Introduction

Sullivan, Helen; Dickinson, Helen; Henderson, Hayley

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-03008-7_117-1

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Civil servants also recognised the tensions within the DUP team, and departmental division along party lines. This required civil servants to juggle independent policy advice with a ‘higher level of real politics’ than civil servants were at ease with (Rouse and O’Connor, 2020: 11), increasingly requiring ‘active conflict management roles’ in a politicised environment (Rouse and O’Connor, 2020: 13). The closeness of the one-to-one minister–SpAd relationship gives SpAds more access, often positioning them – informally at least – ‘over’ civil servants.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As such the organisational actions (or inactions) whereby the RHI became a crisis needs to be understood within the post-conflict settlement context (Helms and Oliver, 2015). As well as securing consensus between political actors, the politician–official relationship initially ‘bore the hallmarks of a legacy of distrust and suspicion’ (Rouse and O’Connor, 2020: 7). As power sharing became embedded this evolved into officials playing active roles in day-to-day management (O’Connor, 2012) while also being side-lined and blamed for failings by politically partisan ministers and SpAds (Carmichael and Osborne, 2003).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Concerns were voiced about inaction and incompetence among civil servants, alongside suggestions that Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) SpAds and ministers maintained the scheme to garner support from the farming community who were the primary beneficiaries and a critical part of their voter base (McBride, 2019). Within the existing ‘political instability and institutional fragility’ (Rouse and O’Connor, 2020: 11) the scandal around the scheme's failure precipitated a three year collapse of the Sinn Féin and DUP power-sharing administration due to irreconcilable cross-party tensions and accusations around the then DUP First Minister Arlene Foster's oversight and accountability for the flawed policy implementation.…”

Section: Crisis and The Executive Triangle – Existing Research Gap An...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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A slow-burning crisis: Executive relations and the normalisation of distrust in Northern Ireland's ‘cash for ash’ fiasco

Rice

Connaughton

Ratcliffe

et al. 2023

International Review of Administrative Sciences

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This paper explores relationships between ministers, special advisers and civil servants through the lens of a high-profile government crisis in Northern Ireland (NI). Although political–administrative relationships are a mainstay of public administration research, we still have limited understanding of how these relationships feature and function within the ‘Westminster family’ of governance when operating within devolved institutions or post-conflict societies, nor of their role in crisis. We use Scott’s institutional pillars as an analytical framework and conduct a documentary analysis of public inquiry witness statements to explore the Renewable Heat Incentive crisis which led to the collapse of the NI legislature. Utilising a novel application of existing theory, we demonstrate that the implementation of the devolved, consociational power-sharing model incubated new governance norms, that prioritised and legitimised the agendas and actions of political actors (ministers and special advisers), over civil servants. Specifically, in understanding how relational norms – particularly distrust – feed public policy failure and institutional crisis, our findings contribute to this research area and to the broader public administration field. Government institutional crisis negatively impacts upon public service delivery and the wider health of democracy. Understanding such crises is an important first step in their amelioration. Points for practitioners Structural, systemic and day-to-day behavioural layering of distrust adversely impacts government professionals’ ability to recognise, communicate and respond to risk; this can create policy problems, which can escalate, unchecked, until they have become full-blown crises. In order to proactively mitigate crises in other public policy contexts, managers and teams should build in awareness raising, reflection and management processes to individual and operational performance reviews to improve relational norms, and prevent the normalisation of distrust.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Crisis and The Executive Triangle – Existing Research Gap An...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A slow-burning crisis: Executive relations and the normalisation of distrust in Northern Ireland's ‘cash for ash’ fiasco

Rice

Connaughton

Ratcliffe

et al. 2023

International Review of Administrative Sciences

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This has important implications with respect to accountability, not just in relation to the oversight provided by the elected politicians over the public service, but also, and perhaps more importantly, in terms of how accountability is shared—if that is even possible—when public leadership is distributed amongst a multiplicity of actors both within and outside of government. As Thomas (2009, pp. 244–245) noted, “Leadership involves responsibility, which leads to accountability.” As leadership becomes more “dispersed and more networked in character,” it makes sense that “accountability will become complicated and blurred.” The model also incorporates avenues for the wide range of in-depth research on politics and administration that has been developed.…”

Section: A Proposed Multilateral Actor Model For Analyzing Public Lea...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconceptualizing the Politics-Administration Dichotomy to Better Understand Public Leadership in the Twenty-First Century: A Multilateral Actors Model

Callahan,

Mau

2023

The American Review of Public Administration

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The long-standing discussion of the politics-administration dichotomy is as relevant in contemporary public administration as at any time in the past. The significant changing context and persistence of the discussion on the practice of the politics-administration dichotomy calls for addressing what Overeem observes as the need to better describe the highly complex relations between politicians and administrators. Two implicit assumptions drive the continued relevance of the discussion of political-administrative interactions. First, the discussion matters because the actors in question fulfill various public leadership roles. Second, the political-administrative dialogue matters to questions of constitutionalism, values of representative government, and facilitating institutions of democracy. In this article, we offer a model of public managers’ engagement in the “how” with a framework that explicitly outlines the range of relationships. We draw on empirical research to outline the current reality of at least five significant types of actors, often working collaboratively in multilateral relationships. The first section of the article discusses the genesis and implications of the politics-administration dichotomy. It then proceeds to establish its persistence over time, followed by an explanation of the logic of our approach. Next, the discussion shifts to the analytic advantage of a continuum model across five categories of actors within the governance process, each possessing the potential for public leadership, showing how this model illustrates paths for addressing the problem we have identified. Finally, we discuss the implications of our proposed model for future research design and practice.

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“…In the technical support units of universities, the introduction of NPM-based human resources approaches faced resistance from the leadership, as these reforms overlooked the deeply political culture of traditional Chilean universities, where leaders are often appointed based on political rather than academic criteria (Salazar et al, 2022). Similarly, the difficulties developing countries encounter when implementing NPM have been previously described, as the approach was initially designed for advanced capitalist nations (Haque, 2020).…”

Section: Higher Education Npm and Civil Service Careersmentioning

confidence: 99%

The civil service careers of university support staff and new public management: A qualitative study from Chile

Calderón-Orellana,

López-Huenante,

Burgos-Bravo

et al. 2023

International Review of Administrative Sciences

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New public management policies have been in effect in Chile since the 1980s, influencing the development of human resources policies and procedures, particularly within higher education institutions. While the impact of these policies on academic staff is evident, their implications for non-academic personnel who operate under the same regime as public servants remain unclear. This research aims to investigate the relationship between new public management principles and the career beliefs of non-academic personnel in Chile. Utilizing focus groups, this study analyzes the perceptions of career trajectories among the collaboration staff at the country's most prominent public university. Finally, the results are discussed.

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Introduction

Cited by 3 publications

References 3 publications

A slow-burning crisis: Executive relations and the normalisation of distrust in Northern Ireland's ‘cash for ash’ fiasco

A slow-burning crisis: Executive relations and the normalisation of distrust in Northern Ireland's ‘cash for ash’ fiasco

Reconceptualizing the Politics-Administration Dichotomy to Better Understand Public Leadership in the Twenty-First Century: A Multilateral Actors Model

The civil service careers of university support staff and new public management: A qualitative study from Chile

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