Research Catalog

Title

The changing world of top officials : mandarins or valets? / edited by R.A.W. Rhodes and Patrick Weller.

Publication

Buckingham ; Philadelphia : Open University Press, 2001.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Rhodes, R. A. W.
• Weller, Patrick Moray.

Description

xii, 274 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

"This book explores the roles and workings of the heads of government departments in six nations: departmental secretaries in Australia, departmentschefs in Denmark, directeurs d'administration in France, secretaris-generaal in the Netherlands, chief executives in New Zealand, and permanent secretaries in the UK. It also seeks to explore their 'infinite variety' by showing how inherited government traditions shape the response to reform. It examines how such reforms as privatization and contracting out have affected who does these jobs and how they do them. It asks whether the demands of the new public management have made departmental heads more accountable, more public and more vulnerable. For each of the six countries the authors give details of departmental secretaries' backgrounds, their career paths, their conditions of employment, their impacts, and their changing positions. Central to each chapter are short biographies or portraits of top officials with extensive quotations from interviews in which they talk about how they see their worlds and how, for instance, they now focus more on managing their departments and less on policy-making. The experience of senior public servants is brought vividly to life. This book is the first comprehensive, comparative portrait of top government officials, and is an important resource for students and scholars of politics, public policy and public management, and makes fascinating reading for all senior civil servants themselves."--Cover.

Series Statement

Public policy and management

Uniform Title

Public policy and management.

Subject

• Executive power > Congresses
• Public officers > Congresses
• Cabinet officers > Congresses
• Executive departments > Congresses
• 88.11 central government bodies
• Cabinet officers
• Executive departments
• Executive power
• Public officers
• Hoher Beamter
• Politik
• Internationaler Vergleich
• Secretarissen-generaal (ministeries)
• Politieke verandering
• Pouvoir exécutif > Congrès
• Fonctionnaires > Congrès
• Ministres > Congrès
• Ministères > Congrès
• Hauts fonctionnaires > Etudes comparatives

Genre/Form

• Conference papers and proceedings.
• Congresses (form)
• Actes de congrès.

Note

• Papers presented at an international workshop.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [256]-269) and index.

Contents

1. Introduction: 'enter centre stage' / Patrick Weller and R.A.W. Rhodes -- 2. France: 'dual structure, shared dilemma' / Robert Elgie -- 3. The Netherlands: 'fragmenting pillars, fading colours' / Jouke de Vrie -- 4. Denmark: 'the island culture' / Lotte Jensen -- 5. United Kingdom: 'everybody but us' / R.A.W. Rhodes -- 6. Australia: 'mandarins or lemons?' / Patrick Weller and Liz Young -- 7. New Zealand: 'cautionary tale or shining example?' / Jonathan Boston -- 8. Conclusions: 'Antipodean exceptionalism, European traditionalism' / R.A.W. Rhodes and Patrick Weller.

ISBN

• 0335203027
• 9780335203024
• 0335203019
• 9780335203017

LCCN

00052449

OCLC

• ocm45263942
• 45263942
• SCSB-1238954

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library