TY - CHAP A1 - Hustedt, Thurid ED - Ladner, Andreas ED - Sager, Fritz T1 - Ministerial advisory systems and politics T2 - Handbook on the Politics of Public Administration N2 - Ministerial advisors are by now established actors at the apex of ministerial departments in many countries around the globe. They advanced to close and often the most intimate advisors to government ministers and other executive politicians and are often the only actors in the ministries allowed to provide political advice. Also, they are often closely involved in the coordination of government coalition politics alongside party-political lines and coordinate between the ministry and the party headquarter. While they, in general, fulfil a much more political role (compared to civil servants), their role and working conditions vary. The chapter looks into different types of ministerial advisory systems, their institutionalization, working dynamics and in particular their role as political advisors. And even though ministerial advisors have received considerable attention by public administration scholars for around two decades, their position has not been accounted for in general public administration or policy process theory. The chapter revises the current literature on the emergence and role of advisors in theoretical, conceptual and empirical regards to provide a state-of-the-art overview of variation in ministerial advisory systems. KW - Ministerial advisers KW - Policy advice KW - Policy advisory systems KW - Ministerial cabinets KW - Special advisers Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4337/9781839109447.00015 SP - 93 EP - 101 PB - Edward Elgar Publishing CY - Cheltenham ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Bach, Tobias A1 - Hustedt, Thurid ED - Shaw, Richard T1 - Chapter 23: Policy-making in the executive triangle: a comparative perspective on ministers, advisers, and civil servants T2 - Handbook on Ministerial and Political Advisers N2 - This chapter seeks to bridge existing research on the politicisation of top civil servants and the roles of ministerial advisers by proposing a new conceptual approach for the comparative analysis of executive policy-making. We conceive of the executive triangle as a set of interdependent relationships between ministers, civil servants, and advisers. Those relationships may take different forms, depending on the distinct tasks performed by each actor and their roles in policy-making, which define mutual expectations. Thus understood, the executive triangle is an institution performing particular functions in policy-making (such as assessing policy alternatives, anticipating political support, and coordinating with other actors both inside and outside government). Those functions are performed by actors within the triangle and reflected in their roles and their direct and indirect relationships. The chapter conceptually explores such a system-perspective on the executive triangle; sketches analytical dimensions for understanding similarities and differences of executive triangles across contexts; provides empirical illustrations of variations of the executive triangle in Europe; and develops a research agenda using this concept to better understand the roles of ministers, ministerial advisers, and top civil servants in executive policy-making in a comparative perspective. KW - Civil servants KW - Comparative public administration KW - Executive triangle KW - Ministerial advisers KW - Policy advice KW - Politicisation Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.4337/9781800886582.00034 SP - 338 EP - 351 PB - Edward Elgar Publishing CY - Cheltenham, UK ER -