perform their roles. In fact, this evidence is missing from the extant literature describing ambassadorial roles and responsibilities. This dissertation seeks to quantitatively and qualitatively analyze Neumann’s and Pickering’s qualifications, marking the first time this important subject has been examined using social science methodology.

Policy networks is a body of literature dedicated to modelling state-civil society relationship formats. In this particular relationship, an interest group with privileged (insider) access to the party in power gains advantage in the policy-making process by utilizing party’s ability to make political appointments in the civil service. The parentela (or type 1 parentela) was first discovered by Joseph La Palombara (1964) in 1960s Italy and was documented later again by Greer (1994) in 1920s-1970s Northern Ireland. Still, there has been no parentela research since 1994, save for Yishai (1992), who argued the parentela did not exist in Israel in 1980s. It seems the concept is considered of little utility to the academic community today. At the same time, as a category of policy networks, the parentela is also susceptible to the wider criticism of Thatcher (1997) and Dowding (1995; 2001) that the policy network literature is unable to introduce causal dynamics in its models and distinguish between network features and network independent variables. This study, therefore, addresses both criticisms by studying the party-group-civil service relationship in Bulgaria, for the period 2013-2015, using 26 elite interviews and a number of cases. Results show that this particular policy network is still viable today. They support Yishai (1992) that hegemonic parties have no effect on parentela formation. The study demonstrates that the cooperation between ruling parties, in need of funds, and organised businesses (groups), in need of market advantage, produces the parentela. In a case study on construction tenders, the study demonstrates La Palombara’s parentela, by exposing the process of how ruling parties intervene in the civil service through political appointees to ensure construction projects are granted to their party insider groups. The study also discovers a new parentela dynamic, labelled as type 2 parentela, where the party intervention extends further to the free market by affecting party insider’s market competitors through prejudiced regulatory inspections that disrupt targeted businesses’ operations temporarily or altogether.

Made available in DSpace on 2009-11-18T18:56:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2008 / The origin of the desire to get a govemment job in Brazil goes back to the development of the first settlements and vilIages during the colonial period. Nepotism and political patronage pervades the country's history. With the republican principIe as a guide line, we sought to verify to what extent are political appointees utilized in the municipalities of the State of Rio de Janeiro as a strategy to maintain and renew patronage practices and nepotismo The use of methods and techniques of documental analysis and of content, in legal provisions produced by the studied municipalities and in Ordinary Audit Reports made by the Audit Court of the State of Rio de Janeiro, not only alIowed us to proceed with qualitative analysis as welI as the use of quantitative techniques and graphic charts of the findings, alIowing an easier reading and understanding for those who have little contact with the material. This complementarity of methods alIowed the inference that the actions taken by public administrators referring to free nomination are against the practice of citizenship, equalitarianism, and respect of public service. The study demonstrated that almost alI the municipalities studied use political appointees in a manner completely inverse to that foreseen in the constitution. In fact, such positions serve to provide entry to public service to those persons who are related to the administrator, not to assist the administrator, but to increase the family income, fulfill campaign promises and even in exchange for votes. They exercise functions that, by their requirements, should be offered in public civil service exams to all society. FinalIy, the study suggests a set of measures, based on criteria grounded on scientific principIes of administration, to value civil servants, to reduce the degree of politicization of public management and heritable appropriation of public posts, to expedite professionalization of public functions and to restrict the free granting of political appointments as well as to enforce sanctions for administrative improbity on those who disrespect such measures. In regard to the importance of preventive measures, directed toward the development of an attitude in the sense of an authentic public service, the tendency toward permissiveness urgent1y needs to be eliminated. / A origem do comportamento orientado para a conquista de cargos públicos no Brasil remonta à formação dos primeiros povoados e vilas durante o período colonial. O nepotismo e o clientelismo político perpassam toda a história do País. Tendo como fio condutor o princípio republicano, buscou-se verificar até que ponto são os cargos em comissão utilizados no âmbito dos Municípios do Estado do Rio de Janeiro como estratégia para manter e atualizar práticas clientelísticas como o empreguismo e o nepotismo. A utilização de métodos e técnicas de análise documental e de conteúdo, em dispositivos legais produzidos pelos municípios estudados e em Relatórios de Inspeções Ordinárias neles realizadas pelo Tribunal de Contas do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, permitiu não só o proceder de uma análise qualitativa como o uso de técnicas quantitativas e representações gráficas dos achados, possibilitando uma leitura mais amena àqueles que têm pouco contato com a matéria. Essa complementaridade de métodos permitiu depreender que as ações empreendidas pelos gestores públicos, no que tange à utilização da livre nomeação, encontram-se na contramão da prática da cidadania, do igualitarismo, do respeito ao servir público. A pesquisa atestou que a quase totalidade dos municípios estudados se utiliza dos cargos em comissão de forma totalmente avessa à prevista constitucionalmente, servindo tais cargos, na verdade, para dar ingresso no serviço público a pessoas das relações do administrador, não para assessorá-lo, mas para aumentar renda familiar, cumprir compromissos de campanha e, até mesmo, para, em troca de votos, exercerem funções que por suas características deveriam ser oferecidas em concurso a toda sociedade. O estudo sugere, ao fim, um conjunto de medidas, baseadas em critérios fundamentados em princípios científicos de gestão, visando à valorização do servidor público, à redução do grau de politização da direção da administração pública e da apropriação patrimonialista dos postos de trabalho, à aceleração da profissionalização das funções públicas e a restringir o livre provimento de cargos em comissão, bem como a impingir sanções, por improbidade administrativa, aos que as desrespeitarem. Em que pese à importância de medidas preventivas, orientadas para o desenvolvimento de uma postura no sentido de um autêntico servir público, a tendência à permissividade precisa ser urgentemente afastada.

隨著民主治理的發展，有效調和民主憲政與文官專業價值，才能夠確保民主政治運作的效能。背景因素使得政務官與事務官間的互動，愈具舉足輕重的角色。從相關研究可以理解，欲直接觀察政務官與事務官細部的互動並不容易，兩者間細部的互動對外界而言始終是一個黑盒子。因此，本研究使用鮮少作為該議題研究主體的影視產品進行分析。選擇英國經典影集「Yes, Minister」，乃因該劇主要以描繪政務官與事務官互動為主，描寫程度相當細膩。藉此旁觀的角度一窺政務官與事務官的互動，確實是個能夠協助深入理解該議題的良好個案。 研究設計的基礎為文本分析法，透過建構分析路徑，分別從兩者本質、選擇偏好、表現作為，以及互動後對政策產出的討論。先將14集研究樣本進行相同路徑的文本化，再將文本化的樣本進行論述與類型化。研究發現事務官的互動技巧，包括行政權力的作為與不作為、可行性評估、影響政務體系與政務官以及納入外部勢力等，目的為提升參與決策的條件，細部列出24項互動技巧；另一方面，政務官則可透過經驗複製、行政學習、媒體與聲望經營與納入外部力量等，目的為提升統治便利性與正當性，細部列出13項互動技巧。兩者的互動呈現出互相制衡的本質，若各自無法有效負責與調和時，易形成雙重價值選擇的壓力。 本研究提出以「鐘擺效果」解釋政務官與事務官的互動，兩者在制衡關係的基礎上，隨著時序性的影響而改變互動模式。基本上的互動如鐘擺式擺盪，進而系統性因素將會因時序性遞減，激發出最適的政策結果。最終提出兩大項建議：首先，從制衡到動態平衡的關係，正視制衡現象的存在、立基於分權制衡上的信任關係、減少彼此錯誤解讀的機會，以及培養持續監督與自省能力；其二，設定政策決策的妥協底線，認知非任務型指標的超然價值，以及試著創造沒有共識的共識。 / In any democratic state’s development, how to effectively reconcile the two values of constitutional democracy and bureaucratic expertise is fundamental to ensure the proper functioning and efficacy of democratic politics. As Taiwan further consolidates its democracy, the interaction between the political appointees and senior civil servants becomes ever more important in achieving a balance of pluralistic values on the one hand, and government’s administrative efficiency, on the other. Yet past research has found that it is not easy to observe directly the details of the interaction between political appointees and civil servants; to the external world, the actual interaction between the two has always been a black box. Therefore, to shed light on that black box, this study analyzes the interaction between appointees and civil servants as depicted in film and television programs. The classic British series, “Yes Minister,” was chosen as the study’s research subject because it portrays the minister-bureaucrat interactive behavior skillfully and poignantly, which allows a deeper understanding of the issue. The study employs textual analysis as the principal research method. Each of the series’ 14 episodes had been textually reinterpreted by using the same analytical paths, which were constructed by first categorizing the nature, choice preferences, display behaviors, and post-interaction reaction to policy outputs for both political appointees and senior civil servants. The research has found that civil servants, in their pursuit for greater participation in decision-making, exhibit as many as 24 distinct interactive behaviors with their political superiors. Some of these behaviors include administrative action and inaction, call for feasibility assessment, manipulation of the political system, and incorporation of external forces. On the other hand, political appointees, in their effort to achieve political expediency and legitimacy, have 13 behaviors of their own through experience replication, administrative learning, media and reputation management, and inclusion of external forces. Both sets of interactive behaviors are essentially parts of a checks-and-balances system. When responsibilities are unclear and actions cannot be coordinated effectively, the agency then becomes vulnerable to role ambiguity and double value selection problems. This research proposes a “pendulum effect” to explain the interaction between political appointees and civil servants. Because the appointees and civil servants have a mutual checks and balances relationship, both parties will alter their interactive behavior depending on the timing of events. Essentially, the interaction between the two sides will initially swing freely like a pendulum; subsequently, system factors will cause the pendulum to progressively decrease its swing, ultimately arriving at the most optimal policy result. In conclusion, this study makes two major recommendations. First, both political appointees and civil servants need to understand that they are in a dynamic equilibrium, in which they check and balance each other’s actions. By acknowledging the check and balance nature of their relationship, both minimize the chance of misinterpreting each other, and may develop the healthy capacity of ongoing oversight and self-introspection. Second, both political appointees and civil servants must establish a baseline in any policy negotiation and compromise, recognize the (sometimes) extraordinary value of non-mission-based indicators, and attempt to create a consensus when no consensus exists.

This thesis analyses one of the less explored areas of Swedish politics: the political appointees in the ministerial staffs of the Swedish core executive. The study draws attention to the everyday life of the ministerial staff in order to give an idea of their function: What do the political appointees do? How is the work of the ministerial staffs organized? How is policy coordinated at the political level? The main empirical focus of this thesis is the 2002-2006 term of office. The study contributes to an understanding of the role of political advisers in steering and policy making, and, in the light of this, their potential influence on the policy capacity of the government is considered. Political advisers occupy an ambiguous place within the political system. They play a vital political role, but their presence also challenges the traditional relationship between ministers and public servants. The study shows that political advisers certainly have a leeway to participate in the steering of the ministry's civil servants: they can be said to have a number of steering functions. At the same time, it is made clear that this does not mean that the political advisers are in the position to influence government policy to any great extent. In conclusion, it is suggested that the ministerial staffs do have importance for the government's policy capacity in the sense that they reduce the work load of both the minister and the state secretary and thereby make space for them to govern. The research questions are answered by means of empirical material gathered through a combination of methods, providing data with a range as well as depth and context rarely found in studies of core executives: a survey, participatory observations, focus groups and a series of interviews. The dissertation demonstrates that the ethnographic method is a useful tool for anyone who seeks to highlight and explain the relationships within political organizations. / Avhandlingen analyserar en av de mer outforskade delarna av svensk politik: de politiskt anställda i Regeringskansliets politiska staber. Regeringskansliet betraktas i studien som en politisk organisation, snarare än som enbart en politiskt styrd organisation. Avhandlingen utgör ett bidrag till The Core Executive Approach, som definierar exekutiven i termer av funktion och ställer frågor om vem som gör vad i exekutiven. Studien uppmärksammar vardagslivet i de politiska staberna för att ge en bild av deras funktion: Vad gör de politiskt anställda? Hur är arbetet i de politiska staberna organiserat? Hur samordnas politiken på politisk nivå i Regeringskansliet? Ansatsen är organisationsteoretisk och de olika aktörernas funktion och plats i organisationen står i centrum. Studien bidrar även till förståelse av de politiskt sakkunnigas roll i policyskapande och i styrning av departementen. I ljuset av detta, diskuteras de politiskt sakkunnigas betydelse för regeringens styrningskapacitet. De politiskt sakkunniga spelar en betydande roll för statsrådets politiska och personliga stöd, men deras närvaro i Regeringskansliet utmanar även det traditionella förhållandet mellan statsråd och tjänstemän. Eftersom de politiskt sakkunniga inte ingår i departementens linjeorganisation ingår de inte i den parlamentariska styrningskedjan som helhet, d.v.s. de kan inte utkrävas ansvar av riksdagen. Ur ett demokratiskt perspektiv är det därför angeläget att analysera denna grupps deltagande i skapandet av politiken. Därutöver studeras empiriskt hur de politiskt anställda själva resonerar om styrning och vilka styrningsstrategier de lyfter fram. Avhandlingens huvudsakliga empiriska fokus är begränsat till mandatperioden 2002-2006. Studiens tillvägagångssätt utgörs av en kombination av metoder som ger material med såväl bredd som djup och kontext, vilket är ovanligt i studier av regeringskanslier: en enkätundersökning, deltagande observation, fokusgrupper och kvalitativa intervjuer. Avhandlingens etnografiska inslag är särskilt tydliga i de dagboksutdrag som kompletterar analysen. Avhandlingen visar att etnografisk metod är ett användbart verktyg för den som vill belysa och förklara relationer inom politiska organisationer. Den empiriska undersökningen visar att statssekreterare, planeringschefer och pressekreterare har olika funktioner, som inte överlappar varandra i större utsträckning. De kan snarare sägas komplettera varandra. De politiskt sakkunniga har å andra sidan en bredare funktion, som överlappar de övriga politiskt anställdas funktioner i förhållandevis stor grad. De kan påverka policyprocesser, och i egenskap av statsrådets nära medarbetare, även statsrådets inställning. Studien visar också att politiskt sakkunniga deltar i styrningen av departementen: de kan sägas ha en rad olika styrningsfunktioner. Samtidigt innebär inte detta att de politiskt sakkunniga har möjlighet att påverka regeringens politik i större utsträckning. Styrning från de politiskt sakkunniga betraktas endast som legitimt när den överensstämmer med och kan härledas till statsrådets eller statssekreterarens styrning.  Närhet och möjligheten att ta reda på statsrådets åsikt är en viktig förutsättning för att detta ska fungera. Om de politiska staberna är för stora finns en risk att de politiskt anställdas förmåga att agera i enighet med statsrådets vilja minskar. Sammanfattningsvis föreslås att de politiska staberna har betydelse för regeringens styrningskapacitet i den meningen att de avlastar såväl statsrådet från statssekreteraren, och därigenom skapar utrymme för dem att styra. / Regeringskansliet och samhällets organisering (Reko)