Interpreting Administrative Change: Bureaucratic Self‐Interest and Institutional Inheritance in Government

Abstract

Between 1946 and 1995, Danish central government had been subject to numerous reorganization initiatives. Based on the assumption of self-interest motivated and risk-averse bureaucrats, these initiatives are analyzed in a long-term historical perspective. It is argued that civil servants both feel a strong incentive to and have good chances of defending the existing organization. This creates a historical bias in favor of whatever organizations were created in the past. Still, the mutual dependence between political executives and their civil servants opens up for bargaining dynamics allowing for mostly incremental change. While ideology has been unimportant in the development of central government organization, broadly shared ideas about reform may account for some instances of radical reform, consistently opposed by Danish civil servants.

‘Mission impossible’, but mission accomplished: the Kinnock reforms and the European Commission

“…1 The literature on bureaucracy and institutional and organizational change tends to be sceptical about the prospects of meaningful change, even more about far-reaching reform. Approaches to administrative reform inspired by historical institutionalism (HI) or sociological institutionalism (SI) (see, for example, Brunsson and Olsen 1993;Christensen 1997;Capano 2003), jointly considered as new institutionalism (NI) for the purposes of this article, among other things predict incremental or 'path dependent' change. 2 They tend to assume that the impetus to reform comes from outside the organization concerned, that the pressure to reform is interpreted by the organization in terms of existing norms and values, and that any change is likely to be modest.…”

Similar Ends, Differing Means: Contractualism and Civil Service Reform in Denmark and New Zealand

“…This is not related to the use of fixed-term contracts. Rather, it results from ministers being increasingly inclined to use their authority for discretionary firings, and from much higher interdepartmental mobility than in the past (Christensen 2001a).…”

“…Similarly, in Denmark individual pay, more or less clearly related to performance, was introduced with the 1987 collective agreements and has been gradually expanded since. The concept was first used for selective pay increases to civil servants with managerial responsibilities (Christensen 1994). It was not directly linked to the contracts entered into with a few agencies a couple of years later.…”

“…In New Zealand this development stems from the introduction of the contractual regime, whereas in Denmark it results from the gradual adaptation of the procedures of hiring and firing top civil servants to the needs of ministers who are more insistent on their role as political executive roles. In this capacity they and the government to which they belong increasingly make use their discretionary authority to select their own top civil servants and to remove those whom they do not get along with (Christensen 2001a). However, especially in New Zealand, there has emerged some doubt as to whether the Westminster convention of "free, frank, and fearless" advice from chief executives to ministers has retained the same force that it had under the old tenured system, or whether high levels of relational trust have been maintained between these two parties (Glackin; James).…”

“…In Denmark, the changes have come gradually and are not directly linked to the contractualist regime. For several decades the possibility of establishing a functional distinction between ministerial departments, responsible for political and policy advice to ministers, and agencies, responsible for policy implementation, has provided a similar rationale (Christensen 1997). But as in New Zealand, the seemingly clear-cut distinction between outcomes and outputs and between policy and administrative issues has not been politically realistic.…”