Political appointees in executive government: Exploring and explaining roles using a large‐N survey in Norway
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| Author | Rune Karlsen,Kristoffer Kolltveit,Jostein Askim |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12272 |
SYMPOSIUM ARTICLE
Political appointees in executive government:
Exploring and explaining roles using a large-N
survey in Norway
Jostein Askim
1
|Rune Karlsen
2
|Kristoffer Kolltveit
3
1
Department of Political Science, University of
Oslo, Norway
2
Institute for Social Research, Oslo, Norway
3
Department of Public Management, Oslo and
Akershus University College of Applied
Sciences, Norway
Correspondence
Kristoffer Kolltveit, Department of Public
Administration and Leadership, Oslo University
College, PO Box 4 St. Olavs plass, NO-0130
Oslo, Norway.
Email: kristoffer.kolltveit@hioa.no
Political appointees in executive government have received
increased scholarly attention in recent years. However, few studies
have covered non-Westminster systems, and apart from classifica-
tions that systemize variation in assignments, theorizing about
appointees has been limited. Using large-N survey data, the article
finds three distinct roles among political appointees in Norway:
‘stand in’,‘media adviser’and ‘political coordinator’. The article
then combines insights from research on political appointees with
insights from core executive studies (CES) to explain why political
appointees perform one role or another. The empirical results sup-
port the notion that roles of appointees within the core executive
depend on where they sit, supporting the asymmetric power
model within CES. The results also show that appointees’roles
within the executive depend on their personal experience, sup-
porting the notion of a resource exchange between ministers and
their appointees in the mould of the resource-dependency per-
spective within CES.
1|INTRODUCTION
Political appointees as a third element in executive government have received increased scholarly attention in
recent years (Shaw and Eichbaum 2015a). Much empirical research has focused on political appointees’back-
grounds, what motivates them for service, what tasks they perform in the executive, and what they do after their
work in government. These studies have shown that appointees’assignments vary across and within countries. To
systemize, scholars have introduced various classifications of tasks and functions (see for instance Maley 2000,
2011; OECD 2007; Connaughton 2010a, 2010b, 2015; Eichbaum and Shaw 2011). Apart from such classifications,
theorizing about political appointees is limited. Furthermore, most of these studies cover Westminster systems.
Notable exceptions, focusing on multi-party consociational systems, include Brans et al. (2006), Ullström (2011), and
Gouglas (2015). Limitations in the empirical evidence base, and the lack of attempts to theorize about the
DOI 10.1111/padm.12272
342 © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltdwileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padmPublic Administration. 2017;95:342–358.
arrangements, relationships, and roles of political appointees, have led Shaw and Eichbaum (2015a, p. 1) to call for
studies with higher theoretical ambitions and data from other countries.
We aim to answer this call by using large-N survey data and statistical methods from a parliamentary system
where minority and coalition governments are the norm. We study political appointees in the Norwegian parliamen-
tary system, something that has not been done systematically since the early 1970s (Eliassen 1972). Our data derive
from a 2015 survey of more than 200 state secretaries and political advisers from two coalition cabinets (2001–05
and 2005–13).
We pursue three questions. First: What are the most important tasks political appointees carry out? Beyond
Westminster settings, much is still unknown regarding the contribution political appointees make to the procedural
dimensions of policymaking (Shaw and Eichbaum 2015a). Here we investigate tasks performed and types of advice
offered by political appointees in Norway, a country with a long tradition of political appointees. Our second
research question is: Do patterns of tasks performed constitute distinct roles? To test whether roles are distinct, it
is necessary to investigate whether correlations between behavioural items (various types of tasks performed and
types of advice offered to the minister) reflect some underlying dimensions. This investigation, in turn, necessitates
large-N survey data and statistical analysis. We use factor analysis on the survey data, and identify three distinct
roles performed by political appointees in the Norwegian executive.
Our third research question is: What explains which roles political appointees occupy? Research on political
advisers is rich in empirical description and typologies, but has said little about why political appointees do what
they do in different countries and political systems (see, however, some discussion in Eichbaum and Shaw (2011)
and Peters and Pierre (2004)). We develop an analytical framework with three sets of explanations. We then investi-
gate, using OLS regression analysis, to what extent this framework can explain the distribution of roles among politi-
cal appointees in Norwegian executive government. The first set of explanations in the framework is supply,
referring to the idea that what role a political appointee is deployed to perform is contingent upon his or her per-
sonal background and experience. The second is demand, referring to the idea that an appointee’s role is contingent
also upon what ministers lack in their own experience. The third is formal structure, referring to the idea that power
is asymmetrically distributed and follows structural arrangements such as type of ministry and the appointee’s for-
mal position.
The analytical framework combines insights from research on political advisers with insights from core execu-
tive studies (CES), thereby attempting to create closer ties between the empirical work on political appointees and
established theories within political science and public administration. CES is a stream of political science emerging
(predominantly) from studies of the British central government: the institutions, networks and practices surrounding
the prime minister, cabinet, and cabinet committees –the heart of the executive machinery (Rhodes 1995). CES has
rarely covered the roles of political appointees such as policy advisers (but see Shaw and Eichbaum 2014; Con-
naughton 2015; Craft 2015). The basis of executive power is a central theme within CES (see Elgie 2011; Shaw
2015). Rhodes has advocated a resource-dependency perspective, which emphasizes that actors are dependent on
each other to achieve their goals, so they must exchange resources. Power is thus relational and more dispersed
than structural arrangements would suggest (Rhodes 1995, 1997, 2007). Others have put forward an asymmetric
power model, as an adaptation of Rhodes’perspective. The model essentially asserts that power within the execu-
tive is locational and a function of structural or institutional attributes, making power relations within the core exec-
utive asymmetrical (Heffernan 2003; Marsh et al. 2003). In our framework, we suggest that supply and demand
capture the resource-dependency perspective within CES, while formal structure reflects the asymmetric power
model.
The remainder of the article is organized as follows: In the first section we review key literature on political
appointees. In the second we develop the three perspectives used to explain differences in roles. The third
section contains our findings. In the final section we discuss the relevance of our results for the literature on politi-
cal appointees and CES.
ASKIM ET AL.343
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