Ensuring political responsiveness: Politicization mechanisms in ministerial bureaucracies.

  • Although politicization is a perennial research topic in public administration to investigate relationships between ministers and civil servants, the concept still lacks clarification. This article contributes to this literature by systematically identifying different conceptualizations of politicization and suggests a typology including three politicization mechanisms to strengthen the political responsiveness of the ministerial bureaucracy: formal, functional and administrative politicization. The typology is empirically validated through a comparative case analysis of politicization mechanisms in Germany, Belgium, the UK and Denmark. The empirical analysis further refines the general idea of Western democracies becoming ‘simply’ more politicized, by illustrating how some politicization mechanisms do not continue to increase, but stabilize – at least for the time being.

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Metadaten
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Author(s):Thurid HustedtORCiD, Heidi Houlberg Salomonsen
Parent Title (English):International Review of Administrative Sciences
ISSN:0020-8523 (print), 1461-7226 (online)
Publication year:2014
Publishing Institution:Hertie School
First Page:746
Last Page:765
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852314533449
Release Date:2020/05/15
Tag:central administration, ministers and civil servants, political advisers, political responsiveness, politicization, public administration
Volume:80
Issue:4
Licence of document (German):Metadaten / metadata
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