Ministers and the Role of Civil Servants in Cabinet Decision-Making

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with the way in which ministers in Central Eastern Europe view their relationship with civil servants. The relationship between ‘politicians’ and ‘administrators’ has been controversial in many countries across the world and has even led to the suggestion that civil servants may subvert democracy and assume power. Public administration specialists have indeed advanced different models of what the relationship can be. Thus, Peters and Pierre suggest that the relationship between civil servants and politicians may be studied under two different perspectives — namely, the ‘(self-described) roles of politicians and civil servants’, on the one hand, and ‘the effects of systematic factors on relationships within the public sector’, on the other (Peters and Pierre 2001: 3). The first approach was put forward by Aberbach, Putnam and Rockman (1981) in their empirical study of bureaucrats while the latter approach is associated with the work of Peters (1986). Both approaches focus on the relative power of politicians and civil servants in policymaking processes and they are both concerned with the development of a professional and politically neutral administration.KeywordsCivil ServantAdministrative SupportCentral EasternCommunist CountryState AdministrationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.