Governing the purple zone: How politicians influence public managers

Bellò, Benedetta; Spano, Alessandro

doi:10.1016/j.emj.2015.04.002

Cited by 24 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In essence, local governments are politico-administrative organisations (Bellò and Spano 2015;Bouckaert et al 2010;Christensen 2012). Besides public managers who decisively influence RM, party politics also has a role to play.…”

Section: Explanatory Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adoption of comprehensive risk management in local government

Oulasvirta

Anttiroiko

2017

Local Government Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the aftermath of large company failures in the early 2000s there emerged a new wave of efforts to enhance risk management (RM) and control in enterprises. The normative management model, which urges organisations to develop a comprehensive, formal and systematic RM, was developed, and it has been promoted widely to all organisations, including public sector organisations. Using survey data, this article describes and explains the diffusion and adoption of RM innovation in local government in Finland. Our survey results support the argument that if comprehensive RM is not obligatory, it is not widely used in local government. Our analysis reveals that financial constraints explain to some extent the existence of comprehensive RM in municipalities, while structural factors such as the size of municipalities do not, even though RM is slightly more advanced in larger rather than smaller local governments. Slow adoption indicates that comprehensive RM as a managerial innovation lacks immediate benefit when assessed against the efforts and costs of its introduction and maintenance. This implies that public sector organisations may be more selective in adopting business models than is generally assumed.

show abstract

Section: Explanatory Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adoption of comprehensive risk management in local government

Oulasvirta

Anttiroiko

2017

Local Government Studies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This virtual space is where politics (envisaged as a red zone) and administration (envisaged as a blue zone) merge during the process of transforming political will into administrative action to coalesce into a ‘purple zone’. This is a place where role separation is blurred, and the energies of politics and administration blend creating tension (Bellò & Spano, 2015, p. 355).…”

Section: Westminster Away From Whitehallmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maintaining neutrality in the Minister's office

Cole

2020

Aust J Public Adm

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How do non-partisan advisors in Ministers' offices maintain political neutrality while immersed in a highly politicised environment? Private Secretaries are ubiquitous non-partisan public service representatives in the political environment of Ministers' offices. There has been significant research undertaken the role of political advisors in Ministers' offices, yet the contribution of these nonpartisan advisors has not yet been described in academic literature. The risk of Private Secretaries being overly responsive to politicians and undertaking political tasks rather than maintaining neutrality is ever present. Further, they must actively manage the risk of free and frank advice being obstructed by political advisors. This article presents views about political neutrality gleaned from interviews with Private Secretaries who have worked in Ministers' offices in New Zealand during the period of 1997-2018. It presents new insights into the tensions within a key setting of the core executive.

show abstract

“…Especially at the strategic level of public organizations, there tends to be a merging or conflation of political and management activities. This has been called the ‘purple zone’, located in between the blue zone of politics and the red zone of career public managers (Alford et al., 2016; Bellò and Spano, 2015), where managerial autonomy and direct politicization or patronage come in many variations. This is why studying the perceptions of top public managers is important and worthwhile.…”

Section: Explaining Individual-level Variationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is a longer tradition in the field of relying on perceptions rather than on other sources of data because of the inaccessibility of such data (Charron et al., 2016). Examples of such perception-based work are the work of Mayntz and Derlien (1989) among German top civil servants, Bauer and Ege’s (2012) study of the perceptions of middle- and senior-level European Commission officials, and studies about perceptions of political influence (Bellò and Spano, 2015; Furlong, 1998; Waterman et al., 1998). This article measures direct politicization or patronage in relation to senior-level appointments, as perceived by top public managers.…”

Section: Using Perceptions To Study Variation In Direct Politicization and Managerial Autonomymentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining variation in perceived managerial autonomy and direct politicization in European public sectors

Walle

2018

International Review of Administrative Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Public sector reforms aimed at 'making the managers manage' granted public managers autonomy and tried to depoliticize the administration. There is substantial variation in the degree of direct politicization and in managerial autonomy. This article tests four sets of hypotheses to explain variation in perceptions of direct politicization and managerial autonomy in European public sectors. Data from a new survey in 15 countries among several thousand top public sector managers in central government are used. Findings show that variation in perceived direct politicization and managerial autonomy is partially determined by the formal status of an organization as an agency, and the hierarchical position of the manager within the organization. Managers from very large organizations also experience more autonomy, but organization size has no impact on perceived politicization. The policy field within which the respondent's organization is situated has mixed effects. The article also finds that the models are better at explaining the variation in perceived managerial autonomy than that in direct politicization. Points for practitionersThe article shows that top public managers in European central administration perceive different levels in the extent to which politicians try to influence senior-level appointments, as well as in the extent of management autonomy that they have. These differences in perception are mainly explained by whether or not they work in an agency, as well as by the hierarchical position that they occupy within the organization.

show abstract

Governing the purple zone: How politicians influence public managers

Cited by 24 publications

References 47 publications

Adoption of comprehensive risk management in local government

Adoption of comprehensive risk management in local government

Maintaining neutrality in the Minister's office

Explaining variation in perceived managerial autonomy and direct politicization in European public sectors

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About