¹ The Greek word kubernetes is the root of the Latin word gubernare and of the English word ‘govern’, as well as of the word cybernetics. For the quotation, see Deutsch, Karl W., The Nerves of Government (New York: Free Press, 1966), p. xxviii.Google Scholar For a view of politics as simply ‘a boundless and bottomless sea’, where the only aim is to keep afloat, see Oakeshott, Michael, Political Education (Cambridge: Bowes & Bowes, 1951), p. 22.Google Scholar

² Aberbach, Joel D. and Rockman, Bert A., The Administrative State in Industrialized Democracies (Washington, DC: American Political Science Association, 1986), p. 7.Google Scholar For a classic discussion, see ‘Politics as a Vocation’ and ‘Bureaucracy’ in Gerth, H. W. and Mills, C. W., eds, From Max Weber, (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1948).Google Scholar

³ For survey data documenting differences, see Aberbach, Joel D., Putnam, Robert D. and Rockman, Bert A., Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981).Google Scholar For institutional and career differences (and sometimes overlaps), see the national studies in two volumes edited by Suleiman, Ezra, Bureaucrats and Policy Making (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1984)Google Scholar, and Parliaments and Parliamentarians in Democratic Politics (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986).Google Scholar

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⁵ Although the comments may seem platitudinous, their assertion in the wake of a decision of a civil servant, Clive Ponting, to claim a duty to Parliament above that of his responsibility to a Minister, was controversial. Cf. ‘The Duties and Responsibilities of Civil Servants in Relation to Ministers’ (London: Cabinet Office, duplicated, 25 02 1985)Google Scholar; Norton-Taylor, Richard, The Ponting Affair (London: Cecil Woolf, 1985)Google Scholar; and Rose, Richard, A House Divided: Political Administration in Britain Today (Glasgow: University of Strathclyde Studies in Public Policy No. 158, 1986).Google Scholar

⁶ For an early statement, see Rose, Richard, The Problem of Party Government (London: Macmillan, 1974), especially pp. 429ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For a recent analysis systematically applying Weberian concepts imaginatively and comparatively, see Page, Edward C., Political Authority and Bureaucratic Power (Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1985).Google Scholar

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⁸ The locus classicus is the Fulton Committee, Report: The Civil Service (London: HMSO, Cmnd. 3638, 1968)Google Scholar. For an American example, see Heclo, Hugh, A Government of Strangers: Executive Politics in Washington (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1977).Google Scholar

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¹⁰ See Rose, Richard, ‘Giving Direction to Civil Servants: Signals from the Law, Expertise, the Market and the Electorate’, in Lane, Jan-Erik, ed., Bureaucracy and Public Choice (London: Sage Publications, in press).Google Scholar

¹¹ For a review of Marxist writings, see, for example, Etzioni-Halevy, Eva, Bureaucracy and Democracy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983), especially Chaps 1 and 6Google Scholar. On right-wing American distrust, see, for example, Nathan, Richard, The Administrative Presidency (New York: John Wiley, rev. edition, 1983).Google Scholar

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¹³ See, for example, the comments by Messarra, Antoine Nasri, ‘Arab Political Science in Search of its Authenticity’, Participation, X (1986), p. 12Google Scholar. Cf. Rose, Richard and Garvin, Tom, ‘The Public Policy Effects of Independence: Ireland as a Test Case’, European Journal of Political Research, XI (1983), 377–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ Deutsch, , The Nerves of Government, pp. 246f.Google Scholar

¹⁵ See Oakeshott, Michael's denunciation of ‘the illusion that in politics there is anywhere a safe harbour, a destination to be reached’ in Political Education, p. 28Google Scholar. Oakeshott confuses the inability to reach a destination with the fact that it may none the less be a goal to steer towards, and for use in telling whether one is closer to or further from a desired goal.

¹⁶ See Aberbach, Joel D. and Rockman, Bert A., ‘Clashing Beliefs within the Executive Branch: the Nixon Administration Bureaucracy’, American Political Science Review, LXX (1976), 456–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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¹⁹ See Weaver, R. Kent, ‘The Politics of Blame Avoidance’, Journal of Public Policy, VI (1986), 371–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁰ Braybrooke, David and Lindblom, C. E., A Strategy of Decision (New York: Free Press, 1963)Google Scholar. Cf. Dunsire, Andrew, ‘A Cybernetic View of Guidance, Control and Evaluation in the Public Sector’, in Kaufmann, Franz Xavier, Majone, G., Ostrom, V., eds, Guidance, Control and Evaluation in the Public Sector (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1986), pp. 327–46.Google Scholar

²¹ Cf. Pressman, Jeffrey and Wildavsky, Aaron, Implementation (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973)Google Scholar, and Bowen, Elinor, ‘The Pressman-Wildavsky Paradox’, Journal of Public Policy, II (1982), 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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²⁵ See Rose, Richard and Karran, Terence, ‘Inertia or Incrementalism?’ in Groth, A. and Wade, L. L., eds, Comparative Resource Allocation (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1984), pp. 43–71Google Scholar; and Rose, Richard and Karran, Terence, Taxation by Political Inertia (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1987).Google Scholar

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²⁷ For a good discussion of the differences between the two, see Peters, B. Guy, The Relationship between Civil Servants and Political Executives (Glasgow: University of Strathclyde Studies in Public Policy No. 153, 1986), pp. 10ff.Google Scholar

²⁸ See, for example, national chapters in Suleiman, , Bureaucrats and Policy Making: Meyers, François, ed., La Politisation de l'Administration (Brussels: Institut International des Sciences Administratives, 1985)Google Scholar; and Bruce Smith, L. R., ed., The Higher Civil Service in Europe and Canada: Lessons for the United States (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1984).Google Scholar

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³¹ See the wide-ranging discussion on the relationship between will and technical skills in the Soviet Union and alternative interpretations of this relationship, in Amann, Ronald, ‘Searching for an Appropriate Concept of Soviet Polities’, British Journal of Political Science, XVI (1986), 475–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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³⁴ Quoted in Blumenthal, Sidney, ‘Building a conservative elite: after Reagan true believers will still be in place’, Washington Post, National Weekly Edition, 14 10 1985.Google Scholar

³³ On the small number of special advisers – and the fact that many ministers prefer to do without any – see the evidence in Treasury and Civil Service Committee, Civil Servants and Ministers (Vol. II), pp. li–livGoogle Scholar. On their roles, see Klein, Rudolf and Lewis, Janet, ‘Advice and Dissent in British Government’, Policy and Politics, V (1977).Google Scholar

³⁶ For different views of cabinets, see for example, Civil Servants and Ministers: Duties and Responsibilities (Vols. I, II)Google Scholar, passim, and Top Jobs in Whitehall, appendix by Ella Searls.

³⁷ Peters, , The Relationship between Civil Servants and Political Executives, pp. 7ff.Google Scholar

³⁸ The typology is derived from that developed by Theodore R. Marmor, with Fellman, Philip, ‘Policy Entrepreneurship in Government’, Journal of Public Policy, VI (1986), Table 1Google Scholar. It differs in substituting a more general term, programme capacity, for his narrower term, managerial skills, and in the labelling of some alternatives. For example, in the Washington context Marmor sees people who have been career bureaucrats as the most likely policy entrepreneurs, a position that might also be congenial to French graduates of ENA, especially those who become ministers.

³⁹ On the extent to which the distribution of roles diners as between national political systems, see Peters, , The Relationship between Civil Servants and Political Executives, pp. 15ffGoogle Scholar, and Aberbach, and Rockman, , The Administrative State in Industrialized Democracies, passim.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Cf. Marmor, , ‘Policy Entrepreneurship in Government’Google Scholar; Heclo, Hugh, ‘Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment’, in King, Anthony, ed., The New American Political System (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1978), pp. 87–124Google Scholar; and Pempel, T. J., ‘Organizing for Efficiency: the Higher Civil Service in Japan’Google Scholar, in Suleiman, , ed., Bureaucrats and Policy Making, pp. 72–106.Google Scholar

⁴¹ See, for example, Suleiman, Ezra, ‘Presidential Government in France’, in Rose, R. and Suleiman, E., eds, Presidents and Prime Ministers (Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1980), pp. 94–138Google Scholar; de Baecque, F. and Quermonne, J-L., Administration et politiques sous la Ve République (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1981).Google Scholar

⁴² See Rose, RichardMinisters and Ministries: A functional Analysis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), especially Chap. 4.Google Scholar

⁴³ See, for example, Blondel, Jean, Government Ministers in the Contemporary World (London: Sage Publications, 1985)Google Scholar, Appendix II; and Headey, Bruce W., British Cabinet Ministers (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1974).Google Scholar

⁴⁴ See Rose, Richard, ‘The Making of Cabinet Ministers’, British Journal of Political Science, 1 (1971), 393–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁵ It is arguable that in a hung Parliament, policymaking would become more open, conceivably giving Commons' committees substantial importance (see Marsh, Ian, Policy Making in a Three Party System (London: Methuen, 1986))Google Scholar. But it can also be argued that the inter-party deliberations of a coalition government are more likely to encourage horse-trading and log-rolling for votes, as in the United States Congress, rather than the development of programme capacity.

⁴⁶ The comparison is further flawed by the fact that the American in-and-outer starts out as a politician, typically entering the executive branch at a junior but strategically significant post when young, going out of government to acquire additional skills and resources for later use when he comes back into government at a higher level. The analogy, if there be one, is with British ministers – albeit that a British M P spends time out of executive office in the purgatory of the Opposition benches of the House of Commons.

⁴⁷ See Kernell, Samuel, Going Public: New Strategies of Presidential Leadership (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Press, 1986)Google Scholar; and Rose, Richard, ‘Learning to Govern or Learning to Campaign?’, in Nelson, Michael and Heard, Alexander, eds, Presidential Selection (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, in press).Google Scholar

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⁴⁹ Oakeshott, , Political Education, p. 11.Google Scholar