The debate on the relationship between politicians and civil servants is as old as public administration itself. Discussed in terms of complementarity (Svara, 2006), politicization (Peters and Pierre 2004) or bargains (Hood... [ view full abstract ]
The debate on the relationship between politicians and civil servants is as old as public administration itself. Discussed in terms of complementarity (Svara, 2006), politicization (Peters and Pierre 2004) or bargains (Hood and Lodge, 2006), it is clear that the way we perceive this relationship has been in rapid development, perhaps just as the relationship itself.
This paper investigates a special case of this relationship – when the politician fires the civil servant. This situation can be said to be an extreme case of a non-working relationship between the two parties. But why are relations terminated?
Recent years have seen an increase in turnover among Chief Administrative Officers (CAO’s) in both Denmark and Australia (Martin, 2016, Christensen, Klemmensen and Opstrup, 2014). We hence find fertile grounds for studying this phenomenon. Understanding what causes politicians to replace their top civil servants is interesting in its own right. But looking at these countries where this seems to become more and more common, it also becomes relevant to explore if there are any systematic explanations as to why turnovers have been on the increase in recent years.
This paper sets out with this empirical puzzle in mind: why are CAO’s laid off? Further, we as if what factors at the actor and systemic levels can explain the increase in turnover?
It does so by approaching the issue of CAO turnover in an explorative manner. By interviewing fired CAO’s in Denmark and Australia, we investigate, what explains these concrete cases of turnover and on this basis, we propose hypothesis for future quantitative testing.
The paper is a comparative case study, utilizing a most different systems design. By comparing a similar outcome – CAO turnover- in Denmark and Australia, which vary on a number of relevant variables, we try to tease out the explanatory factors, which may explain turnover.
Theoretically, we depart from the literature on CAO-Mayor relations (e.g. Mouritzen and Svara, 2002), and supplement this with politicization theory. We pursue explanations in the following directions, but are very open to competing, or supplementing, explanations:
- A rational explanation: lack of competence/Wrong competences
- An politicization explanation: The CAO is identified with a competing political party
- A relational explanation: Personal chemistry, the communication climate between CAO and mayor is not good
- An institutional explanation: Value shift in balance between political and administrative realm: CAOs are seen as too powerful, mayors want to “claw back” competences from CAOs
