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International Review of Public Policy
2:3 | 2020
RegularIssue
From ménage à trois back to pas de deux?
Ministerial advisers, civil servants and the contest
of policy ideas
RichardShawandChrisEichbaum
Electronicversion
URL: http://journals.openedition.org/irpp/1502
DOI: 10.4000/irpp.1502
ISSN: 2706-6274
Publisher
International Public Policy Association
Printedversion
Date of publication: 15 December 2020
ISSN: 2679-3873
Electronicreference
Richard Shaw and Chris Eichbaum, « From ménage à trois back to pas de deux? Ministerial advisers,
civil servants and the contest of policy ideas », International Review of Public Policy [Online], 2:3 | 2020,
Online since 15 December 2020, connection on 17 December 2020. URL : http://
journals.openedition.org/irpp/1502 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.1502
This text was automatically generated on 17 December 2020.
International Review of Public Policy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
From ménage à trois back to pas de
deux? Ministerial advisers, civil
servants and the contest of policy
ideas
Richard Shaw and Chris Eichbaum
We would like to thank the journal’s anonymous referees for their insightful comments on an
earlier version of this article. We also wish to thank Jostein Askim, Tobias Bach, Marleen Brans,
Thanassis Gouglas, Kristoffer Kolltveit, Heath Pickering, Arthur Meerts and Heidi Salomonsen for
their perceptive contributions to an initial draft of the paper.
Introduction
1 The institutionalization of the role of ministerial advisers in many parliamentary
democracies has transformed what was once a pas de deux between ministers and senior
civil servants into a ménages à trois (De Visscher & Salomonsen, 2012). The lion’s share
of the electronic ink spilt examining the consequences of this development for
political-administrative relations has assessed the threat that ministerial advisers
allegedly pose to the impartiality of the public bureaucracy. To the best of our
knowledge, however, no systematic attention has been paid to an equally salient
matter: advisers’ imprint on the contests that shape governments’ policy agendas and
their options for policy action. In the rush to determine whether ministerial advisers
are chipping away at the foundations of the civil service, no-one has yet stopped to
consider the bearing they are having on the contest of policy ideas.
2 That seems remiss, for if one accepts that advisers may have adverse impacts upon civil
servants’ impartiality (which is an empirical matter) there seems no reason not to
believe they might have a similar influence upon contestability. Politicization and
contestability are not synonyms but they are connected – one response to the question,
‘Why is politicization an issue?’ is, ‘Because it diminishes the quality of the policy
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contest’. But it is one thing for ministerial advisers to politicize civil service advice and
another to seek to exclude officials from the policy conversation itself. The first, if
successful, will compromise the calibre of advice but the second would silence the civil
service voice. Therefore, the debate regarding advisers’ effects on civil service
impartiality (which is well developed) must be complemented by consideration of the
ramifications of their agency for the wider policy contest (about which much less is
known).
3 In that context this article has two objectives. Our primary aim is to make a theoretical
case for paying closer attention to this question: What are the consequences of
ministerial advisers’ agency for policy contestability? The second is to propose an
answer to that query via a study of New Zealand civil servants’ perceptions of
ministerial advisers’ influence on aspects of the policy process.
4 We begin by addressing both the notion of contestability and the literature on
ministerial advisers, and then demonstrate how (and why) the concept of
administrative politicization (Eichbaum & Shaw, 2008; Hustedt & Salomonsen, 2014)
can shed light on the core question. Next we set out the research, which draws on
survey data collected at two different periods from New Zealand public servants. Key
findings are then discussed: the major 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. Finally, while the data reported here
are country-specific, the material and conceptual issues we engage with are relevant in
other contexts in which ministerial advisers have joined ministers and civil servants on
the executive stage.
Theoretical framework
The contest of policy ideas
5 The etymology of the term ‘contestability’ in public administration is a little murky.
Öhberg et al. (2017) trace it to early exchanges between proponents of élitism and
pluralism, citing Bottomore’s (1964) critique of pluralism and Parry’s (1969) survey of
classical élite theory as influences. Shepherd, however, attributes the emergence of a
‘vague term’ (1984, p. 572) to Baumol’s (1982) attempt to establish contestability as the
organizing principle of the theory of industrial organization. Baumol and others
subsequently derived a series of public policy applications from this theoretical
innovation, from whence the language of contestability appears to have entered the
public administration scholarship.
6 Formal definitions of contestability are thin on the ground, bringing to mind the
observation that ‘policy is rather like the elephant – you know it when you see it but
you cannot easily define it’ (Hill, 1997, p. 6). This is not altogether surprising, given that
the meaning of the infinitive form of the verb from which the term derives – ‘to
contest’ – is pretty clear (although there may be less clarity regarding supplementary
considerations such as ‘What is being contested?’ and ‘To what end?’). ‘Contestability’
provokes reflection on the properties of the phenomenon to which it attaches
(procedural openness, transparency and ease of entry to or exit from the debate, etc.).
In this article the contest is one of ideas regarding the most efficacious or efficient
approach to a policy challenge. Any such tussle will, of course, contain additional tacit
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or explicit dimensions (the relative status and professional legitimacy of contestants,
questions of access to political principals, issues of control and influence, etc.), but our
concern is the ideational dimension of the contest.
7 Normatively, contestability is assumed to be a good thing (populists aside it is difficult
to imagine anyone openly calling for less contestability these days). The standard view
is that it ‘enhances and democratises the options available to ministers’ (Walter, 2006,
p. 22), which rests on the logic that provision for plural views improves the quality of
policy deliberations. Broadening the advice base, increasing options for ministers and
testing departments’ and societal actors’ positions, it is generally taken as given that a
contestable process produces better outcomes. Further, decisions reached through
such processes are likely to enjoy levels of legitimacy and durability that do not apply
to those made on the bases of selective exclusion.
8 There are other ways of seeing this. Normative and positive considerations need to be
separated: ‘contestability’ may be as much an aspirational state as an accurate
description of materiality. This has less to do with its intrinsic merits than with the
degree of political and administrative commitment to that aspiration. Nonetheless, it is
worth noting the conditions – bounded rationality, temporal and political
considerations (including the use of the term to mask a scepticism of the motives of
civil servants), etc. – that may account for differences between ideal and actual states.
9 Such matters aside, in recent decades the institutional preconditions for greater
contestability have been established through various inter-locking reform processes.
Described by Pierre and Peters (2000) as ‘moving up’, ‘moving down’ and ‘moving out’
respectively, structural developments at the supra- and sub-national levels, as well as
the re-engineering of the public sector, have spawned polycentric advisory ecosystems
comprising dense networks of policy actors.
10 The emergence of ministerial advisers is one element of the ‘hybridization’ of internal
policy advisory systems (Veit et al., 2017), itself an adaptive response to exogenous
trends such as growing policy complexity, heightened public expectations and a
voracious media cycle. These developments are shaping patterns of political demand,
defined as ‘the range of motivations, factors, inducements and institutional drivers
which foster key decision-makers to seek out forms of policy advice’ (Manwaring, 2018,
p. 5; see also Craft & Wilder, 2017). For one thing, the requirement for salient, credible
and representative policy advice has grown (Veit et al., 2017); in effect, political
executives require better advice on a wider slate of issues from a more catholic range of
sources (Christiansen et al., 2016).
11 Correspondingly, changes have also taken place on the supply side. Institutional
diversification and shifting demands presage a market for the provision of advice.
Clearly, the equilibrium point at which the demand for and supply of advice intersect is
not necessarily contestability within government: it might instead be the
externalization, politicization or internationalization of advice (Craft & Halligan, 2017).
That said, in most jurisdictions the prerequisites for greater contestability are now
designed into the institutional architecture. The virtual monopoly over supply that
civil servants once exercised is long gone: where once they had a ‘distinctive capacity
to illuminate the dark corners of policy issues [they] now compete with a ‘thousand
points’ of expert light’ (Rourke, 1992, p. 540; cited by Öhberg et al., 2017, p. 269).
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Enter the adviser
12 One of those sources of illumination is the ministerial adviser. Known variously in
parliamentary contexts (like New Zealand) as special advisers, political advisers or
exempt staff, a ministerial adviser – our preference because it clearly denotes the
institutional location of the role – is defined as a ‘temporary public servant appointed
to provide partisan advice to a member of the political executive and who is exempt
from the political impartiality requirements that apply to the standing bureaucracy’
(Shaw and Eichbaum, 2018a, p. 3).
13 Several aspects of this definition set such advisers apart from their civil service
counterparts. Ministerial advisers are usually engaged for their political skills rather
than their technical expertise. While they may be employed as temporary civil servants
they are generally appointed and dismissed by their ministers. The duration of an
adviser’s tenure is usually tied to that of the minister: the end of a ministerial career
(or a breakdown in relationships) will usually also put a halt to an adviser’s
employment. Finally, ministerial advisers are formally exempt from any impartiality
(but not ethical, honesty or integrity) requirements that apply to civil servants.
14 While it is often assumed that ministerial advisers are powerful players, universally
able to influence policy proceedings, leverage is a function of institutional design. In
the Netherlands and Denmark, for instance, the limited number of advisers relative to
the size of the public bureaucracy constrains their influence (see Shaw & Eichbaum,
2018). Context matters in other ways. Built environments, for example, can have
structuring effects. Both Australian and New Zealand ministers (and their political
advisers) are not co-located with their departments. This ‘creates particular dynamics
in relationships: [including] a clear separation between ministers and their
departments, leading to problems with engagement’ (Maley, 2018, p. 17). Conversely, of
course, they can also make it that much easier for the ministerial adviser who is of a
mind to limit civil servants’ access to the minister to do just that. In short, all
ministerial advisers are not equal.
15 The institutionalization of the role has occasioned significant scholarly activity. Given
their job description and proximity to ministers, it is no surprise that the hypothesis
that ministerial advisers threaten civil service impartiality has been thoroughly tested.
Results have been mixed. Some find evidence in support of the proposition (Aucoin,
2012; Walter, 2006), while others argue either that there is little to be concerned about
or that by attending to the political-tactical elements of advice advisers actually enable
civil servants to concentrate on the provision of policy advice as per the standard
Weberian prescription (Christiansen et al., 2016; LSE GV314 Group, 2012).
16 However, recourse to ministerial advisers can also be understood as part of the wider
attempt to ensure that ‘the policy choices made by the electorate [are] not defeated by
an entrenched and unresponsive public bureaucracy’ (Peters, 2010, p. 187). Advisers are
thus positioned as a counter-bureaucracy – or, in the Belgian case, as a shadow
bureaucracy (Suetens & Walgrave, 2001) – contesting departments’ advice and serving
as a portal for external interests seeking to engage in the policy process.
17 This reading rests on the normative assumption that the bureaucracy is disposed not to
facilitate such input. That is properly an empirical question, for which there is some
support (e.g. Maley, 2015), including in contexts – national and supra-national (see
Rogacheva, 2019) – where political ménages à trois are long established. For instance, in
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highlighting the extent to which ministerial cabinets in (especially) Belgium, France
and Italy function as the nodes around which external interests congregate, Suetens
and Walgrave (2001) attribute the emergence of cabinets with political mistrust of
officials’ motives. Insofar as ‘it is to ministerial cabinets that interest groups turn’
(Vancoppenolle & Brans, 2004, p. 2), that may well reflect bureaucratic obduracy – or it
might simply be that societal actors know where power resides and head directly there.
Either way, whatever the specifics of their institutional environments, ministerial
advisers can be key brokers and, on occasion, veto players.
18 The scholarly pickings framed by this interpretation are, however, relatively scant,
especially beyond the literature on ministerial cabinets. A sense of this is gained by
comparing the results of word searches for ‘contestability’ and ‘politicization’ (and
their derivates) in publications in which ministerial advisers are either the dependent
or an independent variable. In a special edition of Public Administration (Hustedt et al.,
2017), there are just two references to contestability in two of the eight contributions,
while politicization is mentioned on 56 occasions in six articles. The same pattern
applies in a recent comparative publication on advisers (Shaw & Eichbaum, 2018b),
which contains five substantive references to contestability (in two of its 12 chapters),
while politicization crops up on 27 occasions in eight chapters. A reading of 50 refereed
journal articles authored by established and emerging scholars is similarly instructive:
excluding entries in references and running headers, the term politicization and its
close relatives appear 604 times in 41 articles, while the totals for contestability are just
76 (31 of which are in Öhberg et al., 2017) and 15 respectively.
19 No criticism is implied in recounting these figures; they simply reflect the degree to
which the investigative gaze is on one phenomenon and not the other. There are
studies addressing contestability: generally they concern struggles between advisers
and civil servants for access to ministers (Öhberg et al., 2017; Walter, 2006). Such
contributions are, however, few and far between. Furthermore, two things are missing
from the published record, such as it is. The first is a structured means of assessing
advisers’ impact on the policy contest, or others’ perceptions thereof. Conclusions on
this issue tend to be reached by way of claims or assertions rather than via heuristics;
these may be perfectly plausible but a more systematic sense-making device is needed.
20 The second is a temporal dimension. Extant studies usually constitute snapshots and
there is little or no research speaking to the extent to which ministerial advisers’
agency in the policy contest changes over time either within a polity or across country
contexts. This is a not a minor oversight given the plausibility of the hypothesis that
time in the job matters, insofar as more experienced advisers (professional or political)
might enjoy less combative relationships with their counterparts than inexperienced
advisers (who may be less secure in their roles and therefore more likely to jump at
shadows).
Theoretical tools
21 Both issues can be addressed via the concept of administrative politicization. Defined as
an intervention on the part of ministerial advisers that ‘offends against the principles
and conventions associated with a professional and impartial civil service’ (Eichbaum &
Shaw, 2008, p. 343), the construct has two dimensions. The first, substantive
administrative politicization (SAP), captures advisers’ agency intended to influence the
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substance of bureaucrats’ advice in ways which threaten civil service neutrality. The
second variant, procedural administrative politicization (PAP), describes attempts by
advisers to limit officials’ ability to provide free and frank advice, particularly by
intervening in their relationship with the minister or in the internal workings of a
department. The first has to do with the politicization of the civil service but the
second speaks directly to (and constrains) contestability.
22 Hustedt and Salomonsen’s (2017) distinction between direct and indirect political
control of the bureaucracy ties the notion of administrative politicization into the
wider literature on political–administrative relations. They had the difference between
formal and functional understandings of politicization in mind when they drew it, but
as a construct administrative politicization speaks to the sorts of ‘informal mechanisms
enhancing the political responsiveness of the bureaucracy’ (2017, p. 395).
23 Öhberg et al. (2017) aside, the conceptual contrast between substance and process that
is central to administrative politicization has been largely overlooked in the literature
on ministerial advisers. But more needs to be squeezed out of the delineation, for it is
central to the case that ministerial advisers exercise leverage over the contestability of
process. Indeed, it can plausibly be argued that advisers have greater agency over the
practices that comprise PAP than over those constituting SAP. Regarding the latter, the
object of intervention (civil service advice) sits within the aegis of the department. A
ministerial adviser can try to colour that advice with partisan considerations but the
venture is subject to the veto of civil servants, whose acquiescence to or rejection of the
attempt is necessarily a factor in the end result.
24 As to PAP, however, that object (the minister) inhabits the political rather than the
administrative executive. So do ministerial advisers. This institutional proximity to
their principals grants advisers more influence over the procedural aspects of the
policy process than the substantive ones. Bluntly, it is easier for an adviser to obstruct
officials’ access to the minister or prevent their advice from reaching the minister’s
desk than to successfully pressure a senior civil servant into altering the substance of
departmental advice.
25 There are, accordingly, incentives for advisers aiming to ‘funnel’ (Walter 2006) policy-
making to engage in PAP. All else equal, attempts to constrain the provision of
responsible competence will play out in the iterative processes through which
governments manage the policy agenda and determine which options to pursue. Here
is where the outcome of the interplay between actors is most consequential for the
trajectory of policy; here is the place where the association between contestability and
advisers’ influence on process will be felt most keenly.
The research
Design and methods
26 To test this, and working from the premise that if ministerial advisers are a threat to
civil servants’ capacity to contribute to the policy contest, then the views of those
ostensibly at risk should be sought, this research draws on data collected from New
Zealand public servants through surveys conducted roughly a decade apart.
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27 In 2005 an instrument seeking participants’ perceptions of a range of ministerial
advisers’ interventions and actions was disseminated to public servants on the
researchers’ behalf by a unit within a government department. It comprised forced-
choice and open-ended questions inviting respondents’ views on administrative
politicization, as well as a series of other matters (e.g. the protocols governing
relationships within ministerial offices and the regulation of advisers) which are not
the focus of this article. Some 188 completed surveys were received (a response rate of
34.4%).
28 In 2017 an abbreviated version of the survey, which retained all of the items regarding
administrative politicization, was administered. This time the survey was distributed
by a third party to its membership base. On this occasion 640 responses were received
(a response rate of 10%), 517 of whom were employed in a public service department or
state sector entity at the time. The remainder were retired civil servants (n=20), or
people employed as consultants (n=49) or in some other capacity (n=54). Table 1
compares the composition of the two respondent groups.1
29 In passing we note that the first survey was administered under a social democratic
administration while the second took place when a centre-right government was in
office. Just under 50% of respondents to the 2017 survey are likely to have served under
both (see Table 1). They will have had relationships, however, with quite different
cadrés of ministerial advisers. In the absence of data from advisers we cannot yet do
this, but in the future it will be important to test for a partisan effects thesis (assuming
an association between ministers’ political preferences and both relations with public
servants and ministerial advisers’ roles).
Table 1: Comparing respondent groups: 2005/2017 (n; % all respondents)
Independent variables 2005 2017
current position tier 1 manager (CEO) 5 (2.8 %) 9 (1.8%)
tier 2 manager 48 (27.1%) 30 (6%)
tier 3 manager 101 (57.1%) 199 (39.6%)
other 23 (13%) 264 (52.6%)
totals 177 502
agency type policy 47 (26.9%) 97 (19.5%)
delivery 24 (13.7%) 113 (22.7%)
policy/delivery 83 (47.4%) 207 (41.6%)
funding/purchase 4 (2.3%) 27 (5.4%)
other 17 (9.7%) 53 (10.7%)
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totals 175 497
years of service 21 years or longer 62 (35%) 97 (17.9%)
16 – 20 years 25 (14.1%) 63 (11.6%)
11 – 15 years 33 (18.6%) 97 (17.9%)
6 – 10 years 33 (18.6%) 125 (23%)
1 – 5 years 22 (12.4%) 124 (22.9%)
< 1 year 2 (1.1%) 36 (6.6%)
totals 177 542
frequency of contact with ministerial advisers
frequent 41 (32.1%) 176 (29.9%)
infrequent 27 (20.4%) 166 (28.2%)
minimal 21 (18.1%) 146 (24.8%)
none 31 (27.9%) 101 (17.1%)
totals 177 589
gender female 85 (47.5%) 316 (55.9%)
male 94 (52.5%) 239 (42.3%)
other*- 4 (0.7%)
prefer not to respond - 6 (1%)
totals 179 565
30 *: Neither ‘other’ nor ‘prefer not to respond’ were offered as alternatives in 2005.
Findings
31 Table 2 compares the 2005 and 2017 responses to 10 items relating to ministerial
advisers’ impact upon contestability. The first three speak to the state and material
nature of relationships between core executive actors, the playing out of which has
consequences for the extent to which the political-administrative environment is
conducive to catholicity of process. Items 4 and 5 reveal respondents’ perceptions of
ministerial advisers’ influence over the shaping of the policy agenda; views on the
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degree of procedural interference from advisers which may influence the generation of
comprehensive policy options are contained in items 6, 7 and 8. The final two items
concern perceptions of ministerial advisers’ higher level contributions to the policy
process.
Table 2: Civil servants’ views on contestability (% all respondents)
32 The first point to be made is that officials’ perceptions of the state of the relationship
between political and public service advisers are markedly less positive than they were
in 2005 (item 1). The proportion of respondents prepared to agree that things are going
swimmingly has significantly decreased, such that what emerges is an appreciably
diminished sense of the health of the ties between two of the participants in the
ménages à trois.
33 That sentiment flows over into assessments of other aspects of life in the contemporary
executive triangle, including advisers’ propensity to impede officials’ access to
ministers (item 2). Attempts to disrupt that relationship are inconsistent with
contestability: successful efforts will constrain departments’ capacity to contribute to
policy-making but even unsuccessful attempts are likely to damage relations between
colleagues. In 2017 there was decidedly more support for – and much less disagreement
with – the proposition that advisers engage in this conduct than there had been a
decade or so ago. In one participant’s view, ‘some ministerial advisers are on power
trips and think their advice is the only advice that matters and is right: these advisers
make life for a public servant very difficult in terms of access to ministers.’
34 Item 3 casts advisers’ behaviour as a potential influence on ministers’ willingness to
receive advice from public servants. There is much scepticism regarding advisers’
conduct in this respect and it is growing. In 2005 the same question was asked but in
forced choice form: 55% of respondents to that survey indicated that they thought that
advisers do shape ministers’ openness to officials’ advice (18% indicated otherwise and
the balance were undecided). By 2017 sentiment had hardened: nearly 70% of
participants either agreed or strongly agreed with the proposition and barely 5%
indicated some level of disagreement. The phrasing of the item prevents us from
establishing whether that influence is for good or ill, but the pattern of responses to
other items suggests that the former is probably the case.
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35 Moreover, this effect may work subtly. Ministerial advisers often serve as political
interpreters, representing ministers’ preferences to officials and translating officials’
responses in the other direction. In so doing they shape, even residually, the sense that
one party makes of the position of the other. In this respect, even if advisers have no
material influence over the gist of officials’ advice, they can – through the act of
interpretation – influence the way in which that advice is framed and therefore on
whether it is acted on, rejected or ignored by ministers.2
36 In this way intra-executive interactions shape the construction of an administration’s
policy agenda. There is a growing sense that ministerial advisers exert too much
influence over this process (item 4). It is possible that this simply signifies that advisers
are prevailing in an open contest, rather than that they are successfully muffling the
public service voice in the executive court. But put alongside item 5, in which a
significant minority of respondents in both surveys agree that advisers actively try to
keep things off the agenda, it might also suggest that the contest is skewed (and thus
compromised) by the relative advantage afforded ministerial advisers by their
proximity to ministers. As one official put it in the 2017 survey:
They [ministerial advisers] do interfere with the provision of free and frank advice,
they overstep their boundaries, trying to tell government departments which
options are or are not acceptable before a paper is submitted to ministers or
Cabinet. They can interfere with the ability for officials to meet with ministers, and
sway the minister’s views before the minister has received advice from government
departments.
37 Heightened concerns also emerge from responses to items concerning the ebb and flow
of policy ideas. On this matter the 2017 respondents were much more wary of the
consequences of ministerial advisers’ actions than their equivalents had been in 2005.
There was, for instance, a higher proportion of respondents concurring (and
appreciably fewer disagreeing) that advisers stymie the provision of free and frank
advice to ministers (item 6). Strictly speaking, the phrasing of that item rules out a
categorical conclusion that ministerial advisers actively discourage contestability, but
the tenor of textual data suggest that they do not welcome it. One 2017 respondent
suggested that:
ministers are welcome to have ministerial advisers who play a minor role in
separately providing politically oriented advice. The problem is when they act as an
intermediary between the minister and public servants, who are trying to provide
free, frank and politically neutral policy advice. They frequently filter what policy
advice goes to the minister, actively argue against policy advice in officials’
meetings and work hard to influence the topics and content of advice.
38 Concerns were even more pronounced on the question of whether advisers obstruct the
flow of public servants’ advice into the inner sanctum (item 7): in 2017 nearly a third of
respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they do, fully twice the levels that had
applied in 2005. Perhaps the most trenchant criticism was offered by the respondent
who noted that:
The minister’s middle office at the moment is almost impossible to get work
through, even when the minister has requested work. This blocks and subverts free
and frank advice. For example, the minister’s office in which I worked was heavily
controlled by the minister’s political adviser, who acted as a gatekeeper between
the department’s advice and the minister. She would, for example, refuse to allow
documents containing advice with which she was unhappy to go before the
minister; dictate the form in which advice could be provided (e.g. ‘off-the-record’
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oral briefings rather than written advice); and limit the issues to be addressed in
advice.
39 Perhaps as a partial consequence of gate-keeping conduct, there was a strong sense in
2017 that public servants are less likely to furnish free, frank and fearless advice in the
current context than they might once have been (item 8). Clearly, to the extent that
this is so there will be a range of factors in play, including patterns of political demand
and ministerial behaviour and the erosion (or evolution) of traditional bureaucratic
norms. Whatever the drivers, these data raise the possibility that in Wellington
responsible competence may be eliding into responsive competence. While there is a
healthy debate about whether civil servants can be responsive without also being
politicized (see Mulgan, 2008; Hustedt & Salomonsen, 2018), the distribution of
respondents’ sentiment on this issue points to some scepticism that the public service
is presently adding its full measure to the policy contest.
40 A growing sense of ambivalence is also revealed in responses to items regarding
advisers’ contributions to the wider policy process, both with reference to bringing
external voices into the policy conversation (item 9) and in overall terms (item 10). As
one 2017 participant put it:
One of the risks observed with the emergence of ministerial advisers, and
particularly those who have grown out of a firm relationship with a particular
minister, is that they can become zealots for ‘their minister’s’ programme and
political aspirations. As such, they can become ‘obstructers’ to the promotion and
progress of quality advice and programmes, rather than remaining the ‘natural
facilitators’ [they would be] had they otherwise continued their political neutrality
as attached public servants.
41 With one exception (see below) the sentiments expressed in 2017 were not significantly
structured by the five independent variables deployed (respondents’ rank, gender,
length of service, frequency of contact with advisers and the functional focus of their
employing department or agency). There was a weak association, for instance, between
assessments of the state of the relationship between civil servants and advisers (item 1)
and participants’ rank (Kendall’s tau-b=.053/gamma=.089; n=391) and length of service
(Kendall’s tau-b=-.031/gamma=-.043; n=474). The same pattern applies with regard to
the other items in Table 2. Thus, longer serving respondents were a little more likely to
note the influence of advisers (item 4) than were their less experienced colleagues
(Kendall’s tau-b=-.114/gamma=-.157; n=485), but there was a very weak relationship
between rank and views on the matter (Kendall’s tau-b=.017/gamma=.028; n=417). On
other items, too, it was difficult to discern meaningful associations. Views on item 6, for
example, were not strongly shaped by seniority (Kendall’s tau-b=-.075/gamma=-.097;
n=502), rank (Kendall’s tau-b=-.041/gamma=-.064; n=417) or frequency of contact
(Kendall’s tau-b=.007/gamma=.010; n=502). As to the question of the contribution
advisers make to the policy process (item 10), there was effectively no relationship
between respondents’ views and their agencies’ major functional focus (Kendall’s tau-
b=.001/gamma=.002; n=417).
42 The exception concerns the (somewhat muted) relationship between respondents’
views and frequency of contact with advisers. Those with higher rates of contact, for
instance, had slightly more positive assessments on the bookend items 1 (Kendall’s tau-
b=.161/gamma=.234; n=474) and 10 (Kendall’s tau-b=.110/gamma=.156; n=502).
However, and while we cannot say conclusively whether this influence is exercised
positively or negatively, they were also more likely to agree that advisers have some
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bearing on officials’ access to ministers (item 2) (Kendall’s tau-b=-.130/gamma=-.186;
n=474) and on ministers’ receptiveness to advice proffered by officials (item 3)
(Kendall’s tau-b=.132/gamma=.194; n=456).
43 That is a slightly different picture to the one painted in 2005, when on some issues
associations were more readily apparent. To take one example: in the earlier work both
rank and the functional nature of respondents’ agency had a clear bearing on views
regarding item 7 (with less experienced officials and those in delivery agencies more
likely to think poorly of advisers) (Eichbaum & Shaw, 2008). By 2017, however,
respondents’ views – for good and, particularly, for ill – had become more evenly
distributed across the respondent population.
44 To sum up: the 2005 and the 2017 data suggest that attempts by ministerial advisers to
constrain, through procedural interventions, public servants’ ability to contribute free,
frank and comprehensive advice were considered a risk by a sizeable portion of
respondents, the threat of which has appreciated over time. Westminster does not
appear to be all that well in Wellington.
Discussion
45 The major fear concerning ministerial advisers in parliamentary democracies has been
for the integrity of the standing bureaucracy (Christiansen et al., 2016; Hustedt et al.,
2017; LSE GV314 Group, 2012; Öhberg et al., 2017; Walter, 2006). There is no question
that this is an important issue, but in their efforts to address it scholars have neglected
a second and equally significant challenge posed by advisers, which is to the rigour of
the policy contest.
46 The first objective of this article has been to give conceptual shape to this question,
including by proposing that ministerial advisers have greater agency over policy
contestability than the impartiality of the civil service. That case rests on the
institutional (and sometimes physical) proximity in which advisers work relative to
ministers: as personal loyalists whose tenure is tied to that of a political principal,
advisers are better placed to insert themselves between ministers and civil servants
than to effect change in the content of departmental advice. They may attempt both, of
course, but a priori the first is easier to manage than the second.
47 However, this claim requires some elaboration. Principally, there is a distinction
between advisers’ attempts to limit contestability and the material impact of those
efforts, for while the institutional preconditions for such influence may exist, their
success in constraining civil servants’ policy input will depend on the preferences and
conduct of others. After all, advisers are nested within an institutional ecosystem, such
that any effects brought about by their behaviour will also be subject to the actions of
the two other participants in the ménages à trois.
48 Bureaucrats make choices when faced with advisers behaving badly. Some may
acquiesce in attempts to constrain contestability, but civil servants are not a notably
supine lot and there is nothing to indicate that they routinely concede the point when
confronted by such incursions. Rather, assuming that traditional conventions
regarding the provision of free, frank and comprehensive advice remain in good health
(and this may be moot), it is more likely that public servants will resist, rebuff or
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otherwise stare down attempts by ministerial advisers to cut them off at the policy
pass.
49 More significantly, the disposition of advisers’ political principals is an important
variable. It seems unlikely that a minister who values contestability will tolerate an
adviser who attempts to ‘funnel’ a department’s advice or otherwise run interference
in the minister’s relationship with the department. But if that assumption holds then
the data set out here – which point to mounting fears that the incidence of just this sort
of interference is on the rise – raise uncomfortable questions regarding ministerial
dispositions in New Zealand. The possibility cannot be avoided that the concerns
unearthed by this research point to growing political tolerance (if not encouragement)
of the sorts of conduct analyzed in this article.
50 Intent cannot be attributed to ministers on the basis of other people’s perceptions, of
course. It may be that some ministers are complicit in advisers’ endeavours; equally,
what from a civil service point of view looks like an effort to constrain contestability
might, from a political perspective, simply be a decision not to take officials’ advice.
(Equally, while filtering officials’ advice can be seen as an offense against contestability,
arguing against that advice or working to influence its contents might be considered
consistent with the principles of contestability. One person’s assault on contestability is
another’s exercise of that very phenomenon.) But that two thirds of respondents are of
the view that advisers have an impact on ministers’ receptiveness to officials’ advice
suggests that something is going on. One way or another, the matter needs to be better
understood.
51 Assessing officials’ perceptions of the extent and trajectory of advisers’ conduct is the
second core aim of the article. The evidence points to growing disquiet regarding
advisers’ propensity to try to constrain contestability. The point of departure is the
marked deterioration in perceptions of the health of the relationship between public
servants and advisers. It is conceivable, just, that contestability applies even when
relations are strained. But in such circumstances the protagonists are likely to engage
as combatants rather than as contestants, and the contest will probably suffer
accordingly. Insofar as a functional relationship between political and professional
advisers is an important (if not necessary) precondition for meaningful contestability
of process, the data regarding the state of the relationship between the two sets of
actors does not bode well.
52 Some have pointed to the potential for ministerial advisers to add value to the policy
process generally, and to contestability in particular, including by attending to partisan
considerations such that civil servants can concentrate on furnishing neutral
competence (LSE GV314 Group, 2012). Positive sentiments regarding advisers’ policy
contributions could therefore be read as suggesting that the preconditions for a
healthy contest are in place. Instead, there is evidence that the early enthusiasm on
this count amongst New Zealand bureaucrats has cooled: that most of the early
positivity has shifted into the “I’m no longer sure” category points to mounting
scepticism regarding the partisans’ policy input.
53 There is also a canary in the policy coalmine regarding another indicator of
contestability. The extent to which advisers facilitate contributions from interest
groups is a specific instance of a general phenomenon: the distribution of perceptions
on the issue reveals something about respondents’ views regarding the degree to which
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advisers are actively encouraging a more plural, permeable policy contest. Here, too,
participants’ confidence that advisers are doing this has slipped over the years.
54 The clearest indications that the policy contest in New Zealand is not what it might be
emerge from the data concerning interventions on the part of ministerial advisers that
are consistent with PAP. Part of the point of advisers is that they ‘control the flow of
information that reaches the minister’ (Öhberg et al. 2017, p. 271). What matters is how
and to what ends they exercise that control: managing the tide of information in order
to streamline ministers’ workloads is quite different to seeking to limit the expression
of competing policy perspectives. It bears noting, then, that support for the proposition
that ministerial advisers encourage the supply of free and frank advice – a sine qua non
of contestability – is falling and that anxiety regarding advisers’ exercise of their gate-
keeper function to the detriment of civil servants is becoming more pronounced. It is
difficult for officials to contribute meaningfully to the tussle of policy ideas if their
access to ministers’ offices is compromised and their papers are not being placed on
ministerial desks.
Conclusion: A new pas de deux?
55 The data presented here reflect the views held by one element of the triangular
executive and care needs to be taken not to definitively conclude on those bases that
contestability in New Zealand is dead or dying. Nonetheless, for those who hold with a
policy process that is inclusive, diverse and contested, those perceptions are troubling,
for they point to a parlous state of affairs. In his work on contestability, Baumol (1982)
argued for policy interventions that lower the barriers for aspiring competitors.
Ministerial advisers, however, effectively raise the cost of entry when they seek to
interfere with civil servants’ engagement in the policy contest. But the price is met
elsewhere: attempts to diminish the policy contribution of civil servants will detract
from – and eventually impoverish – policy conversations, deliberations and decisions.
56 As ever, more needs to be done in order to better understand the issues in play. For one
thing, the precision of the concepts used to apprehend the impact that advisers (and
others) have on contestability can be improved. This article has sought to shift from
assertion to heuristic clarity but there remains some way to go. Relatedly, a more
rigorous test of the assertion that ministerial advisers will demonstrate a preference
for PAP rather than SAP would be welcome, perhaps by systematically comparing the
relative empirical incidence of the two forms of conduct.
57 Furthermore, our focus on public servants needs to be complemented by an equivalent
concern with advisers. Critically, this would enable reflection on the earlier
observation that one person’s politicization is another’s contestability. The point can
be illustrated via reference to two competing interpretations of the threat which
advisers ostensibly pose to the integrity of the policy contest. Our data suggest that for
many officials that threat is material and growing. But advisers, of course, may see
things differently. They might, for instance, argue there is little point in putting advice
in front of the minister if it is likely to prove untenable given the ideological
disposition of the government. Thus, what an official experiences as interference an
adviser might regard as prudent workload management. (And, indeed, Connaughton
(2018) and Maley (2011) have shown that ministers value advisers who can
appropriately filter officials’ advice in this way.) From this view, advisers are less an
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impediment to the contest of ideas than a means of enhancing the effectiveness of civil
servants’ input into that process.
58 Comparative studies of the incidence of the conduct reported here would aid
understanding the extent to which the New Zealand case is indicative of a wider
malaise or simply an isolated curiosity. Debates regarding the merits of contestability
take place everywhere, but the configuration and institutional location of the political
adviser’s role is context-specific. That point applies most obviously at the level of
constitutional design but is also apposite within the parliamentary world, including in
the contrast between the environments of advisers who work in Napoleonic ministerial
cabinets and those located either in ministerial offices (Maley, 2018) or, as in the
German case, in ministries’ leadership staffing units (Hustedt, 2018).
59 Although the patterns within the executive triangle that feature in this article do not
necessarily apply under other institutional configurations, in our view the fundamental
issue – that interactions between political and professional advisers, however
institutionalized, are a significant variable in the quality of the contest of policy ideas –
holds beyond parliamentary systems. Of course, the requisite comparative work needs
to be sensitive to different contexts. Research in the Napoleonic tradition, for instance,
might be guided by two contrasting hypotheses, viz H1: The institutionalization of civil
servants within ministerial cabinets facilitates PAP; and H2: Because seconded officials
in cabinets remain linked (through personal and professional relations) to
departments, pressures on administrative politicization are reduced3.
60 Those future foci aside, the depth of the concerns reported here regarding the rigour of
the policy contest, and the direction in which those views are travelling, suggests that
careful reflection is needed: there is little to be gained and much to be lost from a
policy process that is introverted, insular and exclusive. Moreover, the consequences of
gate-keeping by ministerial advisers may play out in other unwanted ways. Such
conduct could, for instance, lead to responsive incompetence (Öhberg et al., 2017)
within the bureaucracy, as departments self-censor by providing only such advice as
they think will be acceptable to advisers (or ministers). While that might ensure access
of a sort, under such conditions the policy contest would take place in the advisory
equivalent of a monoculture.
61 We wish to end by warning against assuming that the contents of this article are
specific to New Zealand. The formal and informal institutional arrangements in place in
this country are similar those of other parliamentary democracies within and beyond
the Westminster community, and there is no obvious reason why the issues raised here
should not also apply in other countries where ministerial advisers are now – or have
long been, as is the case in Napoleonic contexts (see Brans et al., 2017; Di Mascio &
Natalini, 2013) – an institutional constant.
62 And if, as Peters and Pierre (2019) suggest, the advent of populist administrations in
some of those contexts presages ever more challenging times for public administrators,
then the question of the place of the civil service in public life becomes even more
pressing. It is easier than it once was to conceive that the voice of loyalty that argues
back (Heclo, 1975) may yet become a lone voice crying in the wilderness. Should that
come to pass, the executive ménages à trois will have reverted to à pas de deux – but this
time civil servants will be the ones on the outside looking in.
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NOTES
1. The differences in these two exercises reflect challenges experienced in the second survey.
They also speak to a certain sensitivity in New Zealand regarding ministerial advisers. Unlike the
situation in other jurisdictions’ information on the names, number, background and salary bands
of ministerial advisers are not matters of public record in New Zealand, but have to be retrieved
under freedom of information legislation. The 2005 research was conducted with the support of
the State Services Commission, a central agency with responsibility for leadership within and the
stewardship of the state sector. In 2017, however, the agency declined to support a second
survey. The New Zealand Institute of Public Administration (IPANZ), the professional
organization of public servants, agreed to circulate an online questionnaire to its database of
members. The IPANZ database does not formally comprise a representative sample of public
servants, such that the conclusions reached on the basis of the results of this research need to be
treated with a measure of caution. That said, the absolute size of the respondent population
(n=640) is perhaps the largest group to have participated in a survey of this nature in New
Zealand, and in our view permits robust descriptive statistical analysis
2. We would like to thank Jostein Askim for this insight.
3. We wish to thank one of our Reviewers for drawing our attention to this matter and for
suggesting the two hypotheses articulated here, neither of which we claim credit for.
ABSTRACTS
The 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.
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INDEX
Keywords: ministerial advisers, political advisers, political staff, core executive, politicization,
contestability, responsive competence neutral competence
AUTHORS
RICHARD SHAW
Massey University, New Zealand
R.H.Shaw@massey.ac.nz
CHRIS EICHBAUM
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
chris.eichbaum@vuw.ac.nz
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