Administering the Summit

Transforming Government

General Editor: R. A. W. Rhodes, Professor of Politics, University of Newcastle

This important and authoritative new series arises out of the seminal ESRC Whitehall Programme and seeks to fill the enormous gaps in our knowledge of the key actors and institutions of British government. It examines the many large changes during the postwar period and puts these into comparative context by analysing the experience of the advanced industrial democracies of Europe and the nations of the Commonwealth. The series reports the results of the Whitehall Programme, a four -year project into change in British government in the postwar period, mounted by the Economic and Social Research Council.

Titles include:

Nicholas Deakin and Richard Parry THE TREASURY AND SOCIAL POLICY The Contest for Control of Welfare Strategy

B. Guy Peters, R. A. W. Rhodes and Vincent Wright ADMINISTERING THE SUMMIT Administration of the Core Executive in Developed Countries

Martin J. Smith THE CORE EXECUTIVE IN BRITAIN

Kevin Theakston LEADERSHIP IN WHITEHALL

Kevin Theakston (editor) BUREAUCRATS AND LEADERSHIP

Patrick Weller, Herman Bakvis and R. A. W. Rhodes (editors) THE HOLLOW CROWN Countervailing Trends in Core Executives

Transforming Government Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0-333-71580-2 (outside North America only)

You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above.

Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Administering the Summit Administration of the Core Executive in Developed Countries

Edited by

B. Guy Peters Maurice Falk Professor of American Government University of Pittsburgh

R. A. W. Rhodes Professor of Politics University of Newcastle upon Tyne

and

Vincent Wright Sometime Official Fellow Nuffield College Oxford

Palgravemacmillan

* " I o

Editorial matter, selection and Chapter 1 © B. Guy Peters, R. A. W. Rhodes and Vincent Wright 2000 Chapter 3 © Donald Savoie and B. Guy Peters 2000 Chapters 2, 4-14 © Macmillan Press Ltd 2000 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2000 978-0-312-23033-3

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PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin's Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a reistered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries.

Outside North America ISBN 978-0-333-75248-7

In North America ISBN 978-1-349-62799-8 ISBN 978-1-349-62797-4 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-62797-4

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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 99-048155

Contents

List of Tables

List of Figures

Preface

Notes on the Contributors

PART I INTRODUCTION

1 Staffing the Summit - the Administration of the Core

vii

viii

ix

xii

Executive: Convergent Trends and National Specificities 3 B. Guy Peters, R. A. W. Rhodes and Vincent Wright

PART II WESTMINSTER SYSTEMS

2 Administering the Summit: the British Prime Minister's Office 25 Christopher Clifford

3 Administering the Summit from a Canadian Perspective 43 B. Guy Peters and Donald J. Savoie

4 Administering the Summit: Australia 59 Patrick Weller

PART III OTHER PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEMS

5 Management of Politics in the German Chancellor's Office 81 Ferdinand Miiller-Rommel

6 The Prime Minister's 'Staff': the Case of Italy 101 Sabino Cassese

7 A Quasi-Presidential Premiership: Administering the Executive Summit in Spain 110 Paul Heywood and Ignacio Molina

8 Sweden: the Quest for Co-ordination 134 Neil C. M. Elder and Edward C. Page

v

vi Contents

9 How Informal Can You Be? The Case of Denmark 153 Tim Knudsen

10 Administering the Summit: the Greek Case Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos

11 Serving the Japanese Prime Minister Ian Neary

PART IV PRESIDENTIAL AND SEMI-PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEMS

12 Staffing the Summit: France Robert Elgie

13 Administering the Summit in the United States Bert A. Rockman

PART V CONCLUSION

176

196

225

245

14 The Struggle for Control 265 B. Guy Peters, R. A. W. Rhodes and Vincent Wright

Index 271

List of Tables

2.1 Chronology of key changes at the summit 29 5.1 Heads of the Chancellor's Office 84 5.2 Assessment of the staff activities in the Chancellor's

Office 87 7.1 Distribution of activity in the Office of the

Premiership (since 1996) 116 7.2 Number of public servants attached to the

premiership 120 8.1 Turnover in advisers (1985-96) 145

10.1 Size and composition of the Greek Prime Minister's Office 187

10.2 Number and composition of the Greek Prime Minister's advisers and collaborators of advisers 188

11.1 The structure of the Prime Minister's Office (as of 1997) 205

11.2 The offices serving the prime minister 207 11.3 The Cabinet Secretariat 208 11.4 Structure of government as proposed by the

Administrative Reform Council, 1997 220 12.1 Size of French presidential staffs in selected years,

1960-97 232 12.2 Composition of presidential staffs, 1959-97 240 13.1 Present cabinet departments (by year of creation) 250 13.2 Political appointments available to presidents 252

vii

List of Figures

3.1 Relationship of Canadian Privy Council Office to government 51

4.1 Organization of the Australian Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (April 1997) 65

8.1 Structure of the Swedish Cabinet Office 140 11.1 The structure of the Japanese government (as of 1997) 204 13.1 Organizational structure of the executive branch

in the USA 248

viii

Preface

There are enormous gaps in our knowledge of the key actors and institutions in British government. We cannot do simple things like describing the work of ministers of state, permanent secretaries, and their departments. Also, there have been large changes in British government during the post-war period, including such things as the growth of the welfare state; the professionalisation of govern­ment; the consequences of recession; the effects of New Right ideology; the impact of the European Union; the effects of new technology; the hollowing out of the state; and the new public management with its separation of policy and administration. We do not know how these changes affected British government, and we cannot understand the effects of these changes by focusing only on Britain. We must also analyse the experience of the advanced industrial democracies of Europe and the Commonwealth.

To repair these gaps in our knowledge and to explain how and why British government changed in the post-war period, the Econ­omic and Social Research Council mounted the Whitehall Programme on 'The Changing Nature of Central Government in Britain' between 1994 and 1999. This series on 'Transforming Government' reports the results of that five-year research programme. The series has five objectives: • develop theory - to develop new theoretical perspectives to explain

why British government changed and why it differs from other countries;

• understand change - to describe and explain what has changed in British government since 1945;

• compare - to compare these changes with those in other EU member states and other states with a 'Westminster' system of government;

• build bridges - to create a common understanding between aca­demics and practitioners;

• dissemination - to make academic research accessible to a varied audience, from sixth-formers to senior policy-makers;

The books cover six broad themes: • developing theory about the new forms of governance; • the hollowing-out of the state in Britain, Europe and the

Commonwealth; • the fragmenting government framework;

ix

x Preface

• the changing roles of ministers and the senior civil service; • constitutional change; and • new ways of delivering services. To meet its comparative objectives, the Programme had three

projects comparing Britain and other EU members states - on core executives and co-ordination; on the impact of the EU on Whitehall; and on agencies in Britain, Germany and Sweden. The original Programme specification also called for projects comparing Westminster systems. Unfortunately, however, no project survived the referee­ing process and the Programme used research workshops to repair the omission. This book stems from one of those workshops and covers Westminster systems as well as systems in Europe, Japan and the USA. The chapters on Britain and the rest of Europe all stem from research done for the ESRC's Whitehall Programme.

All executives need advice. However, providing advice is a dangerous game. Speaking truth to power demands diplomatic skills. This book looks at the way in which advice is provided to the summit of gov­ernment in twelve advanced industrial countries. It looks at the organization and staffing of advice for the heads of executives in three Westminster systems (Australia, Britain and Canada); seven parliamentary systems (Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Spain and Sweden); and two presidential systems (France and the USA).

Three conclusions stand out from the country studies. First, there are the increasing pressures for centralization as core executives confront the differentiation and pluralization of government. Sec­ond, the staffs of executive leaders have common tasks but the weight attached to each task varies from country to country. Fi­nally, despite common domestic and international pressures, national distinctiveness, rather than convergence, characterizes the institu­tional response of several countries. The interplay of constitutional, political and institutional factors, and above all the governmental tradition in which actors construct their own interpretation of the pressures and trends, shape the executive's response.

The last twenty years have witnessed a general decrease in the scope of central political authority and the centralization of that authority in the executive. Core executives deal with increasing differentiation and pluralization by centralizing policy and budget­ary control and letting go of detailed co-ordination of specific delivery systems. Comparing the common but diverging traditions of Westminster

Preface xi

and European systems is an ideal test bed for exploring the divergent responses to domestic and international pressures.

Vincent Wright was the principal investigator for the Whitehall Programme project on core executives and policy co-ordination in six west European countries. He died in Oxford on 8 July 1999. He would abhor any fulsome tribute. So we simply record he was both a friend and a respected colleague. We miss him greatly.

R. A. W Rhodes

Notes on the Contributors

Sabino Cassese is Professor of Administrative Law at the University of Rome, prior to which he held positions in public administration and government at Ancona and Naples and was at the School for Higher Civil Servants, Rome. From 1988 to 1989, he was a member of the policy unit of the Italian prime minister. He has published widely in areas such as public enterprise, banking regulation, local and regional government, administrative procedure, deregulation, and planning procedure, to name but a few. His most recent works include Le basi del diritto amministrativo (1995), La nuova Costituzione economica (1995), Maggioranza e Minoranze: II problema della democrazia in Italia (1995) and La Stato introvabile (1998).

Christopher Clifford was until 1997 a research officer on the ESRC/ Cabinet Office funded project 'The Organisation of Central Govern­ment Departments, 1964-1992: A History'. Prior to that he was a Special Nuffield Funded Student in Politics at Nuffield College, Oxford, carrying out doctoral research on civil service executive agencies and employee relations. His field of research is 'public management', with particular interest in developing links between the research agendas of those working within academic political science and management studies.

Neil C. M. Elder is Emeritus Reader in Politics at the University of Hull. He has held posts at Oxford, Dundee and Hull universities. He has written widely on Swedish government and politics. His books include The Government and Politics of Sweden (1970) and The Consensual Democracies (1985) with Paul Arter. He is collaborating with Edward C. Page in a study of next-steps agencies funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) under its Whitehall Programme.

Robert Elgie is Lecturer in Politics at the University of Limerick, Republic of Ireland. He obtained his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics in 1991. He is currently working on a study of insti­tutional change in France and is also editing a book on divided government in comparative perspective. He has published extensively

xii

Notes on the Contributors xiii

in the field of both French and comparative politics. He is the author of two books: The Role of the Prime Minister in France, 1981-91 (1993) and Political Leadership in Liberal Democracies (1995). He is also co­author (with Helen Thompson) of The Politics of Central Banks (1998) and (with Steve Griggs) Debates in French Politics (1999). He has also edited two books: Electing the French President (1996) and Semi­Presidentialism in Europe (1999).

Paul Heywood is Professor of Politics and Head of School at the University of Nottingham. He received his Ph.D. in 1988 from the London School of Economics. He has taught at the University of Glasgow and Queen Mary College, University of London, and has also worked for the Economist Intelligence Unit. He is author of Marxism and the Failure of Organised Socialism in Spain, 1879-1936 (1990), Spain's Next Five Years: A Political Risk Analysis (1991), The Government and Politics of Spain (1995), co-author of Values and Political Change in Post-Communist Europe (1998), editor of Political Corruption (1997) and Politics and Policy in Democratic Spain: No Longer Differ­ent? (1999), and co-editor of West European Communist Parties After the Revolutions of 1989 (1994) and Developments in West European Politics (1997). He is currently writing up the findings of an ESRC­funded study into the inner workings of the Spanish core executive.

Tim Knudsen is Professor in Public Administration at the Institute of Political Science, University of Copenhagen. His previous aca­demic appointments were as senior lecturer at the same institute, prior to which he taught at the University of Roskilde. He is a specialist in Scandinavian state building and Danish administrative history, but he has also published on urban planning and other subjects. He has published many books and articles in Danish. His publications in non-Scandinavian languages include: 'Les fonction­naires danois et la definition des politiques', Revue Franr;aise d'admin­istration publique (1998), (with Bo Rothstein) 'State Building in Scandinavia', Comparative Politics (1994) and Welfare Administration in Denmark (1991).

Ignacio Molina is a D.Phil. student at the Juan March Institute in Madrid. His doctoral research is an analysis of the nature and func­tioning of the Spanish executive, particularly during the policy stages of initiation and co-ordination. He has been involved in a number of research projects including a comparative project on core executives

xiv Notes on the Contributors

which forms part of the ESRC's Whitehall Programme, has presented papers at several conferences and has published in such journals as Revue Fran~aise d'administration publique and Revista de Estudios Politicos.

Ferdinand Miiller-Rommel is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Uineburg, Germany. His previous academic appoint­ments have been at the Free University of Berlin and the European University Institute in Florence. From 1981 to 1983 he was a policy adviser in the office of the Chancellor of the Federal Republic in Bonn. He is the author of articles on cabinet structures, new social movements and value change as well as the author and editor of the following books: New Politics in Western Europe (1989); Griine Parteien in Westeuropa (1993); Governing Together (with Jean Blondel) (1993); and Cabinets in Western Europe (with Jean Blondel) (1997).

Ian Neary is Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Essex, prior to which he taught at Huddersfield and Newcastle universi­ties. His postgraduate work was on the inter-war situation of the Burakumin and the social movement they generated, the Suiheisha, and he has maintained an interest in minority group issues in con­temporary Japan, contributing articles to books and encyclopaedias. During the late 1980s he became involved in a research project comparing the relationship between the pharmaceutical industry in the UK and Japan which resulted in a monograph, Intervention and Technological Innovation (1995) jointly authored with Jeremy Howells. Since 1995 he has been involved in another comparative research project, this time on the implementation of human rights in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, with special reference to the rights of patients and the rights of the child. He is also working on a textbook on Japanese politics.

Edward C. Page is Professor of Politics at the University of Hull. He has written widely on comparative politics and administration. His books include Political Authority and Bureaucratic Power (1992), Governing the New Europe (co-edited with J. E. S. Hayward) and People who Run Europe (1997). He is collaborating with Neil Elder in a study of next-steps agencies funded by the Economic and Social Research Council under its Whitehall Programme.

B. Guy Peters is Maurice Falk Professor of American Government at the University of Pittsburgh. He has held posts at, amongst others,

Notes on the Contributors xv

Emory University and the universities of Delaware and Tulane. His interests lie in the fields of comparative politics (especially Western Europe), public policy, public administration, and comparative method­ology. He has written extensively in his research areas and his recent publications include The Future of Governing (1996) and Comparative Politics: Theory and Method (1998).

R. A. W. Rhodes is Professor of Politics (Research) at the Univer­sity of Newcastle upon Tyne, prior to which his academic appoint­ments included posts at the Universities of York, Essex, Strathclyde and Birmingham. Currently, he is also Director of the Economic and Social Research Council's Whitehall Research Programme; and Adjungeret Professor, Institut for Statskundskab, Kobenhavns Universitet. He is the author or editor of eighteen books including: (co-editor with P. Weller and H. Bakvis), The Hollow Crown (1997); Understanding Governance (1997); and Control and Power in Central­Local Government Relations (1999). He has also published widely in journals such as: Australian Journal of Public Administration, British Journal of Political Science, European Journal of Political Research, Par­liamentary Affairs, Political Quarterly, Political Studies, Public Admin­istration, Public Administration Review and West European Politics. He has been editor of Public Administration since 1986.

Bert A. Rockman is the University Professor of Political Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He has also held appointments at the Brookings Institution and the University of Michigan. He is cur­rently co-editor of Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration. He has been president of the American Political Sci­ence Association's Organized Section on the (US) Presidency. He has published extensively but his most recent books (1999) are (with Joel D. Aberbach), In the Web of Politics: Three Decades of the US Federal Executive and a co-edited (with Colin Campbell) anthology, The Clinton Legacy. He is a recipient of the Richard E. Neustadt award (1985) for the best book published on the US presidency, The Leadership Question: The Presidency and the American System (1984).

Donald J. Savoie holds the Clement-Cormier Chair in Economic Development at l'Universite de Moncton where he also teaches public administration. He founded the Canadian Institute for Research on Regional Development at l'Universite de Moncton in 1983 and has

xvi Notes on the Contributors

served as an adviser to a number of federal, provincial and territo­rial government departments and agencies, the private sector, independent associations, OECD, the World Bank and the United Nations. He has published numerous books and his articles have appeared in leading journals of political science, public policy and public administration. Dr Savoie was elected president of the Ca­nadian Association of Political Science (1998). He was made an officer of the Order of Canada (1993), awarded two honorary doctorates and elected fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (1992). His book The Politics of Public Spending in Canada was the inaugural recipient of the Smiley prize (1992), awarded biennially by the Canadian Political Science Association for the best book in a field relating to the study of government. He was also awarded the 'Prix France­Acadie' (1993) for the book Les de(ls de l'industrie des peches au Nouveau-Brunswick.

Dimitri Sotiropoulos is Lecturer in Political Science in the Depart­ment of Political Science and Public Administration at the University of Athens. He has also taught at the Instituto Juan March in Madrid and at the University of Crete (Rethymnon). He has published articles on politics and bureaucracy in the British Journal of Sociology and South European Society and Politics. His most recent book is Populism and Bureaucracy: The Case of PASOK in Greece, 1981-89 (1996).

Patrick Weller is Professor of Politics and Public Policy and Director of the Centre for Australian Public Sector Management at Griffith University. He is a graduate of Oxford University, with a degree in history, and gained a Ph.D. in political science from the Australian National University in 1972. He was elected a fellow of the Acad­emy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 1996. He is the author of a number of books and articles on Australian and comparative politics. He is co-author of Politics and Policy in Australia, Can Ministers Cope?, First among Equals: Prime Ministers in Westminster Systems, Malcolm Fraser, PM, and co-editor of Menzies to Keating: The Development of the Australian Prime Ministership; Reforming the Public Service, Royal Commissions and the Making of Public Policy and The Hollow Crown. He has just completed a biography of John Button and has two projects in progress funded by the Australian Research Council, one on the role of departmental secretaries and the other on the future shape of Australian governance.

Notes on the Contributors xvii

Vincent Wright taught at the London School of Economics before taking up a post as Official Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. He taught at the European University Institute in Florence, and in sev­eral other European as well as American universities. He was joint editor of West European Politics since its creation in 1977 until his death in 1999. He had written books on French government and politics, most notably on the French prefects and on the Conseil d'Etat, and had edited or co-edited several volumes on government and administration in Western Europe. At the time of his death in July 1999 he was joint director of a major comparative project on core executive policy co-ordination in Western Europe.