Government: Have Presidents and Prime Ministers Misdiagnosed the Patient? 9780228013426

Table of contents :
Cover
GOVERNMENT
Title
Copyright
Contents
Preface
Introduction
1 Roots Matter
2 The Boss Sits at the Top
3 Speaking Truth When Truth, Facts, and Evidence-Based Advice Are Moving Targets
4 The Power of Appointments
5 Allocating Resources
6 Doing More with Less
7 Where Everyone Is Responsible and No One Is Responsible
8 The Diagnosis
9 Institutions and the Efficacy of Government
Notes
Index

Citation preview

g ov e r n m e n t

mcgill-queen’s/brian mulroney institute of government studies in leadership, public policy, and governance Series editor: Donald E. Abelson Titles in this series address critical issues facing Canada at home and abroad and the efforts policymakers at all levels of government have made to address a host of complex and multifaceted policy concerns. Books in this series receive financial support from the Brian Mulroney Institute of Government at St Francis Xavier University; in keeping with the institute’s mandate, these studies explore how leaders involved in key policy initiatives arrived at their decisions and what lessons can be learned. Combining rigorous academic analysis with thoughtful recommendations, this series compels readers to think more critically about how and why elected officials make certain policy choices, and how, in concert with other stakeholders, they can better navigate an increasingly complicated and crowded marketplace of ideas. 1 Braver Canada

Shaping Our Destiny in a Precarious World Derek H. Burney and Fen Osler Hampson 2 The Canadian Federal Election

of 2019 Edited by Jon H. Pammett and Christopher Dornan 3 Keeping Canada Running

Infrastructure and the Future of Governance in a Pandemic World Edited by G. Bruce Doern, Christopher Stoney, and Robert Hilton

4 The Age of Consequence

The Ordeals of Public Policy in Canada Charles McMillan 5

Government Have Presidents and Prime Ministers Misdiagnosed the Patient? Donald J. Savoie

G OV E R N M E N T Have Presidents and Prime Ministers Misdiagnosed the Patient?

d o n a l d j. s av o i e

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2022 ISB N 978-0-2280-1109-5 (cloth) ISB N 978-0-2280-1342-6 (eP df) ISB N 978-0-2280-1343-3 (eP UB) Legal deposit second quarter 2022 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Government : have presidents and prime ministers misdiagnosed the patient? / Donald J. Savoie. Names: Savoie, Donald J., 1947– author. Series: McGill-Queen’s/Brian Mulroney Institute of Government studies in leadership, public policy, and governance ; 5. Description: Series statement: McGill-Queen’s/Brian Mulroney Institute of Government studies in leadership, public policy, and governance ; 5 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20210390786 | Canadiana (ebook) 20210390956 | ISB N 9780228011095 (cloth) | IS BN 9780228013426 (eP d f) | I SB N 9780228013433 (eP UB ) Subjects: lc s h: Power (Social sciences) | l cs h: Comparative government. | lc sh: Bureaucracy. Classification: l cc j c 330.s28 2022 | ddc 303.3—dc23

This book was typeset in 10.5/13 Sabon.

Contents

Preface | vii Introduction | 3 1 Roots Matter | 24 2 The Boss Sits at the Top | 54 3 Speaking Truth When Truth, Facts, and Evidence-Based Advice Are Moving Targets | 75 4 The Power of Appointments | 99 5 Allocating Resources | 121 6 Doing More with Less | 144 7 Where Everyone Is Responsible and No One Is Responsible | 165 8 The Diagnosis | 183 9 Institutions and the Efficacy of Government | 205 Notes | 225 Index | 275

Preface

I began thinking about this book thirty years ago. I was asked by a Government of Canada agency to work with colleagues to assemble different teams of leading scholars from Europe, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada to review various measures governments in several countries introduced to overhaul their operations. The teams published three books of essays on governance and public administration. The experience piqued my interest in comparative research. My research interest led me to Paris (at oecd ); to several visits to Washington, dc , to carry out interviews; to extended stays in Britain (Oxford and London); and to Ottawa, Canada, for several years as a visiting fellow in a central agency and as deputy head of a Management Development Centre with the Government of Canada. This book flows out from the encounters and interviews I conducted over the years with government officials. What struck me from the experience was how career civil servants react to change. I soon realized that it was simply not possible to define an all-encompassing theory to explain their behaviour. Public choice theory and the politics-administration dichotomy theory explain some situations some of the time but not all situations all the time. We still do not have a grand general theory to explain the behaviour of government officials, and I do not see one on the horizon. This is not to suggest that the public administration field has little to offer. In fact, it has a great deal to offer, and we should continue working toward a general theory. Examining what works and what does not is a step in that direction. It is a good thing the

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medical profession does not await the perfection of a grand general theory of public health before treating individual patients for particular maladies. I am convinced that a comparative perspective offers the best prospects to gain new insights into how government decides and why changes are introduced in government, and to understand better the evolving relationships between politicians and career officials. I cannot possibly thank everyone who assisted me in my research. I owe a great deal to all those who travelled the territory before me, and I acknowledge many intellectual debts in the notes. Others, however, are not so formally acknowledged. I want to thank present and former government officials in Britain, the United States, Canada, and France who gave so generously of their time over the past thirty years. This book would have not been possible without their assistance and insights. Two colleagues at my university – Gabriel Arsenault and Roger Ouellette – read the manuscript and made important suggestions to improve the study. I owe a special debt to the three anonymous reviewers who made a number of constructive criticisms of an earlier draft of this study. The book greatly benefitted from their comments and suggestions. As always, my wife, Linda, accepted with good cheer my decision to write this book. I can hardly overstate what her encouragement means to me. I also owe a special thank you to two assistants, Céline Basque and Ginette Benoit, for their continued support and for their uncanny ability to read my handwriting. Paula Sarson made many editorial suggestions and made many sentences read better.

donald j. savoie Université de Moncton

g ov e r n m e n t

Introduction

Trust in the institutions of public governance throughout the Western world has been in decline in recent years. Here, we look at four countries: the United States, Great Britain, France, and Canada to understand why. These four countries have distinct institutions shaped by distinct histories: the United States has a presidential system, France has a semi-presidential system, and Great Britain and Canada have a Westminster-inspired parliamentary system. The United States and Canada are federal states. France is a unitary state, and Great Britain now has a quasi-federal system. All four have a professional non-partisan civil service, though there are sharp differences in how they operate. Notwithstanding these and other important differences in political-administrative institutions, the following developments are evident in all four countries: political power is increasingly being centralized in the hands of presidents and prime ministers; the roles of Parliament, Congress, and the National Assembly have been weakened; Cabinet in the four countries has lost standing; the roles of political parties have been debased; and the four civil services have been knocked off their moorings. Policy-makers in the four countries have, for the past forty years or so, understood the challenge – the need to strengthen the efficacy of government.1 Understanding the challenge is one thing, coming up with the right diagnosis is another. In misdiagnosing the patient, policy-makers have made a bad situation worse – they failed to see that efficacy in government is tied to well-performing institutions. In concentrating decision-making power at the top or at the centre of

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government, policy-makers encouraged government officials, both elected and career, to sidestep the customs, constraints, formal rules, and expected behaviours tied to their country’s political and administrative institutions.2 Prime ministers in Westminster parliamentary systems, when they hold a majority mandate, are more and more acting like presidents but without the checks and balances usually found in presidential systems. Meanwhile, US presidents, when their parties hold a majority mandate in the House of Representatives and the Senate, are increasingly acting like prime ministers without the requirement of facing question period in Parliament. Both prime ministers and presidents now take the legislative branch for granted, again especially when their parties hold a majority in it. The same can also be said for France’s quasi-presidential system.3 This book looks at how presidents and prime ministers in the United States, France, Great Britain, and Canada have changed the dynamics of governing by extending the ambit of their power to shape their respective country’s political and policy agenda. It seeks to explain why we are witnessing a convergence in political systems with prime ministers in Westminster parliamentary systems acting like presidents, while presidents are acting like prime ministers. This, in turn, will enable us to shed new light on the relations between politicians and career officials. Prime ministers in Britain and Canada, much like the United States president, increasingly make use of Cabinet as little more than a source of advice rather than a decision-making body. Leaving aside the odd voice, one could assume the executive and legislative branches were fused in Donald Trump’s first two years in office, much like they are in a Westminster parliamentary system. For example, Trump told his party in Congress before the 2018 mid-term election not to waste time coming up with proposed immigration legislation, and his party listened.4 Guy Peters writes that the power of the president is increasing in recent years, even though the United States has “one of the best organized and certainly the most lavishly staffed legislature[s] in the world.”5 Guy Peters is hardly the only academic who has pointed to the centralizing of power in the offices of presidents and prime ministers.6 Other leading academics in the United States, Great Britain, France, and Canada are making the same case. Mark Garnett

Introduction

5

recently explored the role of British prime ministers since 1979, contending that the prominence of the prime minister in shaping policy and government’s communications strategy has been on the rise and that it is a zero-sum game. The more the prime minister gains in prominence, the more ministers lose in prominence.7 William Howell argues, in his widely quoted book, that the office of the US president continues to search for ways to expand its power and influence.8 David Bell maintains that the president in France’s Fifth Republic is one of the most powerful political offices in Western society.9 Presidents and prime ministers are, in the words of a former Canadian prime minister, “the boss.”10 Though they have always been “the boss,” they have, in recent years, come to dominate all things both in politics and government.11 In the midst of the covid -19 pandemic, Donald Trump explained the role of the president in a way that Henry VIII would have applauded. He insisted that “when somebody is the president of the United States the authority is total.”12 And yet, at the same time we also hear about the influence of government bureaucracies or the deep state thwarting the wishes of political leaders. The book’s purpose is to reconcile this apparent contradiction. Over the past forty years, presidents and prime ministers have pursued a wide array of measures. One that has always been at or near the top of their agenda is their desire to overhaul government operations and strengthen their hand in shaping policy. There has been a remarkable degree of similarity in how they went about doing so. This, no matter if they stood on the left or right of the political spectrum, and even though they operated under different political systems and institutions shaped by history and their country’s political circumstances. Given that presidents and prime ministers have been able to concentrate more and more power in their hands, they have been relatively free to reshape government bureaucracy as they saw – and continue to see – fit. Our central purpose is to understand why and how the so-called boss went about changing the machinery of government and assess its impact on relations between politicians and civil servants, on the policy advisory role of career officials, and on front line government managers and their staff delivering programs and public services. We also need to understand how the change has altered the behaviour of civil servants.

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t h e b o ss To be sure, the shift of power strengthening the hand of presidents and prime ministers has not occurred by happenstance. There are powerful forces at play that favour them in dealing with their Cabinets, legislatures, political parties, and government bureaucracies. The arrival of social media fuelling the blame game, permanent election campaigns, and the need to react quickly to fast-changing economic circumstances have had a profound impact on the art of governing. Presidents and prime ministers need others to help them govern. They need a helping hand to shape their political and policy agendas and ensure that government departments and agencies run on their tracks in order to avoid generating material to fuel the blame game. Here, increasingly, they are turning for help to carefully selected courtiers much more often than to their Cabinet secretaries or ministers and the government bureaucracy. Presidents and prime ministers make it to the top only after winning several hard-fought political battles. They have to win their party’s nomination and then go on to win a gruelling national election campaign. Making it to the top is its own reward. The prize: the power to make policy; make senior political, judicial, and bureaucratic appointments; shape the country’s political agenda; control the political systems and the machinery of government; and distribute to supporters the spoils of power. Once in office, presidents and prime ministers have access to many levers of power, and they will want to “govern from the centre”13 both because they believe their political skills are far superior to anyone around them and because they have earned that right. It is not much of an exaggeration to assert that party leaders are the only ones who truly matter in national election campaigns. If they win, their parties are in their debt, not the other way around. One candidate for Parliament in Canada writes that he was told earlier in the campaign that a candidate in an election is only responsible for 5 per cent of the results “while the party leader” and “central party messaging is worth 95 per cent.”14 It will be recalled that the “Trump factor” had a profound impact, albeit negative, on the 2018 midterm election.15 In France, the media pointed to President Emmanuel Macron’s influence in securing an impressive win (over 400 seats in the 577-seat Parliament) for La République En Marche party in the

Introduction

7

2017 parliamentary election.16 A leading student of British politics writes: “most mp s are aware that they owe their election not to their own personal convictions.”17 Party leaders dominate all things in national election campaigns. They are the centre of attention for the media, for nationally televised election debates, and for defining the party’s brand. In Canada, the governing Liberal Party became Justin Trudeau’s party in 2015, and he defines its brand and will continue to do so until a new leader is chosen. The same can be said for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Emmanuel Macron even started his own political party, La République En Marche, in his march to power. Great Britain’s Conservatives became Boris Johnson’s party the moment he became the leader.18 Winning is not the end of the story. There are many obstacles to navigate once a leader is in power: political adversaries of which there is never a shortage; the media, or at least important parts of them; the bureaucracy, which may well hold different views on the best policy prescriptions to deal with any situation under review; and, in the case of presidential systems, the separation of powers. Presidents and prime ministers have been particularly critical of government bureaucracies over the past forty years, asserting that these have inhibited their ability to implement change. Political leaders have long had to deal with the “deep state.” President Harry S. Truman predicted that when General Dwight D. Eisenhower took over from him as president, he would just sit behind the presidential desk and “say, ‘Do this! Do that!’ And nothing will happen.”19 President John F. Kennedy expressed similar observations while in office.20 Other leading politicians have made similar comments, particularly since Richard Crossman published his widely read three-volume The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister in 1975–77. So what has changed? For one thing, presidents and prime ministers are no longer as willing as they may once have been to tolerate bureaucratic resistance or inertia. Presidents now go to Washington, as both Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump argued, to drain the swamp. One Canadian prime minister said that he was going to Ottawa to give pink slips and running shoes to bureaucrats, while British prime minister Margaret Thatcher declared she “detested senior civil servants as a breed.”21 It is ironic that presidents and prime ministers are clearly the dominant political and policy actors,

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yet they often think they are not able to pursue properly their political and policy agenda. One can only imagine what it must be like for Cabinet secretaries and ministers and even more so for members of the legislative branch. Presidents and prime ministers have been pursuing two goals: securing a firmer grip on the levers of power at the expense of institutions and, at the same time, strengthening the efficacy of government. This book asserts that in pursuing the first goal, they make it more difficult, if at all possible, to pursue the second. There is a steep price to pay when downgrading the role of Parliament, Congress, political parties, and the civil service – it makes strengthening the efficacy of government extremely difficult. In the United States, for instance, the Cabinet is a creature of the president and presidents “are at liberty to make considerable use of it as a source of advice, or they are free to neglect it completely.”22 Some presidents have shown limited interest in their Cabinets while others have made full use of them. Eisenhower, for example, insisted on regular Cabinet meetings and took all major issues before Cabinet. Reagan turned to Cabinet councils or committees to deal with specific issues and is reported to have enjoyed the “spectacle of Cabinet meetings.”23 Trump paid little attention to the views of Cabinet with the Washington Post reporting that he listened to his “gut” rather than Cabinet.24 Trump explained: “I have a gut, and my gut tells me more sometimes than anybody else’s brain can ever tell me.”25 He held his first Cabinet meeting on 13 March 2017, several weeks after he was sworn in as president.26 The point – United States presidents are free to make use of Cabinet as they see fit, and Trump could go months without holding a Cabinet meeting.27 Donald Trump paid attention to expert advice only when it suited him and saw little need to promote communications between his office and Cabinet secretaries and between relevant departments and agencies. He looked to his Cabinet for praise from his Cabinet secretaries rather than advice. The New York Times reported that “Trump transformed a routine [Cabinet] meeting … into a mood-boosting, ego-stroking display of support for himself and his agenda.”28 Political observers in France have been commenting on President Emmanuel Macron’s ability to concentrate power in “one man” and making the case that he “appears to believe his role to be France’s elected monarch.”29 France has a semi-presidential system whereby presidents and prime ministers share executive powers.

Introduction

9

The constitution is one thing, political reality is another. The president appoints the prime minister and then ministers on the advice of the prime minister. The president chairs the council of ministers and both presidents and prime ministers have a say in shaping the agenda. Macron, however, made it clear at the first Council of Ministers meeting that he would extend the scope of his power beyond that provided by Articles 5 to 19 of the Constitution.30 He told the council that he would set the government’s strategy, give direction to the government, and underlined his role as le garant des institutions.31 This role allows Macron to roam anywhere he wishes to go in the machinery of government and deal with any policy issue that he decides requires his attention. Meanwhile, particularly in recent years, British and Canadian prime ministers have concentrated still more power in their hands and that of their courtiers at the expense of Cabinet. Mark Bevir and R.A.W. Rhodes, for example, reviewed a series of media articles documenting the rise of the “Blair presidency” in Great Britain between 1997 and 2005. Practitioners report a series of key decisions that were “never even reported to Cabinet,” including “independence of the Bank of England, postponing joining the Euro, cuts in lone-parent benefits and the future of hereditary peers.”32 The changes have not gone unnoticed in Great Britain. The Economist recently observed, “Britain’s system of government has become increasingly presidential: exhaust or distract the prime minister and the whole thing freezes.”33 The insight also applies to the United States, France, and Canada. Lowell Murray, a senior minister in the Brian Mulroney Cabinet, also writes about Canada’s parliamentary system becoming presidential: “Cabinet government – by way of a far from atypical illustration, two key decisions regarding Canada’s deployment in Afghanistan – one by a Liberal government, one by a Conservative government – were made in the Prime Minister’s Office with the help of political advisors and civilian and military officials. The relevant ministers – of National Defence and Foreign Affairs – were not even in the room.”34 The Cabinet was later informed of the decision. This is more akin to a presidential system where many important decisions are made by presidents or bilaterally by presidents and a Cabinet secretary rather than by Cabinet government. It explains why a senior minister in the Jean Chrétien government observed that Cabinet was now “a focus group for the Prime Minister” rather than a decision-making body.35

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ta k in g s tock The book takes stock of recent developments in the four countries, developments that are pushing the heads of government in the United States, Great Britain, France, and Canada to change the machinery of government to strengthen their hand in governing. It considers the impact the changes have had and continue to have on political and bureaucratic actors, how they relate to one another and on the workings of national political and administrative institutions. Viewed from the perspective of the heads of government, the changes were inevitable if only to enable them to cope with powerful new forces as they pursued their political agenda. Viewed from other perspectives, however, the changes hold far-reaching consequences for how institutions operate, how both political and bureaucratic actors are held to account, how career government officials go about their work, and how they deal with elected politicians. The changes explain the deep political malaise found in the countries surveyed. The following has been well documented and is common to the four countries: political parties are bleeding members; with some notable exceptions, voting turnout is trending down; political parties have lost their brand to party leaders; politics is now all about party leaders, winning and losing, and not about political parties, their policies and their platforms winning and losing. Political parties now exist more as vehicles of convenience for their leaders than as vehicles to develop policies. Pollsters and technology have replaced party volunteers. In the 1950s, the Conservative party in Great Britain had three million members whereas today it has 160,000.36 In the United States, keen political observers maintain that Donald Trump turned the Republican Party into the Trump party.37 Two leading students of Canadian politics are asking if political parties are being turned into “empty vessels.”38 In France, Rémi Lefebvre writes: “The country’s political parties are in crisis. Their legitimacy is being increasingly undermined. Their traditional functions (selecting candidates, devising programs, organizing public debates) are impaired.” He adds that “new organizations have emerged – more informal but very centralised and less democratic.”39 Civil servants have lost their way, plagued by ongoing morale problems and increasingly uncertain about their policy role. Consequently, the power or influence of institutions, formal policy-making processes, and the civil service or government bureaucracies are giving

Introduction

11

way to powerful individuals and actor-centred decision-making processes. This, in turn, has wide implications for the workings of representative democracy and for the efficacy of government. The old game can no longer be played or, at least, many of the rules of the old game no longer apply.40 Globalization still reaches down to all communities, large and small, benefiting some but not others. The rise of regional and international organizations continues to push national institutions into uncharted territory. The twenty-four-hour news cycle has been here for some thirty years, redefining how politicians and their surrogates address voters. The arrival of social media and its capacity to create echo chambers is also playing havoc with institutions, politicians, and civil servants. Parliaments and Congress, meanwhile, have been displaced by twenty-four-hour cable news networks and social media as the main theatre for political debates. The relationship between presidents and prime ministers and their Cabinets is not a simple question of relationship between individuals. It is about institutions, conventions, traditional rules, and processes.41 Different institutions operating in different settings have different requirements. Three observers of parliamentary systems of government warn students of the Westminster model not to search for “precision.” They explain: “Westminster is useful for many purposes; it survives and sometimes thrives because at the core it means something to those who use it and hear it. It is just that those interpretations are not precise. If we insist on one definite, unchallenged, and agreed meaning, the debate soon disintegrates into meaningless nit-picking. We benefit only when we use the concepts of Westminster flexibly as a family of ideas.”42 The family of ideas consist of past practices, precedence, and constitutional conventions. Presidential and semi-presidential systems in the case of the United States and France, meanwhile, offer much more precision in defining the role of political actors. Article 11 of the US Constitution, for example, outlines the role of the president but “nowhere is the executive power explicitly defined.”43 This may well have prompted Trump to declare that “when somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total.”44 France’s Constitution is somewhat more explicit on the role of the president. Prime ministers in a Westminster parliamentary system, meanwhile, operate in a vastly different setting, allowing them to extend the ambit of their power. In the case of Canada, the position and responsibilities “are

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not defined in any written law or constitutional document.”45 And yet, no matter the setting, presidents and prime ministers have in recent years been able to swing more power to their own hands and offices. We need to understand why and assess the implications for national political and administrative institutions.

re d e f in in g t h e r e l at i ons hi p between p o l it ic ia n s a n d c a r eer offi ci als The shift has wide implications for institutions, politicians, and public servants. The civil service in all four countries surveyed, for example, now stand accused of many things, at times contradictory ones. Some presidential advisers and leading observers of American politics have been pointing to negative aspects of the “administrative state.”46 The argument is that the “deep state” has developed a capacity to push back against the legitimate agenda of elected politicians and their political advisers. President Donald Trump took the issue to new heights when he wrote: “We have a long way to go. There are still some very bad, sick people in our government – people who do not love our Country – in fact, they hate our Country.”47 I recognize, however, that it is difficult to even imagine other former presidents would have made such a charge against civil servants. In Great Britain, the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee recently reported on the lack of trust between politicians and public servants which, in turn, “has led to successive attempts to reform” the civil service.48 In Canada, the Auditor General pointed to the relationship between politicians and public servants to explain the “incomprehensible failure” in implementing a new pay system for public servants.49 In France, President Emmanuel Macron launched a wide-ranging reform program to overhaul the country’s public sector and announced plans to slash 120,000 public service jobs over five years. Calls are also increasingly heard in France to do away with l’École nationale d’administration (ena ), described as the finishing school for the country’s leading politicians and public servants.50 The school has a distinguished history and has produced some of France’s leading political and public service actors, including Emmanuel Macron and three former French presidents. Recent public opinion surveys reveal that the French now have a “schizophrenic” relationship with their fonctionnaires.51

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13

The national political and administrative institutions from Parliament, Congress, Cabinet, and the civil service and relations between politicians and career government officials are in a state of disrepair. This at a time when leading students of politics are expressing concerns about the future of representative democracy. Institutions supporting representative democracies do not operate in a vacuum – they all require wide public support. This support now appears uncertain. We have seen of late a plethora of books with ominous titles – including, among others, How Democracies Die, Why Liberalism Failed, Democracy in Decline, and Four Crises of American Democracy.52 Many political observers point to the rise of the politics of resentment to explain the challenges confronting national political and administrative institutions. There are a number of forces fuelling the politics of resentment. One is that economic and political elites have lost faith in representative democracy, and they are constantly doing end runs around political institutions through the courts, lobbyists, and associations to get things done that serve to further their interests.53 They have the resources and political connections to do end runs while others do not. Concentrating power in the hands of a few at the centre of government also favours political and economic elites. There are now fewer points of entry to locate and influence government decisions. Accordingly, one now requires either knowledge, contacts, or the required financial resources to assess the centre of government through lobbyists to influence public policy and government decisions. This is where important decisions are struck.

l o o k in g to hi s tory History defines institutions. Britain and Canada operate under the Westminster model where “great emphasis on parliamentary convention and practice” apply.54 The model evolved over time, where one precedent shaped another and where one institution helped shape another from an absolute monarchy to Cabinet government. Walter Bagehot, often credited for defining the British Constitution, did so simply by describing the country’s institutions, their roles, how they relate to one another, and how they evolved. Bagehot, it will be recalled, had a healthy distrust of representative democracy. He wrote: “In theory, it is desirable that the highest class of wealth

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and leisure should have an influence far out of proportion to its mere number: a perfect constitution would find for it a delicate expedient to make its fine thought tell upon the surrounding under thought.”55 The point – Britain’s political institutions have evolved over time through conventions. Canada embraced the Westminster parliamentary system lock, stock, and barrel, only reluctantly making some adjustments to it because it is a federation. Canadian political institutions have changed, however, to the point that the Fathers of Confederation would not recognize today either the institutions or the federation they established in 1867.56 In contrast, revolutions in the United States and France forced their political and economic elites to break from the past and define new untested institutions. This is what revolutions are good at. But here, too, institutions have continued to evolve to deal with changing political and socio-economic circumstances. In the case of the United States and France, written constitutions prescribe how their governments should work, while Great Britain and, by ricochet, Canada, embraced a kind of “buttoned-down gradualism” to define how their political institutions and governments should work.57 In brief, two countries sought to define the role and power of their heads of state and of government through a written constitution. Two other countries did not. Great Britain, and again Canada, turned to royal tradition and precedents to outline the role and power of their heads of government. Three students of the Westminster model explain that the power of the prime minister “is never constitutionally prescribed, never precise but somehow known and understood.”58 The four surveyed countries were selected because their histories, settings, constitutions, machinery of government, political actors, and political ideology all differ, and yet, they arrive at essentially the same diagnosis: heads of government deciding it is best to concentrate more and more power in their own hands, in the hands of their courtiers, and in central agencies, and also telling career officials to learn how to manage better, by looking to their private sector counterparts for lessons learned. Four countries is a small sample when it comes to comparative research. However, distinct differences in their histories and in their political and administrative institutions enable us to focus on just four countries.

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l o c at in g t h e buckle Some things remain constant. Governing continues to involve bringing together two major groups of players. One is the permanent career civil service charged largely with providing policy advice and implementing programs. The other is composed of elected politicians and partisan political advisers charged with making political and policy decisions. Linking these two groups are central agencies that have some of the characteristics of both the administrative and political structures. These organizations constitute the “buckle” that links the political and administrative and as such are crucial elements in any process of governance. This book looks at how presidents and prime ministers in the four countries pursue their political and policy agenda by focusing on the work of central agencies and their senior partisan political advisers. A strong centre of government is required to ensure policy coherence, a degree of control as departments and agencies compete for resources, and that they run on their tracks once policies have been struck and resources allocated. However, despite their centrality in governance, there has been relatively little comparative analysis of central agencies. They operate away from public view, given that they do not deliver programs or services to citizens and that it is in their interest to avoid being visible to the media. Further, much of the literature concerning these organizations that does exist is dated and does not take into account the numerous reforms that have been taking place recently in most industrialized representative democracies. Therefore, examining recent developments in central agencies and their role in governance can help us understand better how governance in contemporary societies functions and the ways in which political and administrative actors now interact. Understanding the changing role of central agencies will also shed light on why and how heads of government have been able to strengthen their hand in shaping their government’s agenda and in striking decisions, large or small, whenever they wish. This book also examines how presidents and prime ministers look to central agencies to secure a firmer grip on the levers of power. We look at central agencies not simply on a country-by-country basis but rather by positing that there are six fundamental activities for central agencies. We then compare how each is performed in four

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national settings. These functions are: advising, regulating, monitoring, allocating, appointing, and coordinating. For each of these functions, the role of linking the political and the administrative in government is crucial for both political and bureaucratic actors and for the machinery of government to operate efficiently. Central agencies must simultaneously manage up to presidents, prime ministers, ministers, and Cabinet secretaries and down to line departments and agencies and their managers. Increasingly, they also need to look at those who “manage out” or to the work of government carried out by private and third sector organizations. The United States, France, Britain, and Canada share some common political traditions and concepts but also present a range of structural, political, and important administrative variables. They have a range of different central agencies, with Canada and France having a large number of such organizations, while Great Britain has a very limited number of them. The United States is distinctive in that it has some central organizations in the executive branch (Office of Management and Budget or omb , and Treasury), and some in the legislative branch (cgo or Central Government Office, and Government Accountability Office or gao ). Great Britain, Canada, and France claim to have a non-partisan public service with senior appointments based on merit. In the United States, a large number of senior civil service appointments are political appointments and incumbents enjoy tenure only while their political party – or even the president who appointed them – holds office.59

a c o m pa r at iv e p e rs pecti ve We can learn a great deal more about the impact of change on the political-administrative institutions of a country by comparing the experiences of different countries rather than by focusing exclusively on one. Ferrel Heady wrote over fifty years ago that we can “enrich general public administration by widening the horizon of interest in such a way that understanding of one’s own national system of administration will be enhanced by placing it in a cross-cultural setting.”60 The Government of Canada maintains that central agencies “are often misunderstood.”61 The same can be said for central agencies in the United States, Britain, and France. Voters, journalists, and even parliamentarians do not often have contact with them. They operate away from the public view, which suits them just fine. They

Introduction

17

deal with politicians who hold power and with line departments and agencies that plan and deliver programs and services. They also have to work with partisan political advisers who are expected to inject a partisan political perspective into the political and policy processes. This is often a challenge, with a keen observer of politics describing partisan political advisers as the “junk yard attack dogs of the political systems.”62 The important role central agencies play in the four jurisdictions cannot be overstated. They are present when the government’s broad policy agenda takes shape, they play a key role in deciding who gets what in allocating financial and human resources, they are the ones who, when necessary, have to “knock heads together” to ensure that departments and agencies are pushing in the same direction, and they play a lead role in evaluating policies and programs. They are expected to help manage the political crisis of the day and ensure that departments and agencies avoid providing fuel for the blame game. They also play an important role in ensuring the pursuit of their respective president’s and prime minister’s priorities. The Weberian model of public service calls on career officials not to resist political direction but rather to accept it “promptly and completely.” Central agencies set the tone in relations between politicians and career officials. Their role is to give life to Max Weber’s point that politicians were needed “to curb a potentially all-too powerful bureaucracy.”63 Few now believe that the Weberian model explains how things actually work in government.64 This book seeks to understand why. At the same time as heads of government and their courtiers set out to concentrate more power in their own hands, national governments were expected to relax central controls on departments and agencies and front line managers. The push to attenuate central controls is tied to addressing public-sector inefficiencies. Again, the thinking widely held in the four countries, is that private sector management practices are far superior to those found in government. The solution then is for government to introduce private sector management practices to departments and agencies by “empowering” front line employees.65 The call to “let the manager manage” has been heard in government circles for half a century, and it became louder with the arrival of New Public Management (npm ).66 npm -inspired measures have been introduced in the four countries under discussion with varying degrees of enthusiasm and success.

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Central agencies are thus asked to square the circle: assist heads of government to rule with a heavy hand on policy while, at the same time, somehow, empower line departments to deliver programs and services. We need to review this apparent contradiction, the dynamics of change, and the inevitable tension between central agencies and line departments and agencies to better understand the world of politics and that of career officials. This understanding will allow us to gain new insights into how presidents and prime ministers go about their work and how they and their Cabinet secretaries and ministers work with career officials.

o u t l in e o f s tudy A country’s political-administrative institutions are not born in a vacuum. History matters. It not only explains how they took form but also how they decide. It is not possible to understand how a country’s political and administrative institutions operate unless we look to the forces that explain how they took shape. We begin by looking to history. Presidents and prime ministers now have easy access to all important levers of power that make them more than primus inter pares and unquestionably the most powerful political actors. They own the bully pulpit, they hold the power of appointment, they chair Cabinet meetings and set the agenda, they define their government’s strategic direction, they represent their countries abroad, they dictate the pace of change, they are the main salespersons promoting the achievements of their government, they have a direct hand in establishing the government’s fiscal framework, they are the final arbiter in interdepartmental or interagency conflicts and, unlike other politicians, they do not need to search out national media attention. They have a national constituency unlike members of Congress (mc ) or Parliament (mp ) and Cabinet secretaries or Cabinet ministers. They also have many exclusive perks unavailable to other politicians to facilitate their work. Presidents and prime ministers have to deal with important constraints inhibiting their ability to get their own way, including public opinion, the work of the media, the use of social media, opposition parties, and oversight bodies. They also lead incredibly busy lives. To be sure, the most challenging constraint is time – there are only twenty-four hours in a day and seven days in a week. The flip side

Introduction

19

of having access to all important levers of power and having many of the key channels of policy-making coming to them is that there is not enough time to give each the proper attention it deserves. More to the point, the rarest commodity at the White House, 10 Downing Street, the Élysée Palace, and 24 Sussex Drive is time. Presidents and prime ministers have recurring demands on their agenda, telephone calls to return, political party matters to attend to, appointments to make, documents to read, meetings with foreign heads of state or government, meetings with their senior staff, attending international conferences and meetings, paying attention to the media and being available for interviews, and the list goes on. They also have a vast machinery of government to attend to. Though governments have different ways to count the number of employees on staff (for example, counting or not military personnel), by one count, there are 2 million federal civil servants in the United States, not including the military; 412,000 civil servants in Great Britain; 1.9 million public servants in ministries in France; and 274,000 federal public servants in Canada. These figures do not include contract workers and consultants. How then do presidents and prime ministers direct the work of these public-sector employees? These employees perform a wide variety of tasks. They provide policy advice, deliver program and services, and work in regulating agencies. This is where central agencies come in. This book explores the relationship between presidents, prime ministers, central agencies and line departments and agencies, or between politicians on the government side, policy advisers, and the engine room of government. Central agencies are sandwiched between presidents and prime ministers and line departments and agencies. They have a say in all things from shaping public policies to ensuring that front line employees respect government-wide management directives. They have to walk a thin line between imposing control and letting managers manage and between promoting ex ante versus ex post controls. They have to balance roles between their stewardship of the permanent government and the recognition that politicians have a legitimate claim to govern because they were elected to govern. The oldest function of central agencies is their responsibility to “speak truth to power” whether or not the political power is receptive to it. They have to decide between how much of the advice they should generate and when it should be submitted. They have to strike a balance between providing political and policy advice and

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Government

avoiding partisan political advice. They also need to manage multiple sources of advice – their own, from departments and agencies, and outside government, as well as deal with advice from partisan political advisers. The best and brightest in government are often drawn to central agencies to work in the policy advising function. It gives them visibility before both political leaders and senior executives in line departments and agencies and opportunities to a fast track to senior positions in government. In Canada, for example, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to make it to the top without having spent time in a central agency.67 Central agencies play an important role in regulating the work of departments and agencies. They set control over spending, human resources, property, procurement, and administrative policy. They regulate by establishing rules and incentives. This function has experienced many twists and turns in recent years, as central agencies have sought to strike a new balance between establishing strong centrally prescribed rules and regulations and giving more flexibility to departments and agencies to deliver their programs and activities. We need to explore differences between France and its “Napoleonic” approach to control by placing central agency officials in line organizations and Anglo-American democracies that favour hierarchy and the expenditure budget to control the work of departments. Central agencies can control and regulate line departments and agencies by monitoring and evaluating their activities. They now require various kinds of performance reports from departments and agencies to assess how well they are performing. This is the price departments have to pay when centrally prescribed rules and regulations are relaxed: they need to provide a constant stream of reports to central agencies telling them how well they are performing. Line departments and agencies also have to deal with various internal and external audits carried out on a regular basis. Performance and evaluation reports serve other purposes. They can assist policy-makers in establishing funding levels for departments and agencies. Central agencies are the ones asked to play a lead role in defining the governments’ fiscal framework. They also hold the key to the budget process, the most important annual ritual in government.68 The budget sends out signals to everyone inside and outside government about what is important to government. We compare budget-making in presidential versus parliamentary systems.

Introduction

21

This book spends a great deal of time on two well-known attempts at reforming the government’s decision-making process: Planning Programming Budgeting System (ppbs ) and New Public Management (npm ). Though both are dated, they continue to have a profound impact on public administration in the four countries, albeit at different times, with the United States leading the way on ppbs as far back as the 1960s and Great Britain on npm in the 1980s. Their influence endures, even though we now have vastly different assumptions about government spending than was the case in the 1960s and even the 1980s. There has been no replacement for ppbs and npm as ideologies, though New Public Governance is frequently employed as a substitute for npm . Both ppbs and npm were borrowed from the private sector as they sought to introduce, albeit with limited success, a new discipline in government operations tied to performance. Governments have sought to adjust or update the two approaches in order to strengthen performance and evaluation efforts in government. In brief, no government in the four surveyed countries has completely abandoned either ppbs or npm in favour of a new approach. The importance of appointments in government cannot be overstated. Central agencies play a key role in deciding who is appointed to senior government positions and in establishing criteria for both appointing other government employees and dismissing them should the need arise. In addition, they have a hand in establishing the pay and perks for government employees and for managing the civil service as a corporate entity. Central agencies are tasked with coordinating the activities of government. If anyone is capable of breaking down silos in government and ensuring that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing, it is central agencies. But they are also there to see that departments and agencies run on their tracks and minimize unpleasant surprises. They coordinate government-wide policies, programs, and media responses to a political or bureaucratic crisis or controversy. They have several tools to promote coordination: brute force, carrots, and sticks. Politicians have long sought to deal with problems of delegation of authority to policy and program bureaucracies. Matters appear to be worsening of late, at least from the perspective of presidents and prime ministers. Political executives, notably heads of government, are dealing with a far more challenging political and policy environment than was the case as recently as twenty years ago. The reasons:

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wicked problems are on the increase, the arrival of social media and permanent election campaigns, truth decay, the unwinding of the traditional bargain that has guided relations between politicians and public servants combined with bureaucracy bashing tied to the widespread belief that private sector management and managers are far superior to public-sector management, while trust in politicians declines everywhere in Western countries.69 These developments are profoundly impacting relations between heads of government, Cabinet secretaries or ministers, political advisers, career officials, and between governments and citizens. They are redefining relationships, and this appears to transcend political systems, politicaladministrative institutions, and geography. A comparative perspective on public administration and on the role of presidents and prime ministers and their relations with career government officials will provide insights in the evolving relationships between them, their partisan political advisers, and policy and program bureaucrats and citizens. Presidents and prime ministers depend, or at least in the past depended, on a merit-based bureaucracy to provide policy advice to enable them to deliver their political agenda and coordinate and deliver programs and the activities of line departments and agencies. This speaks to the relationship between political leaders and the boiler room of government or the part of the machinery of government that delivers programs and services.70 In brief, this book explores the changing relationship between politicians, partisan political advisers, and career officials. This, in turn, enables us to compare recent developments between presidential and parliamentary systems and provides fresh insights in the relationships between governments and citizens. It also enables us to assess if the various reform measures introduced over the past forty years have strengthened the efficacy of government. The above goes to the heart of public administration by answering one of its most important questions: how much autonomy do career officials need to promote good governance? The flip side of the question is no less important: how do presidents and prime ministers ensure political control over bureaucracy? Their capacity to control bureaucracy has been affected in recent years by the changing role of the state, by decisions to dissolve power and programs to the private sector, subnational governments, and international institutions and by numerous management reforms.71 It is important to take stock

Introduction

23

of these developments if only because over half of the voters in the United States (58%), Britain (55%), and France (51%) and over one-third in Canada (39%) are dissatisfied with how democracy is now working.72 Information for this study comes from a number of sources. I have consulted the literature and a number of published and unpublished government documents from the four countries under review. I have also drawn from my own published work and from numerous interviews with government officials that I have carried out over the years in the four countries. I accept that this is an ambitious book that deals with a multitude of issues from a comparative perspective. I know that the specialists will be left sur leur faim, seeing that some issues are unattended while others are not fully explored. Admittedly, working from a narrow perspective holds advantages. One can delve into the details of a subject and explore it from several angles. My hope is that this book will encourage others to explore further the issues identified.

1 Roots Matter

We inherit our constitutions, our political institutions, and our machinery of government. They are the products of history, accidents of history, and precedents. Generations cannot start fresh and establish institutions to fit the moment. If they could, the House of Lords in Great Britain and the Senate in Canada would likely not have survived as long as they have. One can also ask if the Electoral College in the United States would continue to survive if political leaders could start with freshly minted institutions. Political leaders learn how, as best they can, to make institutions and their requirements work as they pursue their political and policy agendas. Political institutions in the four countries under review have all emerged from a need to distribute power, hold accountable those who have power, establish the rule of law, and introduce orderly processes in managing the affairs of state. At centre in the development of the institutions has been ongoing attempts to define, or rather limit, the power of the lead political actor in the four countries. It is no exaggeration to argue, for example, that the history of the Westminster parliamentary system is a story of the struggle for power between the king and Parliament, then between Parliament and the executive. Some argue that we can now add yet another dimension to the struggle for power – between elected politicians and career officials. It has been a long and winding road for political institutions and the machinery of government to take form in the four countries. The machinery exists to help heads of state, heads of government, and Cabinet ministers and secretaries define policy and deliver government programs. It all starts with the constitution.

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Constitutions are the means to establish limits or constraints for the exercise of power both for the office holders and for citizens in their dealings with one another. Nevil Johnson explains: “A constitution is a kind of corset for us all: if it is not that, then it is nothing.”1 Great Britain, from the four countries surveyed, is different – it does not have a written or formal constitution that defines how political operations operate and outlines the right of citizens in relation to the state.2 But it has constitutional conventions and precedents that define who in government holds power and how accountability requirements work.

g r e at b r ita in : l o o ki ng to hi s tory Thomas Cromwell, who served as chief minister to Henry VIII, laid the groundwork for an important development in public administration. He began building a national administration distinct from the king’s household and, in the process, created a bureaucratic model with its broad contours still visible to this day.3 In establishing a distinction between the running of the king’s household and running the affairs of state, he also, however hesitantly, established a distinction between career civil servants serving the interest of the state and those serving the personal interest of the king.4 I write hesitantly because it was difficult at the time to determine what constituted the interest of the state and that of the king. Under the Cromwell model, government departments received funds from pre-specified sources, and they could only be disbursed for approved initiatives. Departments were also subject to audits. Cromwell overhauled the Privy Council – the forerunner to Cabinet government. Before Cromwell, the one hundred person strong Privy Council rarely met, leaving one or two strong individuals to dominate it. Cromwell appointed some twenty members, and everyone was assigned a responsibility for the day-to-day running of the government.5 He also attached a great deal of importance to preparing an agenda for meetings and recording minutes to document what had been decided, who had to take action, and who hence would be held accountable. The power to decide, however, still belonged to the king who stood unchallenged at all times and on all things. The king or queen stood above all, even above the law. As Geoffrey Marshall writes, the king was “incapable of either doing or thinking wrong.”6 Still, members

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Government

of the Privy Council were able to carve out a role not only by providing advice to the king but also by issuing administrative decisions. Samuel E. Finer credits the work of the Privy Council for holding the realm “together” during the troubled reigns that followed Henry VIII until Elizabeth I. Tudor kings and queens held in their hands absolute, or near absolute, power, and the Privy Council enabled them to consolidate political power and manage the affairs of state.7 In brief, it became an important instrument to facilitate the centralization of power. When the Privy Council spoke, it did so in the name of the Crown. But it was Oliver Cromwell, a century later, who sought to redefine the relationship between rulers and citizens. He and his Roundheads challenged the monarchy and defeated Charles I’s forces in 1746. The challenge for Cromwell, following the civil war, was to define a new form of government that would replace hereditary monarchy.8 The key question was what role the “people” should play in the new political order. Put differently, the issue was how best to structure institutions that would ensure a smooth transition from power of one ruler to the rule of the people. This was a far more complicated task than it appears today. Many resisted the idea, arguing there was little difference between the rule of the people and “mob rule.” As recently as the eighteenth century, the call from influential voices was heard, making the case not to trust the rule of the people. James Madison, one of the main architects of the American representative democracy, warned against pure democracy. He writes that “such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.”9 Madison and his fellow architects of the American system of government concluded that the will of the people needed to be “tempered by acute awareness of the potentially negative effects of citizen power, particularly citizens who were not of the ‘chosen body.’” They were concerned that the “masses” would simply “vote themselves free beer and pull down the churches and country houses.”10 The search was on to strike the proper balance between the role played by a “ruler” and that played by rulers and the “people.” It is proving to be a never-ending search. Oliver Cromwell, for one, did not provide much of an answer. He was one of the signatories to Charles I’s death warrant and later ruled as the Lord Protector

Roots Matter

27

of England, Scotland, and Ireland, much like a monarch. At one point, Parliament even offered Cromwell the “crown,” which he rejected. Still, he was installed as Lord Protector for life, sitting on King Edward’s chair, and he even held the power to appoint his own successor. He passed the baton of Lord Protector to his son Richard. Lacking his father’s strength and political support, Richard was forced to resign within a year. Charles II was invited from exile in 1660 to restore the monarchy.11 A number of new constitutional experiments were tried and abandoned between 1648 and 1660. After Oliver Cromwell’s death, proposals were again put forward to define a republican constitution. Nothing came of them. Instead, the monarchy was restored, and “with it the law-making authority of the king in Parliament.” However, the Restoration left a distaste in Britain for constitutional innovations and a written constitution, and it instilled a strong bias for “pragmatic, incremental adaptation of customary institutions.”12 The bias for incremental change prompted Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to describe the country as “A land of settled government, A land of just and old renown.”13 The land of settled government, however, got a jolt when William of Orange and Queen Mary II took the English throne in 1688. Their reign introduced a new balance of power between the monarch and Parliament. In coming to the throne, William and Mary accepted a number of constraints on the power of the monarchy. The Act of Succession, for example, gave Parliament a say in who could become king or queen. Parliament also gained the upper hand in establishing fiscal policy. Kings and queens would no longer enjoy the power to collect taxes for life. William and Mary accepted that Parliament would henceforth authorize new taxes and oversee how revenues would be spent. In England, at least, kings and queens no longer derived their authority from God. Political power would now be held to account by Parliament.14 The transfer of power from monarch to Parliament, however, was gradual. To be sure, the Glorious Revolution was an important development but there was more. The first Hanoverian King, George I, for example, did not have as heavy a hand on all the levers of government as did his predecessors. He was foreign, did not speak English, and was often marred in scandals. He stopped attending Cabinet meetings, preferring to meet ministers one on one and only when necessary. It was during the reign of George I

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that the role of prime minister started to be defined, and Robert Walpole (serving from 1721 to 1742) is now widely recognized as Britain’s first prime minister.15 By the late 1800s, much of the monarch’s power had been stripped away. Walter Bagehot, the most celebrated student of Parliament in Victorian Britain, pointed out that Parliament, and more specifically the House of Commons, firmly held the upper hand in dealing with the monarch. He writes: “No matter whether it concerns high matters of the essential constitution or small matters of daily detail, the House of Commons can despotically and finally resolve it … It is absolute, it can rule as it likes and decides as it likes.”16 With respect to a relationship between Parliament and the queen, he remarks: “The Queen must sign her own death warrant if the two Houses unanimously sent it up to her.”17 Parliament had a golden age of sorts. John Simon Bercow, the well-known Speaker of the House of Commons between 2009 and 2019, labelled the period between the passage of the Great Reform Act (extending the franchise) in 1832 and the second Reform Act in 1867 the golden age for Parliament. He did, however, remind readers that during this period the majority of males and all females did not have the franchise, that governments fell in mid-term, and that proposed legislation was regularly defeated.18 Parliament, however, was where power rested. The English Constitution, notwithstanding its non-written status, provided for only one authority – Parliament – to deal “with all sorts of power.” Charles D. Yonge observed in 1868 that the first principle of the Constitution was “the omnipotence of Parliament.” Justice Willes asserted in 1871 that “Acts of Parliament … are the law of the land; and we do not sit here as a court of appeal from parliament … We sit here as servants of the Queen and the legislature … The proceedings here are judicial, not autocratic, which they would be if we could make laws instead of administering them.”19 In 1872, Chief Justice Cockburn and Justice Blackburn went further and noted, “There is no judicial body in the country by which the validity of an act of parliament can be questioned. An act of the legislature is superior in authority to any court of law … and no court could pronounce a judgment as to the validity of an act of parliament.”20 A few years later, Sheldon Amos claimed that “in one sense Parliament can do anything, because it can pass a law which by the existing Constitution must be recognised in every Court of

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Justice in the land.”21 In brief, in nineteenth-century Britain, members of the judiciary knew their place in the pecking order, and Parliament was on top. Parliament also had the upper hand in its dealings with the government of the day. The rise of political parties transformed parliamentary politics into party politics.22 Political parties became the vehicle by which political power was secured, and as the parties grew, the party leader and professional party officials began to exert considerable influence. The House of Commons divided and remains divided between the government party and opposition parties or between “them” and “us,” making the institution partisan and adversarial. This is not without implications for career officials. Party discipline became the key to survival for the governing party but also for the opposition parties, if only to present a united front leading up to the next general election campaign. There are any number of carrots that party leaders have in hand to induce party discipline: the promise of a Cabinet appointment, a patronage appointment, and strong party support, including that of the leader, at election time. It is this that prompted Adam Tomkins to write about the “golden age of genuinely parliamentary government before the arrival of disciplined political parties.” Before parties came to dominate the House of Commons, the prime minister and ministers were accountable to Parliament but could not yet control it. Now, though they remain accountable to Parliament, they can and do control it whenever they have a majority mandate. Tomkins explains: “What we have come to mean when we say that the government is accountable to Parliament is that the government is accountable to a group of politicians, the majority of whom are members of the same political party as that which forms the government.”23 The point is that disciplined political parties have undermined the independence of mp s so that ministers no longer regard themselves as accountable to the House of Commons, as was the case between 1832 and the 1870s in Great Britain when responsible government took form. The above to make the point that the British Constitution may well suggest that Parliament is supreme, yet, the reality is that it no longer is, and further, it has lost standing in recent years. If one is looking for where political power lies, best to look elsewhere than Parliament. Relations between political power and civil servants were straightforward at least until the 1850s. The monarch and politicians ran

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Government

things and civil servants did as they were told. In other words, the civil service had no personality distinct from the monarch or the government of the day. It was there to obey and to serve. The role of government was limited, and politicians could easily be held responsible for all things and for virtually all decisions, large or small. Earl Grey, for example, had to debate the merits of the sale of a surplus horse before Parliament.24 Former prime minister William Gladstone summed things up nicely: “the seventeenth century had been an age of rule by prerogative, and the eighteenth by patronage, the nineteenth would become a rule by virtue.”25 The role of the civil service was to implement decisions struck by the monarch or the government. Things were simple for both politicians and career officials, and both knew their role. However, scandals and the inability of the government to support the military had a profound impact on both the civil service and on relations between politicians and civil servants. The British army fighting in the Crimea suffered heavy losses and some pointed to patronage and incompetence in the civil service. The public, notably key business people and journalists, began to clamour for change and for measures to modernize the government machine. The tabling of the Northcote-Trevelyan Report in the 1850s proved to be a seminal moment in the development of the civil service and on the relations between politicians and career officials. The report was blunt: “Admission into the civil service is eagerly sought after, but it is for the unambitious, and the indolent or incapable that it is highly desired. Those whose abilities do not warrant an expectation that they will succeed in the open professions, where they must encounter the competition of their contemporaries, and those whom indolence of temperament, or physical infirmities unfit for active exertion, are placed in the civil service, where they may obtain an honourable livelihood with little labour, and with no risk.”26 Those bright and ambitious people who happened to stumble into the civil service were quickly reduced to performing simple and repetitive tasks, unrelated to their talents or potential. Promotions were inevitably based on length of service or patronage, rather than on merit. However, politicians felt that they were in control. The Northcote-Trevelyan Report proposed four key reforms: (1) entry into the civil service should be through open competition and examination; (2) promotion should be on merit, based on proper assessments prepared by superiors; (3) a distinction should be established

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between intellectual and mechanical labour; and (4) measures should be put in place to unify the civil service, including a common basis of recruiting. It took some time for Northcote-Trevelyan to be fully implemented – according to some, not until the end of World War I. And to be sure, there was resistance to the Northcote-Trevelyan Report. The Whitehall barons obviously favoured the status quo. Some British politicians felt that the report constituted the first step toward republicanism and toward placing talent before character and loyalty. It is reported that Queen Victoria herself had serious reservations about opening the civil service to public competition, fearing that the competitive process would subject high office to low people without the breeding or the feelings of gentlemen.27 Still, the Northcote-Trevelyan Report laid the foundation for a unifying culture or a bond of unity among career officials through education and open competition. The report set the stage for a professional civil service based on merit but also established that promotion to more senior levels would be from within the service. The reforms also gave the civil service a degree of independence from politicians. This makes the point that politicians felt that they could exert greater control with a weak civil service, or what existed before the Northcote-Trevelyan Report.

u n it e d s tates : l o o k in g to it s f o undi ng fathers American and British institutions differ in important ways. The United States is a federation, while Great Britain is a unitary, or now quasi-unitary, state. It was Alexander Hamilton and James Madison who invented the modern form of federalism. They saw federalism both as the way to accommodate regional interests and check power. The founders carefully divided powers in national and regional governments which, among other advantages, would guard against tyranny of the kind that British monarchs were able to exercise.28 The Founding Fathers of the United States could hardly duplicate British political institutions. They fought a war of independence and set out to define homegrown political institutions. They rejected the British monarchy, convinced that it violated the natural rights of the people. Rather than other jurisdictions, they looked to political philosophers from Cicero, Montesquieu, John Locke, and Thomas Paine to shape their work.

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Montesquieu’s doctrine of separation of powers squared nicely with what the authors of the US Constitution wanted to achieve. Montesquieu saw three types of government, namely republican, monarchical, and despotic. In a republic, the people held power, in a monarchy a king or queen ruled, in the case of Britain since 1689, under established laws, and in a despotic government a single individual ruled as he wished.29 Montesquieu deeply influenced both Madison and Jefferson as they debated and drafted the constitution. They set out to ensure that each branch of government would have the means to curtail the power of the other. The executive branch can check the power of the legislature through the veto and the power of the judiciary by appointing judges, while the legislature can check the power of the executive through impeachment by holding it to account and by holding the power to confirm judicial nominations. Two British political philosophers, Locke and Paine, provided both ideas and impetus in support of the American Revolution. Jefferson claimed that he turned to Locke’s “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” for inspiration. Paine authored the first pamphlet calling for independence from Great Britain and advocating the American Revolution. The impact was initially felt in the United Colonies but it soon spread to other countries. No country in the Western world has been immune to their influence. The Constitution sets out to establish political institutions that would differ sharply from British institutions. Alexander Hamilton, in the Federalist Papers: No. 69, compares the power of the president with that of a king. He writes: “The qualified negative of the President differs widely from this absolute negative of the British sovereign,” and adds, “The President is to have power, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the senators concur. The King of Great Britain is their sole and absolute representative of the nation in all foreign transactions.”30 The Framers of the US Constitution made certain that things would be different for the president. The Constitution even provides for the president to be removed from office “for and Conviction of Treason, Bribery or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”31 They also decided to create democratic institutions by rejecting inherited political power and embracing the idea that government should have the consent of the governed. As early as 1791, the Constitution was amended to incorporate a Bill of Rights that includes the right to be treated fairly by the government whenever the loss of liberty or

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property is at stake and to be treated equally before the law, regardless of social status.32 In contrast to Britain, the Constitution prohibits accepting foreign titles, and the United States does not grant titles of nobility to its citizens. The US Constitution, article 1 section 9 clause 8 reads: “No title of Nobility shall be granted in the United States.” In short, aristocracy was to have no place in the governing of the United States. The point – everyone would be equal before the rule of law and the country’s national political institutions. The Framers had to break new ground on several fronts with limited lessons learned from other jurisdictions. The challenge: create a new federal system from scratch and a central government that would be seen, at least at home, to be superior to the political system and institutions found in Great Britain. The Federalist Papers sought to strike fresh terrain between a unitary state and a loose collection of regions. The delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia came from both large and small states. Delegates from the small states insisted that representation in Congress be established on an equal basis, no matter the size, while the larger states insisted on representation by population. The disagreement came close to preventing the union. But, by the end of the summer of 1787, the Constitutional Convention reached what Americans call the “Great Compromise.” Small and large states got equal representation in the Senate and large states got a form of representation by population in the House of Representatives. Leaving aside Canada, other federations that followed have adopted essentially the same model. Paine and Locke provided much of the intellectual underpinning for representative democracy. They argued that “all” human beings were naturally free and, as a result, all rulers needed their consent to rule – a provocative idea in the eighteenth century. It was up to the people to decide what form of government and which representatives should rule over them. Paine was highly critical of government based on hereditary privileges. He put forward a revolutionary proposal – “men are born, and always continue, free and equal in respect of their rights.” He was widely applauded in the United States and, for a period, in France but much less so in Britain. He favoured republican government and became a strong proponent of equality of rights among all citizens. The Crown and the aristocracy in Britain, he insisted were “independent of the people” and “contribute nothing towards the freedom of the State.” He wrote that “it is the pride of kings which throws

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mankind into confusion,” and added, “To the evil of monarchy we have added that of hereditary succession; and as the first is a degradant and lessening of ourselves, so the second, claimed as a matter of right, is an insult and imposition on posterity.”33 The Framers of the US Constitution did not, however, completely break free from British models. Like the British Parliament, the US Congress is bicameral, that is, the executive makes or proposes judicial appointments, and the US Congress, much like Parliament, holds, or should hold, the executive to account. As in Britain, the power of the purse belongs to the legislature. The US Constitution gives Congress, more specifically the House of Representatives, the power to raise revenues.34 In Britain, the lower house, the Commons, holds the same power. Britain’s Bill of Rights (1688) gave “Subjects” the right to “have Arms for their Defence.”35 The United States adopted an amendment to the Constitution that gave citizens the right to bear arms: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”36 The same can be said about the president’s power to pardon. The power in the form of a royal prerogative dates back to eighth-century England’s Anglo-Saxon monarchs.37 The royal prerogative is the residue of royal power that flows from the ancient rights and privileges of the monarch.38 The power that comes from the royal prerogative now belongs to the prime minister in Great Britain, Canada, and other Commonwealth countries. The royal and presidential prerogatives are usually associated with foreign affairs, the declaration of war, treaties, and the granting of honours in the case of Britain and Canada. In turn, Cabinet does not appear in the Constitution. James Madison was the first president to employ the term, looking to the Privy Council in Britain for inspiration.39 The State of the Union address is a borrowed practice from the Speech from the Throne in the Westminster parliamentary model, where the monarch or his or her representative reads to open a session of Parliament. Article 11, section 3 of the US Constitution provides for a State of Union address to be delivered by the president. Thomas Jefferson temporarily discontinued the practice, deciding to send a written address to Congress. Jefferson felt that the practice belonged to monarchs and Britain, not to the new American republic.40 The Founding Fathers did not spend much time debating the role of career officials. They had far more urgent matters to attend to,

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notably how to reconcile regional interests into a national interest and how to check political power. The bureaucracy consisted of a handful of government employees in three small departments – State, Treasury, and War. There were only fifty federal government employees in 1789. When Thomas Jefferson became president, he let go many civil servants and filled the positions with members of his party. The thinking was that political patronage held a number of advantages, including the ability to clear out government workers and thereby encourage rotation in staff.41 As was the case in Great Britain before the Northcote-Trevelyan Report, the role of the civil service was to obey and serve. The American civil service had its seminal moment – the Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883). Paul P. Van Riper explains: The Pendleton Act is deservedly recognized as a landmark in our political and administrative history for several reasons … It signalled the birth of our modern administrative state by providing that foundation of merit and expertise which was increasingly to be required. And it foreshadowed the transformation of our political party system by commencing to remove from political warfare one of its principal tools, patronage. Moreover, though the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 effectively superseded the Pendleton Act, the essence of the latter is still very much in place.42 The Pendleton Act was the result of a hard-fought campaign to clean up the spoils system. Political patronage was far more prevalent in the United States than in Great Britain in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Accordingly, the driving force behind the American reform movement was, first and foremost, to eradicate patronage in government and not necessarily to ensure a more efficient service. Again, Van Riper suggests that efficiency in government operations was a secondary consideration “and not a very close second at that.”43 The Pendleton legislation gave rise to a lengthy and at times heated debate in Congress, particularly in the Senate. The debate canvased a host of issues, including the impact the proposed legislation would have on the constitutional position of the president and Congress, on the civil service, and on relations between politicians and civil servants.

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The Pendleton Act did put in place a politically neutral civil service based on competitive examinations and security of tenure, but it is different from the British reforms on several fronts. The American Senate saw little merit in an academic-type essay for gaining entry to the civil service. The American tradition values more practical knowledge and capacity and explains the Senate’s going to great lengths to define the requirements of positions and classify them. Practical examinations could then be more easily tailored to the knowledge and skills required of a position. The Senate also rejected the British notion that one should gain entry at the lowest grade, and any notion that the civil service would be closed at all levels to outsiders. They made provisions for entry at all levels. The Senate stressed that the American tradition of democracy in public office and in a representative bureaucracy was a fundamental tenet of a democratic state. Accordingly, “the authors of the legislation of 1883 were taking as few chances as possible that the American civil service might not be representative as a whole, in terms of geography, mobility, ideas, and outlook.”44 The importance of a representative bureaucracy also no doubt inhibited any strong links developing between a few universities and the entrance system of the kind that had developed between the British civil service and Oxford and Cambridge. The architects of the Pendleton Act proposed the establishment of an independent civil service agency to ensure that appointments and promotions would be isolated from political influence. The agency itself was to be independent from Congress and, to the extent possible, from the executive. It was also to be a multi-member agency with wide representation, certainly not from just one political party. The commissioners were to be presidential appointees, subject to Senate approval. There are two points to highlight here. First, with all the concern about insulating the civil service from political patronage, the American reforms stopped short of completely reversing past practices. Indeed, the concept of a politically neutral civil service fell far short of what the British had done and what Canada and France would do. Although the reformers were set on eliminating patronage, they were also worried about giving rise to an entrenched bureaucracy taking on a life of its own and exerting undue influence on policy-making. They made provisions for the Civil Service Commission to provide a list of the three best qualified applicants,

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rather than naming a single winning applicant. Senior appointments were to remain “political” and within the prerogative of the president. The Americans, for example, have never appointed permanent and politically neutral undersecretaries or deputy ministers to manage departments and agencies, as the British and the Canadians have. Second, the civil service did secure a degree of independence, however tentative, from politicians.

c a n a da : l o o k in g to great bri tai n Canada, like the United States, has a federal system. It did not, however, have homegrown intellects to shape the country’s new political institutions. Canada had practical political leaders, who had strong ties to the mother country Britain and recognized that their colony was confronting an overriding challenge: they could not make political institutions then in place – defined by the Act of Union (1840) that linked Canada West (Ontario) and Canada East (Quebec) – work. The government of the Canadas before Confederation was led by two leaders, one from Canada West (Ontario), the other from Canada East (Quebec), and the legislature had to produce a double majority on proposed legislation. The colony saw four governments over a two-year period and two inconclusive elections in the early 1860s. The capital moved between Kingston, Montreal, Toronto, Quebec City, and Ottawa – hardly a model of political stability.45 In short, the Canadas’ political institutions were dysfunctional and Confederation provided the answer. The two Canada colonies looked to the colonies to the east to solve their internal political problems and instability. Great Britain’s Colonial Office decided to support aggressively Canada’s political leadership to bring its other colonies into the Canadian fold. It was convinced that uniting the British North American colonies would lessen their dependence on the British treasury and enhance their ability to finance their own defence requirements.46 John A. Macdonald, the main architect of Canadian confederation, saw no need to tailor the country’s political institutions to square with the country’s socio-economic setting or to accommodate regional circumstances. He, together with three other key architects of Confederation – George-Étienne Cartier, George Brown, and Alexander Galt – decided to import political-administrative

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institutions from Britain, a unitary state, lock, stock, and barrel to the new Canada and shape national political institutions to square with the political and economic interests of Ontario and Quebec. To the extent that Canadian institutions were inspired by political philosophers, they were based on the British model whose aim was to sort out the relationship between monarch, Parliament, aristocracy, and citizens. The Fathers of Confederation were left to improvise in order to make institutions designed for a unitary state function properly in a federal setting. However, they did not do much improvising and there is little in Canada’s political institutions that is homegrown. Canada’s Constitution begins: “Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their Desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom.”47 Given that Britain had nothing to offer on federalism, the Fathers of Confederation had to look to the United States, however reluctantly, for lessons learned on how to structure a federal system of government. This posed a problem because they were deeply loyal to the British Crown, had little interest in learned papers on federalism, and became convinced that the United States had little to offer in defining political institutions. Macdonald made it clear that he had no interest in wasting “the time of the Legislature, and the money of the people, in fruitless discussions of abstract and theoretical questions of government.”48 For Macdonald, British institutions “as is” would do just fine for Canada. He held little knowledge on the workings of federalism. He also saw little advantage in seeking knowledge on how to structure a federal system. Only one of the thirty-three Fathers of Confederation present at the Quebec Conference had a university education. This is in contrast with the fifty-five leaders who met in Philadelphia in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention, where more than half had a university education. Few of the Fathers of Confederation understood or even read about federalism. One thing is clear: Macdonald wanted legislative union and a unitary state and saw no need to alter British political institutions when importing them to Canada. He embraced federalism only because he had no choice. It was either federalism or Canada East (Quebec), New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia would have joined Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island and quickly walked away from the negotiations. Macdonald, however, came as close to a unitary state as one can get

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without a legislative union. Some would argue that Macdonald got a unitary state in all but name or that, in the end, he was able to secure a legislative union in a federal disguise. Macdonald was convinced that in time Canada would evolve into a unitary state.49 Macdonald, at the time, had no choice but to look to the United States for guidance on federalism because there was nowhere else to look for examples in defining a federal system. But those lessons learned, at least for Macdonald, were not positive, particularly when it came to managing regional tensions. He and his collaborators saw a civil war raging in the United States – fuelled by regional tensions – precisely at the same time they were trying to craft a federal system for Canada. Macdonald and his colleagues also knew that regionalism had brought the two Canadas to their knees, which forced them to look to the Maritime colonies to break their political impasse. In brief, looking to the United States and to the Act of Union (1840) linking the two Canadas for lessons learned made the case, at least for Macdonald, that regionalism had to be downplayed rather than give it more life in national political institutions. New Brunswick politician Albert Smith called for a “Great Compromise” between large and small colonies, much like the Americans achieved in 1787 between large and small states, and for a referendum on what the Fathers of Confederation were proposing. The Colonial Office, however, saw no need for a referendum, and nothing came of Smith’s suggestion. Macdonald and his colleagues from the Canadas also saw no merit in Smith’s suggestion to strike a compromise between large and small colonies. Macdonald quickly dismissed Smith’s call to “give us [small provinces] at least, the guard which they have in the United States [i.e., an equal and effective Senate], although we ought to have more, because, here, the popular branch [i.e., the executive branch] is all-powerful.”50 Macdonald held his ground – the Senate in Canada’s Parliament – would be modelled on the British House of Lords, not the American Senate. Macdonald coined the phrase that defined the Senate’s role that has stuck to this day, particularly in the two vote-rich provinces, Ontario and Quebec: “sober second thought.” The phrase captured the role played by Britain’s House of Lords. It has also served to downplay the Senate’s role in speaking on behalf of the smaller regions. The Canadian Senate looks to Cicero’s words, which adorn the Senate chamber, to define its role: “It is the duty of the nobles to oppose the fickleness of the multitude.”51

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All of the above to make the point that the Fathers of Confederation set out in 1867 to have a square peg fit into a round hole. British political institutions took shape far removed from a pioneer society in which history, not geography, mattered in a unitary state where aristocracy had both economic and political influence, and Parliament and Cabinet were the country’s key political policy and decision-making bodies. Given Great Britain’s political history and its ties to the divine rights of its monarchs, it did not see the need to have “checks and balances” built into its political institutions or to shape them to accommodate regional circumstances. And so British influence is evident in all of Canada’s national political, administrative, and judicial institutions. The institutions proved to be fertile ground for future prime ministers wishing to concentrate more power in their own hands. Although Canadian political institutions have their roots in British tradition, the administrative practices found in the Canadian public service reveal both British and American influences. In the case of the merit system, for instance, the influences have been predominantly American.52 The Canadian battle to rid government of the political spoils system took place at about the same time as the British and American ones. In Canada, however, the early efforts were less successful than in the other two countries. Macdonald even equalled patronage with good government. He explained: “I think that in the distribution of Government patronage we carry out the true Constitutional principle … Responsible Government cannot be carried on in any other principle.”53 Spurred on by numerous reformers, including a growing number of members of Parliament, the government established a parliamentary committee in 1877 and later a royal commission to look into the civil service. Although the Civil Service Act was passed in 1882, it lacked teeth and actually changed little. Robert MacGregor Dawson explains: “The entrance examination was not competitive and the minister was therefore still free to appoint anyone he chose, subject to the trifling restriction that the candidate was required to pass a very elementary test. Subnormal and illiterate candidates were shut out; but almost anyone else could squeeze through and, if he had the necessary political influence, he could slip into the appointment as before.”54 Although the pressure for effective reform in Canada toward the end of the nineteenth century was great, the government of the day looked for every opportunity to slip back to the old ways

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of doing things. It is important to realize that at the turn of the century “the distribution of patronage was the most important function of the government.” But things began to change in earnest in the early 1900s. People with the necessary skills to carry out more complex tasks were increasingly required, and Canadian reformers pointed to developments in Great Britain and the United States for guidance. Moreover, the call for dealing with political patronage began to fall on attentive ears among the general public, which started to comprehend the great value of “efficient administration” and appreciate the wasteful results of patronage.55 The Canadian government passed a new civil service act in 1908. The act established a Civil Service Commission and effectively curtailed the autonomy of departments in the management of all personnel matters. Above all, the act sought to ensure that individual ministers could no longer appoint civil servants after consulting Cabinet colleagues, members of Parliament, defeated candidates, and the local patronage committee.56 Canada’s Civil Service Commission was to be non-partisan, and members of the commission given tenure during good behaviour were to be subject to removal only by the Governor General on a motion passed by both the Senate and the House of Commons. The commission was charged with setting examinations for entrance to a large number of government jobs. The examinations would be held in open competition, and winning candidates would secure the appointments. As in the United States, however, the old ways of doing things proved difficult to abandon. Although the 1908 changes were far-reaching, the reformers were not at all satisfied. The politics of the Civil Service Commission applied to only parts of the service, the “In Service.” The “Outside Service,” which grew considerably after 1908, operated under the old political rules. The Outside Service was so large that, when the Laurier government went down to defeat in 1911, some 11,000 public servants resigned or were fired, mostly for having been guilty of political partisanship. The reformers finally won the day in 1918, when nearly the entire civil service and virtually all appointments were placed under the Civil Service Commission. The mandate of the commission was strengthened, and a new system of classification and pay was introduced. On this front, Canada again looked to the American system for inspiration. It did not, for example, recognize a distinct

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administrative class to which young university graduates would be recruited. It sought to classify positions “minutely,” according to specific duties and tasks.57 These developments strengthened considerably the hand of the commission, turning it into a very powerful central agency. However, as we will see, the work of the Civil Service Commission came under attack with the arrival of npm measures.

f r a n c e : l o o k in g everywhere The French Revolution told the world that fundamental political change was possible, that citizens could be equal before the law, and that the “people” could be trusted to elect the head of state and representatives to Parliament, Congress, or the National Assembly. Though the French Revolution changed the relations between citizens and their government, it also gave France political instability. Since 1789, France has had three monarchies, two empires, five republics, and the Marshal Philippe Pétain regime during the Second World War.58 The excesses of the revolution also gave democracy a bad reputation until the turn of the twentieth century. Niccolò Machiavelli argued that nothing is more difficult to carry out than initiating a new order. Initiating change in France has been made easier since the revolution because change has always followed a crisis.59 L’Ancien régime collapsed under its own weight. The first republic, born out of a crisis, lasted seven years and was defined by a lack of stability. Napoléon Bonaparte, hardly a model for democracy, followed and also ended in a crisis enabling yet another fundamental change. As Alexis de Tocqueville pointed out, France veered from revolution (1848) to reaction to revolution again. The Second, Third, and Fourth Republics were all born out of a crisis. The Fourth Republic was born out of a desire to forget the ravages of the Second World War, including foreign occupation. What followed the war years was also hardly a model of stability. France saw twenty-six governments between 1946 and 1958.60 The Fifth Republic was again born out of a crisis as France’s colonial power was collapsing. The Fourth Republic’s political instability and its weak executive could not cope with political divisions both at home and abroad, notably in Algeria. It was a case of cometh the hour, cometh the man to deal with the crisis. (Charles de Gaulle, however, would put it somewhat differently: “great circumstances bring forth great men.”) De Gaulle, a wartime hero and unhappy with the

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Fourth Republic, from the start, came out of retirement with a call for a new constitution.61 Unable to select a government, Parliament had no choice but to call for a constitutional convention.62 De Gaulle is the architect of the Fifth Republic, and he reigned over it for eleven years. He set out to correct the failings of the Fourth Republic. Robert Tombs remarks, “The French presidency today is a unique institution. It was created as a reaction against the failings, real and perceived, of the parliamentary-controlled government of the preceding Third (1870–1940) and Fourth (1946–58) Republic.” Tombs adds, “For years, French conservatives hankered for a regime that would again give authority to a powerful leader whether monarch or soldier who would embody national unity, keep political factions under control, and provide strong long-term direction.” De Gaulle delivered what Michel Debré labels a “republican monarchy.”63 The president has a legitimacy that no one else in France can possibly enjoy. De Gaulle explained: “The indivisible authority of the state is wholly confided to the President by the people who elected him, and there is no other authority, be it ministerial, civil, military or judicial, which is not conferred or maintained by him.”64 Some have noted that to bring the point home, de Gaulle demanded from his prime ministers undated letters of resignation.65 In brief, France’s Fifth Republic is de Gaulle’s Republic.66 Much like monarchs of old, de Gaulle argued that all political authority in the Fifth Republic should flow from him.67 In sharp contrast to the Fourth Republic, the Constitution gives the president several important levers of power, particularly when his party holds a majority in the National Assembly. Prime ministers have become responsible to the president, not to Parliament, but, at the same time, they have to answer to Parliament. It will be recalled, for example, that in 1962 de Gaulle replaced Michel Debré as prime minister with Georges Pompidou, and there was nothing to stop him.68 The president cannot be removed from power by the National Assembly. He can only be removed in exceptional cases when “breach of his duties [is] patently incompatible with his continuing in office.” The president also holds the power to dissolve the National Assembly.69 In short, de Gaulle got what he wanted in shaping the Fifth Republic – concentrating both power and prestige in the president. The French presidency is a unique institution – no institution, starting with Parliament, can dismiss, impeach, or force him or her to

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resign. In power, de Gaulle led the change to further strengthen the role of the president. He set in motion the initiative to see the president elected by universal suffrage. No president, be it the US president, and no prime minister, be it the British prime minister, has the power that the French president has. Things are much more difficult, however, for the French president under cohabitation, or when the offices of president and prime minister are held by competing parties. This was the case, for example, after the 1986 election when François Mitterrand (a socialist) became president at the same time as Jacques Chirac (a centre-right politician) became prime minister who was supported by a majority in the National Assembly. This scenario happened again between 1993 and 1995 (Mitterrand and Édouard Balladur) and once again between 1997 and 2002 (Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin).70 Under cohabitation, power is somewhat shared and the prime minister plays a larger role than chief operating officer for the president. The prime minister holds constitutional power in his own right to enable him or her to “direct the actions of the Government,” and “determine government policy.”71 The prime minister under cohabitation has a much freer hand to compose the government in deciding who should lead the most important departments and in carving a role in foreign affairs and defence.72 Regardless of cohabitation, the president in the Fifth Republic represents the country’s focus of political authority and, in contrast to previous republics, stands above all other institutions. As David Bell notes, “De Gaulle created the presidential regime and subsequent Presidents preserved or invigorated it.”73 The president of France is not only directly elected by voters but is also accountable to them, not the National Assembly. He directs foreign and defence policy; is head of the armed forces; has the ability to turn to referenda to get his way, if challenged by other politicians; and he can dissolve the National Assembly. The presidential election is now held around a month before parliamentary elections, which lessens the chance for cohabitation. The president can also assume “emergency powers” when the country is confronting a crisis (see article 16 of the Constitution) and appoints the more important government officials.74 One has to go back to 1794 to find a seminal moment in the development of France’s civil service. The first of les grandes écoles was established in that year – l’École polytechnique. These grandes écoles

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have since produced the bulk of the most prominent civil servants, scientists, and generals. Admittance to these schools is merit-based, established through competitive exams. From 1794 to this day, the schools have attracted the most ambitious and the more able from the middle and upper classes.75 But it was the revolution that paved the way for a professional public service. It abolished privileges and established the principle of equal access to public office.76 The Bonaparte regime created a rationalized administrative structure (departments), the prefects and sub-prefects and mayors. Napoléon Bonaparte re-established various schools for training civil servants from engineers and teachers, among others. It remains understood that these schools provide training and skills as the main criterion for acceding to higher administrative positions in the civil service.77 The schools have produced a bond and shared beliefs. Senior civil servants carry a lot of influence in French society and in their dealings with politicians. They continue to be regarded as the institution that provides stability in a country that has lived through several periods of political instability. Leaving aside a few interludes (the Bonaparte years and 1830–48 and 1940–44), the French civil service has had a personality distinct from the government of the day since 1789. Until recently, government bureaucracy in France was viewed in a positive light, providing the kind of political stability that its political institutions could not. This explains why France, unlike Britain and Canada, accepts that its civil service enjoys a status distinct from the government of the day. However, things are changing in France. The French civil service has not been immune from attacks on both its competence and influence in recent years, much like its counterparts in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Change has not been easy. François-Daniel Migeon, who was asked by Nicolas Sarkozy to lead the modernization of the civil service, explains: “I didn’t expect to encounter inertia of such magnitude – inertia that is due to the scope of the program, the number of workers involved, and the strength of habits anchored for decades or more in the public sector. I’ve since learned not to underestimate the amount of energy you have to invest just to ignite the change process and set organizations and people in motion.”78 Civil servants in France are still recruited through highly competitive examinations, and opportunities are quickly made available for training and professional development. Recruitment, in comparison

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with the other three countries, is centralized. At least at the more senior level, there is more of a va-et-vient between government and the private sector. There is also a relatively easy va-et-vient between politics and the civil service so that one can serve at the political level and return to the civil service and vice versa.79 The civil service in France dominates the policy process and administration far more than in the US, Britain, and Canada. It is much larger in size – 25 percent of the country’s workforce are civil servants. The rank and file of the civil service remains isolated from partisan politics. However, at the more senior levels, there is an easy back and forth between politicians and the civil service, as Luc Rouban points out in his review of ministerial cabinets.80 Though no longer the case, France also resisted npm measures much more than the other three countries did.81

fas t f o rward What would Bagehot, the Framers of the US Constitution, Canada’s Fathers of Confederation, and Charles de Gaulle think if they could revisit their work? To be sure, they would marvel at the expanded role of government, the role of the media, the sophisticated means of communications and transportation, the level of transparency in government operations, the complexity involved in striking decisions and making them stick, and the extent to which national economies have been globally integrated. But what about the institutions they put in place or explained, in the case of Bagehot? Bagehot spent considerable effort explaining the role of Parliament and Cabinet. He explained that Parliament was supreme and that Cabinet was the committee that constituted “a hyphen which joins, a buckle which fastens, the legislative part of the state to the executive part of the state.” Bagehot underlined the importance of Parliament and Cabinet to the workings of British representative democracy. Though in his day, Parliament was indeed “supreme” and Cabinet the key decision-making body, this is no longer the case. Bagehot would read with interest the growing literature on the increasing power of the prime minister. He would see that party leaders in Britain are running “presidential-style election campaigns”; that the country is witnessing the “presidentialization of politics”; that the prime minister, the Prime Ministerial Office, and

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the Cabinet Office are, to a large extent, setting the policy agenda; that some advisers to prime ministers exercise more power in government than the vast majority of Cabinet ministers; and the list goes on.82 The Framers of the US Constitution would see that the broad outline of their desire to establish “checks and balances” remains in place, though weakened. They would be pleased to see that their “Great Compromise” continues to work and has kept regional envy in check, at least when compared to Canada. They would also take comfort in seeing the judiciary play its role in ensuring their ideas of checks and balances work in practice. The test for the judiciary is whether it can rule against the interests of the politicians in power. The Supreme Court answered the question in 1972 when, in a unanimous decision, it ruled against President Richard Nixon, directing him to turn over audio tapes recordings and other material to a federal district court.83 It did the same in the dying days of the Trump administration when, in a unanimous decision, it declined a request by Pennsylvania Republicans to block the certification of the state’s results of the 2020 Presidential elections. Canada’s Fathers of Confederation could take satisfaction that other provinces subsequently joined Canada and that the country remains united. They could also boast that the new Canada continues to enjoy far greater political stability than did the pre-Confederation Canadas. Macdonald, for one, would be deeply disappointed that Canada did not evolve into a unitary state as he has hoped and predicted. He and his counterparts would be puzzled at the ubiquitous role government has come to play in society. He never envisaged what Canada would become. Charles de Gaulle would see that his Fifth Republic has met the test of time, at least the sixty-two-year test. In contrast, the Fourth Republic lasted twelve years. He would also see that the presidency has not lost standing and that France has been able to make cohabitation periods work. If anything, presidents have been able to further strengthen their position in recent years. France amended its Constitution in September 2000 to shorten the length of the presidential term from seven to five years. The amendment also ensured that France would elect its president and the National Assembly at the same time thus “putting an end to cohabitation.”84 But some former presidents and prime ministers and, in particular, the Framers of the US Constitution, and Walter Bagehot, would have

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concerns. They would be at a loss to explain what has happened to the institutions they crafted or explained. They would likely be concerned that political power is concentrating more and more in the hands of presidents and prime ministers. The Framers of the US Constitution would see that the balance of power has shifted away from Congress to the president. I spent several months in the United States while working on this book, and I was struck by the media’s – both electronic and print – extraordinary focus on the president. No one else seems to matter, and the president did not have to go far to speak from the bully pulpit – all he had to do was find a microphone or turn to a Twitter account. Everything, it seems, evolved around his own political and policy agenda. Presidential campaigns in the United States no longer have a beginning and an end – both the president and the media are in permanent election mode. The Founding Fathers would likely be concerned over the growing power of the president. It will be recalled that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison favoured a limited if not a weak executive, and some even debated the idea whether the United States should have a president, thinking that all political power should be delegated to Congress. The Framers, notably Benjamin Franklin, went so far as to consider establishing more than one executive, perhaps three, and an independent council that would include the chief justice. In the end, for reasons of cost and at the insistence of some of the Framers, including Alexander Hamilton, they went with a single executive, the president with limited powers, and with Congress and the judiciary counterbalancing its power.85 As is well known, Franklin Roosevelt expanded the role of the presidency as he set out to implement his New Deal measures and to pursue war efforts. Many Americans embraced the view that the president, as commander-in-chief, was best suited to lead the war effort. Roosevelt also expanded the size and scope of the Executive Office of the President. In 1939, for example, he expanded the Office of Management and Budget.86 Harry S. Truman decided to send forces to Korea without a Congressional declaration of war.87 John F. Kennedy managed the Cuban missile crisis without anyone from Congress being involved in the negotiations.88 There is a debate whether US presidents have been overreaching their authority. Observers trace efforts to extend the power of the president as far back as Theodore Roosevelt and continuing to this day. Roosevelt used close to ten times the number of

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executive orders than his predecessors did.89 Arthur Schlesinger Jr expressed concerns in his 1973 book The Imperial Presidency about the growing executive power in the nuclear age.90 An article in the New York Times argues that President Obama sought to reshape the nation through a “sweeping assertion of executive authority.”91 Donald Trump signed more executive orders in his first year in office than Obama did in eight.92 Joe Biden is well on his way to signing more executive orders than Trump did. Peter Shane provides a detailed account of the growth of executive overreach and presidential power and how difficult it has become to hold presidents to account.93 The Framers would likely have difficulty understanding why Minority House Leader Kevin McCarthy declared his full support for the 2020 defence bill but then added that he would not “vote to override a Trump veto.”94 One would expect to see this in a Westminster-inspired parliamentary system when a prime minister enjoys a majority, but less so in a US-styled presidential system. The Fathers of Confederation would not recognize the institutions that they imported to Canada. Once the original institutions were in place, politicians who followed had to improvise to make federalism work. Canada now operates much like other federal systems, not by adjusting the institutional structure but rather by introducing a form of hybrid federalism. Hybrid federalism measures became necessary to get around the institutional rigidity that was designed for a unitary state, not a federation. The result is that Canadian federalism is a patchwork of transfer payments and federal-provincial programs to the point that it is now exceedingly difficult to identify a single sector for which either the federal or provincial government is unambiguously responsible for. One thing is clear – John A. Macdonald’s desire to make provincial governments subordinate municipal-level type of governments did not work out. Macdonald would see that, given the complexity of federalprovincial relations, accountability is made difficult if at all possible. It has now become extremely challenging in Canada to determine who is responsible for what, let alone how they should be held accountable, either at the political or bureaucratic level.95 Hybrid federalism has also inhibited Canada’s ability to promote a national identity. Instead, it has fuelled powerful regional identities, making it difficult for the national government to govern and pursue “national” initiatives. A recent public opinion survey is revealing: “Only 12 percent of Ontarians consider Quebec a friend, only

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13 percent of New Brunswickers view Quebec as a friend, 53 percent of Canadians believe that Quebec takes more from Confederation than it gives, only one percent of Albertans think that Quebec is friendly towards their province while only 40 percent of Quebecers feel that they are close to their neighbouring province Ontario.”96 Macdonald would likely be delighted to see the extent to which the prime minister has come to dominate the national government. The prime minister is no longer primus inter pares, he has become primus in all things. As noted, Cabinet has been turned into little more than a “focus group for the Prime Minister,” as a former senior minister in the Jean Chrétien Cabinet once observed.97 No one in Canada today argues that Parliament is supreme – the roles of provincial governments and the courts have made this view obsolete. Simply put, Macdonald and the other Fathers of Confederation would not recognize the political institutions they put in place. The Framers of the US Constitution, Canada’s Fathers of Confederation, and Bagehot would be puzzled by the highly partisan nature of politics. Political parties only took shape in the second half of the nineteenth century. Bagehot would likely argue that Parliament began to lose its place as the country’s pre-eminent political institution once political parties began to turn politics into an increasingly partisan theatre. In Canada, John A. Macdonald commented on the loss of “loose fish” or mp s that were not firmly tied to their political parties.98 There are no more loose fish in the Canadian Parliament. Intense partisanship has come to dominate Congress and both the British and Canadian Parliaments. Many politicians taking their leave from politics are making the point and underlying its negative impact.99 De Gaulle may well take satisfaction in the dominating role the French president has come to play. He would consider it job done in fixing the weaknesses inherent in the Fourth Republic where much of the political power rested in the National Assembly. One observer documents how French presidents have been able to extend the ambit of power under the Fifth Republic from the first day it was born.100 One keen student of French politics linked President Nicolas Sarkozy to the legacy of “Bonapartism.”101 Another wrote about Emmanuel Macron as the “Sun King.”102 Like their counterparts in the United States and Canada, French presidents dominate their political parties – in some cases, they created their own as Charles de Gaulle

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(Gaulliste) and Emmanuel Macron (La République En Marche) did. As in the case of the United States, Great Britain, and Canada, party leaders now dominate political parties in France to the extent that their party’s brand takes a back seat to their own brand. In sharp contrast to the highly visible president, 35 percent of French people cannot name their prime minister.103 Presidents and prime ministers sit at the apex of political power. They run their governments with an increasingly heavy hand. Starting with Theodore Roosevelt, presidents in the United States have come to dominate the country’s political setting. The same is also true for prime ministers in both Canada and Great Britain and for the president in France. All four countries have built up an extensive capacity at the centre of government to assist them in defining their political and policy agenda, in managing the Cabinet and machinery of government, and in ensuring that government departments and agencies do as they are told and run on their tracks. Bagehot, the Founding Fathers, the Fathers of Confederation, and Charles de Gaulle would all be puzzled at the role the civil service now plays. All would likely think that they should have spent more time defining the role of the civil service, given the influence it now holds in all four countries. They never envisaged the role civil servants would come to play and would not likely understand the frustrations of today’s political leaders with civil servants. They would likely argue that government bureaucracies have lost their way – they would point to numerous studies making the case that government bureaucracies are wedded to the status quo, they are rigid and unable to measure their output or performance, they invariably have too many management layers, and the list goes on.104 How, they may well ask, did we arrive at the point where political leaders speak of the nefarious work of the deep state? They would see that political leaders in all four countries, dating back 170 years in the case of Britain and even longer in the case of France, have sought to protect their civil services from political patronage. All four countries decided at one point to establish a professional merit-based civil service capable of providing advice without fear or favour and deliver public services in an efficient, accessible, and equitable manner. But things have gone off the rails over the past forty years. Political leaders, no matter the country or where they sit on the political

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spectrum, are no longer happy with the work of their civil services. Despite the fact that they operate in markedly different political institutions shaped by different histories, political leaders have not only come up with the same diagnosis of what is ailing their civil service, they have also come up with the same medicine.

t h e c o rs e t is nothi ng As Nevil Johnson remarked: “A constitution is a kind of corset for us all: if it is not that, then it is nothing.” The corset has not been, over the years, very effective at restraining presidents, prime ministers, and their governments from reshaping institutions to fit the moment or their interest. The Founding Fathers carefully crafted the US Constitution around a series of checks and balances so that no one branch of government would become too powerful. Donald Trump, as we saw, was hardly the first president to work around checks and balances to pursue his agenda. He made frequent use of executive orders and declared an emergency on the southern border to fund building a wall between Mexico and the United States border. Other presidents also made use of their emergency power – presidents have, for example, declared sixty-nine national emergencies since 1976.105 President Joe Biden signed thirty executive orders in his first three days in office.106 Canadian prime ministers have tossed aside the Constitution over the past 150 years to build a country, not as the Constitution saw it but as they saw it. Canada’s federal system today is completely at variance with K.C. Wheare’s classic definition of federalism: “By the federal principle I mean a method of dividing powers so that the general and regional governments are each, within a sphere, co-ordinate and independent.”107 Canadian federalism is also completely at variance with what the Fathers of Confederation envisaged. William Gladstone claimed that in Great Britain the seventeenth century had been an age of rule by prerogative, the eighteenth century rule by patronage, and the nineteenth century rule by virtue. He could now argue that by the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Britain is ruled by prime ministers and a handful of courtiers. Institutions, notably Parliament and Cabinet, built on precedents continue to be tossed aside to meet the requirements of the day. France turned to a new constitution in 1958 especially designed to strengthen the hand of the president. French presidents have been

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able to strengthen their hand further, to the point that a respected observer of politics in France writes that today, “France’s presidency is too powerful to work.”108 This chapter sets the scene for what follows. Presidents and prime ministers saw that those who served before them were able to reshape the corset to allow them to pursue their agenda, and they set out to do the same. They overhauled institutions as they saw fit and simply tossed anything extraneous outside the corset. We are seeing a shift to personalized governments. We will see that presidents and prime ministers enlarged the scope of their own offices, degraded the role of their own political parties, and redefined Cabinet to play little more than a bella figura role. They looked to Parliament, the National Assembly, and Congress as a nuisance to be managed and to the civil service as too powerful on the one hand and incapable of managing operations on the other. They went at it as if history and the forces that shaped institutions did not matter, as the following chapters make clear. What is all the more remarkable is that this is the case in all four surveyed countries, despite having vastly different constitutions and political institutions. In all four cases, presidents and prime ministers have, for the past forty years, declared that everything will stay the same but everything must change.

2 The Boss Sits at the Top

Presidents and prime ministers occupy the most enviable position available to launch new initiatives in virtually all policy areas, survey all developments in their administration or government, and generally get things done. Few people in government are able, or willing, to say no to them while there are many always at the ready to pursue their wishes. When presidents and prime ministers decide to get involved in a file, others, including those directly responsible, have to adjust or, failing that, they are simply pushed aside. Presidents and prime ministers enjoy the perks of office not available to anyone else in government – they have an official residence (the White House, 24 Sussex Drive, 10 Downing Street, and Palais de l’Elysée), they have their private transportation facilities, they enjoy top security protection, and they have access to the most sophisticated communication facilities available. Governments bear their name so that we have the Biden administration and the Trudeau, Johnson, and Macron governments. There is an old political saying, often heard in parliamentary systems: “If the head goes, the rest of government is sure to follow.” This is why governments in a Westminster parliamentary system always bear the name of the prime minister, as in the Thatcher or Trudeau governments. When a prime minister is defeated, retires, or his or her party loses the confidence of the House of Commons, the government falls and a new one takes over. Presidents and prime ministers have a steep hill to climb to get to the top. Those who are willing to navigate the challenges have, or should have, a central purpose motivating them. The first question from the media they have to answer is, why do you want to be president? or why do you want to be prime minister? Once in power,

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they will wish to pursue the reason that drove them to reach for the top and to deliver on their campaign commitments, in particular, the more high-profile ones. They run the show. Resistance rarely comes from within government or the executive, at least at the most senior levels. Resistance comes mostly from outside or from divided government and cohabitation in the case of the United States and France. Inside the executive, presidents and prime ministers are, in essence, king. The difference is that kings of old could do no wrong, whereas presidents and prime ministers can be held to account when things go wrong or when they make a bad decision. However, even when they embark on a misguided policy, there is little in the way to stop them. Accountability in government is often after the fact, after things have gone off the rails, or after misguided policies or initiatives have been pursued. Cabinet, whether in a presidential or parliamentary system, is there to be managed. Presidents and prime ministers are rarely successfully challenged in Cabinet when they stake out a position. Abraham Lincoln summed it up nicely when he reported on Cabinet deliberations: “Seven nays, one aye; the ayes have it.”1 The Duke of Wellington, the former military leader also known as Arthur Wellesley, became frustrated at his first Cabinet meeting as British prime minister. He described it as: “An extraordinary affair. I gave them their orders and they wanted to stay and discuss them.”2 If Cabinet ministers or secretaries have a fundamental policy disagreement with the prime minister or the president, they can resign or put aside the disagreement. They nearly always put aside disagreements. There are machinery of government advantages that enable presidents and prime ministers to rule, to have their way on both important and unimportant files whenever they decide to pursue them. But there are also important constraints. The constraints are powerful and can inhibit the agenda of even the most ambitious presidents and prime ministers. The purpose of this chapter is to explore both the advantages and constraints on presidents and prime ministers as they pursue their political and policy agendas.

t h e y ru l e f ro m t hei r offi ces Cabinet ministers and secretaries – better than anyone – know who the boss is. They owe their appointments to presidents and prime ministers. They also serve as long as presidents and prime ministers

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want them to serve, and as long as their presidents or prime ministers remain in power. The days are gone of high-profile party lieutenants with a powerful base of their own. Particularly in Westminster-inspired parliamentary systems, these powerful personalities were able to achieve success for their constituencies or their supporters, had a significant following within their party, and often stood for a political ideology, idea, or policy. Presidents and prime ministers ignored the most influential of them at their peril. In short, presidents and prime ministers had little choice but to work with these powerful personalities in Cabinet and the legislature to accommodate at least some of their positions in order to secure political support and to get things done. These powerful personalities could claim credit for having successfully championed a government policy, program, or initiative. In the case of the United States, consider Arlen Specter, a Republican, and Edward (Ted) Kennedy, a Democrat from the legislative branch; Cabinet secretaries Henry Kissinger, a Republican, and George Marshall, a Democrat. In Canada, consider C.D. Howe, a Liberal, and Alvin Hamilton, a member of the Diefenbaker Cabinet. In Britain, consider Edward Wood, Earl of Halifax, a Conservative, and Herbert Morrison, of the Labour Party. In France, consider Alain Peyrefitte and André Malraux, the powerful minister of cultural affairs during the de Gaulle era. Roy Jenkins, as home secretary in the Harold Wilson government, liberalized the law on homosexuality and abortion without “inspiration or interference” from the prime minister while today “all ideas come from No. 10.”3 There were other powerful voices that past presidents and prime ministers had to accommodate. But no more. The point – it is far more difficult today, if at all possible, to be a C.D. Howe, a Herbert Morrison, a Henry Kissinger, or an Alain Peyrefitte than it was forty years ago. It is nearly impossible for Cabinet members to have their own brand and a following of their own supporters. Powerful personalities could, forty years ago, carve out policy positions and a brand that defined them and spoke to their influence in shaping public policy. Presidents and prime ministers had to somehow bring them onside to move their own agenda forward. Things are different today. For instance, presidents and prime ministers no longer tolerate brands other than their own, and this is the case in all four countries under review. The media have been complicit. Their focus now is on presidents, prime ministers, and

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party leaders so that voters know them well but much less so in the case of the other politicians.4 The media, in particular the twenty-four-hour news channels and social media, want quick answers, even to complex issues, and they are convinced that only presidents and prime ministers and their offices are in a position to provide them. In addition, their viewers know who the presidents and prime ministers are but rarely other officials, even senior Cabinet members. The new media and the need to shape or control the fast-changing news cycle are also making it difficult for Cabinet ministers and secretaries and their departmental career officials to deal with complex policy issues that nearly always cut across departmental lines or for Cabinet ministers and secretaries to establish their own brand. More to the point, the media, new and old, will now rarely focus on Cabinet secretaries or ministers unless they are involved in a scandal. The media see little need to talk to them about policy issues because they know that a Cabinet member can never have the final word and that virtually all policy issues now involve several government departments. The final word belongs to presidents and prime ministers, particularly when the media take an interest in an issue. In the process, the media are strengthening the hand of presidents, prime ministers, and their staff. Conversely, presidents and prime ministers and their advisers believe that controlling the message before the media is key to political success, and the stakes are too high to let other politicians freelance, even if they are from the same party. The chief of staff for the Canadian prime minister told members of Parliament on the government side: “We need to be extra-careful with our messaging. We can’t afford any slipups. So, no emotional outburst, no off-the-cuff remarks, the brand comes first, alright? More importantly, it means that everything, and I mean everything, goes through the office first.”5 The same applies for Cabinet ministers, more so because they owe their position to the prime minister and because what they have to say matters more than what backbenchers say. Presidents and prime ministers will make commitments while in opposition and in an election campaign not to govern from the centre or from their offices but will suddenly have a change of heart once in power. Barack Obama was highly critical of George W. Bush’s constant pull to strengthen his hand at the expense of Congress. But once elected, President Obama “increasingly used executive orders, regulations, and regulatory guidance – sometimes

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contrary to statutory policy – to circumvent the need for congressional action.” Michael McConnell goes on to argue that Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, made “the most unvarnished claims of personalized power of any president.” 6 Justin Trudeau pledged in the 2015 general election to return to Cabinet government, if elected. He told the media that though his father was responsible for launching governing from the centre, he would be the one to return Canada to Cabinet government. He boldly declared on the day that his government was sworn to office that “government by Cabinet is back,” in effect acknowledging that Canada no longer had Cabinet government in 2015.7 However, government by Cabinet is not back. If anything, we have moved further away from it. At a press conference, for example, Trudeau told journalists to direct questions to him rather than his minister of finance, who was present and traditionally the government’s most powerful minister. This, he told the assembled journalists, because he was the prime minister. A journalist persisted and made a second attempt to question the minister, who was standing next to the prime minister. Trudeau replied, “You have to ask a question of me first because you get a chance to talk to the prime minister.” It is difficult to imagine former prime ministers making a similar claim or, for that matter, former ministers of finance willing to tolerate it. The arrival of permanent election campaigns in the four surveyed countries, among other developments, have strengthened the hand of presidents and prime ministers and their advisers in their dealings with Cabinet secretaries and ministers.

whe r e h av e a l l t h e c a bi net secretari es a n d m in is t e rs gone? Cabinet ministers in Britain and Canada have joined their French counterparts and Cabinet secretaries in the United States in working one on one with their prime ministers and presidents rather than with Cabinet to get things done. Chances of success for Cabinet ministers are greater by catching the ear of the prime minister or president or the ear of one of their most trusted senior advisers rather than going through the regular channels. This has always been the case in the United States and to a large extent in France, and it is also becoming the norm in Canada and Great Britain. Cabinet sec-

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retaries and ministers recognize that presidents, prime ministers, and their key advisers – not Cabinet – now decide all important issues, at times even unimportant ones. Cabinet ministers and secretaries who have close ties to their presidents and prime ministers stand a much greater chance of getting their projects approved than those who do not. Of course, presidents and prime ministers have different strengths, styles, and political ideologies, and not all Cabinet secretaries and ministers are created equal. Some presidents will want to rely on expert advice (President Obama) while others may not (President Trump), and some prime ministers seek to run things from the centre (Prime Minister Blair) while others less so (Prime Minister Theresa May) if only because some of the more important issues, like Brexit and a refugee crisis, did not lend themselves to it. May is the anomaly here among her peers in Canada, the United States, and France. The point is that politics and governing are now less and less about institutions, processes, and rules and more about personalities. It is important to underline the point that Cabinet in the United States and France differs from that found in Great Britain and Canada. Contrary to the Cabinets in Canada and Britain, Cabinet secretaries in the United States are not elected to a political office and rarely so in the case of France. Rather, in both countries they are appointed by the president. France has a hybrid system – ministers can be elected but, once appointed to Cabinet, they must resign their seat in the National Assembly. The US Cabinet is weaker and decision-making is usually done bilaterally between the president, the relevant Cabinet secretary, and, at times, senior congressional leaders. At the risk of being repetitive, I note, once again, that the Canadian and British Cabinets have been drifting in recent years more and more toward the US model.8 In France, very few ministers are elected as members of the National Assembly, and constitutionally there is no need to be. The French presidents, like their US counterparts, can appoint whoever they want. I note, however, that a number of ministers were elected as mayors before being asked to serve in Cabinet. The French presidents, like their US counterparts, can dismiss any Cabinet member whenever they see fit. There is an important difference between the US and the French Cabinet: in France, ministers are available to answer questions from members of the National Assembly either in written or oral form.

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To be sure, Cabinet secretaries and ministers have their agendas and those of their departments and agencies to pursue. There are still strong/weak, decisive/indecisive, and popular/unpopular Cabinet secretaries and ministers. The minister for the economy and finance in France, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Great Britain, and the minister of finance in Canada each have more clout than other ministers. Cabinet members will also, of course, have a better chance of success if their agenda squares fully with what the boss wants or supports. But there is more to it. It is still possible to group Cabinet secretaries and ministers – especially ministers – into four groups: status, mission, policy, and process.9 The challenge for the bosses and their advisers is to manage the four types of politicians to promote their agenda rather than run the risk of being managed by Cabinet members and their departments and agencies. Presidents, prime ministers, and their courtiers will now turn to one of the four types of minister that will give the better chance of success in pursuing a policy or explaining a position. I argued in The Politics of Public Spending in Canada that one could look at the four types of ministers (status, mission, policy, and process) to assess their motivation and, at times, their success in pursuing a proposal. Thirty years later, we need to flip the argument around so that we now need to look at how presidents and prime ministers will turn to these four types to pursue their own agenda, to shape policy, and to manage government operations. Not only have the media changed how governments decide but also the uncertain fiscal situation confronting governments, particularly since 2008, has forced the hand of presidents, prime ministers, and their advisers to follow closely the expenditure budget and government operations. Presidents and prime ministers, their Cabinets, and senior officials are less inclined now than in years past to review spending proposals from Cabinet members and their departments and agencies. Decisions on spending are no longer struck in Cabinet, even in Westminster parliamentary systems. The prime minister, together with the minister of finance or the Chancellor of the Exchequer, decide what should be included in the budget and what should not. Bilateralism has replaced Cabinet government. Efforts to have the Cabinet, or even Cabinet committees, strike the expenditure budget have failed. Cabinet and Cabinet committees were quick to approve new funding, but ministers collectively proved incapable of making difficult decisions to cut spending. They

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approved spending proposals from colleagues in the hope that their colleagues would do the same when they would bring their own spending proposals. No one was there to refuse. At the end of the day, it fell on prime ministers and their Chancellor of the Exchequer or their ministers of finance to finalize the expenditure budget.10 I note once again that Cabinet secretaries in the United States differ from their counterparts in Canada and Britain in one fundamental way. They are not elected. However, they are no less partisan. In addition, it is also possible to identify the four types of politicians for them (for example, Wilbur Ross, secretary of commerce in the Trump administration was a mission type). When presidents and prime ministers confront a difficult situation in the media, for example, they will turn to status participants for help. Status participants enjoy dealing with the media and can be relied on to deliver a message or a talking point in a competent fashion. Trump, for instance, often turned to Larry Kudlow, his director of the National Economic Council, to deliver an economic message when there were negative economic developments to address. Cabinet-level officials or senior political advisers also know that those who enjoy good press and who excel at selling the boss will have, in turn, a more prominent standing with said boss.11 They become influential courtiers in the president or the prime minister’s court, at least temporarily, because they are in a position to manage well a delicate situation and the blame game. The same applies for mission, policy, and process participants. They bring different skills to the table. Mission participants are useful for presidents and prime ministers because they bring steadfastly held positions to the table. The difference today is that mission participants are expected to embrace and promote the staunchly held positions of presidents and prime ministers and less so their own. It is rare today for Cabinet secretaries or ministers to resign on a matter of principle. Trump Cabinet secretaries often had reasons to resign, given his contradictory positions on several policy fronts. Few did, though several were fired. Jeff Sessions, a mission participant, giving his strongly held position on crime and immigration, was publicly humiliated on numerous occasions before he was fired.12 He never resigned. Contrast this narrative with Geoffrey Howe, who resigned from the Thatcher government in 1990 over a policy disagreement; James Richardson, who resigned from the Pierre Trudeau Cabinet in 1978 over language policy; or Allen Dulles who

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resigned from the Kennedy Cabinet in 1961 for the botched Bay of Pigs operation.13 It seems that mission participants willing to resign on a matter of principle or over a policy issue now belong to the history books. Policy participants are also no longer welcomed by the boss as they were thirty years ago, unless they are prepared to do the boss’s bidding. Policy participants bring a keen interest in shaping policy and engaging in debates. However, presidents, prime ministers, and their most senior advisers are no longer as open to engagement by policy participants in policy debates because it could detract from their boss’s brand and because it could play havoc with their boss’s policy agenda. Presidents, prime ministers, and their key advisers need to keep a close eye on policy participants because of right to information legislation, leaks to the media, the need to control the news cycle, and deal with twenty-four-hour cable news channels and social media that are all always on the lookout for policy disagreements in government. The centre also has to control the policy process to avoid surprises and to ensure that policy participants run on their tracks, as laid down by presidents and prime ministers. This may explain why politics no longer appears to be able to attract strong candidates – there is one position now that truly matters in government – the boss. That position, however, is rarely open.14 Policy participants who have written about their experiences in government often report their deep disenchantment and frustration with their inability to influence policy.15 Process participants, in contrast, are welcomed by the boss and advisers because they can be very useful in managing the political and policy agendas issued from the top. Process participants hold no strong policy position, they enjoy being in politics (particularly sitting at the Cabinet table), and they are on the lookout for opportunities to shine or to strike deals for their departments or agencies. They are usually highly partisan, easygoing, and always unwilling to challenge the boss or their departments. In brief, they are solid foot soldiers who can be relied on to deliver messages and act amenably. They are now highly valued given the twenty-four-hour cable news channels and permanent election campaigns. Cabinet secretaries and ministers take their cue from presidents and prime ministers not only on policy but also on dealing with the media. The point bears repeating: there is now only one brand that

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truly matters, and those Cabinet members will be marginalized who cannot contribute to it or who cannot avoid promoting their own brand. The statistic is also worth repeating that 35 percent of French people cannot even name their prime minister, let alone ministers. One observer of politics in France explains why: “The main job for a French prime minister is not to upstage the president.”16 One can only imagine what it must be like for ministers. More than in years past, it is now the main job of Cabinet secretaries and ministers in the four countries under review not to upstage their presidents and prime ministers. In brief, thirty years ago status, mission, policy, and process participants turned to their talents to pursue their own agendas. Today, it is much more likely that Cabinet ministers and secretaries will apply their talents to pursue the political and policy agendas of their president and prime minister. As noted, Cabinet secretaries and ministers no longer seem to resign on matters of principle or policy disagreements.

e x pa n d in g t h e offi ce The offices of presidents and prime ministers have expanded considerably in recent years. Since President F.D. Roosevelt established the Executive Office of the President in 1939, it has grown both in size and influence. There is now nothing in the federal government in the United States that is beyond the reach of the Executive Office. It houses the president’s chief of staff, a number of policy advisers, a Council of Economic Advisers, the National Security Council, the National Economic Council, the Office of Science and Technology Policy established in 1976, the Council on Environmental Quality, the Domestic Policy Council, the Office of Management and Budget, the Office of National Drug Control, the Office of Public Engagement, the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, and the Office of the Trade Representatives. As recently as 1993, the office’s budget was $194 million; today it is over $700 million.17 There are several agencies in the US administration with responsibility for immigration policy, including the Citizenship and Immigration Services, the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Department of State. These agencies notwithstanding, it was widely known that Stephen Miller, one of President Trump’s policy advisers, was the most powerful official shaping US immigration policy between

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2016 and 2020 – not the responsible Cabinet secretary or one of the agencies.18 This is hardly an isolated case and hardly limited to the United States. The former chief of staff to the Canadian prime minister was invited to run for Parliament in a safe Liberal constituency. He said “Why would I do that. I have more power where I sit now than if I sit in Parliament or Cabinet.”19 The chief of staff to the British prime minister has been described as the “third most powerful after the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.”20 Robert Brescia writes that the White House chief of staff “is not the most powerful person in Washington – that distinction is held by the President.”21 The Prime Minister’s Office (pmo ) in Canada has also expanded in recent years. Tom Kent, chief of staff to Prime Minister Pearson in the 1960s, writes: “pmo was then utterly different from what it became in the Pierre Trudeau era and has since remained. There was no bevy of deputies and assistants and principals this and that with crowds of support staff.”22 Then there was only a handful of senior assistants and advisers. Today, the government of Canada website reports that there are over 1,000 staffers providing “advice and support to the Prime Minister and portfolio ministers.”23 The same is true for Britain. Harold Wilson had serving in his office a handful of political advisers and career civil servants. Today, things are different. George Jones and Andrew Blick have documented the growth in staff at No. 10 Downing. Margaret Thatcher had a staff of 90, but by 2005 the number had gone up to 226, even when one only includes Cabinet office staff that serve the prime minister.24 The numbers have remained relatively stable while individuals serving in the office have gained influence. It became widely accepted, for example, that some key advisers to Prime Minister Tony Blair had more power in government than the great majority of Cabinet ministers. They held more influence simply because they were part of the pmo . Some even had the right to attend Cabinet meetings and bilateral meetings between the prime minister and Cabinet ministers.25 Boris Johnson, from a different political party than Blair, has embraced the same centralized style of governing. He has, through his office and the Cabinet office, adopted a “presidential-style of governing.”26 Things are no different in France. The Office of the President has grown substantially in size in recent years. As well, the staff

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composition has shifted away from career civil servants – today only about one-third of the staff are career civil servants from a total staff complement of 822.27 Macron explained why he decided to strengthen his office, arguing that someone had to champion change because too many ministers and senior career officials are unwilling to do so.28 Presidential and prime ministerial staffers are there not only to promote the boss’s agenda but also to protect the boss from hostile opposition parties, at times hostile media with their daily doses of criticism and the need to feed their twenty-four-hour cable news channels, and to keep an eye on large government bureaucracies in line departments and agencies who may well have their own agenda to pursue. It is not always clear that the staffers speak for the boss, but few in government are prepared to risk finding out. Presidents and prime ministers value loyalty – it is the lifeblood of politics. They have a profound dislike of leaks and private agendas, unless they orchestrate them. To be sure, they do not like surprises. Staffers tend to be loyal soldiers having fought by the side of aspiring presidents and prime ministers in securing their party’s nomination and in the election campaign. It is always a risk for anyone to challenge the word of a staffer speaking on behalf of the president or prime minister. President Obama, it was reported, chose loyalty over change. President Trump even had family members in his office to ensure loyalty. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien had long-serving staffers occupy key positions in his office.29 President Macron looked to friends and long-serving associates to staff key positions in government. There is never a shortage of issues for staffers to work on – rather, they have to pick carefully and choose the more important ones or the ones that matter to the boss. They will determine what the boss wants, the issues he or she wishes to pursue, and the political problems that need to be resolved. In the words of a Canadian Cabinet minister, they will “push and pull whatever needs to be pushed and pulled to get what the boss wants.”30 Cabinet secretaries, ministers, and their departments and agencies have to respond to the wishes of the boss and his or her close advisers, unless what they are asked to do is illegal. When issues grab the attention of presidents and prime ministers, their courtiers will, in turn, grab the levers of power to manage the response to please the boss. A Brookings Institution publication reports that “Cabinet secretaries understandably resent interference from White

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House staffers … who are usually younger than they are and are often seen as political loyalists rather than policy experts. Staffers have access to the President and seem to impose their personal preferences on the Cabinet.”31 The same is true in parliamentary systems. In Canada, some retired mp s and journalists maintain that “the boys in short pants” from the pmo are now running the government.32

c o n s t r a ints Presidents and prime ministers dominate their political parties, the government, and the news cycle. They define priorities, and they set the tone for the government. They all have large offices to help them steer the ship of state. But they also have to deal with or manage several imposing constraints. The first is time. They lead incredibly harassed lives so that securing their time is never easy. As noted earlier, the flip side in having all key channels of public policy coming to them and their ability to dominate the news cycle is that they cannot find the time to give proper attention to all the demands. It is important to expand here on a point made earlier. Aside from attending to family matters, presidents and prime ministers always have telephone calls to make, correspondence to deal with, appointments to important positions to make, documents to read, meetings and briefings to attend, party events to support, party needs such as fundraising efforts to attend to, meetings with Cabinet members and senior members of Congress or Parliament, foreign trips to plan, meetings with foreign heads of state or government to arrange, meetings with senior business leaders, meetings with their staff and the most senior career officials, and ceremonies and high-profile events they are expected to attend. In brief, they work extraordinarily long hours and they are constantly subjected to relentless, and very often negative, media scrutiny. Management literature holds that managers’ proper span of control should have anywhere between three and six people reporting to them. More modern management thinkers, notably the widely read Elliott Jaques, are challenging current wisdom. Jaques argues that “you are likely to be able to get by with up to perhaps ten to twenty immediate subordinates at middle levels, and less at corporate levels.” He adds that one can increase the number of subordinates reporting to a manager, “where the manager has no scheduling or technical problems, does not have to go to any meetings, and

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can spend his/her time overseeing subordinates.”33 In line with this argument, presidents and prime ministers should be decreasing the number of subordinates reporting directly to them or under their span of control. One can hardly argue that presidents and prime ministers do not have to go to meetings or that they can spend most of their time overseeing subordinates like the head of a standardized production line. Presidents and prime ministers have anywhere between fifty-two and well over one hundred people reporting to them. Clearly, there are many more demands on their time than they can possibly accommodate, and their staff will juggle several possibilities to make the most from the time slots available to presidents and prime ministers. Their agenda is also never set in stone because of the need to accommodate urgent developments of which there are rarely a shortage. The media can also be counted on to identify or generate issues that require urgent attention. There are also numerous issues that presidents and prime ministers would like to address but must leave unattended because they do not have the time to focus on all matters that require their attention.

t h e ov e r l oa d problem The political science literature has given insufficient attention to the need for governments to deal with an overload problem. As recently as seventy years ago, citizens had modest expectations from their governments. Today, the overload problem goes a long way in explaining the difficulties governments have in both identifying and delivering on priorities and why government bureaucracies do not enjoy the support from both politicians and citizens that they once did. It also goes a long way in explaining why relations between politicians and career officials have deteriorated in recent years. The government overload problem was unknown to the Framers of the US Constitution, the Fathers of Confederation, Walter Bagehot in nineteenth-century Britain, or even to Charles de Gaulle in 1958. In 1960, government spending in France as a percentage of gross domestic product (gdp ) was 20 percent. In 2019, or before the covid-19 virus struck, the percentage was 55.3.34 Today, France’s public sector employs 5.4 million and, as noted, accounts for about one in five jobs.35

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In Canada, Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie functioned without a secretary in 1873, answering all correspondence himself. In 1909, the newly created Department of External Affairs was entirely housed above a barber shop in Ottawa.36 There were about ten federal public servants for every member of Parliament in 1867. Today, there are about 1,000, and this does not include Crown or state corporations.37 The United States had only a few small departments in the early years of the republic. The State Department, the first to be established, only had nine employees in addition to the secretary. The size of government grew during the Civil War, during the First World War, in the aftermath of the Great Depression, and again during the Second World War. The federal bureaucracy increased from about 500,000 in 1933 to more than 3.5 million in 1945.38 The number of federal government employees decreased after the Second World War to slightly more than 2 million and has remained at these levels. This count does not include the increasing number of contract workers or consultants. There are now some 430 departments, agencies, and sub-agencies.39 In Great Britain, government spending as a percentage of gdp amounted to less than 10 percent when Walter Bagehot wrote The English Constitution. Today, it accounts for over 36 percent.40 Government departments were small until the First World War, with the Foreign Office only employing 100–175 staff members and four departments, notably Colonial Office, Foreign Office, the Home Office, and the India Office, all located in one building. Today, the building is home to only one-third of the staff of the Foreign Office.41 In brief, presidents and prime ministers did not have to deal with a government overload problem until the post–World War II era and the arrival of the welfare state. Before then, presidents and prime ministers knew everything about what they wanted to know and, if they so desired, they could easily control the details of both policy and government operations. There was a time when prime ministers or senior Cabinet ministers had to defend before Parliament the hiring or firing of an engineer, a clerk, or a secretary.42 Things are vastly different today. The hiring and firing of clerks and secretaries, to the extent that this happens, takes place many levels below Cabinet secretaries and ministers, let alone presidents and prime ministers. Today, presidents and prime ministers need to oversee a sprawling machinery of government with varying

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levels of accountability requirements. They also have to cope with complex policy issues, an aggressive media, the impact of right to information legislation, transparency requirements, and a globally integrated economy. Presidents and prime ministers also need to deal with institutional constraints that include Congress and Parliament, the bureaucracy, the judiciary, and the old and new media. Institutional constraints still matter, especially when combined with the overload problem. Three students of US politics wrote: “Instead of trying to predict what the next president can accomplish in the first hundred days, we should ask if he will be able to get anything done at all. Given the built-in checks on both the president and Congress, a president who succeeds with even small agenda items in Congress deserves more plaudits and accolades than are currently afforded by the press, pundits and scholars.”43 There have been instances when the wishes of presidents were frustrated by Congress, even when their party controlled both the House of Representatives and the Senate. A case in point is Trump’s failed efforts to repeal and replace Obama’s Affordable Care Act, even though his Republican party held a majority both in the House of Representatives and the Senate during his two first years in office.44 In France, the president, particularly under cohabitation, cannot get his way on all things.45 Contrary to his US counterpart, the president of France does not enjoy veto power when dealing with the National Assembly. As is also well known, prime ministers in both Canada and Great Britain have far more power in dealing with their respective legislatures than American and French presidents do. If their party holds a majority of seats, they can have their way in virtually every situation from establishing new policy direction to securing budgetary approvals. But here, too, there are limits. Prime ministers have to secure the support of their party, notably their backbenchers, to remain in power, as Margaret Thatcher discovered in 1990.46 The above constraints only serve to strengthen the resolve of presidents and prime ministers to build up their offices and to exert a firm control over their Cabinet and Cabinet deliberations. Fortunately for them, nowadays few Cabinet members leave over policy disagreements or can develop their own brand within their political party to stake out a position or challenge the boss. Presidents and prime ministers can also dismiss ministers whenever they wish and for whatever reasons they see fit. To be sure, their ability to fire

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Cabinet members is a “potent psychological threat for one reason, uncertainty.”47 However, dismissing two, three, four, or several ministers on one occasion or over a period of a few months can indicate that the president or prime minister is losing control of the Cabinet.

ac t io n a n d r eacti on Politicians and senior career officials I consulted in recent years report that the one thing they did not expect in government is the extent to which communications and dealing with the media dominate their work. One said that he expected to spend about 20 percent of his time on communications but soon discovered that he was spending close to 50 percent and, on occasions, even more than 50 percent on it. He added that serving in government is mostly “about reacting to things” and assessing how “it will play out in the media.”48 A number of career officials insist that few outside government appreciate the extent to which the media, and how to deal with them, have come to dominate the work of both politicians and senior career officials. Presidents and prime ministers, no matter their standing on the political spectrum, would likely rank the media as one of the most influential constraints to getting things done. For one thing, they have to manage or cope with the arrival of media-driven policy. It was widely reported, for example, that President Trump decided to put an end to the partial government shutdown in January 2019 after he saw on television that LaGuardia Airport had to halt incoming and outgoing flights for an hour because of a stop order from the Federal Aviation Administration.49 A sea change has occurred over the past forty years between the media and the political leadership throughout the Western world. One keen observer writes that it is a far cry from the “credulous coverage of the 1950s and 1960s when the quotes of public figures went unchallenged.”50 The main reason is both the advent of technology and the increasingly intense competition the new technology creates between the electronic media, the written media, and social media.51 The media now can intrude into the political arena and into the operations of government to inform the public quickly, visually, and with considerable impact about what is not working. If things are not working well, or perceived so, solutions to remedy the situation are expected in short order. If these can be secured from the head

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of government, so much the better. The media are not likely to be impressed by suggestions that the president or prime minister cannot possibly produce the answer quickly because it lies somewhere in a government department. For the media and for voters, the government belongs to the president or prime minister so there is no reason they cannot fix things quickly for the boss should have answers to all questions, or at least be able to quickly secure answers. The breathtaking speed of social media and twenty-four-hour news channels puts enormous pressure on government to make decisions quickly for fear of appearing indecisive and not in control – among the worst fears for a head of government. Television can give its viewers a ringside seat to any political crisis in the making and how it is – or is not – being resolved. Social media and television news is now widely accessible, and it can zero in at a moment’s notice on an issue anywhere in the world and compare virtually any given situation in one country to a similar one in another. A former senior Canadian Cabinet minister writes that the media “have put an almost unbearable pressure on political leaders. Television subjects leaders today to unrelenting scrutiny night and day. How the leader looks and what he or she says is immediately recorded and is available for use at any time in the future, and in any context whatsoever.” He adds, “Intense media scrutiny makes it difficult for today’s political leaders to make the kind of compromises our leaders have historically had to make to hold their parties together, to implement sweeping national policies, to reconcile the differences of disaffected regions.”52 The social and electronic media can hardly follow a government process as it plays out inside government, and they have little interest in describing how it works. They want to focus on political actors, on their decisions, and on the individuals who raise their heads above the parapet or who matter most to their audiences. And those who matter most and can provide an answer to any question in any policy field and at any moment are presidents and prime ministers. The memoirs of politicians in the United States, Canada, Britain, and France are replete with observations on the influence – often negative – of the media on government operations. Their advisers and assistants also report that developing strategies to deal with the media takes up a great deal of their time and energy, contributing to the overload problem. Memoirs also reveal that political leaders and their advisers have given up any hope of an objective press.53

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President Trump labelled the mainstream media “the enemy of the people.”54 President Macron calls the French media “totally narcissistic.”55 Former prime minister Blair maintains that “there is a major problem with the way the media operates in the West which is becoming polarized and partisan” and went on to argue that “not everything Trump says about the media coverage is unfair.”56 It is very difficult to find current or recently retired presidents and prime ministers who are prepared to praise the media in making representative democracy work. Leading journalists are also raising questions about the role of the media. One widely read journalist makes the case that too many journalists now hold “a distrust of all things institutional.”57 I note that he wrote this book before social media with their echo chambers came into fashion.58 Well-known journalists also make the case that social media is chipping away at the credibility of the mainstream media. This as many people are moving away from traditional media toward social media such as Facebook and Twitter for news.59 As is well known, Facebook and Twitter are subject to little or no editorial control. Their role prompted The Atlantic to declare the headline: “Why Social Media Are Ruining Political Discourse.”60 With both old and new media and their competition to scrutinize government as never before, there is a tendency to lay ultimate responsibility for every act at the door of presidents and prime ministers. President Emmanuel Macron and no one else was held responsible for developments generated by les gilets jaunes.61 The media and voters looked mostly to presidents and prime ministers for answers as the covid -19 pandemic ravaged through the four surveyed countries, adding more activities to the agenda that presidents and prime ministers have to attend to because the media require it. This makes it still more difficult for presidents and prime ministers to govern, and it is one more motivation or justification for them to govern from the centre. Long gone are the days when presidents and prime ministers could keep the media at bay as they went about their work. George Washington allowed no daily briefing of the media and even forbade notes leaving the room when he sat at the head of the table at the Constitutional Convention.62 John A. Macdonald deliberately kept the media in the dark when the Fathers of Confederation were completing negotiations on Confederation at the London Conference. He wanted “to keep anti-Confederate critics in a state of sullen

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ignorance by making sure that everything done inside the room stayed there.”63 It only takes a moment’s reflection to appreciate that this would simply not be possible today.

t h in g s t h at matter Presidents and prime ministers can only focus on a handful of issues if they wish to have any chance of success. Once in power, President Donald Trump focused on his campaign commitment to build a wall on the southern border, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on climate change, Prime Ministers Theresa May and Boris Johnson on Brexit negotiations, and President Macron on cutting government spending. But even here all five met with limited success at best. Apart from what they want to get done, they also have to deal with former British prime minister Harold Macmillan’s dictum: “Events, my dear boy, events.”64 covid -19, hardly the only example, was one event that derailed the agenda of presidents and prime ministers. It is important to underline the point once again that presidents and prime ministers do not like “surprises” from their Cabinet members, departments and agencies, and career officials. Surprises suggest that they are not in control of their government. While they may not expect error-free government operations, they want to be briefed when things go off the rails so they can better manage the “message” and the media.65 They are trained to think short-term, to focus on issues that matter to them, and on the next election. In brief, they have a four-year perspective to get things done, maybe less in some cases and five years in the case of the president of France. Presidents and prime ministers look for two things from the machinery of government and career officials. They want a helping hand to pursue what truly matters to them and a capacity to keep other matters under control. In their ideal world, they would see the whole machinery running on its tracks and avoid surprises that come to dominate the news cycle. Their focus is on their narrow policy agenda, but even this is less and less possible. They and their most senior advisers now have to spend an inordinate amount of time dealing with unforeseen events as they surface and dealing with the media’s insatiable appetite for information. This also explains why presidents and prime ministers have considerably expanded the size and role of their offices as well as central agencies. This enables them to put things that hold little interest

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on hold or to manage issues from where they sit. It also establishes, however, “multiple accountability processes and instruments” under which all government departments and agencies must now operate. The centre of government is able to seek out information whenever it wishes and provides a constant flow of intelligence from departments. The above also enables the offices of presidents, prime ministers, and central agencies to better deal with the media and with events. In the process, it has considerably strengthened their hand inside government. However, it raises questions about whether presidents and prime ministers can effectively manage issues that come to their attention and those that should come to their attention but do not because of overloaded agendas. As noted, one leading journalist asks whether France’s presidency is too powerful to work. He writes that Emmanuel Macron holds a very powerful office, but “the chances of him being able to wield that tremendous power with any semblance of effectiveness are, if we are to gauge by recent history, slim.”66 The same can be said for the US president and the British and Canadian prime ministers. Though enlarging their own offices and strengthening central agencies enables the centre of government to deal with events and promote better the personal policy agenda of presidents and prime ministers, it has made the machinery of government thicker and slowed governments’ policy- and decision-making processes. In assisting presidents and prime ministers to deal with the pressures of the day, bureaucracy added new positions which created other problems. In short, the overload problem is worse. More is said about this below. In brief, sucking up power to your office and close associates is not without important implications for policy-making and delivering public services. It has generated unintended consequences. It is redefining how governments operate and the relationship between politicians and career officials. The following chapters review how central agencies have been transformed to promote the political and policy interest of presidents and prime ministers.

3 Speaking Truth When Truth, Facts, and Evidence-Based Advice Are Moving Targets

Career officials, dating back at least to the Northcote-Trevelyan Report and the Pendleton Act (1883), are tasked with speaking truth to their political masters. But there is a pecking order to government bureaucracies. Central agency officials are the elites among career officials. They operate at the centre of government where they assist presidents, prime ministers, and their Cabinets to shape or reshape policy and government operations. These elites are the “superbureaucrats.”1 They occupy a privileged position, linking elected policy-makers to departments delivering programs and services. Their work has a profound impact on how policies are shaped and on the relationship between politicians and career officials operating in line departments and agencies. It would be easy to assume that central agencies had their heyday before the arrival of npm measures. npm was designed to empower front line managers and their staff, to make public sector management look like private sector management, and to reduce centrally prescribed rules and regulations.2 The opposite is true: central agencies have gained influence in recent years because public policies can no longer neatly fit inside government departments, because presidents and prime ministers prefer it that way, and also because an oversight capacity is needed at the centre of government to ensure that line departments and agencies run on their tracks. npm has, if anything, strengthened the hand of central agencies. Central agencies have grown also because npm measures have generated an increasing number of performance and evaluation reports to review. This in addition to the internalization of politics, which has led to an executive bias. We now have leadership-centric power

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within the political executive, within political institutions, within political parties, and in the electoral processes. Notwithstanding sharp differences between presidentialism and parliamentarism and the arrival of npm , we are seeing a leadership-centric approach apply to both types of regimes and in the four countries under review.3 Presidents and prime ministers need help to govern from the centre and to keep a watchful eye on the machinery of government. This is where central agencies come in. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (oecd ) reports that the fiscal crisis of 2008 led all governments in its twenty-eight member countries “to take decisive actions” from the centre and to mobilize government departments and agencies to take action. They did this essentially by strengthening their central agencies. oecd adds that there are “strong similarities” emerging among its members regarding the role central agencies now perform, even though governments are “a product of diverse historical, cultural and political forces.”4 The work of central agencies makes the point that politics, policy-making, and administration are not separate processes. More and more, everything is consolidated in a single office. In the United States, central agencies in the executive branch are unambiguously tied directly to the president. Canada has a large number of central agencies, and all look to the prime minister for direction. Great Britain has only a few central agencies, but they know who the boss is. France also has central agencies, and they too look to the president and the prime minister for direction. In years past, leaving aside the United States, central agencies looked to presidents and prime ministers and to Cabinet for direction. Central agency officials are in an enviable position. They have access to the most powerful individual in government. They offer advice on the whole spectrum of government activities and, in a sense, can do no wrong. They do not deliver programs and services, leaving this to line departments and agencies so that management and administrative miscues belong to them. In short, central agency officials sit in judgment of the work of line departments, an enviable position when playing the blame game. Central agencies consist of both partisan political advisers and permanent career officials. This, again, speaks to the reality that politics and policy-making are “not separate entities” and they “rely on each other to inform decision making and set direction.”5 The

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challenge for partisan political advisers is to narrow the number of priorities to enable presidents and prime ministers to communicate the most important measures to pursue and to enable the machinery of government to respond to the priority-setting process. These advisers are always on the lookout for issues that can create political problems for their presidents and prime ministers. Career officials, meanwhile, are tasked with organizing priorities as defined by the government, more importantly, by the head of government. Priorities are shaped by presidents and prime ministers, by events (including unforeseen ones), and often by the view that everything the outgoing government was doing was misguided or outright wrong.6 Central agencies have a hand in all things. They can, if they so wish, get involved in the details of the day. If the boss’s political interest is at play, central agency officials can move into a minister’s office and run things. Pierre DeBané, the Canadian minister of regional economic development, became embroiled in a widely reported conflict with his Quebec provincial counterpart over a potential economic development project in Northern Quebec. DeBané was soon on the defensive, losing the argument to his provincial counterpart. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau sent two officials from his office to DeBané’s office to take control of the file and the minister’s dealing with the media. DeBané had to do as he was told or resign.7 He did as he was told. Central agency officials carry a big stick. They speak on behalf of the head of state or head of government or, in the case of the United States, both. They can address any issue that matters to the boss – nothing is off limits to them. They look up to presidents and prime ministers to provide advice and down to departments and agencies to give direction and to assess performance.

b e c o m in g p ro mi s cuous The New Testament – Galatians 4:16 – reads: “So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” Though “speaking truth to power” has become overused and has lost the impact it once had in political discourse, it still captures the essence of what central agency officials do, or should do. They have no program to manage, no service to deliver to those outside government, and they rarely have to answer to the media or the public for their work. The policy advisory role of career officials in central agencies should be straightforward: provide objective non-partisan advice to

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their political masters without fear or favour. However, the chapter’s central argument is that, for a variety of reasons, it is becoming more and more difficult for them to speak truth to the boss. For one thing, truth has become much more of a moving target than was the case forty years ago. For another, when central agency officials speak truth, they risk becoming “the enemy,” a surefire way to arrest one’s career progression. Career officials in central agencies are tasked with telling their political masters about fiscal constraints, realistic timeframes for implementation, and pointing out that a proposed initiative could negatively impact other government policies. All too often, however, “such realism is regarded as resistance.”8 Politicians in the four jurisdictions – Great Britain, the US, Canada, and France – are increasingly making the point that they hold legitimate power, in contrast to the power without legitimacy of career officials.9 Senior civil servants are more and more drawn into the limelight and are now expected to show a level of enthusiasm to the government of the day when explaining government policy or measures before parliamentary or congressional committees.10 Gone are the days of the anonymous bureaucrat working behind the scenes, ensuring that their heads would never rise above the parapet. Increasingly demanding transparency requirements, permanent election campaigns, and the arrival of social media and twenty-fourhour news channels combined with the unwillingness of many politicians to accept blame when things go off the rails are making it exceedingly difficult for career officials to work under the cover of anonymity. More is said about this later. Career civil servants now have few friends outside their own ranks. Bureaucracy bashing has been in vogue going back to Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. It is worth repeating that Thatcher said she disliked “bureaucrats as a breed” and that Ronald Reagan spoke about the need “to drain the swamp of bureaucracy” when he appointed the Grace Commission in 1983. He imposed a hiring freeze on all non-military federal employees on his first day in office.11 Politicians on the left of the political spectrum were and remain no less critical of “bureaucrats.” Derek Bok summed things up nicely as far back as 1989: “Among the more affluent and better educated, one of the few things that unites the left and the right is their common disdain for bureaucrats.”12 Things have hardly improved since. President Donald Trump borrowed a page from Ronald Reagan and also often spoke about

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draining the swamp in Washington. He frequently voiced concerns about the deep administrative state.13 Emmanuel Macron has been highly critical of what he labels “excessive bureaucracy.”14 In brief, the spectrum of criticism directed at government bureaucracy is now complete.15 Central agency officials are in the middle, sandwiched between political leaders who have, over the past forty years, become increasingly critical of the work of the civil service and career officials in line departments delivering programs and services. Margaret Thatcher’s stay in office has had a profound impact on the relations between elected politicians and career officials to this day, and not just in Britain. Thatcher had firm ideas on what needed to get done and saw no need to turn to the civil service for advice to define her policy agenda. Her agenda was born out of political conviction and, as she said, “the lady’s not for turning.” She saw career officials as part of the problem and felt that it was their policy agenda that had brought Britain low. She set out to turn career officials into better program managers rather than policy advisers. The way forward for Thatcher, and for others of like mind, was straightforward: “Politicians will take care of policy while senior civil servants should take care of management.” Thatcher’s message to civil servants was no less clear: your management practices are seriously lacking and so import private sector management to government operations.16 Like Margaret Thatcher, many politicians continue to arrive in power with firm views of what needs to be done and convinced that career officials should concern themselves with good management rather than policy. They live by their own political convictions, their own truths. Central agencies are there to make things work and to give life to the priorities of presidents and prime ministers. There are other forces at play redefining the policy advisory role of central agencies. Presidents and prime ministers now have access to think tanks, associations, partisan political advisers, the social media, and lobbyists to test ideas or to challenge the advice of career officials. Lobbyists are hired to promote the interests of their corporate customers and are paid to sell truth to governments and the public – truth as their customers see it. There are even lobbyists working to promote the interests of the tobacco industry. When truth and even facts become relative, then it does not much matter to whom political leaders turn for advice. They now have easy access to the kind of truth they want to hear. We are also seeing a new

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generation of politicians who seek to shape their political and policy agenda more by passions than by facts, reason, or logic. President Trump was a case in point. Senior career officials, notably those serving in central agencies, have adjusted. They know that they no longer enjoy near monopoly over the policy advisory function. They are now expected to promote government policies, even if they have no role or a very limited role in defining them. The traditional “impartial loyalty” role of senior career officials has been compromised and, if only to remain relevant, many career officials have become “promiscuously partisan.”17 They know that if their political masters cannot secure the policy advice they are looking for, they can always go elsewhere to get it. What are senior career officials to do when their advice is contestable and contested, when bureaucracy bashing remains in vogue, and when truth itself – or, at least, as politicians and their advisers see it – is a moving target? The traditional lines dividing politicians, their partisan advisers, and career public servants blur. Many politicians in the four countries are too often now telling career officials, do not tell us what we need to do, just tell us how to do what we want to do.18 When it comes to policy, we have created a politicized bureaucracy in the four countries. This has enhanced “the ability of politicians to demand from bureaucrats – and raises incentives for bureaucrats to supply – public policy knowledge that is strategically biased or suppressed in a manner that benefits the incumbent.”19 It became an existential crisis for many senior career officials. They cannot accept that their traditional policy advisory role has somehow become “illegitimate.”20 A good number of career officials, particularly the more ambitious ones, joined government to play a policy role and be part of the policy action, not manage programs or fill in forms. Management, in the eyes of senior career officials, particularly in Great Britain and Canada, is the responsibility of “junior personnel or the failed administrative class people who are seen by the mandarins as not able to make it to the top.”21 The more interesting work and the best way to climb the hierarchical ladder is, or at least was, in developing policy. Politicians have grown impatient with “fuddy-duddy” career officials always cautious and concerned with the finer aspects of public policy. They want career officials who are quick with answers, support their policy agenda, and are able to fix political problems. The road to the top for career officials, more than ever, is to deliver,

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without asking too many questions, what politicians want and to help manage political crises. A British career official put it succinctly: “What my job is about is delivering the thing I am told to deliver. It is not my job to write the policy, to believe the policy, to care about the substance of policy. I am not committed to what I am delivering, I am committed to delivering.”22 A senior Canadian central agency official went further: “My job here is to fall on hand grenades. Our role here is to manage problems so that they do not become unmanageable political crises.”23 Politicians, once in power, soon learn that developing policy in opposition is much easier outside government than once inside. It is easier to fudge the expenditure or revenue numbers, ignore the impact of a proposed policy on other government policies and departments, downplay any conflict a proposal may have with existing policies or other levels of government, and conveniently overlook the finer details of the policy-making process. However, problems flowing from ill-prepared policies will soon surface in the implementation phase. This is when politicians call on career officials to help them manage the blame game, to “fall on hand grenades,” and to help deal with a political crisis. A former senior Canadian Cabinet minister explained the problem with the policy-making role of senior career officials. He insisted that politicians have lost control of the policy-making levers to career officials. He looked to the United States for solutions: “Something is basically wrong with our system of governments. We are the only ones elected to make decisions. But we do like the British. We move into government offices with no support. Everything in these offices belongs to the permanent government. We are only visitors, barely trusted enough not to break the furniture. I prefer the American way. Politicians there move out with their furniture to let the next crowd in.”24 Both Britain and Canada are slowly adopting the American model by growing the number of partisan policy advisers and handing them more influence. The United States has a distinct approach. An incoming administration can make about 4,000 political appointments of which about 1,200 require Senate confirmation – a point explored further in a later chapter. There are two roads to a political appointment: one carries the “necessary-to-place” group of individuals because they played an important part in the election campaign and the other carries those who meet the need to fill important, high-profile

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positions that require highly competent individuals.25 Presidents, unlike British and Canadian prime ministers, are able to place politically compatible senior individuals in key positions throughout their administration. Presidents see political appointments as a counterpoint when they see policy disagreements between themselves and an agency’s bureaucracy.26 As Terry Moe explains in his widely read paper, there is always an inherent tension between policy responsiveness and policy or politically neutral competence. Though presidents value the importance of policy competence, they value more policy responsiveness, particularly when the issue goes to the heart of their political agenda that brought them to power.27 Donald Trump, for example, described climate change as a “hoax,” facts and science be damned. His political appointees fell into line whenever the issue came up.28 One career official working in the Trump administration explains: “It’s been made clear to us that we’re not supposed to use climate change in press releases anymore. They will not be authorized.”29 Students of American politics report that presidents, particularly early in their mandates, tend to appoint individuals “who are more loyal than competent” but that, in time, they turn to appointees who are more competent than loyal, preferably both. This explains why agencies that are less important to a president’s political agenda will inherit a higher concentration of loyal political appointments.30 Political appointees, who have little interest in the organizational culture of the agencies or walk into an agency having an antigovernment bureaucracy bias, can have a negative impact on the agency. The same is true when political appointees have little interest in an agency’s institutional memory or long-term goals.31 They view issues from the perspective of what is in the political interest of the president they are employed to support. Most career officials have limited appreciation for the work of political appointees, convinced that the appointees have little understanding of how government operates or how evidence-based policy should take shape. The work of political appointees is viewed for what it is – promoting the partisan political interests of the president. Surveys of career public servants consistently make this very point. One survey saw no respondent accepting that “a politically responsive, patronage-based, partisan civil service is superior to a politically neutral, merit-based, impartial career civil service.”32 They have a point. David Lewis, in his study of presidential appointments,

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argues that the role of political appointees explains, at least in part, the government’s difficulties in managing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.33 There were other reasons, as we will see later. Embedding political appointees into the bureaucracy is peculiar to the United States. However, Canada, Britain, and France have been playing catch-up for the past forty years or so. Politicians on the government side in these three countries have been expanding the number and roles of their political advisers and assistants. Political assistants are now allowed to roam more freely in the machinery of government to secure answers or to encourage career officials to pursue an initiative. This has changed the relationship between politicians and career officials. There was a time when political assistants knew their place – they were largely limited to whispering partisan political advice in the ears of their ministers. In Canada, they now regularly attend meetings with Cabinet committees and with senior departmental and central agency officials. Whenever necessary, they reach down to departmental organizations to secure answers or pursue the wishes of their boss. They now debate the best course of action for their ministers with senior departmental officials. The result is that career officials in line departments and agencies increasingly have to look up to central agencies, partisan political advisers, and assistants as they go about their work. The line separating the political and the administrative has been further blurred. Partisan political advisers to prime ministers, again unlike in years past, can now draw on support from other partisan advisers operating in all ministerial offices. Forty years ago, ministerial offices in Canada and Great Britain were small, and ministers were free to make appointments. Ministerial staffers were, for the most part, junior-level appointments. The policy advisory function was left entirely in the hands of career officials. The permanent secretary in the case of Britain and the deputy minister in the case of Canada were the uncontested policy advisers to their ministers. Things are different today. A minister’s office in Canada, for example, is home to a chief of staff (a senior-level position), a director of policy, a senior policy adviser, a policy adviser, a senior assistant for operations, an executive assistant, an assistant for parliamentary affairs, a scheduling assistant, and a director of communications. The chief of staff is no longer selected by the minister but rather by the pmo . The director of policy and several policy advisers quite

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rightly consider that they have an important policy advisory role to play, not only because they have access to the minister but also to the pmo through their chief of staff.34 Forty years ago, there were very few policy advisers operating in ministerial offices. The few that did exist occupied a junior position. In Great Britain, ministerial offices play an increasingly important role in policy and as “fixers” when things go off the rails.35 Jonathan Craft and John Halligan explore in detail the changing face of government bureaucracy and the growing influence of ministerial offices and special political advisers. They explain why: “The amplification of partisanship and the entrenchment of permanent campaigning have become common factors in the pathology of contemporary Westminster governments that no longer concentrate on governing after winning elections but function in continuous election mode.”36 Becoming private secretary in a ministerial office has become a rite of passage in Whitehall. Andrew Greenway explains that occupying such a role is “no guarantee of greatness … but few who rise to the top make it without completing a tour of duty.”37 Ministerial offices in Great Britain vary in size. They are not as well staffed as their Canadian counterparts, and the offices of junior ministers are small, employing a handful of junior-level officials. The offices of secretaries of state, however, are larger and employ senior staff. They enjoy more influence than they did forty years ago. Britain’s Institute for Government explains why: “The current tensions between ministers and the Civil Service illustrate a concern among some politicians that the system does not in practice provide the necessary level of responsiveness to ministerial wishes. This feeds the view that the secretary of state must take a stronger grip on the department themselves, and, as part of this, that they require a stronger private office to support them in this function.”38 Ministers are much more willing than in years past to challenge their departments and, though they are not as large or as influential as ministerial offices or Cabinets are in Canada or France, they can now turn to influential private offices for support. The French Cabinets are well staffed with senior and highly qualified personnel. They are headed by a high-ranking official with significant experience in government and with the right political inclination. The Cabinets are staffed with other senior-level officials to deal with the media, provide advice on the various policy

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responsibilities of the ministries, and act as a check on the power of la république des fonctionnaires – the bureaucrats’ republic.39 In France, President Macron did an about face on the size of ministerial offices. In 2017, shortly after he came to power, he reduced the size of ministerial offices. In 2019, he considerably expanded their size.40 He also made it a point of having more senior-level advisers appointed in ministerial offices. A number of these officials also have direct ties or are known to Macron.41 The above changes have wide implications for the advisory role of both central agency and policy advisers in line departments. Career officials have become more compliant before their political masters on policy. Amyas Morse, Britain’s comptroller and auditor general, had this to say about striking a proper balance between impartiality and responsiveness of career officials: “The ship has probably tilted in the opposite direction over a number of years to where it is difficult for civil servants to feel they can stand up.”42 There is also now a more relaxed back-and-forth between political advisers and assistants and career officials than was the case forty years ago. Forty years ago, political advisers and assistants were fewer in number and more junior in status than today. Forty years ago, there was also an understanding that career officials were the key policy advisers to politicians. This is much less clear today. Britain, France, and Canada have moved toward the United States model, rather than the other way around, in bringing partisan political considerations to bear in government operations. The offices of presidents and prime ministers are now larger and employ more senior staff than in years past, similarly so for ministerial offices. In brief, all four countries have moved further in integrating the political and administrative worlds.

c h a n g in g t h e o l d est professi on It is widely known that Sir Thomas More told Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s most senior adviser, to advise the king to do “what he ought to do, but never what he is able to do.” In years past, the “what he is able to do” option was left to political assistants to advise on the advantages and costs of pursuing it, albeit from a politically partisan perspective. Career public servants, meanwhile, would be left to advise on what politicians ought to do, ignoring partisan political

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considerations. That is, or should be, the role of career officials – if they do not advise what politicians ought to do, who will? This approach no longer applies, at least not as clearly as it once did. Michael Wernick, clerk of the Privy Council and the most senior career public servant in the Justin Trudeau government, joined forces with the prime minister’s political advisers to apply pressure on the then attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to sign a deferred prosecution agreement (dpa ) with snc -Lavalin, a firm in vote-rich Quebec. The prime minister reminded Wilson-Raybould that not only was he prime minister but also a member of Parliament from Quebec with a general election on the horizon, and that the snc file held important partisan political considerations. Wilson-Raybould, however, stood firm with her director of Public Prosecutions in opposing a dpa for the firm. Wernick told a parliamentary committee that he had tried to move the attorney general off her position and to agree to a dpa for snc -Lavalin because the prime minister wanted it done. Senior officials in the pmo also pushed hard for a dpa . In the end, Wilson-Raybould was demoted, and a few days later she resigned from Cabinet.43 In short, the clerk of the Privy Council decided not to support the position of the director of Public Prosecutions, the department, and the minister. He chose to advise the prime minister on what he was able to do rather than what he ought to do. Wernick paid the price. He resigned as clerk of the Privy Council in March 2019. He explained why: “It is now apparent that there is no path for me to have a relationship of mutual trust and respect with the opposition parties.”44 Few believed that Wernick was politically partisan or that he was more a Liberal than a Conservative. The view was that he would have done the same for a Conservative prime minister.45 He reminded parliamentarians and the media that he had served in a senior position under Conservative prime minister Harper, who first promoted him to the deputy minister position. Wilson-Raybould also paid the price. Two months after she resigned from Cabinet, she was expelled from the government caucus. She remarked, however, that she had “no regrets. I spoke the truth as I will continue to do so.” She added that her purpose was “to break old and cynical patterns of centralizing power in the hands of a few unelected staffers [i.e., in the pmo ] … and the practice of governing in the shadows.”46 She insisted that politically partisan considerations had no place when applying the rule of law.

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f r ie n d o r foe It is unlikely that clerks in place over forty years ago would have pursued the prime minister’s wishes and ignored the views of the director of Public Prosecutions. R. Gordon Robertson, described as the gold standard when assessing the work of other clerks of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet, saw his role more as secretary to the Cabinet than as deputy minister willing to do the prime minister’s bidding when he served as Canada’s top civil servant between 1963 and 1975.47 Recent clerks have also warned against the growing concentration of power in the hands of the prime minister. Paul Tellier, who served as clerk under the Mulroney government between 1985 and 1992, explained: “Over the past 10, 12, 15 years, there has been too much centralization of power in the Prime Minister’s Office. In my days when I worked as a deputy minister under the senior Mr. Trudeau, my minister was not getting phone calls from the pmo . When I worked as Privy Council clerk for Mr. Mulroney, he was not phoning his ministers, and he didn’t have his chief of staff telling them what to do. But there has been an evolution. Under Prime Minister Harper, it became the trend that the pmo was involved in a great many files. I deplore that centralization of power.”48 The trend has become even more evident under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.49 The Wernick case is not unique to Canada. Britain has also seen a blurring of the lines separating the political from the administrative. Roger Gough and Christopher Foster wrote about how the pmo has grown closer to the Cabinet office, to the disadvantage of the latter.50 Foster maintains that the Cabinet office has essentially become part of the pmo .51 Lord Robin Butler, former Cabinet secretary, agrees and said, “The Cabinet now – and I don’t think there is any secret about this – doesn’t make decisions.”52 He joined other voices in Britain making the point that much of the power has shifted to prime ministers and their close advisers. It is easier to advise on what ought to be done rather than what can be done to a collective body where ideas can be debated than it is to advise one individual and his or her courtiers. Boris Johnson has made clear his view that career officials should not be “neutral arbiters” on matters of policy. To make the point, he dismissed his top civil servant Sir Mark Sedwill and replaced him with Simon Case, a forty-one-year-old civil servant with close

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ties to himself and his most senior political adviser.53 Sedwill made it clear he did not want to leave the post and said that “briefings against him were unpleasant.” He added that he was “troubled by attacks on the civil service.” Other senior career officials who have left or been forced out of the civil service have expressed “genuine fear the political climate makes it harder for them to speak truth to power.”54 Are public servants able to draw the line on policy between appropriate and inappropriate responsiveness as well as they could, say, forty years ago? The answer is no, at least in the case of Canada and Britain.55 The same is also true in the United States because the 4,000 political appointees provide a cover for career officials. The relationship between politicians, partisan political advisers, and career officials in France is different from the American, Canadian, and British experience. One needs to look to history to appreciate fully the relationship. The absolute power of the monarch in the ancient regime left its mark. The impetus to centralize political power has been evident throughout French history and remains particularly evident under the Fifth Republic, even more so under Macron.56 He explains: “Democracy always implies some kind of incompleteness … In French politics, this absence is the figure of the king, whose death I fundamentally believe the French people did not want.”57 Ministerial cabinets have become extremely powerful centres of decisions in recent years.58 As noted, they have also grown in size. There were fewer than 300 individuals employed in these ministerial cabinets in the early 1960s, in contrast to some 700 today when one includes the 45 partisan advisers who work in the presidential cabinet.59 Unlike in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, these ministerial cabinets are able to attract ambitious and high-performing career officials. France has witnessed a strengthening of the executive in the Fifth Republic. Charles de Gaulle’s decision to establish ena proved to be the training centre to staff the upper echelons of the executive. Getting admitted to ena and successfully meeting its requirements enable its graduates to fast track promotions in the public, and even the private, sector. The ena alumni include in their ranks four presidents of France, including Emmanuel Macron, seven prime ministers, and many more ministers and senior civil servants, as well as numerous senior private-sector executives.60

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Typically, over 50 percent of a president’s senior staff are ena graduates, and they are heavily represented in ministerial offices.61 Unlike the United States, Canada, or Great Britain, serving in ministerial cabinets does not leave a perception of partisanship. In France, serving in these offices constitutes “a reliable path for career advancement as a means of reaching leading positions in central administration or of obtaining public and private sector jobs.”62 Macron voiced his desire to do away with ena , or at least re-create it with a different mission. He makes the case that ena has lost sight of its original objective which “was to give access to the highest levels of government for everyone based on meritocracy and exams rather than on personal connections.”63 Studies reveal that intake of students to ena has a distinct bias toward children of wealthy families and children of those with past links to the school.64 A report prepared for the European Committee makes the point that the upper echelons of the French administration are “politicized” but much less so at the lower levels. Surveys of French career non-partisan employees reveal that politicians and their partisan advisers hold an influential hand in shaping policy. Some 48 percent of senior career officials agree with the proposal that “removing issues and activities from the realms of politics allows far more farsighted policies.” This compares with 38 percent who disagree.65 This is no different than in the other three countries surveyed, where the upper echelons of the four civil services have become much more politicized than is the case for program managers down the line. To sum up, the policy advisory function has changed in fundamental ways in the four countries surveyed, and all the changes point in the same direction. The mandate, roles, and size of partisan political advisory units have expanded in all four countries. There are far more lobbyists roaming the corridors of power than was the case forty years ago. Bureaucracy bashing has taken its toll and has sapped the confidence career officials have in their institutions, in advancing policy prescriptions, and in their ability to provide advice without fear or favour. The media, new and old, continue to have a profound impact on policy-making, as have demanding transparency requirements and permanent election campaigns. In light of these developments, most political leaders in the four countries now see less merit in relying on the advice of career officials as “neutral arbiters” than in years past.

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a n o n y m o u s no more The days are gone of anonymous career officials providing policy advice to their political masters. Access to information legislation, unrelenting calls to open up government, and the porous nature of policy-making processes have made it exceedingly difficult for career officials to remain anonymous. Politicians and senior career officials have even directed civil servants to become more visible on policy issues. The head of the Canadian civil service wrote in 2015 that “Canada needs policy-makers who are more networked, open and collaborative: our policy community needs to be set to open by default.”66 British civil servants are also expected to be more open and collaborative than in years past.67 Providing advice to politicians behind closed door is, or at least was, important to career officials because it enabled them to do so without fear or favour and they could avoid becoming party to partisan political debates or political actors. The only ways today for them to remain anonymous are to refrain from putting their views on paper or on their computers, since their emails are accessible, and to ignore directives from their bosses. Even these precautions may not be sufficient to maintain anonymity, since politicians in the four reviewed countries are no longer reluctant to name career officials in order to deflect criticism directed against themselves.68 There is also less willingness to turn to expertise or arm’s-length boards or committees for objective advice in order to de-politicize decision-making processes. Politicians – and Donald Trump was a case in point – no longer see expert or scientific advice as helping government resolve political disagreements. Instead, scientific advice is often only accepted when it supports a politician’s stance and ignored when it does not.69 Career officials have had to adjust to the reality that evidence-based policy advice is not as well received as it once was – a difficult adjustment. I reiterate that there is evidence in all four countries that civil service morale has been declining for the past forty years. An American observer’s astute framing applies as well to the other three countries surveyed: “Reports of low morale among government workers have become common, and public employers are experiencing particular problems recruiting and retaining millennial workers.”70 Some British civil servants report they now “dread going into work in the mornings.”71 In Canada, claims involving mental health

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conditions exceeded other claims for the first time in 2018, and the trend continues to this day.72 There is also evidence that the best and the brightest no longer go to government to map out a career.73 This, in a perverse fashion, strengthens the hand of presidents and prime ministers and their courtiers. It is perverse in the sense that a weaker civil service gives the bosses a freer hand to shape policy, strike program decisions, and get things done from a partisan political perspective. The civil service has lost standing and some of its ability to advise political leaders to do what they ought to do, but never what they are able to do at least in part because civil service anonymity is dying. Long-held principles of public administration are shifting, and it is not clear what the new world will look like. What is clear is that civil servants are no longer shielded from politics and political accountability. Their advice comes with the warning that it could well become public, thus turning career civil servants into political actors.

p o l icy a dv ic e from away Senior career officials also have to contend with an increasing number of non-government actors trying to carve out a role for themselves in shaping public policy. To career officials who were in government forty years ago, the policy-making process must now look like a free-for-all, an undisciplined process open to all comers. Partisan political advisers and lobbyists are hardly the only policy actors looking for a role in shaping new initiatives. There is a growing number of non-governmental organizations (ngo s) continually on the lookout to contribute to the policy- and decision-making processes. In brief, ngo s look to play three important policy roles that have consequences for career officials: identifying issues, developing solutions through research and analysis, and promoting specific policy solutions.74 The point is that the policy process is no longer limited to career officials operating in line departments and agencies, working with colleagues in central agencies, generating advice for their political masters. There are, for example, about 1.5 million ngo s in the United States dealing with every possible public policy issue.75 There are also a multitude of interest groups in all four countries surveyed, and most are trying to influence public policy and policy-makers.

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The question is whether ngo s and interest groups are representative of the population and how career officials deal with them. Certainly, well-organized and well-funded interest groups will carry far more weight on policy than citizens writing to their mc s or mp s. There are important disparities among the capacities of different groups to monitor policy proposals, assess the impact of proposals, and get attention from the more important policy- and decision-makers in government.76 A citizen writing to their representative in Parliament, Congress, or the National Assembly should not hold much hope that the act will have an impact. And yet, these politicians pay keen attention to their constituents. They have staff to follow up on letters from constituents after they are typically sent to the relevant department or agency for answers. In rare instances, notably when a letter gains media attention, an issue can be resolved to a constituent’s satisfaction. There is a much greater chance of success, however, if a letter generates thousands of signatures, secures the support of a well-known community leader, and garners wide media attention. More to the point, citizens writing letters to their government representatives are no match for interest groups or well-connected lobbyists. Powerful lobbyists or interest groups can tell a member of Parliament or Congress that it has, say, 5,000 members in his or her constituency. This enables them to deliver a powerful message not just to politicians but also to career officials.77 Politicians and senior career officials always pay close attention to what the media report. If an issue gains strong media attention, it stands a much better chance of being attended to than one the media has no interest in.

d e a l in g w it h in t eres t groups There are four ways senior career officials can deal with interest groups. They can simply dismiss out of hand what the groups are advancing. They can do this by delegating down the line responsibilities for addressing those interest groups that hold little interest for them or their political masters. Evidence indicates this is often done.78 In some instances, however, senior career officials have to attend to interest groups and lobbyists because they have close links to the politicians in power or they promote a view that squares with the wishes of their political masters. For example, the ties between

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President Trump and the National Rifle Association were well known to career officials.79 In other instances, career officials have no choice but to contend with interest groups because the issue they are promoting matters to the national interest, it deals directly with their work, or it dominates the news cycle. For example, it is impossible for career officials to ignore the swell of voices promoting the urgency of climate change crises. Environmental groups cannot be ignored because they are highly vocal and enjoy broad public support. In still other instances, career officials have their own interests to promote. They will be on the lookout for future employment possibilities, and this means opening doors to large private firms or high-profile lobby firms. Many senior career officials walk into new opportunities in the private sector shortly after they leave government. Government is the arms industry’s biggest customer, and firms are always watchful for senior government officials who are able to illuminate how government operates, how decisions are struck, and who the key decision-makers are. We know that former clerks of the Privy Council no longer look to retirement to write their memoirs. Former Cabinet secretary in Britain, Gus O’Donnell, went to td Bank as a senior adviser.80 Kevin Lynch, former clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to Cabinet in Canada, became vicechair at the Bank of Montreal and chair of the board of directors at snc-Lavalin, the firm embroiled in scandal after the pmo pressured the Attorney General to secure an out-of-court settlement for the Montreal-based company. Jocelyne Bourgon, another former clerk, became chair of the board of Industrial Alliance, one of Canada’s largest insurance companies.81 These are not isolated instances, as the revolving door between senior government officials and large private sector firms is also evident in the United States and even more so in France. France recently introduced measures to regulate lobbying activities. The measures include “un répertoire” requiring all organizations that lobby the government to register. The French government also collects information on the financial assets of 15,000 senior officials, including members of the National Assembly and the Senate, to ensure that conflicts of interest are held in check. Recall that France’s decision to strengthen transparency requirements was born out of the Cahuzac affair, resulting from a non-disclosure of financial assets of the minister responsible for the budget, Jérôme Cahuzac.82

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The other three countries under review have similar requirements. This has imposed some constraints on post-employment opportunities, limiting the activities of former government officials but only for a set period. It explains why it has become common practice for former politicians and senior bureaucrats to join large lobby firms only after a “cooling off” period. Indeed, large lobby firms in Washington, Ottawa, London, and Paris are populated by former politicians and senior career officials. Law firms have also joined the fray – hiring former senior government officials with no training in law to advise clients on how to navigate the ways of government and influence policy-makers. More is said about this below. The above speaks to how the role of senior career officials in the policy-making process has evolved considerably in recent years. In brief, they no longer enjoy near-monopoly access to politicians, and in turn, politicians no longer have the level of confidence they once had in the ability of career officials to provide objective evidence-based advice or policy advice that squares with their political agenda. Politicians, regardless of where they sit on the political spectrum, became convinced that senior career officials have their own policy agenda to promote at the expense of their boss’s and they had to find ways to keep their influence in check. Civil servants no longer enjoy the advantage of anonymity in generating policy advice for political leaders. The result is that policy-making is now less the product of an evidence-based process managed by career officials than it once was. The market for such a process, particularly with the politicians who now hold power, is thin. Today, there are many factors at play in shaping public policy, including well-resourced interest groups and well-paid lobbyists able to push and pull policy levers to secure a favourable decision. They have a well-honed capacity to tailor their message, spin a proposal, and open doors for their clients because they know the ways of government, having served in government. Career officials will be selective about who they open their door to, and the well-resourced interest groups and lobbyists stand a much better chance of having their point of view heard. These officials will also keep in mind lucrative post-employment opportunities when deciding to whom they should open their doors.

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n o bas e l in e of facts What are senior career officials to do when there is a limited market for evidence-based advice? They can assume that the policy-making process still works as it should, and continue to generate discussions or policy papers in the hope that the key decision-makers will take note. There is never a shortage of such papers being prepared in governments of the four countries discussed. The fact that President Donald Trump dismissed out of hand the impacts of climate change is not to suggest that career officials were ignoring the issues. What about senior career officials who want to be part of the action? The arrival of permanent election campaigns places enormous pressure on these officials to show their colour, not in a politically partisan fashion but in demonstrating enthusiasm for the government’s policy agenda, more specifically for what the head of government wants. Senior career officials know full well that if they do not provide the answers that the heads of state or government are looking for, there are others, whether politically partisan advisers or lobbyists, always at the ready to do so. Students of government have been writing of late about the emergence of New Public Governance, defined as the integration of permanent election campaigns, partisan political staff, and the expectations that senior career officials should be “promiscuously partisan” to the policy agenda of the government of the day.83 Dennis Grube argues that what has changed in Westminster-inspired parliamentary systems “is not that civil service leaders have suddenly become public. Their job is self-evidently not removed from the politics that surround it.”84 The growing politicization of the civil service is evident in the four surveyed countries. John Halligan’s explanation as to why is illuminating: “It can be attributed to the increasing demands of executive government, heightened partisanship and polarization, higher expectations about achieving goals, and contextuality factors that dilute the neutrality of the bureaucracy.” He adds that a case can be made for partisan support to help politicians counterbalance the vested interests of civil servants. This also comes at a price, which Halligan underlines: “Politicization can be arbitrary, chaotic, rampant, and overly focused on partisan and individuals’ interests.”85

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Career officials are well aware of the trends. Canada’s top public servants met to discuss ways to isolate themselves from “intense pressure to be promiscuously partisan” instead of being neutral in carrying the government’s agenda. They debated a proposal to clarify the role of the clerk of the Privy Council, but nothing came of it. Ralph Heintzman, a former senior Government of Canada career official, observed that “too many senior public service leaders have moved away from their traditional and proper role as non-partisan professionals to a new and improper role as partisan cheerleaders for the current political administration.”86 This, too, is hardly a Canadian-only development. Career officials, even those working in central agencies, are everywhere being pushed aside to make way for other streams of policy advice. In both the United States and Britain, presidents and prime ministers have been turning to so-called policy czars to pursue a policy objective. Britain, for example, appointed 260 policy tsars over a sixteen-year period. Czars were appointed to champion a policy agenda for children, the elderly, employment dispute resolutions, and the list goes on.87 The reason for turning to a policy czar is clear: politicians decided that career officials were not up to the task of delivering timely policy options on issues that truly mattered to them. President Obama also made full use of policy czars, appointing thirty in one year. The United States has had policy czars for energy, for safe schools, and for drug policy, among others. Obama’s health-care czar was reported to have more influence than the Health and Human Services secretary. President Trump also turned to policy czars to pursue his agenda, including a trade policy and a deregulation czar.88 He did this to ensure his agenda would be “aggressively pursued.” In the case of the United States, policy czars do not require Senate confirmation – an important consideration for any president.89 Policy czars hold a number of advantages. They enable presidents and prime ministers to cut through the machinery of government and government bureaucracies to get things done. They also give the appearance of action or giving life to the political agenda. Kevin Sholette adds that they enable the US president to sidestep what they consider to be “politically unaccountable bureaucrats.”90 The charge, if nothing else, can push career officials to show more enthusiasm in pursuing the political and policy goals of presidents and prime ministers.

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Policy czars are invariably sympathetic to the president’s or the prime minister’s policy agenda and are known to the leaders. That is why they are appointed. Presidents and prime ministers have every confidence that policy czars will pursue their desired policy goals. Building policy options from an agreed baseline of facts is often secondary to the pursuit of the desired policy. When President Trump became impatient with the lack of progress in reshaping the United States’ immigration policy, he looked at appointing an immigration czar to coordinate and promote his immigration policy. He identified two leading candidates, both well known for their strong views on immigration, views that squared nicely with his.91

l o o k in g back The governments of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and France have many features in common. During the past forty years or so, they have all seen power being drained from Congress, Parliament, the National Assembly, Cabinet, and the civil service into the hands of presidents and prime ministers and their close political advisers or courtiers. Only the courts have been able to hold their position, and they have been able to act as a check on the power of presidents and prime ministers. Career officials, in particular, have lost ground in shaping public policy. We have witnessed the blurring of the traditional dividing lines between politicians and career officials and, in the case of Canada and Britain, between the pmo and the Privy Council or the Cabinet office, to the disadvantage of the latter. The constitution no longer reveals where power truly lies, even in the United States and France that have codified constitutions. We are seeing an “expanding presidency” in both the United States and France and the presidentialization of politics in both Canada and Britain.92 Presidents and prime ministers have appointed policy czars, expanded the numbers in their offices, and turned to friendly lobbyists and interest groups to help them shape their policy agenda and the policy process. Career officials have adjusted. They decided either to become promiscuously partisan or to turn over the steering wheel to presidents and prime ministers and say, in effect, here, you drive and call on us to pick up the pieces when things go astray. Career officials know they have a legitimate basis to oppose, frustrate, and even disobey when presidents and prime ministers set out to do illegal

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things. Beyond this, career officials have become much more hesitant in “expressing a word of caution” or in identifying flaws in policy proposals or initiatives produced by their political masters. Some career officials bought into the notion that they had too much influence. The Crossman Diaries and the Yes, Minister television series have a lot to answer for. They had a seminal influence on bureaucracy, particularly in Anglo-American democracies. For this and other reasons outlined above, senior career officials have become less confident in presenting policy options and in challenging the views of their political masters. More to the point, relations between politicians and career officials have been transformed more by stealth than by constitutional change or by overhauling how our political and administrative institutions operate. The changes, however, have weakened the ability of the civil service in the four counties to provide policy advice. In some cases, this is precisely what their political masters wanted.

4 The Power of Appointments

We have seen that in the four countries in this study, no matter the workings of the national political institutions or who holds the office of presidents and prime ministers, power is increasingly concentrated in a few hands. In Great Britain and Canada, prime ministers and carefully selected courtiers hold the power to bring issues, whether big or small, to their offices for resolution, whenever they decide to do so. In France, power is concentrated in the hands of the president, the prime minister (under cohabitation), and the minister of the economy and finance; otherwise it is concentrated in the hands of the president and the minister of the economy and finance. Two keen students of French politics made the case that “such concentration of power is to allow the staffs of the dyarchy at the summit of the French state to engage in a proliferating interventionism.”1 The president has the power to decide who holds the more important positions in government. In the United States, presidents and their courtiers now run the executive branch as they see fit, with limited regard for the legislative branch. Mickey Edwards, an eight-term member of Congress and lecturer in government at Princeton and Harvard, writes: “The modern presidency has become a giant centrifuge, sucking power from both Congress and the states, making de facto law through regulation and executive order.”2 As is well known, the US president holds broad appointing powers, and in exercising this “enormous power … the President is not limited by any legal requirements, established either by statute or by standing executive regulations, governing the qualifications of candidates.”3 Presidents and prime ministers, however, are not in the habit of complaining that they have too much power. They are much more

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likely to argue that they still lack full access to all the effective levers of power to pursue their policy agendas and to deal with an increasingly complex and fragmented policy environment that “requires infinite coordination.”4 Globalization hinders their ability to accomplish their agendas because of binding agreements and the need for some degree of policy coherence between countries that belong to regional groups. This explains why they all view their power of appointment as key to their success, their ability to get things done, and their need to protect it against all suggestions for reform. This chapter reviews how presidents and prime ministers look to their power of appointment to strengthen their hold on power and pursue their agendas. The power to appoint, or conversely, the lack of power to appoint have far-reaching consequences for relations between politicians and career officials and for how government bureaucracies operate.

p o l it ic ia n s wa n t change Politicians run for office convinced they can do a better job than those they seek to replace. Those who have never served in government are likely to believe it is easier to fix things and to get things done in government than it actually is. This explains why ambitious commitments are made during an election campaign. For example, “I will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it,” in the case of Trump, who had never served in government before. One theme that invariably comes up at election time is the call for better management and to “do more with less.” Such things are rarely simple or straightforward in government. This may in turn explain why we have recently witnessed a sea change in the relationship between politicians and career officials. Again, politicians are no longer willing to accept unchallenged policy advice from career officials, and again this is true for politicians on the right and left of the political spectrum. As mentioned, the thinking is that career officials are not up to the task of introducing change and making it stick, and they are out of touch with the policy agenda of elected politicians. What is it about career officials’ policy advice that politicians continue to object to? In other words, why are politicians resisting the principles and conventions long associated with a professional and impartial civil service?5 Over the past forty years or so, the view

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has become widely held among politicians that career officials were not sufficiently responsive to their political and policy agendas. As a result, politicians have implemented measures that not only limit the ability of career officials to provide fearless advice but also ensure that they would not be captured by the policy preferences of career officials. As noted, politicians in the four countries have all, in recent years, added partisan political advisers and assistants to their staff. I note that partisan advisers were hardly mentioned in the public policy and public administration literature in the 1970s, whereas today they figure prominently.6 What do partisan advisers or assistants offer that career officials do not? For one thing, politicians are free to appoint whomever they like. They can turn to partisan advisers to address deficiencies in the policy advice coming from career officials. Politicians run for office to change things, to fix what other politicians who came before them could not. The perception is that career officials favour the status quo. It also only takes a moment’s reflection to appreciate that the Donald Trump policy agenda did not easily square with the views of long-serving career officials not only because it went against their interest but also because it was grounded in little else other than gut instinct. Shirley Williams’s comment that the public service “produces a hundred well argued answers against initiative and change,”7 likely resonates with the great majority of politicians, not just with Donald Trump. Most politicians arrive to office with an agenda – their own priorities, pet projects, electoral platforms, and policy biases. A good many politicians in Anglo-American democracies saw the bbc ’s Yes, Minister series. The not-so-subtle message of Yes, Minister was that bureaucrats were running the country, their deference to politicians was pure pretense, and the Sir Humphreys of the bureaucratic world wielded not just influence but also considerable power.8 The series painted a new portrait of the relationship between politicians and career officials. The portrait showed politicians as publicity-seeking dimwits and no match for the highly educated, unprincipled, and Machiavellian senior career officials. The television show’s theme was no matter what the issue and however sensible the minister’s position, the character of Sir Humphrey, the senior bureaucrat, would have a position at odds with the minister’s, and he would invariably have his way. Sir Humphrey’s views were not rooted in an ideology that differed from the minister’s or, for that matter, stemmed from profound

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beliefs. Rather, he could always be counted on to favour the status quo and, more importantly, do anything necessary to protect the interest of the department and the civil service. Moreover, Sir Humphrey would not only shape all major policy decisions and run the department as he saw fit, he would also manage political crises on behalf of his minister. Whatever the issue or problem, the minister, in the end, had to rely on Sir Humphrey’s considerable political and bureaucratic skills simply to survive. Politicians, starting with Margaret Thatcher, who asked for senior career officials to watch Yes, Minister were determined to wrestle power from the Sir Humphreys of the world. She, like many politicians in the United States and Canada, regarded Yes, Minister as a documentary, not as a satire. If career officials could not be trusted to give life to their policy agenda, politicians could turn to trusted partisan political advisers and assistants who shared their preferences. Partisan political advisers know full well that they owe their jobs to presidents, prime ministers, and ministers. Politicians believed this indebtedness would secure the upper hand in pursuing their political and policy agendas and the capacity to manage their “big P in the politics of policy work.”9 In short, politicians in all four countries decided the way to ascertain the big P in the politics of policy work was to increase the number of political advisers and assistants in government, give them more visibility and influence, and keep a close eye on the appointment process for the more senior career officials. They also recognized they could not fully control the appointment process for the great majority of career officials, but they had a free hand in appointing partisan political advisers and assistants. In addition, politicians had a free hand to enlarge the size of their political staff, and they all did. But they decided to do more by looking to influence the appointment process of the most senior career officials.

a p p o in t m e n t s at the top Presidents and prime ministers jealously guard their power of appointment. From time to time, calls are made to reform the appointment process to make it more open and transparent. The calls are always ignored. Presidents and prime ministers make the point that their power of appointment is key to making their government work and to pursuing their political and policy agenda. Former

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Canadian prime minister Jean Chrétien, for example, explained that ministers have departments and budgets as their source of power while prime ministers have the power of appointments.10 He, and all Canadian prime ministers who followed, have firmly resisted all suggestions, including one from a Commission of Inquiry, to make the process more transparent and open up the appointment process when appointing the permanent heads of government departments and agencies.11 To the extent that there have been changes to the appointment process in recent years, they have all served to strengthen the hand of the “boss.” The changes are evident at different levels in government and in all four countries. Article 2 of the US Constitution, with the consent of the Senate, gives to the president the power to appoint “Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law.”12 Presidents do not have to consult the Senate on the identification of those they wish to nominate; the Senate only holds the power to confirm or reject. History also reveals that the great majority of the nominees are confirmed, unless there were compelling reasons to reject them. It is also important to underline the point that the Senate role is advisory only, and presidents can decide not to proceed with a nomination after the Senate has confirmed it.13 Trump had a particularly high turnover rate in political appointments that required Senate confirmation. His turnover rate was more than triple that of either Obama or Reagan in their first few years in office. Trump also left senior positions vacant for extended periods, again much more so than his predecessors.14 In the United States, there are about 1,200 executive-level positions that require Senate approval, including Cabinet secretaries, deputy secretaries, undersecretaries and assistant secretaries, Justices of the Supreme Court, and some 150 ambassadors, among others. Some of these appointments can be controversial and contested, particularly when the president is from one party while the other party holds control in the Senate. But many are not, and the Senate hurdle is not as demanding as it once was. When the president’s party holds power in the Senate, the president gets what he wants, as recent history shows. Recent history also shows, however, that many of the positions are not filled in a timely manner. The problem is not always with the Senate approval process. Presidents themselves are also slow in

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putting forward candidates. It will be recalled that President Trump was notoriously unhurried in putting forward candidates. The same is now true for President Biden.15 It may well be that the president’s agenda is so overburdened that modern presidents cannot give proper attention to the appointment process, even if appointments would strengthen their hand in dealing with government bureaucracy and in dealing with issues that matter a great deal to them. The Senate rules were changed in 2013 to make it easier for presidents to get their way. There is now only a need for a simple majority to move an agency or lower court nomination to a vote, thus eliminating the possibility of a filibuster.16 Presidents are also free to leave positions vacant and there is nothing the Senate can do about it. President Trump said that he deliberately left many senior positions vacant because he felt that either there was no need for the positions or because he planned to reorganize the agency.17 President Trump also made frequent use of “acting appointments” in senior positions, much more than his predecessors did. In less than three years, Trump had thirty-one acting secretaries, more than the twenty-seven total President Clinton had and the twenty-three Obama had over eight-year periods.18 Trump explained why: “I sort of like acting. It gives me more flexibility.”19 It allowed Trump to bypass the vetting process because acting appointments do not require Senate approval. It is also easier for presidents to bend the will of acting secretaries to their position than is the case with officials who have successfully gone through the vetting process. Relying on active appointments, however, is not without problems, as President Trump discovered. Acting appointees do not enjoy formal legal authority in some domains, which further impedes the decision-making process. Presidents are well supported in sorting out who should receive a political appointment to help them exert control over the bureaucracy. The Presidential Personnel Office is an office one hundred people strong that is particularly active during the transition from one administration to another. The staff is divided by policy area and deals with thousands of applications, matching skills and the required political loyalty to the job.20 Because the office is staffed by partisans, staff turnover is complete whenever a new president comes to power. As noted, the executive branch can also fill about 2,800 positions without securing Senate approval, which gives the United States far

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more political appointees than Great Britain, Canada, or France combined. In the majority of cases, political assistants do not need to meet specific job or skill requirements. They serve at the pleasure of the president, vice-president, or agency heads, and they are expected to pursue the president’s goals and interests. They very likely worked on the president’s political campaign or are well-known party supporters. The point – very few partisan political advisers or assistants in the United States – or, for that matter, in Britain, Canada, and France – are hired because of their expertise in public sector management or their understanding of accountability requirements in government operations. In many cases, partisan advisors arrive in government with a disdain for government bureaucrats. The United States, like the other three jurisdictions surveyed in this book, has a senior executive or management cadre. Unlike the other three, however, the United States allows about 10 percent of its senior executives to be presidential appointees (about 700 positions out of 7,000). The appointments are made by agency heads with one important caveat – they are vetted by the Office of the President. This gives the president and his partisan advisers a great deal of power in deciding who gets an appointment. Hugh Heclo’s classic A Government of Strangers: Executive Politics in Washington makes the point that political appointees considerably strengthen the hand of presidents in dealing with the bureaucracy and have also forced career officials to become more politicized. Heclo concludes that neither career public servants nor the public are well served by the approach.21 Presidential or political appointees are free to roam wherever they wish in the department or agency where they work. President Ronald Reagan and his advisers applied a partisan political test before making political appointments and some observers argue that they applied the “litmus” test even to career officials wishing to move ahead. Terry Moe wrote that they placed “almost exclusive emphasis on loyalty and ideology. Their concern was not simply with filling the obviously important positions: they wanted partisans located deep within the established bureaucracy, even if expertise was lacking.” In short, they did not hesitate to apply the ideological litmus test, as no other president had for half a century. One key Reagan adviser explained, “The three criteria we followed were, one, was he a Reagan man? two, a Republican? and three, a conservative? Probably our most crucial concern was to ensure that conservative

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ideology was properly represented.” William Gormley sums it up best: “More than his predecessors, Reagan took an active personal interest in subcabinet appointments. More than his predecessors, Reagan used ideology as a litmus test in the appointments process. More than his predecessors, Reagan delayed appointments until he found the right people for the job.”22 Reagan set the scene for what was to come and the presidents who followed stayed the course. The litmus test does not require that political appointees have a knowledge of the department’s history and its policies or management practices in government. They are essentially temporary help to look after the political interests of the president and to ensure that the political and policy agenda is pursued. Clinton, Bush, and Obama also made full use of political appointees in their administrations.23 President Trump, too, made full use of political appointees in his administration. He even made efforts to convert some political appointees into permanent civil service positions, thus creating Trump’s own “deep state.”24

c a n a da The United States’ approach is making its way to other jurisdictions, including Canada. Today, ministerial offices are a far cry from forty years ago. They are considerably larger and employ more senior staff. Cabinet ministers and senior career officials have expressed concerns to the media about the expanding roles of partisan advisers in the pmo . They have talked about how “kids in short pants” now rule in the national capital. Career officials and many mp s and Cabinet ministers argue that the growing number of partisan political appointments managed from the pmo have made governing “more partisan” and “more hostile” to “the role of the civil service.”25 In Canada, on the advice of the clerk of the Privy Council and secretary to the Cabinet, prime ministers and their partisan advisers appoint deputy ministers or the permanent heads of departments and agencies. Prime ministers have the final say on all these appointments. There are several important recent developments about the appointments of deputy ministers that we need to underline. First, nearly all have served in a central agency before becoming a deputy minister. This was not the case before the 1980s. Second, they no longer remain in a department for very long – between 1867 and 1967, a deputy minister or the permanent head stayed in a department on

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average twelve years; today it is about two to three years.26 Third, Canadian prime ministers appear to apply the Margaret Thatcher test before appointing a deputy minister: “he is one of us.”27 Fourth, as one student of the work of deputy ministers maintains, their loyalty is now to the centre or to prime ministers and their advisers and the Privy Council Office “rather than departmental.”28 In 2003, the Canadian government decided to overhaul its approach to recruiting career officials below the deputy minister level. The objective was to do away with what the government described as “unduly rule-bound, complex and outdated, with infrastructure that was cumbersome, costly and outmoded.”29 It may have been all or part of that, but the rule-bound process was there to apply the merit principle in civil service appointments. It became dispensable when the government decided to pursue an ambitious management reform agenda designed to make public sector management look like private sector management. Government managers applauded the move – it meant that they could staff their operations without the Civil Service Commission playing an active role in the staffing process. The head of the Canadian civil service wrote to all permanent heads of departments and agencies to say that the reform measures were designed to “provide the maximum flexibility to you to manage staffing” and to “better enable you to deliver services more rapidly to Canadians according to your business plan.”30 The commission made reference to “business plans” rather than departmental plans. This was a departure from past directives from the central agency, at least when it came to the vocabulary. The reform pushed staffing authority down to managers for lower-level managers and new recruits. This has led to charges that the merit principle was being compromised and political patronage was being replaced by bureaucratic patronage. This, in turn, strengthened the resolve of prime ministers and their advisers to direct the appointment process of the more senior career officials, particularly at the deputy minister level. Over the past forty years, prime ministers would spend time with the clerk to discuss potential deputy ministers so that the clerks knew the names formally put forward for appointment would receive the prime minister’s blessing. Deputy ministers have become as much a part of the centre of government, if not more so, than they are administrative heads of the departments. They are now selected for their knowledge of how

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the system works rather than for their sectoral expertise or for their knowledge of a department, its policy, and history. They have come to constitute a separate community from other career civil servants. Forty years ago, deputy ministers were concerned primarily with their own departments and identified dutifully with them. One former deputy minister reports that when he was first appointed in early 1970, he would not have recognized one-third of his counterparts had he come across them on the street.31 Today, deputy ministers spend nearly as much time with one another, dealing with what prime ministers and their courtiers want and reconciling the interdepartmental process, as they do with senior departmental managers. Members identify staunchly with the club, and each may well serve over time as deputy minister in three or four departments. Loyalty is directed as much to the club, if not more so, than to their departments. As with most clubs, members are expected to remain loyal.

l o o k in g to g r e at bri tai n The treatment of appointments has also changed in Britain. Boundaries that once separated politicians and career officials, at least when dealing with the media, are collapsing. The Hutton inquiry into the death of a minister of defence, scientist David Kelly, revealed the extent to which media relations have come to dominate most things in government and underlined the stronger role partisan political assistants now play in government.32 Ambitious career officials understand the ability to deal with the media, diffuse a political crisis, and fall on hand grenades, so to speak, have become highly valued by all prime ministers. These skills are also a sure way to climb the organizational ladder. They know the prime minister holds the key to all senior appointments, both at the political level and the most senior levels in the bureaucracy. The desire of prime ministers to manage political crises, to deal with the old and new media, and to see their policy agendas pursued with enthusiasm has changed both the work and the appointment process for senior career officials. As is the case in Canada, senior career officials, notably permanent heads of departments and agencies, no longer stay in place for extended periods. It is now a very rare case when a career official, either in Canada or Britain, joins a department and stays to gain a thorough understanding of its history and policies while rising to the top of the organization.33

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The result is that permanent heads of departments now know little more than ministers about the history of the department, its policies, and its operations. Departments now have “managers” rather than “leaders” as permanent heads. Managers are much more adroit at accommodating the political interests of their political masters than leaders who have come up through the ranks of their department and are deeply committed to the history and policies of their departments. Mid-level career officials now see the road to the top is through brief stays in departments, joining a central agency, gaining visibility, and learning to fight or manage political fires, rather than staying with one department to gain a deep understanding of its policies and programs to promote systematic change.34 Lord Butler, who served under five prime ministers and as Cabinet secretary to Prime Ministers Thatcher, Major, and Blair, has lamented the growing tendency to focus efforts in government on securing favourable media coverage. He explained that “there is too much emphasis on selling, there is too much central control and there is too little of what I would describe as reasoned deliberation which brings in all the arguments.” He went on to say that “the Cabinet, now, and I don’t think there is any secret about this, doesn’t make decisions. It isn’t wise to listen only to special advisers, and not to listen to fuddy-duddy civil servants, who may produce boringly inconvenient arguments.”35 Again, the boundary is collapsing – particularly the one that has long separated the politically partisan and the administrative worlds, at least in dealing with the media and when politicians deal with career officials. This, in turn, has had a profound impact on relations between politicians, their partisan advisers, and career officials. It was Prime Minister Blair who gave two advisers the power “to issue direct commands to civil servants.”36 Blair also doubled the number of special political advisers in government, and the number has remained high. In short, the role of special advisers and partisan political assistants has become an important part of how Whitehall decides; forty years ago, they were not likely even mentioned when discussing how Whitehall operated.37 What changed? The most important development is the extent to which news management has become important inside government. Christopher Foster writes that senior civil servants who are very ambitious know the path to the top requires skills for both networking and managing political crises. They also know if they cannot

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provide the skills to manage a political crisis and help secure favourable media attention, then the prime minister will go elsewhere to secure it. To be sure, imparting the authority to two partisan political advisers to give direction to career officials, as Tony Blair did, was a message not lost on the bureaucracy: learn to manage a political crisis and pursue a prime minister’s wishes with enthusiasm or risk being left behind when promotions come around.38 Governments have sought with limited success to clarify the role of partisan political advisers in the post-Blair era. Gordon Brown rescinded the executive authority Blair gave to his No. 10 political advisers. He also implemented the 2009 Code of Conduct for Special Advisers. The code explains the role of partisan advisers is to help “ministers on matters where the work of Government and the work of the Government Party overlap and where it would be inappropriate for permanent civil servants to become involved. They are an additional resource for ministers to provide them assistance from a standpoint that is more politically committed and politically aware than would be available to a Minister from the permanent Civil Service.”39 The code, however, has had modest practical impact, if any. In brief, Brown tried, without success, to re-establish a boundary separating the work of partisan political advisers from the work of career officials or separating the work of government from the political interests of the governing party. He had this to say in his memoirs about partisan advisers: they “may have had no power to make decisions but in practice they became among Britain’s most important decision-makers … much of what the Cabinet now does according to textbook constitutional theory is, in practice, done by these advisers acting as a kind of unelected Cabinet.”40 Prime ministers who followed Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have been unwilling to downplay the role of their partisan advisers or attenuate in any fashion their own power or that of their office. This, notwithstanding commitments made by some of them, notably David Cameron, to return to Cabinet government. I know no student of government in Britain who makes the case that Cameron was able to bring back Cabinet government. We now know that once in office Cameron made it clear he wanted a strong centre to exert better political control over the civil service, which he viewed as “too large and unresponsive.”41 Boris Johnson also decided, for different reasons and with varying degrees of success, to rely on a strong centre to deal with the fallout

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from a successful Brexit vote and to secure a tighter hold on the policy levers.42 He is making full use of his power of appointment. Prior to Johnson, Theresa May tried to strengthen the centre, albeit with limited success. She had a policy unit twenty-four people strong in her office; two-thirds of the staff were civil servants and one-third partisan advisers. Leaving aside France, this speaks to the uniqueness of the British approach where the pmo and ministerial offices house both career and partisan advisers.43 Partisan policy advisers have also gained a public profile that compares to those of senior Cabinet ministers. Dominic Cummings carried a big stick inside government while he served as top adviser to Boris Johnson. The media documented the policy battles he won and lost.44 This is in sharp contrast to the role partisan advisers played in the pre-Thatcher era, when they operated in the background, away from the limelight, playing a well-defined and secondary role to Cabinet ministers and senior career officials. Ministerial offices in Great Britain are hybrid in nature bringing together both partisan advisers and career officials. They are typically staffed by career officials, including a principal private secretary and a handful of partisan advisers. Partisan advisers, however, have an increasingly important role in delivering political lenses when policy proposals are brought forward.45 It is worth reiterating that presidents and prime ministers and their Cabinet secretaries or ministers hold unencumbered power to appoint and dismiss these partisan officials.

france France has never fully bought into Max Weber’s ideal bureaucracy where there is a division of labour or a clear distinction between politicians and career officials. Like Britain, France has a hybrid system mixing partisan political advisers and assistants with career officials in offices that belong to the political world. This may explain why France gives partisan political advisers and assistants the authority to issue directives to career officials.46 The French Revolution turned public administration on its head, and the impact is still being felt to this day. Since 1789, France has made every effort, albeit with limited success, to lodge sovereignty in institutions, not in a person; however, old habits die hard. Napoléon represented political power, not institutions, as Charles

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de Gaulle did and as Macron does now. The power of appointments continues to reside in the hands of powerful individuals, starting with the president. Bonaparte did establish a “rational structure of public administration, the first in Europe since the romans.”47 He also laid the groundwork for recruiting on a basis of merit. Though it has had more than a few bumps along the way, recruitment to the civil service has been done over the years through competitive examinations. Recruitment at the senior level, however, has been largely done through les grandes écoles, starting with the École polytechnique, founded in 1794. Though on shaky grounds of late, the tradition continues to this day with the ena leading the way in populating the upper echelons of the French civil service. De Gaulle established ena in 1945.48 Bonaparte looked to the military as a model for the civil service. The bureaucracy was to be hierarchical and specific duties were to be assigned to all ranks in a well-defined command-and-control setting. The civil servant, or rather the position, was assigned specific responsibilities and the individual became accountable for carrying them out. This contrasts with the Westminster model in which civil servants are accountable through a minister.49 The Office of the President, the Office of the Prime Minister, and ministerial offices or “cabinets” look to both the political and the administrative for staff. These offices hold significant appeal both for aspiring politicians and ambitious young career officials. Ministerial offices are headed by a senior career official, le directeur de cabinet, and le chef de cabinet, a partisan closely identified with the minister. An office is divided between the political and the administrative staff. Malcolm Anderson observes the approach is “useful to ministers, tolerable to administrators and consecrated by a long tradition.”50 The president, in consultation with the relevant ministers, decides who serves in his office. Macron appointed Alexis Kohler as the secretary general at the Elysée Palace. Kohler, like many of his predecessors, is a graduate of ena . He also served as chief of staff to Macron when he served as minister responsible of the economy and finance. Macron himself is an ena graduate and served as deputy secretary general of the Elysée under President François Hollande.51 Public administration in France is unlike that of the other three countries surveyed for historical reasons and differences in society.

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The French civil service consists of the central ministries in Paris and regional offices located in twenty-two regions. Central ministries will prescribe the policy objectives. The regional offices are expected to apply the policy prescriptions and deliver the services. Senior officials in the central ministries carry an elitist perspective, convinced that they have the necessary knowledge to establish the right policy prescriptions both at the national and regional levels. In addition, the French civil service is well known for having centrally prescribed rules and regulations through the Court of Accounts, which explains why French civil servants are often portrayed as prone to rule-driven behaviours and very closely married to the status quo.52 France’s political instability over the years has had a profound influence on its civil service. It explains why both France and its civil service see merit in the status quo and centrally prescribed rules and why they have promoted an elitist attitude as a way to protect its members and the nation against political instability. However, la République des fonctionnaires or the civil servants’ republic, as it has been called, brings its own challenges.53 The perception, if not the reality, is that the bureaucracy dominates policy-making and administration. This, in turn, explains why presidents of late are paying keen attention to their power of appointments and why French politicians make every effort to have strong and well-staffed “ministerial cabinets.”54 In brief, ministerial cabinets have come to play an important role in government. They are headed by a high-ranking and ambitious official sympathetic to the government’s policy agenda. These officials can return to the civil service when leaving ministerial offices and many do. Unlike the United States, Britain and Canada, partisan political advisers can easily move in and out of the career civil service. Being partisan does not, in France, carry the stigma that it does in the other three countries. Ministerial offices in France are large and well-staffed and they are getting larger under Macron.55 The above to make the case that senior-level French civil servants can move with ease between the political and bureaucratic worlds. They are amphibians in that they are comfortable working as partisan advisers one day and as career officials another depending on who is in power and the circumstances. This, in turn, serves to strengthen the hand of the president and the prime minister. In his study of the French civil service, Gildas Tanguy asks whether senior civil servants are to serve the state or political power. He

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concludes that career officials in the field, starting with les préfets, view their role as serving the interest of the state. He points out, however, that it is less clear when it comes to senior civil servants working for the political class in the national capital.56 This is also true in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada.

w h at a b o u t the rest Presidents and prime ministers decide who is in and who is out among political advisers and assistants and at the most senior levels in central agencies and government departments and agencies. The bulk of government bureaucracies, however, lies beyond the reach of presidents and prime ministers and their Cabinet secretaries or ministers, at least when it comes to the appointment process. It will be recalled that President Trump labelled the two million career civil servants the “deep state.” Trump explained that the deep state was “invisible,” and described it as the “steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people.”57 Other than making noise attacking the deep state and debasing career civil servants at every turn, he did little to reshape it. The appointment process for mid-level career officials has changed in recent years, pushing it further away from presidents, prime ministers, and Cabinet secretaries and ministers, or at least from their ability to control the process. As noted, Thatcher’s New Public Management (npm ) measures, which made their way to Canada and the United States and more recently to France, sought to decentralize management responsibilities. This included delegating more responsibility to managing human resources, including staffing.58 France was slow in embracing npm measures for reasons that have been well explained elsewhere and are explored further below.59 Suffice to note here that Philippe Bezes and Gilles Jeannot point out that the npm vocabulary has only been employed “sparingly” in France so “not to upset public opinion or civil servants.” They go on to make the case that things are changing. They report that France is now pursuing a number of npm measures, including a greater reliance on performance evaluation efforts and a decentralization of some operations and empowering managers.60 In recent years, France, much like the United States, Canada, and Britain, has also seen politicians exercising greater influence on senior-level appointments to the civil service than in years past.

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In Canada, the government turned the Civil Service Commission into essentially an audit agency rather than as a partner with line departments and central agencies when hiring staff to ensure the merit principle is respected. Line departments and agencies and their managers have all applauded the change – it is, after all, much easier to hire staff without having central agency officials sitting next to them on a hiring board or committee. Again, it is also much easier to fudge performance reports on human resources than it is to play fast and loose with centrally prescribed rules when staffing mid-level career positions. Merit is now in the eye of the mid-level manager rather than a combination of the manager and an independent commission charged with ensuring the merit principle is applied. Government officials in line departments and agencies in all four countries happily embraced the “let the managers manage” call because it freed them from dealing with some red tape and a number of centrally prescribed administrative rules and regulations. However, it did, in the process, push frontline managers further away from politicians, more senior career officials, centrally imposed requirements, and the merit principle. The merit principle – to the extent that it now exists – is applied by individual managers rather than by respecting government-wide processes, arm’s-length hiring boards or committees, and widely accepted criteria. With the merit principle now resting in the eye of the beholder or individual managers, government recruitment is today often done through short-term contracts, unlike in years past when open competitions were managed by an independent commission or agency. The result is that who you know matters more than ever in government staffing, and less so through open, well-advertised competitions tied to the merit principle. It may well be that politicians decided to exert a greater say in making appointments at the most senior levels and enlarge the number of politically partisan advisers and assistants as a counterweight to letting the manager manage and the perceived, if not the real, rise of bureaucratic patronage. Government officials in central agencies are having second thoughts about “a highly delegated staffing system.” An after-thefact review of Canada’s Public Service Commission’s new approach to staffing argued that the reforms “may not have sufficiently appreciated the challenges of changing staffing in a large complex public institution.”61 One of the concerns is the “contingent workforce” has

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become a de facto staffing strategy. The same review recognized the difference between large complex public institutions and private sector firms. Leaving aside hiring practices and delegating greater authority to re-classify positions, the ways of government bureaucrats have not changed. They remain risk-averse. As we will see, encouraging civil servants to be less risk-averse would require more substantial changes, particularly when it comes to accountability requirements. Are government operations and programs better managed today than was the case before the arrival of npm measures? There is little evidence to suggest this is the case but plenty to show the opposite.62 The problem, in short, is that civil servants – and this applies to all four countries – see performance evaluation efforts having little to no impact in establishing the basis for a “clear reward” or “penalty” in managing human resources.63 Governments in all four countries are no better today at dealing with non-performers than they were forty years ago. There is a widely shared view in all four government circles that it is too difficult to remove a poorly performing employee and simply not worth the effort.64

t he t r a d it io n a l ba r g a i n comes unglued Relations between politicians and career officials have changed a great deal in recent years, particularly between presidents and prime ministers and the most senior civil servants. We have known for some time that the traditional bargain guiding the relationship between politicians and civil servants is broken. Christopher Hood and Martin Lodge review various aspects of the traditional bargain from a comparative perspective and document its downfall. They make the point that both sides cheat under the bargain, notably when establishing managerial performance.65 There are a number of reasons why the traditional bargain came unglued.66 We know the traditional bargain held for a long time, and it produced a golden age – from the Second World War to the 1970s. The work of the civil service was highly valued and most civil servants were held in high esteem. These civil servants ran a tight ship, were known for frugality, were loyal to the government of the day, and were able to serve without drawing attention to themselves. One hardly heard criticism from either side about the other.

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Senior civil servants helped politicians successfully plan and implement the war effort, at least in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Many feared a severe economic downturn and high unemployment at the end of the Second World War, but government bureaucracies came up with plans to deal successfully with the anticipated economic downturn. Politicians and civil servants together were also able to grow the welfare state in the four countries. Politicians laid down visions for a New Deal, a “Great Society,” a “Just Society,” and civil servants responded with both strategies and an administrative capacity to deliver the required policies and programs. Vernon Bogdanor writes that the “philosophy of state action reached its apogee in the years following the Second World War when the post-war settlement legitimised the role of government.”67 The goal of many young university graduates in the immediate postwar years was to work for the common good, and the state provided the most promising avenue to do so. Until recently, government had little difficulty in attracting its share of the best and brightest that came out of the universities.68 Things went off the rails by the 1980s. We saw earlier that politicians on the right, left, and in the middle of the political spectrum became openly critical of career officials. Politicians have sought since then to gain better control of the machinery of government by looking to the appointment process. For one thing, presidents and prime ministers added substantially to the number of partisan advisers and assistants in their own offices and in the offices of Cabinet ministers and secretaries. For another, they have sought to identify candidates of like mind to occupy top positions in the civil service – “is he one of us” became a stock question Margaret Thatcher asked of impartial civil servants.69 Central agencies, meanwhile, responded by asking for a number of performance reports on staffing, among other things, making government thicker and actually slowing the decision-making process when delivering government programs and services. If nothing else, it made changes in government operations more difficult, the opposite of what presidents and prime ministers, starting with Margaret Thatcher, wanted – and still want. The machinery of government and the relationships between politicians and career officials, when dealing with Parliament and Congress were left largely intact. To be sure, there were efforts to hive off parts of government departments to executive or special

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operating agencies and to encourage government managers to emulate their private sector counterparts, while leaving accountability requirements pretty well intact. The more substantive change was made through the appointment or staffing process – therein lie the problems. The problems were – and remain – institutional. Appointing trusted advisers or even politically trusted senior civil servants can never provide the full answer. The best that can be accomplished is for presidents and prime ministers to get their way on issues that either come to their attention or that they wish to pursue. Trump explains: “Here’s my choice: I deal with the Comeys of the world [former head of the fbi ], or I deal with Rudy.”70 He much prefers turning to an individual closely associated with his political interests rather than with an institution that plays by long-established rules even when dealing with issues that are important to presidents or issues that come to their attention for resolution. The Comey versus Giuliani debate is hardly an isolated case. All presidents and prime ministers have in recent years appointed “policy tsars”; for example, some 300 policy tsars were appointed over a sixteen-year period in Britain.71 Policy tsars, special advisers, and the Rudy Giulianis of the world do not have to follow any rules, procedures, or processes tied to institutions other than those that play to the political interests of presidents and prime ministers. They are not there to promote gradual change, attend to the broader interests of government departments and agencies, or get things done while respecting long-established accountability requirements. Instead, they can get things done quickly with a desired outcome. Much less so for the traditional government bureaucracy. Accomplishing things for presidents and prime ministers matters much more than turning things over to government bureaucracies and centrally prescribed rules to apply uniformly. However, bureaucracies, offer advantages that policy tsars, special advisers, and political advisers do not. Government bureaucrats, at least in theory, adhere to principles of public life – they act or should act – solely in terms of the public interest, act and take decisions impartially and on merit, are accountable to institutions for their decisions and actions (albeit in most cases through politicians), and act with integrity by not taking decisions to garner personal financial or other material benefits.72 Partisan advisers or policy tsars do not always have to play by these rules.

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Presidents and prime ministers know that they have a short life expectancy in office. To get things done quickly, they prefer to look to individuals they can trust, and at times to central agencies because these agencies operate above line departments. They have special ties to presidents and prime ministers and are thus able to push and pull levers to make things happen. Some presidents and prime ministers may have given up on government bureaucracies down the line in government departments, but not on central agencies. Central agencies and senior career officials are much more responsive to political leaders because, unlike program managers, they have to compete with an increasing number of senior partisan political advisers, policy tsars, and lobbyists to be heard.

l o o k in g back Line departments and agencies have happily embraced the theme “let the manager manage” and applauded the efforts to remove many centrally prescribed rules governing financial and administrative resources because these shifts are clearly in their interest. Civil service appointments from the mid-managerial levels to front line positions have been pushed down to departments, turning oversight bodies into little more than audit offices. It is accordingly much easier today for program managers to make appointments in the civil service as they see fit and to create or re-classify positions than at any time in the past. This in the hope that government bureaucrats would start to operate like the private sector; however, no government in the four countries has come close to meeting this objective. Politicians have not had the authority to appoint managers and government employees in line departments and agencies for the past hundred years or so. But they could at least look to centrally prescribed rules to look after the merit principle and keep bureaucratic patronage in check. The same can be said about managing financial resources before more and more authority was delegated down the line in pursuit of npm goals. To be sure, managing the paradox, or when politicians want more power while empowering line managers, has given rise to new challenges. Again, politicians, particularly presidents and prime ministers, have gained the upper hand on issues that matter to them, bringing these issues to their offices for resolution. They have done this by appointing the most senior government officials and ensuring they

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are on the same page in dealing with issues that matter to them. Presidents and prime ministers have also added more political advisers and assistants, which gives them more power in dealing with career officials. As for the rest, government bureaucracies have gained greater authority to run their operations. But this has come at a cost. npm measures have a lot to answer for – they have made government operations thicker, more cumbersome, more costly, and more in tune with the status quo, the very thing they were established to challenge. More is said on this later. Career government officials did not take risks under the traditional bargain, and they still do not under npm measures. Traditional public administration made it clear they should not – government resources are public resources and career officials do not have the mandate to put any of them at risk. Career officials also know full well that the best way for them and their operations to survive is to keep their heads below the parapet. npm measures did not change this – right to information and freedom to information legislation did. Career officials, better than anyone, know with the arrival of social media, the twenty-four-hour cable news channels, and permanent election campaigns that politics is now increasingly divided into supporters and enemies. Civil servants still want to avoid getting caught in the crossfire, and the best way to avoid that is to embrace the status quo or promote gradual change. In short, giving greater management autonomy to mid-level managers and front line workers has not changed this – if anything, it has made things worse. In the eyes of politicians, nothing was gained in delegating more staffing authority for mid- and lower-level positions to line departments and agencies. Over the past forty years, senior civil servants have been asked to revisit the debate whether serving the king is equal to serving the state. There are signs that some senior career officials bought into the notion that serving the king was serving the state. There has been a growing tendency in recent years for senior career civil servants to tell presidents and prime ministers what they are able to do rather than what they should do. There is, however, a price to pay for this shift. Recent surveys reveal that citizens are losing confidence in the upper ranks of the civil service.73

5 Allocating Resources

The budget acts as the government’s central nervous system. It is the single most important document that government produces, sending out unequivocal signals to every branch of the government body about what is important and what is not. The budget outlines in concrete terms who wins and who loses, who has influence and who does not. Politicians can debate the merits of a proposed policy or program, but measures can rarely be pursued unless funds are made available. The vast majority of policy measures require funds, and as the saying goes, “money talks.” The competition for securing new resources is always intense. The competition for resources and accountability requirements in spending are somewhat akin to market shares in the private sector: in both cases, we know who wins and who loses. Students of government have produced an expanding body of literature to explain growth in public spending. Aaron Wildavsky was the first to employ the “guardian–spenders” framework in his analysis of the American budgetary process. The framework remains relevant. Guardians are, for the most part, central agencies responsible for putting together the expenditure budget and oversight bodies charged with ensuring that funds are spent for their allocated purpose and in line with accountability requirements. Wildavsky later teamed up with Hugh Heclo to apply the same framework to study government spending in Great Britain.1 The framework has since been applied in other jurisdictions.2 There are any number of reasons to explain the growth in government spending – among others, urbanization, rising per capita income, increased spending on social programs, an unexpected

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crisis (with covid -19 being a case in point), and commitments made during election campaigns. The growth of the welfare state has a lot to answer for when it comes to growth in government spending. We also know that government bureaucracies continue to fuel spending. I know of no government department or agency that goes to policy-makers to say, we have too many resources. Rather, year after year they ask for more resources or, at a minimum, for the status quo. This chapter explores the relationship between presidents and prime ministers and their governments’ budget process. It also considers the role of career officials in shaping government budgets. We need to revisit central agencies, how they deal with line departments and agencies, and how budget decisions are struck. We also need to explore to what extent presidents and prime ministers have the upper hand in shaping the expenditure budget.

w h o k n ow s what William Niskanen shook the public administration community with his seminal contribution on how and why government decides. He argued that politicians and bureaucrats are motivated by self-interest and that individuals (Homo economicus) rather than institutions explain how government budgets are struck. Government managers know better than anyone if and how effective their programs are, as Niskanen maintained, thus outsiders are at a distinct disadvantage in challenging the merit of government programs. There are few incentives for government managers to report if their programs are falling short of the mark. Reporting shortcomings to those outside a government department only brings problems. As Douglas Hartle writes, “It is a strange dog that willingly carries the stick with which it is beaten.”3 Niskanen is hardly the only student of government to raise questions about the ability of government managers to protect their operations from outside forces or to shirk accountability. There is an ever-growing body of literature on public choice and principal agent theories that continues to challenge the work of career officials and also supports the views of those politicians who insist that career officials pursue their own agenda. Margaret Thatcher is reported to have made literature on public choice theory required reading for senior career officials.4

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For more than four decades, politicians and senior career officials have been trying to establish a better system to allocate financial resources. As a life-long student of government, I am amazed at the ability of both politicians and bureaucrats to reinvent the wheel in government budgeting, or rather, at their continuing willingness to replace one wheel with the same wheel, and few ever noticing. For instance, in the 1960s, a number of governments introduced, with considerable fanfare, the Planning Programming Budgeting System (ppbs ) to allocate resources. The sharp difference between ppbs and the conventional or classical budgeting process was clear – or at least that is what decision-makers of the day touted. ppbs was designed to generate better decisions, control costs better, and at the same time, increase performance in service delivery. Robert McNamara first introduced ppbs in the US Defence Department in 1961, and it spread to other departments and other countries until the mid-1970s.5 McNamara was one of a handful of “whiz kids” who had turned around the problem-plagued Ford Motor Company. He later became president of Ford. President Kennedy asked him to serve as secretary of defence in his administration. He arrived at the department determined to improve its management by introducing a more “rational approach” to budgeting – ppbs .6 ppbs was especially designed to strengthen the budget process by having specific program objectives clearly stated, defining program benefits better, developing a comprehensive framework for classifying programs, developing information systems to evaluate the effectiveness of individual programs, and having the capacity to project program costs over several years. An ambitious agenda to be sure. Politicians liked ppbs because it called for a top-down decision-making process, suggesting that they would have a more potent say in shaping the expenditure budget. It would enable them to identify which programs were working and which ones were failing. Senior career officials, meanwhile, sang the system’s praise because it would turn the budget process into a more rational decision-making process.7 The approach was thought to be such a powerful decision-making instrument that many bureaucrats believed it could actually remove politics from the budget process. One senior career official felt the need to reassure politicians that they would continue to make the important decisions: “ppbs must not seek to substitute

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science for politics in the decision-making process.”8 In brief, both politicians and career officials, initially at least, saw benefits in implementing ppbs . However, ppbs proved short-lived. By the mid- to late 1970s, ppbs was pronounced dead, first in the United States and later in all the other countries where it had been introduced. To be sure, ppbs led to many bureaucrats hired, many consultants retained, and many meetings held to make the approach work. In the end, governments witnessed very few “program terminations or any noticeable shift in program cost.” Few were prepared to make the case that ppbs generated better decisions. If nothing else, ppbs led to increased spending in the administrative costs of government. Not only were numerous new positions created but also in moving away from simple line-item budgeting, central agencies lost control over such input costs as travel and consultant contracts.9 Politicians also lost the ability to look at input costs when reviewing expenditure budgets, something they can easily grasp, such as the number of career officials employed in a government department. More to the point, ppbs served to exacerbate the principal agent problem. It was the beginning of the end for the parsimonious culture in government operations. The challenges quickly became obvious through endeavours to bring quantitative analysis into the expenditure budget process and make it work. For one thing, defining specific objectives for programs and activities proved difficult or impossible in many cases. There was often more than one objective for any given program, and virtually every program impinged directly or indirectly on the goals of others. Thus, in defining its program objectives, one department had to contend with those of another, which often gave rise to conflicts. Program objectives, if ever defined at all, were generally vague statements and of little merit, even as a checklist to evaluate the program’s effectiveness. In turn, it became virtually impossible to develop a set of criteria to determine the success of programs. There was little in the way of experience to draw from. Of course, Cabinet secretaries, ministers, and career officials had looked at objectives, when budgeting by standard objects was the norm. However, they did so only in a superficial manner and only on matters that were truly important to them. ppbs was largely ineffective in assimilating the total picture of the expenditure budget and in showing unequivocally that a particular program had failed. However, in instances where ppbs techniques could show that a program was meeting

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its objectives and that a strong need still existed for it, the sponsoring department was sure to parade the findings in front of key decision-makers and ask for more resources. I know of no one now making the case, either in government or in the literature, that ppbs was a success. Two students of government did their best to come up with something positive and wrote: “It might well be that ppbs has not failed, but rather that some people expected – and others promised – more than ppbs could ever deliver.”10 The important lesson learned from the failure of ppbs to live up to expectations was that many government decisions are, by definition, political and no process, however sophisticated, can change this. The introduction of ppbs did constitute a defining moment in government budgeting. It spelled the end of the classical line-item budget process. Although line-item budgeting had weaknesses, which ppbs sought to remedy, it was an easy process to understand, even for newly elected politicians with no political or government experience. One could easily establish how much money was requested for salaries, travel expenses, purchasing equipment, and how much would flow to clients – information easy to grasp, even for the non-specialist. Allen Schick explains that it enabled policy-makers to know and later verify that financial resources would only be spent on authorized purposes.11 The introduction of ppbs and its successors also had a profound and lasting impact on central agencies. For one thing, the system added new staff to manage the process. For another, central agencies took their eyes off input costs to concentrate on performance and program evaluation all the while adding staff to look after this new responsibility. Governments in the United States, Canada, Britain, and France have never stopped trying to bring a quantitative analysis into the expenditure budget process. It remains a work in progress. Government officials have been unable to connect in any meaningful way quantitative analysis to either the expenditure budget or management of government programs. Progress, if any, is very slow. Politicians have their own reasons to support or oppose a program, and quantitative analysis does not carry much weight.12 Every president and prime minister comes to power with programs to promote – quantitative analysis be damned. One is also hard-pressed to identify government programs in any of the four countries surveyed that have been eliminated or cut back because of information

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generated by quantitative analysis. It is no overstatement to assert there is a cabal between central agency and line department career officials when it comes to quantitative analysis in shaping expenditure budgets. Both sides know that the connection between quantitative analysis and decisions is, at best, tenuous. Nonetheless, line departments and agencies continue to produce the reports, and central agencies continue to review them, knowing full well that the efforts have no appreciable impact on the expenditure budget. Line department officials regard the level of information central agencies demand as a burden that could never work in their interest. While central agencies know that program evaluation is fraught with conceptual problems, they have little else to work with in their dealings with line departments. They know, or should know, that the information generated by line departments is at best incomplete or, at worst, misleading. How else can one explain what the head of a central agency wrote in reviewing the work of a large line department: he “could not find a single confession of failure.”13 It is difficult to imagine that a department employing thousands of employees and many policy and program units does not have at least one confession of failure.14 Why would any senior career officials possibly want to draw negative attention to their departments or themselves by offering a confession of failure? Line departments and agencies have developed the ability to go through the motions of reporting on performance but revealing little of substance that could shed a negative light on their operations. If nothing else, the era of permanent election campaigns simply does not allow it.15 In brief, career officials know better than anyone that evaluation reports that generate information for the benefit of politicians and the media to point out where they failed can never be a positive development for them. Politicians on the government side also have little interest in bringing program failures to public attention, knowing full well that opposing politicians will surely point at those in power rather than career officials when things go off the rails.

n o m at t e r , j u s t k e e p t urni ng that crank The former chair of Canada’s Public Service Commission calls the shift to quantitative analysis the “cult of quantification” and describes such exercises as not only “futile” but also “costly in terms of resources required.” The one thing it does, she maintains, is serve

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as a “security blanket” for career officials.16 Better for civil servants to generate reports that provide little in the way of relevant information for policy-makers and the media than answer troublesome questions about the number of employees, salaries, travel expenses, and the efficacy of their programs. This may well explain why government bureaucracies keep pouring financial resources in trying to make quantitative analysis work while it is unable to produce meaningful contributions. They keep coming up with new approaches that look remarkably similar to the ones they replaced. Indeed, the exact wording that has introduced new approaches to government budgeting over the past forty years is often borrowed directly from what Robert McNamara and his team employed to introduce ppbs in 1961. The work continues to produce indicators to assess the impact of program spending. Central agency officials in the four countries in this study also continue to dismiss the relevance of line-item budgeting, much like Robert McNamara did in 1961, insisting that it is hopelessly dated and unable to meet the requirements of modern government. Career government officials also argue that quantitative analysis or performance budgeting is able to demonstrate what each dollar spent is able to accomplish, though there is little evidence to support this view. Politicians, meanwhile, do not have the knowledge or the time needed to challenge this view. They always have more important things to attend to than debate whether quantitative analysis helps inform budgetary decisions. A US statute dating back to 1993 requires agencies establish goals and employ performance indicators designed to strengthen both management and budgeting.17 The act was implemented in phases so that agencies were required to submit their plans by 1997. It was updated when Congress passed the 2010 Government Performance Results Management Act.18 Agencies are now required to submit a strategic plan that includes a mission statement, general goals and outcome-oriented goals for all their major functions and operations, a description of how these goals contribute to the government’s priorities, and the list goes on. The plan has to cover at least four years and outline a description of program evaluation efforts. The goals are to be expressed in “an objective, quantifiable and measurable form unless authorized to be in an alternative form.”19 Nothing is said, however, about sanctions if agencies fail to do so. In any event, does anyone seriously think that President Trump and his senior

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advisers and Cabinet secretaries would have had the interest or the time to review an agency’s mission statement, general goals, and outcome-oriented goals, or, for that matter, did President Obama and his senior advisers and Cabinet secretaries have the time to review such matters? The same can be said about President Biden and his advisers as they attend as best they can to a constant stream of difficult issues at home and abroad. Donald Moynihan reviews efforts in implementing performance budgeting in the United States. He traces these efforts as far back as 1950 and correctly points out that newly elected presidents tend to “discard the initiatives of their predecessors” to introduce their own version of performance budgeting. He also identifies important lessons learned, including the need for agency leaders to commit more clearly to the efforts, and points to the role of “political appointees” as a challenge in implementing performance budgeting. He recognizes that performance budgeting may well generate too much information, which makes it difficult for managers to sort out what is important. Moynihan singles out one of the most important challenges: the resistance of Congress and congressional budget officials to “change in the format of the budget data.”20 Every ten years or so, the Government of Canada introduces a new expenditure management system. They all have one thing in common, starting with ppbs . All the approaches that followed – Policy and Expenditure Management System, Expenditure Review Committee, Expenditure Management System and, more recently, the Policy on Results initiatives – have called on government departments and agencies to pursue performance budgeting and embrace quantitative analysis.21 The latest approach actually promises precisely what ppbs first promised in the 1960s – like its predecessor, it is designed to measure program performance, identify results, and somehow employ this information to allocate resources better. The Canadian government recently established a “central” performance evaluation team and established standard formats for reporting results.22 This added still more reporting requirements on line departments and agencies and still more staff to manage the process. Britain’s government has also been trying to make performance budgeting work. It, too, has little to show for it. The government has tried zero-based budgeting, public service agreements, departmental business plans, selecting certain areas for performance evaluation, a review of financial management (circa 2013) in the

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hope that the government would not only understand the amount it spends but also what it gets for the spending. However, none of these approaches have lived up to expectations. The government concluded, for example, that business plans were not effective performance tools because they were not linked to spending. Nothing much has changed since, other than a proliferation of more reports. It still does what other governments do when it wishes to cut spending: invite departments to present scenarios if their budgets were cut by 10, 15, 25, or 40 percent.23 Prime Minister Tony Blair embraced yet another approach to assess the performance of government departments labelled “deliverology.” The goal was to ensure that his priorities would be pursued and programs evaluated. Much like ppbs , deliverology employs goal-setting, performance measurement, and feedback loops.24 The deliverology initiative did not live up to expectations. The best that can be said about it is that “it could be successful in circumstances in which centralized command and control is appropriate, where goals are simple and easy to quantify, time frames are short.” Deliverology did, however, increase administrative costs.25 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also embraced deliverology shortly after he came to power. He held out the promise that the new approach would transform how government operates by establishing priorities, targets, and concrete measurements toward progress.26 Few are still singing the praise of deliverology either in Great Britain or Canada. Adam Radwanski, for example, writes that “what was supposed to be a new way of lighting a fire under the federal bureaucracy is on the verge of becoming a punchline.”27 Konrad Yakabuski maintains that Canada’s deliverology experiment ended “with a whimper.” He remarks that Trudeau could not point to a “single accomplishment made by the results and delivery unit that he had so championed.” The initiative proved costly, including money spent on consultants that “did not come with a money-back guarantee.” Yakabuski writes that “deliverology smacked of warmed -over administrative theory repackaged by former bureaucrats-turned-consultants seeking to monetize their insider knowledge of the public service.”28 Unlike the United States, Britain, and Canada, France did not embrace ppbs in the 1960s and left its approach to budgeting largely unchanged from the 1950s to the late 1990s.29 It has, however, since made up for lost time in promoting program evaluation

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efforts. Policy-makers have, in recent years, sought to modernize France’s budget process by not only focusing on Parliament’s approval process but also by promoting closer scrutiny of results.30 The French government has also delegated greater autonomy to its front line managers and, simultaneously, introduced measures designed to strengthen accountability requirements by focusing on performance.31 The French Parliament unanimously approved the Loi organique relative aux lois de finances in 2001, which introduced performance budgeting in France. By 2006, France had overhauled its budget process by moving away from line-item to program budgeting and from cash to accrual accounting. Budget allocations were also restructured to give managers more flexibility in their operations. Though late to the npm party, the French government has now embraced it. A document prepared by the minister of the economy and finance is illuminating: “In exchange for a higher degree of autonomy … managers have to be fully committed to their goals and have to be fully accountable for their management via results indicators and target values. Three criteria are used to measure performance: social and economic effectiveness, the quality of service and efficiency.” The document further reveals that the performance measurements “will make for a better assessment” of public policy initiatives and efficiency.32 France has not been any more successful in making quantitative analysis in the budget process work than the other three countries. In his review of performance budgeting in France, Frank Mordacq points to some successes in implementing performance budgeting. However, he also points to a number of significant challenges. For instance, he argues that how to employ performance data in the budget process is still not clear and notes “there is not as yet enough political ownership by the executive or the legislature.”33

u n a b l e to m a k e i t work The four countries surveyed have one thing in common: no country has been able to make performance budgeting work, and yet no country has thrown in the towel. Officials always have at the ready any number of reasons to explain why performance-informed budgeting has never met expectations. But, no matter, career officials always make the case that they need more resources to pursue

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performance-informed budgeting because nothing else would work any better. It is much like arguing that because all the king’s horses and all the king’s men cannot put Humpty together again, they need more horses and more men. The oecd breaks down performance budgeting into three broad types that may well explain its shortcomings: first, what it calls presentational performance budgeting where some performance information is provided but plays no role in the decision-making process; second, performance-informed budgeting where the information is regarded as important but does not determine budget allocations; and third, direct performance budgeting, where performance metrics determine budget allocations. The oecd points out that the last form is only employed in a few countries and only in few sectors.34 The oecd was a long time identifying which countries or which sectors have been able to make the third form work. It finally reported in 2018 that no country in fact has been able to make the third form work: “No oecd country identifies itself as a practising direct performance budgeting, reflecting the difficulty of making direct links between performance and the level of resources provided.” The oecd document adds that countries “have shifted from Performance Budgeting’s original focus as an instrument for deciding the budget to a means of classifying or displaying decisions taken during constructing the budget.”35 This is how governments admit failure. The cost in both human and financial resources of displaying decisions taken when constructing the budget has never been documented by governments; the point – the evaluators have been unable to evaluate their own work. No one is satisfied with performance budgeting other than central agencies and line departments and officials working in the budget process and their consultants who all have an economic self-interest to pursue it. Line departments and agencies spend an enormous amount of resources and time to provide information to central agencies, or in the words of a senior Canadian deputy minister, to “feeding the beast.”36 In short, there is little evidence that the efforts and resources have had much of a positive impact for anyone other than consultants and civil servants trying to make it work. Auditors who have reviewed performance budgeting invariably point to its many important shortcomings in performance.37 There are a number of things governments do that cannot be evaluated through performance indicators. How does one, for example,

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evaluate a government’s economic development program? The success, or lack of success, of such programs may well have more to do with the state of the world economy, interest rates and currency exchanges, among many other factors, than with the government program itself. The same can be said for a multitude of other government programs. Many students of public administration continue to make the case that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to link activities to outcomes. Goals, activities, and measures are too often poorly defined, which tends to confuse “cause and effect relationship.”38 Many have also made the point that managers and front line officials quickly learn how to play the performance evaluation system to their interest, even more so when there is a link between performance and job security.39 It is rare for a government program to operate in isolation of other programs, which makes it exceedingly challenging to assess its success. That said, there are some instances where one can assess performance. For example, it is possible to determine the amount of revenue generated to government coffers by adding one tax auditor; however, this involves a government program isolated from other programs and other government departments. Even here there are limits. Departments will not want to generate information that will provide a negative outcome, unless in very rare circumstances when senior government officials have grown tired of a program. Not only has performance budgeting not lived up to expectations, there is evidence that efforts at making it work have made governments thicker and operations more costly. The above suggests there are thousands of bureaucrats and consultants in the four countries surveyed still busy turning cranks that are not attached to anything. Many will admit that it is not possible to tie their work to how financial resources are allocated, other than in a very limited number of cases. They insist they have had little choice but to shift focus to make performance budgeting work by making it a means of classifying or displaying decisions when constructing the budget. But who employs the instrument? Certainly not politicians. It is unlikely the key decision-makers who shape expenditure budgets have either the time or interest to read endless obtuse reports to gain a better sense of classifying or displaying decisions. It is too much of a stretch to think that president Trump or senior members

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of Congress, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, or President Emmanuel Macron would ask for a briefing on this matter or that they would ever take a keen interest either in the process or what it generates. Even if they had the interest, they do not have the time to focus on the finer points of the budget process. As already noted, presidents and prime ministers and their senior advisers have many more pressing matters to attend to. They have their pet projects to support, as for the rest, best to let things run on their tracks and not create political problems. That said, because they centralized so much power in their offices, if they do not take a direct and sustained interest in the budget process, no one else will. Senior career officials who still praise performance-based budgeting need to reconcile their views with the growing body of literature suggesting government bureaucracies are no longer up to the task of efficiently delivering programs. Paul C. Light maintains government management failures are more common today than in years past. He writes that failures “have become so common that they are less of a shock than an expectation.”40 In his widely acclaimed book Why Government Fails So Often, Peter H. Schuck argues that management performance in government is “dismal” and that failure is “endemic.”41 The growing number of management failures in government are hardly limited to the United States.42 They are evident in the other three countries. Successive attempts to make the budget process more rational have not helped. They have, however, made it more difficult to understand the reasons for management failures and blurred still more accountability. They have also made it more difficult for politicians in Parliament, Congress, and the National Assembly to understand how government spends and for what purpose. The former chair of Canada’s Public Accounts Committee in Parliament exposed the problem when he met senior civil servants. He told them to insert some blank pages in the budget documents they sent to Parliament to see if any mp would notice; he predicted that none would. He reminded the committee that the Department of Justice simply “forgot” to include financial statements for the firearms registry, a highly controversial initiative widely reported in the media. No one noticed, let alone raised questions about it.43 Allen Schick posed the question, can national legislature regain an effective voice in budget policy? His answer: “The well-known failures include planning-programming budgeting systems (United

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States), public expenditure management (Canada), rationalisation des choix budgétaires (France) and programme analysis and review (Britain). It is highly unlikely that the legislature will take a programmatic orientation if the government does not.” Schick adds: “the failed reforms all involved efforts to rationalise budget practices within government.”44 Schick wrote this article nearly twenty years ago, and we have yet to see any progress. If nothing else, performance budgeting has reinforced the ability of Homo economicus to pursue his or her economic self-interest.

h ow a r e r e s o u rc e s allocated? The British Broadcasting Corporation sponsored a twenty-two-country survey, asking respondents about government spending. The survey reveals that most believe that “governments misspend more than half of the money they receive.”45 In the United States, a majority of Americans believe that the federal government wastes fifty-one cents on the dollar but that state and local governments are less wasteful.46 In France, President Macron launched a public debate on how to reduce government spending after a public opinion survey revealed that 74 percent of respondents called for spending cuts.47 In Canada, the Auditor General never fails to report a wide array of bad management year after year and no government department is spared.48 We have seen that performance budgeting has been of little help in shaping expenditure budgets. How then are expenditure budget decisions struck? For one thing, old ways still prevail in shaping the expenditure budget. Government budget-making has historically been incremental so that departmental budgets receive an annual increase to their budgets to keep pace with inflation. They also receive “new” funding whenever new activities are added or the workload or the number of clients increases. Nothing has changed here. It remains that the problem with expenditure budgets is less about new spending but more about continuing to spend on programs or measure that have outlined their usefulness. Bureaucracy, meanwhile, has been of little help in identifying programs and activities that have exceeded their best-by date. When politicians ask career officials for possible cuts in spending, career officials still suggest activities that enjoy a high profile and public support – the so-called rcmp musical ride syndrome. After

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politicians on the government side in Canada asked the bureaucracy for possible cuts in spending, career officials responded by suggesting cutting the hugely popular Royal Canadian Mounted Police (rcmp ) musical ride.49 The United States also has its “Washington Monument” strategy so that when spending cuts are called for at budget time, the National Park Service will suggest curtailing visiting hours to the popular national monument. The point – bureaucrats continue to resist spending cuts from politicians by recommending the elimination of popular activities. Performance or evaluation reports simply do not come into play. I know of no instance when career officials recommended cutting into government operations; eliminating administrative units; reducing the number of policy, coordination, and program evaluation units; or making employee benefits less generous. Left to their own devices, government spending and bureaucracy would grow year after year. Central agencies have also been of little assistance in restraining increases in government spending, particularly in keeping growth in the bureaucracy in check. Where central agencies remain successful is in identifying flaws in proposals from line departments and agencies wishing to launch new programs or new activities.

b o lt s o f l ightni ng Certainly, there are times when growth in government spending needs to be arrested and when spending cuts have to be made. Politicians will, on occasion, or because of ideology, call for cuts in government spending. One can recall the Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Jean Chrétien, Stephen Harper, David Cameron, and Emanuel Macron cuts in spending. These cuts all had one thing in common: they came like bolts of lightning from above or from presidents and prime ministers. It seems they are the only ones with the clout to announce spending cuts and make them stick. Bottom-up cuts or cuts coming from managers in line departments and agencies are essentially non-starters. There are simply no incentives for program managers to offer up spending reductions. The same is also true going up the line. Why would a permanent secretary, deputy minister, or undersecretary offer spending cuts only to see colleagues in the next department unwilling to do the same? Recommending spending cuts elicits all kinds of problems with staff and clients. Leaving the status quo alone does not.

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But there comes a point when spending cuts become necessary because the financial and currency markets demand it, political circumstances require it, or to uphold commitments made during an election campaign. In 1978, former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau returned from the fourth G7 Summit in Bonn, West Germany, where a consensus had emerged that growth in government spending was fuelling inflation.50 Trudeau simply declared at the time that a $2 billion cut in government spending would be made. He consulted no Cabinet minister before making the announcement – not even his minister responsible for fiscal policy or the expenditure budget. The next day, the minister of finance and the president of the Treasury Board received their marching orders. The then minister of finance later wrote that he was left completely in the dark, the cuts made him look “like a fool,” and “normally a Minister of Finance would resign in such an embarrassing situation.”51 He did not resign, however, and he later became prime minister. He knew better than anyone that had he resigned, he would have soon become the forgotten politician. In Great Britain, during her tenure, Margaret Thatcher regularly unveiled spending cuts from above. Tony Blair launched a comprehensive spending review in 1997–98 that sought to set the government expenditure budget for the following three years. It was an effort exclusive to the trio of prime minister, chancellor of the treasury, and No. 10 policy unit, with ministers and their departments left on the outside looking in. In allocating spending resources, Blair and Gordon Brown simply “called in ministers and told them what they were getting. There was no appeal.”52 In coming to power, former British prime minister David Cameron launched an austerity program, as he had committed to do in the election campaign. He had declared a year before winning that “the age of irresponsibility is giving way to the age of austerity. The money has run out. Over the next few years, we will have to take some incredibly tough decisions.”53 Margaret Thatcher had done the same shortly after she became prime minister. In each case, neither had a detailed strategy or a plan to cut spending. Both Thatcher and Cameron made reducing the size of government a central feature of their electoral platforms. They also had a freer hand than US presidents to make spending cuts. Congress plays a far greater role in shaping the expenditure budget than Parliament, particularly when the prime minister holds a majority mandate.

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In Canada, the Chrétien government launched an ambitious program review exercise shortly after it came to power, in large part because the Wall Street Journal described the Canadian dollar as “a basket case.” The journal ran an editorial on 12 January 1995 called “Bankrupt Canada?” and declared that “Mexico isn’t the only U.S. neighbour flirting with the financial abyss.” It went on to argue that “if dramatic action isn’t taken in the next month’s federal budget, it’s not inconceivable that Canada could hit the debt wall and have to call in the International Monetary Fund.”54 The government launched the review of the expenditure budget full of promise for a better way. It asked all departments to answer questions tied to efficiency, affordability, and the role of government. The exercise, however, soon turned to old ways of cutting spending – targets. In this case, they were labelled: substantial large or 25 percent, substantial at 15 percent, and token at 5 percent. According to senior civil servants, the rough and ready approach was adopted because “there was not much alternative and there was no time [for] elaborate evaluation studies.”55 This, notwithstanding the fact that the government had been carrying out program evaluations for some thirty years. The review did generate substantial cuts, in large part by moving activities over to the private sector and provincial governments. The review process was tightly controlled by the prime minister, a handful of his advisers, and the minister of finance. The prime minister kept his hands firmly on the steering wheel and signed off on all cuts, large and small.56 The better way to review the expenditure budget would again give way to the old-fashioned approach to reducing spending. Emmanuel Macron also made firm commitments to cut taxes, spending, and public sector jobs in the weeks leading up to the election.57 He soon discovered, however, that announcing cuts during a campaign is far easier than making them stick when in government. He met with widespread resistance to his proposed spending cuts, including from inside government, as soon as he unveiled them. France’s top military official resigned in protest to cuts in defence spending, and the widely reported yellow jackets’ protest forced the president to rethink at least some of his proposed spending cuts.58 It will also be recalled that President Trump announced, with little warning, that he was asking “each of his Cabinet secretaries to cut 5 percent of their respective budgets.” He added, “It’s not as tough as you think, and frankly there’s a lot of fat in there.”59 However, the proposed Trump cuts fell on deaf ears and little came of them.

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In brief, there are two ways to reduce the expenditure budget or curtail its growth. Presidents and prime ministers, prompted by political ideology or economic circumstance, can launch a program review exercise, and they alone have the clout to make it stick. They and their close advisers will keep a close eye to ensure that the cuts square with their priorities and do not create overly difficult political problems. The other approach that works in all four countries is to call on departments and agencies to identify how they would accommodate a 5, 10, 15, or 20 percent cut in their budgets. The process is managed by central agency officials, again under the watchful politicians in power and their partisan political advisers. For politicians on the government side, the objective is to cut spending while minimizing political damage. For career officials, the goal is to cut spending while minimizing job losses to the bureaucracy. The above is true for the four countries surveyed, though the institutions and institutional requirements differ and the budget process takes on different forms. In the case of the United States, there is far more back and forth between the executive and Congress in shaping the expenditure budget. In Canada and Great Britain, Parliament has little to offer to the process. Parliamentarians are, of course, free to ask questions and try to hold the policy- and decision-makers to account before parliamentary committees. But all the decisions belong to prime ministers and their close advisers. Members of Parliament are on the receiving end of what the government decides; they have little say. The role of Parliament has essentially been relegated to legitimizing decisions that are made elsewhere. Omnibus spending bills have also made it difficult to subject proposed spending to public scrutiny. Everything is thrown into these bills with Justin Trudeau declaring them “undemocratic” in the 2015 election campaign. However, once in power, he happily made full use of them, including an 854-page omnibus spending bill in 2018.60 In the United States, omnibus spending bills which regularly run over 1,000 pages, have also come under criticism for their lack of transparency, for wasteful spending, and for impeding Congress in doing its job.61 In France, the Constitution effectively limits the role of Parliament in the budget-making process to one akin to a debating society. France has sought to reform its budget process first in 2001 (the Constitutional Bylaw on Budgets Acts) and again in 2012 (Law on

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Planning and Governance of Public Finances). The reforms were designed to provide the National Assembly more information on performance and to make budget documents more accessible to parliamentarians. The government, for example, is now required to inform the National Assembly when growth, or conversely, cuts in spending amount to above or below a given point or limit.62 The reforms have improved the flow of information to the National assembly but left everything else intact.

w h at a b o u t n e w spendi ng? Politicians know that getting things done costs money. This is true even for politicians who come to office firmly committed to cutting government spending. Margaret Thatcher stands out as the one politician who stayed the course and was able to reduce government spending, particularly between 1984–85 and 1990–91. But she too had initiatives that required new funding.63 President Ronald Reagan also came to power determined to “reduce the growth of government spending.” He was able to reduce growth in spending, from 4.0 percent annually under President Carter, to 2.5 percent while increasing defence spending. Reagan, however, was more successful in cutting taxes than reducing the size of government.64 President Donald Trump said during the 2016 campaign that he would cut government spending to the point that it would make “heads spin.” Once in power, however, he realized that making spending cuts proved far more difficult. Government spending actually went up during his four years in power, even when leaving aside new spending to deal with covid -19.65 In brief, all presidents and prime ministers have initiatives to pursue that cost money, no matter where they are on the political spectrum. Reagan wanted to commit new funding for the military, Trump wanted to build a wall, David Cameron wanted to spend more on health care, Emmanuel Macron on research and development, Jean Chrétien on infrastructure, and Justin Trudeau on fighting climate change. There is little to stop them from getting new spending for their own projects. Trump, it will be recalled, declared an emergency in his attempt to side-step Congress by reallocating funds it had allocated for other purposes in order to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. They are the boss and, at least when it comes to new government spending, they get what they want.

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Central agencies in the four countries understand that the boss gets what he or she wants. They take orders from the boss. In Britain and Canada, the most powerful phrase in government is “the prime minister wants.”66 Things are not much different in the United States and France, especially when the president’s political party also holds power in Congress or the National Assembly. Things are different, however, when new spending requests come from line departments or agencies. Here, central agency officials will not hesitate to oppose new spending proposals. They do not want to be identified as soft when it comes to line departments and agencies in reviewing spending proposals – they are, after all, the guardians of the public purse, at least when it comes to “new spending.” There is a difference in how the four countries deal with spending proposals from line departments. All Anglo-American democracies tend to operate through hierarchy and budgetary controls. The French government also operates through hierarchy, but with a twist. It locates some of its central agency officials in line departments to keep a closer eye on spending. In Canada and Great Britain, central agencies work for prime ministers. When prime ministers want to pursue an initiative, they will sit down with their chancellor of the exchequer and the minister of finance and secure the necessary funding. The purpose is to make certain that all is in order, other departments and agencies have been told, and the required resources are allocated. Performance or program evaluation reports have little influence on these spending proposals. I was shown a briefing note prepared for the Canadian prime minister in anticipation of a meeting with his minister of finance. The note read more like a set of directives than establishing a dialogue on how best to proceed. I saw no reference to performance or evaluation reports to guide the discussions.67 The process is different again in the United States. There are two sets of central agencies – those that serve the president or the executive branch and those that serve Congress. The Congressional Budget Office (cbo ) works for Congress and only Congress. cbo ’s role is to assist the work of House and Senate budget committees – notably, the Appropriations, Ways and Means, and Finance Committees. The office is required by law to produce a formal cost estimate for every bill approved by a committee of the House or the Senate. What cbo does not do is make policy recommendations to ensure that it remains non-partisan and objective. The office prides itself

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on the accuracy of its budgetary estimate, economic forecast, and non-partisanship.68 As Donald Kettl explains, “Congress controls the structure of federal agencies. It sets the budgets under which they operate, as well as the size of their staff.”69 I note, however, that in recent years US presidents have decided to extend the ambit of their influence on budget matters through “executive actions” and other means.70 In France, the budget process resembles more the British and Canadian processes than the United States process, even if France has a semi-presidential system.

l o o k in g back Presidents and prime ministers have their way, whenever they wish, to introduce new spending or support a spending proposal from a line department or agency. Whenever they give the “green light” to a proposal, things also happen.71 However, such is not the case for Cabinet secretaries, Cabinet ministers, and line departments and agencies when they cannot secure support from the boss. Central agencies will push them to justify the proposals and report back to presidents, prime ministers, and Congress in the case of the United States. Presidents, prime ministers, and their central agencies have made little progress in their ability to assess the relevance, effectiveness, and efficiency of ongoing government programs and government operations. If anything, the efforts have only made things worse – they have made government operations thicker, more cumbersome, and more expensive. It seems only presidents and prime ministers are able to cut through bureaucracy and ensure the process achieves goals. And, when political ideology or economic circumstances require spending reductions or arrested growth in government spending, presidents and prime ministers still call for across-the-board cuts – asking departments to reduce spending by, say, 5, 10, or 25 percent and then assess the political ramifications. Nothing else seems to work, including the numerous evaluation and performance reports that have been prepared in the four countries over the past forty years. Allen Schick nicely sums up the efforts in implementing performance budgeting: “Performance budgeting has had many lives, sufficiently dissimilar from one another to excite the imagination that this time will be different, that the latest iteration will be truly transformative.”72 The many lives have never lived up to expectations, but

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they have made the budget process thicker, more complicated and cumbersome for everyone. This is the way presidents and prime ministers and government bureaucracies want it because it serves their interest. It enables bosses and their courtiers to pursue their political and policy agenda while forcing everyone else to deal as best they can with cumbersome and elaborate processes. It forces Cabinet secretaries and ministers and career officials to carry on with the status quo unless presidents and prime ministers decide otherwise. It also allows government bureaucracies to grow and avoid answering difficult questions about input costs, including growth in government bureaucracies, salaries, consultant contracts, travel expenses, and the like. Governments in the four countries have all sought to overhaul their approach to budget-making, in some cases every several years or so. There is little to show for these efforts. Expenditure budgets are built the same way they were fifty years ago – there is a base budget adjusted for inflation and for increases in caseloads. New funding will be made available whenever an urgency, such as covid-19, requires it. Budgets in support of government operations, meanwhile, can grow largely unchallenged, unless economic circumstances or events force policy-makers to act. The never-ending search for a better expenditure budget process has had a negative impact on the relationship between politicians and civil servants. No one in- or outside government has been able to explain why governments see the need to introduce new expenditure budget processes every several years or so. Repeatedly, new budget processes offer the same promise, the same requirements, and in some cases, even the same wording than the preceding approach. Notwithstanding the promise that decision-making will improve, it never does. It always comes at a substantial financial cost. A lead story in the Hill Times sums things up – “Canada returns to complex spending system, after failed attempts at reform.”73 Plus ça change, plus c’est pareil, and students of public administration know that both ppbs and npm are hopelessly dated. However, they also know that governments have never stopped trying to make work the ideas that gave rise to both. Presidents and prime ministers need not pay much attention to the expenditure budget process – they always get what they want. They are the bosses. The same is not the case for other politicians, including those who sit in Cabinet. The budget process has been

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made more complex than it needs to be, at least for politicians, many of whom do not have an understanding of how government decides, nor do they have the time and incentive to learn. Reams of evaluation reports written in obtuse jargon that rarely, if ever, report on failings are of little use to politicians. This, in turn, has made the relationship between them and career officials more difficult and less trusting in all four countries. To many politicians, the changes have placed government programs and operations beyond their reach. Politicians can no longer access information they can readily understand, including information on where governments commit funds, how many career officials are required to run a program, what level of funding is allocated to travel expenses for civil servants and consultants, or to compare the costs of running different programs. It is worth reiterating that input costs are easily accessible to politicians; evaluation reports written to avoid fuelling the blame game are not. Given the vast growth of government, it made sense for career officials to consolidate budget line items into broad categories. It also made sense for career officials to view the government budget as broad statements of public policies and programs rather than as an instrument of financial control. It has, however, made it more difficult for politicians to comprehend, let alone influence, expenditure budgets, which has in turn fuelled tensions and distrust between politicians and career officials. It remains naïve to think that politicians could master performance evaluation reports to the same extent that they could master input costs.

6 Doing More with Less

One theme has defined government reform measures since the 1980s in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada: doing more with less. It led to numerous consultant reports, drove npm efforts, and provided fodder for many election campaigns. As noted, France was late to the party, but it is fast making up for lost time. The Fillon government (2007–12) launched the Révision générale des politiques publiques initiative designed to cut spending in public administration. Though the initiative saw the introduction of private sector management measures to government, it met with little success. Macron unveiled an ambitious management reform agenda shortly after coming to power that called for 450 initiatives in all eighteen government ministries. He and Prime Minister Édouard Philippe unveiled plans to achieve structural reductions in government spending to, in their words, “do better with less” by looking to management reforms to achieve them.1 Macron launched the initiative to ease the tax burden, not because he decided that applying private sector management tools to government held the answer to better public administration. The focus of management reform measures in all four countries was on the boiler room of government. Politicians and their advisers would look after policy with the help of senior career officials who would also manage head office functions. Knowing that the bulk of government spending was directed at programs and services, politicians decided they wanted “doers” with a bias for action rather than “thinkers” to run the boiler room of government. The thinking continues to be that the private sector has plenty of doers in its ranks, and government bureaucracy should strive for the same.

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It is no overstatement that the glamour of government work for career officials, particularly when growing the welfare state, remains policy. The welfare state took form in the four countries under review after the Second World War, when “the sense of common purpose was at its height and government policy was seen as the answer.”2 Everyone – politicians and senior civil servants – was pushing together in the same direction. Senior career officials were happy to live with elaborate centrally prescribed rules and regulations to guide program implementation, so long as they were free to play an important policy advisory role. They wanted to be part of the action, and that meant helping shape policy, not look after administrative issues. There were specialized units designated to deal with personnel, administration, and financial matters.

t u r n in g b u r e au c r ac i es i nto doers Doers, the thinking went, would need scope, space, and authority to strike decisions. This explains why empowerment came into fashion in the four countries. President Reagan pledged in his inaugural address “not to do away with Government but rather to make it work.”3 Other presidents and prime ministers in the United States, Canada, and Britain from Bill Clinton to Stephen Harper and Brian Mulroney to Tony Blair, have all made the same commitment, and the same can now be said for President Macron. The various reform measures have had a common theme in all four countries – promote better management by empowering line managers and their staff. If the private sector can do it, there is no reason why government bureaucracy cannot do the same. Books by management consultants with titles such as Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector resonated with many politicians but less so with some long-serving career officials. Politicians insisted that they were elected to steer the ship of state, not to row or manage government operations and programs. The latter, they argued, is the responsibility of civil servants, and they need to be better at it. The point has often been made that government managers and employees could be as entrepreneurial as their private sector counterparts, if only given the right environment. It also meant that, going forward, government managers should focus on performance and on measuring outcomes rather than on inputs or processes.4

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Therein lies the problem. Moving away from controlling inputs is the easy part. All one has to do is remove a number of centrally prescribed rules governing human and financial resources, a form of deregulation inside government. The hard part is how to measure performance, how to keep politics out of any performance evaluation processes, and how one can duplicate private sector management circumstances in government. The call for more hands-on management and for government managers to be given greater autonomy was tied to the thinking that this would promote more efficient government bureaucracy. Central agencies, meanwhile, had to adjust.5 They continue to be expected to play the lead role in the transition from the old public administration to the npm . Central agencies saw themselves as the key players in managing the transition from the old public administration to a more dynamic public sector management by deregulating government operations. Table 6.1 outlines the difference between the two. The contrast between the old and new is stark. At the start of the transition, the civil servants were told they were “rigid,” “suspicious,” “power-based,” “risk-averse,” “communicated poorly,” and were “stifling creativity.” They were also asked to reject long-held values in exchange for being more “results-oriented,” “capable of purposeful action,” “trusting,” and “willing to take intelligent risks.” I know no senior civil servant, then or now, willing to take “unintelligent risks” or who was “suspicious” and out to stifle creativity. I recently had a discussion with one of Canada’s most senior civil servants, who made the point that the civil service still has no mandate to take risks and that it is always up to senior politicians not only to decide if the government should take a risk but also when.6 There are few politicians anywhere willing to admit that the old culture held advantages. Still, the old culture made it easier to ensure a command-and-control approach to governing, which enabled Cabinet ministers and secretaries to determine when and why things went off the rails and who was responsible. It also promoted a parsimonious culture in government operations because civil servants had to respect clearly defined rules on spending public funds and in hiring staff. If rules and processes were not respected, financial audits would identify the culprits. The old culture also allowed political leaders and the more senior career officials to issue directives and know that they would be respected. In addition, a tight hierarchy facilitated follow-up action to verify whether the directives were pursued.

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Table 6.1 Comparison of public administration and New Public Management Public administration – old culture

New Public Management – new culture

Controlling

Empowering

Rigid

Flexible

Suspicious

Trusting

Administrative

Managerial

Secret

Open

Power-based

Task-based

Input/process-oriented

Results-oriented

Preprogrammed and repetitive

Capable of purposeful action

Risk-averse

Willing to take intelligent risks

Mandatory

Optional

Communicating poorly

Communicating well

Centralized

Decentralized

Uniform

Diverse

Stifling creativity

Encouraging innovation

Reactive

Proactive

Source: Public Service 2000 Secretariat, Ottawa.

We saw earlier that applying regulations and red tape inside government can serve an important purpose. Parliament and Congress pass legislation, approve budgets, and then delegate authority to presidents and prime ministers and their governments to give life to their policy and to program and spending decisions. They, in turn, delegate authority to departments and agencies, and this is where regulation comes in. It ensures that civil servants will respect the wishes of elected officials. Delegation, in turn, requires measures to ensure, among many things, probity in the spending of public funds, in hiring practices, and maintaining equality (both internally and externally to government departments). Governments regulate not only businesses but also themselves. Somehow governments had to square the need for regulations and red tape with npm measures. Deregulation and

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cutting red tape came into fashion in the 1980s and has remained in vogue to this day. Red tape became a symbol first in the private sector and later in government of bureaucratic inefficiencies, inertia, and a drain on the economy. The search was on for a new approach for governing government bureaucracies. As the saying goes, “the more strictly we watch, the better we know.” Central agencies have to play the lead role in establishing regulations and making sure they are respected. Budget offices, Treasury Boards, central human resources agencies, planning and priority-setting offices, and central comptrollers all have important roles to play in regulating the work of line departments and agencies. In short, these offices prescribe cross-cutting policies and regulations that direct the work of departments and agencies responsible for delivering programs and services. Presidents and prime ministers and their advisers, once they came into power, soon saw that things were not as straightforward in government as they are in the private sector. While they appreciated the need to empower managers in order to instill a bias for action inside government operations, they also recognized that centrally prescribed rules and regulations served to minimize the risks of scandals or administrative miscues.7 This explains why there is an ebb and flow to internal government regulations. Delegation remains in fashion, until a scandal or bureaucratic miscues make it to the front page in the media. Central agencies will often rush in to fix the problem with new regulations or policies to try to ensure that such miscues will not recur. To be sure, npm measures have had an impact on the ebb and flow pattern. The push was on to reduce personnel manuals from thousands of pages to compact booklets and to loosen rules governing government spending so that managers would have a freer hand in allocating resources within their departments, in their areas of responsibilities, and in managing human resources. The challenge was simple enough: how to shift away from an emphasis on compliance to an increased emphasis on performance. The challenge was simple, but striking the right balance between the two was not.8 There are two forms of accountability. Compliance accountability, which is geared to rules and sanctions for non-compliance, in contrast to performance accountability of the kind found in business, where incentives are leveraged to achieve objectives.9 Politicians had to somehow square their wishes to make management in government

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look like management in the private sector, given their anti-bureaucracy bias with their need to manage the blame game. When things go off the rails in government, including bureaucratic miscues, the politicians in power take the blame. If the United States or Great Britain could not distribute the covid -19 vaccines quickly, the media asked Donald Trump and then Joe Biden and Boris Johnson for answers, rather than civil servants down the line, even those looking after logistics and distribution. Bureaucratic miscues did not stop with npm measures – if anything, they have been more widely reported with the arrival of social media. Hardly a month goes by without media reporting such headlines as, “French Taxpayers Spend More than $1.4 million on Wages of 30 Civil Servants for Doing Nothing,” and “$78 Pens, 5,200 Rubber Ducks among $6.7M in Promotions Bought by Feds,” or reporting “the Pentagon recently spent $998,798 shipping two 19-cent washers from South Carolina to Texas,”10 and $25,000 for a two-page briefing on accountability from a recently retired civil servant turned consultant.11 The media and citizens still look to the president or prime minister for answers, explanations, and to make things right – not civil servants, unless politicians point in their direction. It takes more than a voice from a politician’s pulpit to see government bureaucracies start operating like the private sector. In the absence of market forces and widely accepted performance criteria such as market share, sales, cost of production, and profits, new accountability requirements are needed to assess performance in government. Performance and evaluation reports became the answer for governments looking to do more with less. It is worth reiterating that performance and evaluation reports can be fudged, as recent history has shown. They are also subject to gaming, as Christopher Hood has pointed out.12 Performance and evaluation reports are viewed by many inside government as fuel for the blame game and blame avoidance, where government actors try to pin the blame on one another when things go wrong. Government bureaucracies know better than anyone that a negative evaluation report can only spell trouble. Hood explains: “The blame-avoidance imperative applies as much, if not more, to the behavior of appointed officials in government as to that of elected politicians.”13 The media always play a critical role in managing blame avoidance – both politicians and career officials are

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convinced, and for good reasons, that the media will invariably focus on failures and ignore their successes. This matters even more now with the arrival of permanent election campaigns. No matter – politicians bought into the argument that performance and evaluation reports could somehow duplicate circumstances under which private sector managers operate. They had nothing else to work with. This suited career officials just fine. In return for having more autonomy to manage operations, they knew they could minimize any negative impact on their departments and agencies by carefully crafting evaluation reports. Career officials also know full well that the language of npm did not square with traditional accountability requirements. npm , as we saw, speaks to empowerment, results-oriented programs, the need to look to clients for guidance rather than centrally prescribed rules, and risk-taking. Carried to its logical end, this, in turn, would require, or rather force, government managers to accept “personal responsibility for their actions in administration.”14 However, both politicians and career officials remain opposed to seeing government managers accept personal responsibility, unless it suits the moment or the political interest of the politicians in power. So, what changed? Certainly not how career officials are held to account – here, it has made things more difficult. Performance and evaluation reports have only muddied accountability. They do not provide answers; the prospects that they ever will are dim. Introducing private sector management practices to government bureaucracy has benefited career civil servants, at least financially. The salaries of civil servants in the four countries went up in recent years. The salary of the Cabinet secretary in Great Britain, for example, went up by 50 percent in one year. Performance pay schemes were also introduced in the four countries, anticipating that somehow it would be as easy to assess the performance of government managers as it is for their private sector counterparts.15 The thinking was that if you truly wanted to do more with less, then you had to introduce pay-for-performance schemes in order to reward those who were able to do more with less. No pay-for-performance schemes have been able to live up to expectations in any of the four countries. On the contrary, there is evidence that they have given rise to gaming.16 In Britain, a senior career official described the performance evaluation process as one in which “permanent secretaries write letters to themselves.”17 In

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Canada, about 95 percent of senior executives regularly qualify for risk performance bonuses.18 No one has been able to explain what “risk performance” means. In the United States, for over forty years successive governments have sought to make pay-for-performance work with little success. Officials are still trying to determine if the failure is a result of poor planning and implementation or because it “is simply not possible in the federal government.”19 In France, the government unveiled an individual performance-related pay scheme for senior civil servants. The oecd carried a review of the scheme and pointed to important shortcomings – among others, most arrangements were “not directly linked to individual performance” and underlined the “absence of rigorous individual or collective evaluation practices.” The review concluded: “the current practices … are not evolving in a favourable environment likely to turn this into a real management tool.”20 npm measures and their promise to do more with less were first introduced some forty years ago. What do governments have to show for them? I argue that on balance much more was lost than was gained. I am not alone. Leading students of government now argue that “npm in practice failed to deliver the theoretically expected benefits,” and that, among other things, npm produced accountability and coordination problems.”21 It also contributed to a morale problem among government employees in all four countries.22 Former senior government officials have been no less critical. One wrote that management reform efforts “have seldom been fully successful,” the track record “is bleak,” and npm failed at the very thing it was designed to improve since its “reported progress” was not “grounded in adequate performance information.”23

t h e r e s u lt s – p oli cy advi ce The new approach on policy has strengthened the hand of politicians in dealing with issues that matter to them, issues that come to their attention, and issues that come to dominate in the media. But this can only represent a minuscule number of policy issues that swirl around government every day. For these issues, senior career officials have become much more tentative in submitting advice.24 Evidence suggests that senior career officials are also more hesitant than they were forty years ago to pursue new policy proposals. As

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noted earlier, there is also evidence that a good number of senior career officials are, in the words of Peter Aucoin, becoming “promiscuously partisan.”25 Presidents and prime ministers have enlarged their offices in search of more responsive policy advice. Evidence-based policy advice fell out of fashion. This, either because political leaders believed that civil servants could no longer produce evidence-based advice or because they wanted loyalty and enthusiastic support for their policy ideas. For instance, career civil servants understood that Margaret Thatcher had firm ideas on policy, and she “was not for turning.” Donald Trump, meanwhile, dismissed out of hand a 1,650-page report on national climate assessment, produced by thirteen federal agencies that warned about the dangers of global warming. Trump knew that only 15 percent of Conservative Republicans trust scientists to provide full and accurate information.26 Doing science by press release or tweets suited him just fine, and he saw no need for rigorous scientific studies. Donald Trump is hardly the only politician to openly challenge the work of government scientists. In Canada, two independent scholars teamed up with a former federal public servant to make the case that “the connection between science and public policy within the federal government is broken.” They note, “Whenever science seems likely to generate knowledge that could create difficulties for their political agenda, they try to bury the knowledge and destroy the government’s capacity to generate it,” explaining that “federal ministers have created rules that require government scientists – especially those working on resource and environmental topics – to get approval from senior bureaucrats before publishing their research.”27 The senior bureaucrats are responding to the wishes of their political masters. In Britain, scientists have voiced their displeasure at how governments now deal with their work and advice. One independent scholar told the media: “As a scientist, I hope I never again hear the phrase ‘based on the best science and evidence’ spoken by a politician.” He remarked, “This phrase has become basically meaningless and used to explain anything and everything.”28 Several other independent scholars expressed “an awful lot of concern” at how the government deals with their work and noted the mood in the scientific community was “very depressed” in part because scientists were being drawn into politics.29 Indeed, many voters and their political leaders have come to believe there is no clear objective criteria to determine who is a trusted expert or even what constitutes high-quality

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evidence. This allows political leaders to conclude whatever they wish, as Donald Trump did on climate change. One can tie this widespread state of skepticism to npm measures to the extent that politicians decided civil servants should focus more and more on management and leave policy issues to them and their partisan political advisers. As noted, politicians added one more criteria when turning to policy advisers inside government: are they one of us? Students of government maintain that this has forced the hand of career civil servants to be “enthusiastic” in pursuing the policy ideas of presidents and prime ministers or become “promiscuously partisan,” as Aucoin describes.30

t h e r e s u lts – t h e b o il e r ro o m of government Government managers have been released from many centrally prescribed rules. An internal Treasury Board of Canada document reports, some ten years after npm reform measures were first introduced, that the central agency is “losing both capacity and relevance” in dealing with the program expenditure in line departments and agencies.31 If the central agency has lost “capacity and relevance” in dealing with program managers when it comes to managing financial resources, one can only speculate what it must be like for the politicians to whom the central agency reports. This is hardly a Canada-only development. Though France was slower in embracing change, the government is now firmly committed to management reform, and it is delegating more authority to managers. Denis Saint-Martin explains why France was slow in embracing npm : “Because of the legacies of statism left by the creation of the École nationale d’administration (éna ), and because of the concentration of administrative expertise in the hands of the grands corps, French administrative institutions have not been open to advice from outside consultants, thereby affecting the speed with which managerialist ideas influenced policy. In Britain and Canada there is no institution comparable to the éna .”32 French public administration has long been anchored in a predominant legalistic tradition that “influences the behaviour of its officials.” It explains why a degree of central control continues to apply through regulations carried out by “inspectorate” and “a system of administrative jurisdiction overseen by the Court of Accounts.”33

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However, notwithstanding long-standing reliance on a legalistic tradition, the call to “liberate the civil servants” is increasingly being heard in France.34 Philippe Bezes and Gilles Jeannot explain the emergence of a hybrid model in France: though the “Napoleonic hierarchical means of steering and control” is still evident, it now needs to accommodate npm measures because of “two major reasons: the 2001 Budget Act introducing performance management … and the deterioration of public finances.”35 In other words, it was felt that npm reform measures would somehow be better at dealing with deteriorating public finances than tough political decisions – high hope for a concept that had failed to meet expectations elsewhere. In their assessment of npm efforts in France, Alistair Cole and Glyn Jones make the case that “management changes need to be domesticated before they enter into the domestic acquis.” They add, however, that “many of the underlying themes of npm are also applicable to French public administration.”36 The challenge in pursuing npm measures was made more difficult in France because the expertise and tools required were, for the most part, lodged in “key agencies, not in line ministries.”37 Still, France has been able to pursue two key features of npm – block allocation of operational budgets, which gives program managers the flexibility to reallocate funding within programs, and a degree of deregulation in managing human resources. France’s civil service reform agenda, as was the case in the other three countries, sought to improve the level of public service and, at the same time, make the “state more productive.” It too incorporated a number of private sector management techniques, including “coûts-bénéfices” or cost-benefit analyses and carrying out performance evaluation assessments of government activities and managers.38 As elsewhere, however, the ability to assess performance and hold managers accountable remains, at best, work in progress.

de r e g u l at in g g ov e r n m ent bureaucracy Christopher Hood and Colin Scott link deregulation and decentralization to npm measures. They also explore the need for accountability to now rely on “self-regulation, professional values or other informal mechanisms.”39 The British government launched an initiative in 2007 to reduce the “amount of unnecessary bureaucracy faced by frontline public sector workers.” The National Audit Office carried out a review of the efforts in 2009 and concluded that, while

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progress had been made, more was needed. Line managers told the National Audit Office that renewed efforts to deregulate could generate over £1.5 billion in cost savings. The report added: “the public sector strategy has intentionally not received the same level of attention as the work to reduce administrative burdens on business through the Administrative Burdens Reduction Programme.”40 Still, progress was made in cutting red tape inside government, a number of “irritants” were eliminated, and anywhere between 10 and 30 percent of the reporting burden was reduced.41 As elsewhere, line managers had a price to pay for seeing red tape reduced – they are called upon to produce still more performance and evaluation reports and to address still more questions from central agencies. In the United States, the Office of Management and Budget launched several initiatives to reduce red tape and reporting requirements for government managers. The Trump administration launched the latest effort in 2018 as part of The President’s Management Agenda. The effort consisted of “100 initiatives” involving the twenty-four major government departments or agencies, all designed to reduce red tape on line departments and businesses. The Office of Management and Budget produced report cards detailing a number of successes across all agencies, allegedly generating billions in savings. The deregulation efforts have relied heavily on it to streamline reporting requirements.42 The reform agenda, however, still does not aim to reduce the number of performance and evaluation reports all agencies have to prepare every year.43 Rather, the goal was twofold: reduce the cost of government operations by empowering front line managers, and improve the delivery of general programs and services without losing accountability requirements, which explains the continuing reliance on evaluation and performance reports. Have npm measures improved the level of public services to clients? This is difficult to assess because surveys on client or citizen satisfaction in the public sector tend to focus on state or local governments. There is also difficulty in bench-marking citizen satisfaction because government agencies do not perform in the same sector delivering the same kind or the same level of services.44 However, the surveys that do take stock of citizen satisfaction continue to report that government services do poorly when compared with private sector services.45 In addition, the trend in citizen satisfaction with the United States government is in a clear downward trend – hardly a vote of confidence in npm measures.46

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The same verdict applies in the other three countries. In Britain, only about 30 percent see the government as performing well at taking into account their views, and almost 3 in 4 believe that local government is better at delivering services.47 The trend of citizen satisfaction in public service in the country is also on a slight downward slide.48 In Canada, provincial and local governments score better in citizen satisfaction than the federal government.49 Ottawa did pursue specific service-improvement measures between the mid-1990s and 2005 and reported modest success.50 However, the initiative no longer enjoys the same priority status, and the efforts have petered out. The oecd carried out assessments of citizen satisfaction with their government in 2014. Canada scored below Great Britain and France but above the United States and only in some areas.51 It is important to emphasize that the lack of success in improving delivery of public services in the four countries is not because of a lack of effort in the sector. The government of France, for example, launched efforts to strengthen services to its citizens (Charte des services publics 1992) at the same time as it was delegating more management authority to front line program managers. Nada Benmansour maintains that npm measures in France were directly tied to providing better public services in addition to saving money. She reminds readers that former president Jacques Chirac labelled 2003 the year to strengthen en profondeur the quality of public services. She adds that the idea was a “cultural shock” to many career officials, who believed that efforts to improve service to customers was better suited to the private sector than government.52 Luc Rouban explored public sector versus private sector values as npm measures began to take root in France, and how career civil servants have had difficulties in adjusting or making private sector management concepts work in government.53 There is little evidence that there has been major improvement in the quality of public services in France. Public opinion surveys reveal that only 44 percent of respondents have a positive opinion of the quality of public services.54 We know that efforts, such as the Citizen’s Charter (1991) in Great Britain and Charte des services publics (1992) in France are no longer in vogue.55 Many civil servants believe that assessing government performance in delivering services by asking citizens to compare their experiences with private sector firms’ services can never tell the whole story.56 They

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argue the comparison overlooks the fact that government departments have many statutory requirements to uphold that do not apply to private firms. Electronic-based service delivery has become de rigueur for both the public and private sectors in delivering services. Private sector firms have to pay close attention to their voice answering systems – if they do not follow up quickly, they run the risk of losing customers. Government departments have no such concerns – clients of government programs can make “noise” but they have nowhere else to go.57 In Canada, the Auditor General reported in 2019 that eight million or half of the sixteen million Canadians who wanted to speak to a federal civil servant to get information about government services were forced to hang up or were instructed to go to a website. One million Canadians, who were able to get into a queue to wait their turn to talk with an agent, eventually hung up before being connected.58 In the United States, only one in eleven telephone calls to the Internal Revenue Service (irs ) was answered in January 2020.59 While working on this book, I contacted officials with the Government of Canada for an answer to a very straightforward question dealing with access to information legislation: under the legislation, will Cabinet confidences and material in the prime minister’s and ministerial offices continue to be protected? I first sought answers by leaving a message in a voice mail at the Treasury Board Secretariat on 12 May 2020. No response. I left another message. Still no response. I wrote an email, putting the question to an official in the Treasury Board Secretariat, the relevant government agency. I did get an answer saying that I should have contacted a 1-800 number rather than a 1-613 number. The email went on to say that I should direct my questions to a different unit. I did and I waited. No answer. I wrote again. I received an answer on 5 June 2020 saying, “I have asked my manager to help respond to your question. My apologies in not being able to help any further.” I waited, but again no reply. I wrote once more on 9 June. I received an answer on 10 June 2020 from a senior civil servant, saying, “I have nudged the group and their director.” I finally received the answer five weeks after I first asked a very simple question. I know my way around government, and I kept at it until I was able to get the answer. I can only imagine what it must be like for a citizen with little knowledge of how to navigate government in trying to secure an answer to a

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more complex question. Speaking from experience, the Canadian government was better at delivering services before npm measures were introduced. Canadians are not alone in their frustrations with electronic-driven public services. In France, a biennial survey of 7,700 respondents to assess the experiences of users of twenty-five different government services from acquiring a driving licence to registering for disability benefits reveals that “not only did a significant proportion of people say they were unhappy with the service, many felt that it was getting worse.”60 In Britain, a 2013 review of the quality of public services suggests there is a great deal to be done some thirty years after the introduction of npm measures. It reads: “research shows strong appetite for change and for diverse competitive provisions of services.”61 The Cabinet Office reports that “persistent and / or vexatious complaints … are becoming an increasing problem for all departments and public sector bodies.” It has on its website a “Complaints Procedure” which outlines a process for citizens to bring complaints to the attention of the government.62 A former senior British civil servant wrote lessons learned from his experience in implementing a comprehensive digital government initiative. He wrote that “the key to making progress toward a digital government is to start small,” which does not “come naturally to any big organization.” He added: “In most administrations built on the Westminster model, policy stands first among equals. Those who work in policy enjoy proximity to politicians and prestige. Traditionally, good policy requires two things: an understanding of citizens and an understanding of government.”63 He wrote this nearly forty years after Margaret Thatcher launched management reform measures designed to see civil servants focus more on government operations. In the United States, a 2015 Pew Research survey reports that “just 20 percent say the federal government runs its programs well, and 59 percent say it is in need of very major reform, up 22 percentage points since 1997.”64 The public’s “customer satisfaction” with federal government services is lower than their satisfaction with nearly all private services.65 Senior government officials are well aware of citizens’ regard toward the quality of public services; a survey reveals that “60 percent” of them describe citizens’ attitudes toward government as “frustrated.”66 Observers

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are also making the case that the US government is not keeping up with technology, and it is contributing to “Americans’ distrust of government.”67 Have the efforts improved the level of services and morale of front line managers and their staff? There is no evidence in any of the four countries to suggest they have. In addition, the move to give more autonomy to program managers has not followed a straight line. We are seeing some governments having second thoughts about delegating more management authority. Executive agencies in Great Britain, for example, have fallen out of favour. Though the agencies generated some improvements in administration, they were modest and fell short of target.68 A survey of heads of agencies reveal that they want greater flexibility in the use of financial and human resources, insisting the parent departments were inhibiting their work. We have also witnessed recently a gradual “deagencification” with a return of “big government” or the old model.69

t h e r e s u lt s – c o o r di nati ng poli ci es Governments have long struggled with how best to coordinate policies. On the face of it, delegating more autonomy to program managers should make a difficult situation even more daunting. It is no coincidence that some twenty years after npm measures were introduced, British prime minister Tony Blair launched a “joined-up” government initiative. The initiative recognized that problems do not fit neatly into departmental boundaries.70 Joined-up government and other similar initiatives recognize that a more influential coordinating capacity is needed as governments continue to pile one policy over another, and further that it is not possible to completely divorce policy from implementation. Blair and other political leaders did not want to jettison npm measures. Rather, they wanted to somehow keep their positive attributes while limiting their drawbacks. The challenge was as straightforward as it was difficult: how to give front line program managers a degree of independence from politicians and central agencies but at the same time provide politicians and their advisers authority to ensure a degree of coherence and an ability to synchronize their actions while eliminating or reducing overlaps.71 Two observers of public administration point out that when it comes to policy coordination, there is “no specific body of evidence

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upon which judgment can be made about its success.”72 That said, there is little evidence to make the case that governments are better today at promoting policy coherence. In addition, civil service reforms arrived at the time when the need for more effective policy coordination also became even more difficult. Policy problems have become more complex over the past forty years, and they increasingly go beyond the scope of a single department.73 Donald Kettl summed up the challenge for modern government: “It is becoming increasingly hard for government to solve problems themselves conformed by boundaries created to solve them.”74 B. Guy Peters explains why npm measures have exacerbated the policy coordination problem. They have “de-emphasized horizontal management involving other organizations. If an organization is being assessed directly on the performance within their organization, they are less likely to invest resources in helping others.”75 npm measures have also conveniently overlooked the workings of a country’s political institutions, which hinder interdepartmental and interagency policy and program coordination. Government departments and ministries remain free-standing institutions – management reform measures did not address this issue. Departments still compete against one another for turf and resources. To the extent that things have changed, they have made things worse. Executive, special agencies or removing a number of centrally prescribed rules have isolated departments even more from one another and from central agencies, or the agencies charged with promoting coordination. Governments have tried to fix things with such initiatives as joined-up government and deliverology, all with little success. They were jettisoned not long after they were launched. In the United States, it is Congress that authorizes programs and appropriate funds and ensures oversight of the Executive Branch. This serves to further reinforce “the rigidness and vertical alignment that prevents better integration of efforts across departments.”76 Career civil servants readily see the problem. One US civil servant, who was asked to look into interagency coordinating processes, wrote a damning report: “The federal government has archaic, vertical stove-pipe organizational structure and processes that severely undermine success in operations and policy implementation. We are unable to achieve unity of effort and a whole-of-government approach to devising solutions to critical problems.”77

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In Canada, 150 early career civil servants were invited to identify challenges confronting civil service and how best to meet them by the year 2017. They produced a revealing document that argues the civil service promotes “a risk-averse culture that does not provide incentives for creativity or innovation; a focus on short-term results over long-term improvement, relationships based on contractual responsibilities rather than trust; poor relationships with stakeholders, citizens, other departments, and other orders of government that prevent partnerships and meaningful deliberations from taking shape; territorial in-fighting (both inter- and intra-departmentally) over who should take the ‘lead’ on addressing an issue.”78 One can only conclude that npm measures have not just failed to improve policy and programs coordination in all four countries, they have made things worse.

t h e r e s u lt s – e l im in ati ng red tape The table presented in this chapter compares the old public administration culture with the npm culture. It contrasts “controlling” with “empowering,” “administrative” with “managerial,” and “process-oriented” with “results-oriented.” The cry against red tape was heard as loudly inside government as it was outside government. By the 1980s, few saw any merit in red tape. One, in fact, saw “no redeeming value” in red tape.79 Others argued that red tape leads to administrative delays which, in turn, lead “to more red tape, greater client complaints about red tape, and negatively affects the organizations’ ability to serve clients.”80 Red tape, however, has some merit, otherwise it would never have been introduced. It can be a useful tool to deal with market failures, protect the environment, ensure workplace safety, and the list goes on. Red tape also has merit inside government. Red tape can be useful against government failures and corruption in the handling of public funds. It can also stop favouritism and delay decisions when necessary in the public interest. Red tape can, in some instances, replace hierarchy by establishing requirements and leaving day-today management to individuals. What are the alternatives to red tape regulating activities and decisions inside government? Hierarchical management can stop decision-makers from favouring privileged individuals or groups. The

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authors of management reforms were critical of hierarchy and management layers. We know, however, that hierarchy and chain-of-command control can replace red tape and regulations because of their ability to encourage information sharing and see the organization push in the same direction. Hierarchy can also play a red tape–type role in regulating government failures because it can encourage “agents” to be more forthcoming to the “principal” about performance. Competition can force agents to be more forthcoming, but it is difficult to generate it inside government. Self-control is another possibility. However, it is the “least suitable form” because self-interest behaviour will all too often win when it clashes with the broader public interest.81 Management reform measures had to find the right balance between ensuring probity in government decision-making and answering the call to let managers manage. All four countries have reduced internal red tape among government operations. As evidence, one only has to look at the number of pages that have been taken out of financial and human resources manuals. Governments in all four countries, however, have sent mixed messages on internal regulations. They have at times, over the past forty years, reduced red tape but at other times added to it. We now know that the efforts to reduce red tape on government managers have fallen far short of the efforts to reduce government regulations and the administrative burdens on businesses in all four countries.82 A review of efforts to reduce red tape in the British government, for example, concluded that departments “made limited mention of how they were engaging with frontline workers” and only a few looked at the “irritants to key frontline staff in their simplification plans.”83 Governments have dealt with a reduced number of internal regulations by adding oversight bodies, asking for a continuing stream of performance and evaluation reports, strengthening central agencies, and adding management layers and management positions to oversee things. This has made government thicker and slowed decision-making in government – the very opposite of what the management reforms were designed to do.

l o o k in g back Management reform measures designed to see government do more with less have fallen short of the mark. I asked a senior Government of Canada official for his views on the matter. He replied: “Well, it

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is how the government communicates – flip it around for the real story, so that the government is doing less with more.” He went on to say that a new government always comes in with the promise of great change, be it “deliverology,” “empowering managers,” or a new approach to budgeting. He explained that many in the civil service simply decide to batten down the hatches, convinced that “this, too, shall pass.”84 They know from first-hand experience that the new fashion in public management is all too often short-lived. npm measures have enjoyed more support from politicians than from civil servants. Colin Talbot, for example, writes that “much of the opposition to the Next Steps initiative initially came from within the civil service itself.”85 However, as previously noted, some civil servants saw that they could benefit from the measures, given the call to let managers manage and the push to decentralize decision-making when it came to managing human and financial resources. Many saw no reason to resist the measures, particularly those who called for delegating management authority. Long-serving senior civil servants, however, saw problems. They knew that both political and administrative politicians have deep historical roots and established norms that guide how they should go about their work. They knew that it was not enough for politicians simply to point their finger at bureaucracy with instructions to become better managers, borrow management practices from the private sector, and leave everything else intact, notably accountability requirements. But they also knew that there was little they could do – it was not possible, for example, for the then Cabinet Secretary to go to the media and say that Margaret Thatcher had an incomplete or misguided agenda in pursuing management reform measures. Politicians often ride to power with simplistic and appealing slogans. It is easy for voters to see merit in the slogan “doing more with less.” Politicians can never lose votes by telling voters that they will pursue better management practices in government. Simply calling for better management practices is the easy part. And, if the call does not work, politicians can always say that they had the right medicine but the measures fell short in the implementation stage because the bureaucrats could not make the approach work. Presidents and prime ministers, once in power, are invariably overburdened The most senior career officials are also too busy dealing with the details of the day, monitoring the state of the blame game,

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and responding to the wishes of presidents and prime ministers to give management reform the required commitment to make it work. The most that presidents and prime ministers can do is lay down policy and program goals in the broadest of terms and then let senior career civil servants pick up the pieces. They, in turn, have to look to officials down the hierarchy to make things work. There is, however, a growing distance between senior career officials and front line program managers. When program managers look up, they see an elaborate management structure consisting of permanent secretaries, undersecretaries, deputy secretaries, assistant secretaries, chiefs of staff, assistant deputy ministers, many associate positions, and the list goes on. To add to the problem, program managers no longer make it to the top of government departments and agencies. These positions are largely reserved for those skilled in managing the blame game, delivering what presidents and prime ministers want, and managing political and policy issues. Front line program managers will focus more on delivering services to clients and much less on policy issues. When it comes to accountability in managing programs and operations, they are now asked to produce evaluation and performance reports rather than abide by the many centrally prescribed rules and regulations governing human and financial resources that previous generations of civil servants had to accommodate. The incentive to fudge these reports is considerable. There is simply no incentive to do otherwise. The result – there is a growing disconnect between senior career officials and front line managers and their staff. A recent survey reveals that in Canada only 17 percent of front line civil servants think that “essential information flows effectively from senior management.”86 Canadians, meanwhile, sense the problem – only 6 percent of Canadians express “a lot of trust in senior public servants,” while front line managers and staff fare a great deal better.87 The same discrepancy in levels of confidence applies in the United States, Great Britain, and France.88

7 Where Everyone Is Responsible and No One Is Responsible

Elmer MacKay, a former senior Cabinet minister in the Government of Canada, acknowledged his frustration while in opposition that, no matter how hard he tried, he “could never find the culprit.” He expected things would be different once he was in government, but discovered they were not. MacKay concluded that the one thing government is not good at is holding people, notably civil servants, to account. He saw that in government everything is done collectively so that no one is ever responsible. He added, however, that politicians usually have no problem holding other politicians to account. A politician’s political misstep is certain to be widely reported in the media, and politicians from another party will be certain to exploit it. Politicians can always look to the media or brown paper envelopes from “bureaucrats” for a helping hand. MacKay reports that while in opposition, he received a number of brown paper envelopes, which served to make life difficult for politicians on the government side.1 He soon discovered that in government he was no longer on the receiving end of the envelopes. Things are also changing for civil servants. Politicians are increasingly taking aim at “bureaucrats,” as are the media. The popular view is that they are unaccountable and that we need to shed more light on their work. Bernardo Zacka, writing about the US civil service, maintains that bureaucrats “look without seeing, they listen without hearing and they proclaim decisions that can change people’s lives with the indifference of a butcher slicing a piece of steak.”2 He is hardly the only one critical of civil servants, who are at a disadvantage: they cannot speak out publicly to defend their work. Indeed, they have few available possibilities to set the record

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straight; leaking information and brown paper envelopes are two. However, trying to defend oneself under the cover of anonymity is often ineffective. Politicians, voters, and the media tend to think of waste and mismanagement in government when they think about accountability. Policy issues, meanwhile, belong to politicians because it is understood that they decide policy, not career officials. It is much easier for voters to understand government waste or a scandal than to grasp the finer points of public policies. You can detail an administrative misstep or the making of scandal in a brown paper envelope much better than explain why a policy may be misguided. Britain’s Institute for Government tabled a report on accountability in 2018, making the case that accountability requirements are in urgent need of repair: “Several Institute for Government reports have documented failures that display the symptoms of weak accountability; a lack of clarity about who was responsible; a lack of consequences for poor performance; a lack of transparency and information and most tellingly the same patterns of failure occurring repeatedly.”3 This, nearly forty years after management reform measures were introduced with the promise that they would strengthen accountability. France is not faring any better. Emmanuel Martin writes that government bureaucracy has become “inefficient mazes of red tape that waste taxpayers’ money, thwart accountability … The complexity of this system ensures that no one is held responsible when there is a problem.” He reminds his readers that roughly one-fourth of “France’s workforce is employed in the public sector.”4 Canada has launched several measures to strengthen accountability requirements, including a Commission of Inquiry, but little of any consequence has been done.5 Calls for strengthening accountability in government operations are ignored by the one who could introduce change and make it stick – the prime minister. Prime ministers and central agencies are comfortable with the status quo. The United States has complex accountability requirements with civil servants having to keep an eye on the executive branch, Congress, the Constitution, and the media.6 But here, too, little has been done to update accountability requirements. The mixture of political appointees and career civil servants occupying senior positions, departments, and agencies has not helped establish who is responsible for what.7

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The above leads to the question, Are accountability requirements more muddled today than forty years ago?8 The literature suggests that they are. It argues that governments did not pay sufficient attention to accountability when they introduced management reform measures.9 In all four countries, we have recently seen politicians pointing the finger at bureaucrats when things do not work out as planned, at times even breaking out into “an unseemly bout of finger-pointing between politicians and civil servants.”10 Some politicians argue that accountability requirements are not as authoritative as they once were but are unwilling to do anything about it other than finger-pointing at civil servants.11 They could also point the finger at themselves or at the political class. This chapter takes stock of accountability in government.

n o t h e l d ac c ountable Anthony King and Ivor Crewe recently published a devastating account of both the state of management and accountability in the British government in their widely read book The Blunders of Our Governments. The title describes well the book’s contents: the government is prone to appalling mistakes, and civil servants are not held accountable for blunders or the performance of their departments and agencies.12 King and Crewe spare no one. In a positive review of the book, former permanent secretary Sir David Normington writes: “I watched many of these blunders … from a safe distance. I was directly involved in two myself … Politicians generally come out of it worse, but only because more is known about their role.”13 More is known about politicians because they prefer it this way – most of the time. It is also what civil servants prefer – all of the time. Career civil servants in the four countries remain at their desk serving different governments from different political parties with different policy preferences. As we saw earlier, the way to continue to serve and to offer advice without fear or favour is to stay out of the public eye. They know better than anyone that the loss of anonymity risks becoming a political actor and damaging future career opportunities. Politicians stand to gain more – most of the time – by accepting responsibility for the decisions and actions of government departments and agencies. Government decisions provide numerous opportunities for positive visibility in the media. Politicians know full well they will soon be fighting another election, and gaining positive

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visibility in the media can only help. But what happens when government decisions are cast in negative light? What we have seen, over the past forty years, is that many politicians are no longer as willing as they once were to accept blame. Gone are the days when politicians would avoid pointing the finger at career officials, at least publicly, when things went off the rails. We know many recent cases when politicians or their partisan assistants happily “named and blamed” career civil servants.14 Right to information legislation, new oversight bodies, keen media interest in government operations, and permanent election campaigns have also made it more difficult for career civil servants to remain anonymous. This, in turn, has made career officials more risk-averse at the same time as npm measures came into play, encouraging government managers to emulate their private sector counterparts. After a review of Britain’s accountability requirements, the Institute for Government concluded, “Successive administrations have failed to ensure that accountability has kept pace with the increasing complexity of modern government.”15 Governments continue to stick with traditional forms of accountability because it suits both politicians and career officials. Politicians can continue to claim credit when things go well and now shift blame to civil servants when they do not. And when things go well politicians are often unwilling to share the limelight. For example, Donald Trump made this clear when he tweeted that Dr Anthony Fauci was widely applauded in the media but then pointed out that “yet he works for me … and I am in no way given any credit for my work.”16 The tune changes, however, when things turn negative in the media. Trump publicly called out Dr Fauci after he changed his view on wearing a mask during the covid -19 pandemic.17 Trump is hardly the only politician to claim credit when things go well but point the finger at civil servants when they do not. Accountability in government in the four countries is now in a muddle. Donald Trump played havoc with accountability requirements when he took aim at the “deep state” and when his attorney general misrepresented the Mueller report. However, observers of American politics maintain that accountability requirements in Washington started to break down long before Trump came to power.18 Americans themselves also believe that accountability in the federal government is lacking with two-thirds of them convinced that Washington withholds information that it should make public.19

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Canada is no different. A debate raged in Ottawa when former prime minister Paul Martin decided to split the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. The decision was widely condemned, with officials in both departments spending considerable time fighting over turf and who would get what in the divorce. Parliament withheld its required approval of the change. The government decided to proceed with the divorce just the same, all the while saying nothing about cost. The media and retired diplomats were highly critical of the decision, insisting that the initiative was both misguided and costly. Suddenly, no one in government would accept responsibility for having proposed the change. Andrew Cohen explains, “Some say it came from the Clerk of the Privy Council, some say it was the deputy trade minister, who wanted a promotion … Whoever its father may be, the reorganization is now an orphan. No wonder. Rarely has an idea been denounced so widely.” Diplomats saw it as another blow to the ebbing power of foreign affairs, once the aristocracy of the bureaucracy. As Raymond Chrétien, Canada’s former ambassador to Washington and Paris, says, “If the Prime Minister can find the culprit who recommended dismembering our foreign service, he should fire him!”20 Neither the prime minister nor anyone else was able to find the one responsible, and no one was dismissed. If no one could find the culprit in such a high-profile issue, one can only imagine what it must be like for a minister, let alone an mp , trying to determine why things go wrong in government and who is responsible. One can point the finger every which way, but it was the prime minister who made the decision because no one else had the authority to give the plan the green light. Yet, no one in government was prepared to point the finger at the prime minister. Those on the outside did, but it had no impact inside government. The prime minister never said who advised him to split the department. There have also been any number of costly administrative mistakes made by civil servants that were completely free of political involvement. For example, Canadian civil servants set out to overhaul the job classification system that had 840 pay rates. For twelve years, from 1990 to 2002, tens of thousands of employees from some sixty departments and agencies spent countless hours, and the government committed millions of dollars to consulting contracts, to little avail.21 There is no evidence to suggest that those responsible for the initiative suffered any negative consequences. No one could find the culprit – or if they did, no one was held to account.

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A more recent case among the many others is the failed attempt to overhaul the civil service pay system. Government officials declared that the new system labelled “Phoenix” would deliver $70 million in savings by 2016. But by 2016, the initiative required another $50 million to fix problems. By 2018, the government allocated another $45 million to the initiative. In March 2020, the government gave up and announced that it had selected another system to replace Phoenix.22 Parliament was later informed that senior civil servants who worked on the Phoenix initiative were awarded nearly $2 million in bonuses.23 The Auditor General described the initiative as an “incomprehensible failure” and pointed the finger at three senior civil servants. The three were quietly moved to other positions. Canada’s most senior civil servant, the clerk of the Privy Council, dismissed the Auditor General’s report as simply an “opinion piece.” The relevant department’s most senior career officials argued that their three colleagues did not act with “ill intent,” suggesting that “pointing to two or three people and thinking that they are responsible for making this entire system fail and what we’re living today is very simplistic. If we focus on that, we’re going to miss all the other really important lessons.”24 I note that the previous clerk was late in seeing the problem. He wrote in 2014: “We are also continuing to make progress to modernize the employee pay system, the largest payroll system in Canada … Planning for this transition was complex, but an innovative and effective solution was found, and we are seamlessly transitioning to a new system with no financial impact on employees.”25 The secretary of the Treasury Board pointed his finger at Parliament, making the case that current legislation does not “allow the government to quickly fire public service executives who fail to do their job properly.” The secretary never explained why legislation inhibited senior government officials from taking disciplinary action. The logical conclusion is that no one in government can ever be fired and the fault should lie with politicians, even when politicians had little say in the initiative, other than giving the civil servants the green light to proceed. The secretary also never explained why the senior officials were awarded nearly $2 million in bonuses. It would be difficult to blame Parliament for this. mps, meanwhile, pointed their fingers right back at the civil service with one, a Conservative, expressing disbelief that the responsible civil servants “are still employed by the government.” Another, a

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Liberal, said she was disappointed over the lack of accountability in the civil service: “It just seems like people are just shuffled.”26 Nothing is more important in understanding accountability in Westminster-inspired parliamentary systems than the doctrine of ministerial responsibility. The doctrine, rooted in military history and in Weber’s hierarchy, requires that the individual in charge of the organization should answer publicly for the actions of both the organization and its employees. In other words, whoever is at the top should take responsibility. In the Westminster-Whitehall model, civil servants have traditionally been expected to respect hierarchical accountability and to refrain from any public profile. If they should have to speak out, they must do so under the minister’s authority. Ministers are in charge of departments, answer in Parliament and in public, and speak to the media on behalf of their departments. Civil servants should operate under the notion that they have no personality distinct from the government of the day. They are servants of the Crown, and the Crown is represented by the government of the day. The point – civil servants have no constitutional links to Parliament and thus have nowhere else to turn to in order to pursue the public interest or what they would consider to be the public interest. And, in turn, Parliament is not in a position to hold them to account. Critics of the doctrine maintain that it is no longer appropriate to hold ministers responsible for their department while civil servants, who may have committed the errors, are allowed to go unpunished, either publicly or inside government.27 They believe the doctrine of ministerial responsibility now acts as a cloak for a lot of murkiness in departments and agencies.28 Some observers, including practitioners, argue that attempts to draw a distinction between accountability, responsibility, and answerability remain unconvincing.29The words “responsibility” and “answerability” were added to the doctrine to make it work better given the growth in government operations. The observers have a point. While Jocelyne Bourgon, a former Clerk of the Privy Council and head of the civil service, insists that “where authority resides, so resides accountability,” Alex Himelfarb, another former clerk, insists that “authority can be delegated, but accountability can’t.”30 If two former heads of the Canadian civil service cannot agree on what the doctrine actually means, then what are mp s or citizens to make of it? The Privy Council Office decided to introduce the notion of “answerability” into the mix in order to clarify accountability for

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ministers, parliamentarians, and civil servants. It has also served to further complicate matters. One can easily appreciate that the distinction between answerability, responsibility, and accountability is lost on many politicians, let alone voters.

france France had a similar experience to Canada when it decided to overhaul its civil service pay system. The initiative, as was the case for Canada, was designed to make the government’s pay system more efficient and less costly. As was the case in Canada, the initiative was an incomprehensible failure. It was abandoned in 2014, a few years after it was launched, resulting in €346 million lost.31 Again, as was the case in Canada, no one has been held accountable for the failure. France, unlike Canada, has a semi-presidential system of government with different accountability requirements. The above is hardly an isolated case. Le livre noir des gaspillages (2019) provides a veritable catalogue of government waste. In one case, civil servants were able to secure fifty-four holiday days a year. In another case, civil servants spent over €1 million to consult a small number of fifteen- to twenty-four-year-olds. And in yet another case, civil servants, tasked with keeping public washrooms open, spent €450,000 to manage a public washroom open three months of the year. The list goes on.32 Others have made the case that France has an extremely poor record in eliminating duplication in public service and in holding either politicians or career civil servants accountable for it. Pierre-Mathieu Duhamel, the former budget director and senior economic adviser under Jacques Chirac, insists that duplication in the provision of public services and waste in government spending has become one of France’s most important public policy challenges. He maintains that useless government spending and waste of taxpayers’ money have become rampant in France and, to make matters worse, it is virtually impossible, either for politicians or civil servants to be held accountable.33 A French civil servant caused a sensation, not just in France, when she published Absolument débordée (Absolutely Snowed Under). The book has been translated into several languages. Aurélie Boullet published her book under the nom de plume Zoé Shepard because she feared reprisals from her superiors. Her anonymity, however, proved to be short-lived. Her colleagues unmasked her, and her superiors

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were quick to impose sanctions, including suspension without pay. The reasons – unacceptable behaviour and lack of discretion.34 After completing graduate work, Boullet had secured what she believed would be a full-time dream job as a mid-level civil servant. She soon realized, however, that a civil service career was not what she had imagined. She saw that her job required nothing more than five to twelve hours of work a month, often writing summaries of existing reports that few read. She was once called into her boss’s office only to be told that her report had the wrong typeface. She was given a week to solve the problem, which she did in twenty-five seconds. She also discovered no one in the office staff of thirty had what she described as a real job, doing real work. She maintains that her job and her office were no different from most jobs in the government.35 She explains that she suffered not from a burnout but rather a “boreout,” which is characterized by a lack of meaningful tasks.36 Boullet decided to speak out, not only because of frustration resulting from a lack of meaningful work but also because she saw that “there is an enormous amount of waste. It’s scandalous. But when you denounce this waste, you lose your job.”37 Boullet was held accountable for speaking out, which was deemed unacceptable behaviour toward her superiors. Neither she nor her superiors however, were held to account for waste and inefficiencies in government offices and operations. She made the case that accountability requirements are in short supply in the French government. I note that France’s public expenditure stood at 56.5 percent of gdp in pre-covid -19 days. It was the highest among oecd countries (average public expenditure among members as a share of gdp stood at 40.9 percent in the pre-covid -19 period). France’s share of general government employment is close to 22 percent of total employment, which is above oecd average at 18 percent.38 Accountability in France among civil servants, as is the case in the other three countries, is geared to protecting the interests of politicians, departments and agencies, and the civil service and civil servants. Accountability is about loyalty to the department and to superiors. When it comes to accountability for waste, mismanagement, or establishing who is responsible for what and why things go off the rails, accountability is a moving target. Boullet was able to document waste in government and what life in the French bureaucracy looks like. However, she left an important question unanswered: who should be accountable for this state of affairs?

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t h e u n it e d states Many organizations keep a scorecard of government waste and mismanagement in the United States. They are supported by various groups whose mission is to eliminate this waste and mismanagement in government. One such organization is the one million plus members of the Citizens Against Government Waste.39 The organization regularly produces reports that identify waste and poor management practices. It is not alone. Other organizations, such as the Heritage Foundation, as well as individual members of Congress and several senators, regularly produce reports on waste and mismanagement in government.40 The reports never fail to document a veritable litany of cases of waste and mismanagement, ranging from the $435 hammer to the $600 toilet seats.41 Year after year, a new list of waste and mismanagement in the federal government is released and, year after year, the list becomes more outrageous. American taxpayers are told, for example, that civil servants used government-funded credit cards to pay $73,950 for events at exotic dance clubs and prostitutes, $48,250 for gambling, and $69,300 for luxury cruises.42 The US Government Accountability Office, labelled the “congressional watchdog,” regularly produces reports that identify government waste and measures to improve management. In its 2020 report, for example, it concluded that the Department of the Navy could save billions of dollars by improving its acquisition practices; the Office of Management and Budget could generate important cost savings by addressing government-wide improper payments; the Internal Revenue Service could generate savings by strengthening coordination among its offices; and the list goes on.43 No one seems to ask why senior management in departments and agencies could not see these savings without having to be prompted by the Government Accountability Office. Peter H. Schuck, in his book Why Government Fails So Often, explores the state of management and accountability in the US government. His verdict is anything but positive. He makes the case that management practices and accountability have deteriorated over the past forty years. Remarkably, Schuck’s diagnosis also applies to Canada, Great Britain, and France. All the more remarkable is that it was forty years ago that npm measures came into fashion and have since been pursued in all four countries, precisely to improve both management practices and accountability.

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Schuck points to the day when presidents and their top advisers began to attack the bureaucracies they were leading as the moment when the American civil service began its long decline. It will be recalled that President Reagan asked the Grace Commission to “work like tireless bloodhounds” to root out inefficiency waste and poor management practices in government. Reagan assumed that civil servants were accountable for the waste and mismanagement, not the administrations that preceded him. Reagan decided to solve the problem by “putting the fox in the chicken coop”: turning business executives “loose in government administration.”44 The Grace Commission in the end had a modest impact.45 The same is true for other similar commissions or task forces established in Britain and Canada around the same time. The Reagan administration also had a profound impact on how politicians and civil servants interact that is felt to this day. When John F. Kennedy took office in 1961, he had 451 political jobs to hand out. As previously noted, today there are over 4,000 such political jobs.46 The size of the civilian civil service, however, has remained relatively stable over the years at about 2.1 million. But this does not tell the whole story. The number of contract workers has grown from about 3 million as recently as 1996 to 4.1 million by 2017.47 There are another 1.2 million “grant employees,” 1.3 million active military personnel, and 500,000 postal workers.48 It will be recalled that Donald Trump pledged to cut the size of government “so much your head will spin.” He did no such thing. The core civil service actually grew by 1 percent under Trump.49 Schuck documents the more important changes in management practices in the US government over the past forty years. He writes that more management authority has been delegated to departments and agencies while, at the same time, an ever-increasing number of new political and managerial layers continue to be added.50 This has broad implications for accountability requirements, and more is said about this later. Suffice to note here that, as Paul Light argues, it has made government “thicker.”51 Light also identifies an increasing number of management layers at both the political appointee and senior civil service levels. He reports there are eighteen management levels today compared to just seven in 1961.52 He quips, “You are nobody in Washington, D.C., if you do not have a chief of staff.”53 Schuck, who once worked in the US government, also remarks on the trend: “I’ll bet that you did not know that there are now many

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federal officials who are denominated ‘deputy deputy assistant secretary,’ ‘associate deputy assistant secretary,’ ‘deputy associate deputy administrator,’ and ‘chief of staff to the associate deputy assistant secretary,’ and that this thickening has occurred in almost every department.”54 Increasing management layers is also evident in the other three countries, particularly in Canada and France. As noted, accountability for civil servants in the United States is more complex than it is for those in the other three countries surveyed. Career civil servants have to monitor several points of accountability. All must also support, defend, and bear true faith to the Constitution. They work in the executive branch but they have to look up the organization for direction and also follow the work of Congress, given its substantial role in the budget-making process and in establishing programs. The Brookings Institution explains that civil servants work to “carry out the mission of their agencies in compliance with the laws put forth by Congress.”55 They also need to pay attention to the work of various oversight bodies. Governments in all four countries have added a number of oversight bodies ostensibly designed to strengthen accountability. Line department and agency managers now go to work with a shadow on their shoulders. While governments have done away with many centrally prescribed rules and regulations, they have in their stead installed a number of agencies and processes designed to oversee line departments and their agencies and to try to assess the performance of departments and their managers. Program directors, managers, and front line managers in all four governments see many constraints, as they look up the organizations. However, when they look to accountability requirements, they see anything but clarity. In the United States, the program manager now sees an ever-growing number of political appointees and several oversight bodies, including offices of Inspectors General that were first introduced some forty years ago or, at the same time as npm came into fashion. In Canada, the manager now has to look to anywhere between nine and thirteen officers of Parliament, depending how one counts. These officers have been particularly adroit at fuelling the blame game. Great Britain (the National Audit Office) and France (Cour des comptes) have also added to their oversight capacity while considerably expanding their operations over the past forty years. More oversight capacity does not always equate to stronger accountability requirements.56

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In brief, management reform measures have not clarified matters when it comes to accountability. It has also not been possible to establish whether they have made any positive contributions to better management in government. Notwithstanding substantial amounts of funds invested in program evaluations in the four countries starting some forty years ago, governments still do not even have a baseline to compare management measures before and after they were introduced to determine if any progress was made. The attention of politicians and civil servants simply moved to the next reform initiatives being introduced.57

f ix in g t h e p ro b l e m wi thout fi xi ng ac c o u n ta b i li ty Former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney summed up the view of many politicians that have come to power over the past forty years: “Coming to Ottawa from the private sector, I have been appalled by the waste of time and talent in government.”58 Ronald Reagan declared in his inaugural speech that “government is the problem” and that the private sector would show the way.59 What to do and how to do it? Presidents and prime ministers have consistently maintained, even to this day, that government bureaucracy is wasteful and poorly managed. They all wanted solutions, but they quickly concluded career officials had little to offer. Civil servants were not about to admit that their institution was lacking either on the policy or administrative side. Within days of coming to power, Margaret Thatcher met all permanent secretaries over dinner and asked the assembled officials to help her “beat the system.” One responded: “But we are the system,” and another got into an acrimonious argument with her.60 She looked back on the meeting several months later and took satisfaction that she had had not been diverted “by the conventional wisdom available in endless quantity throughout the civil service.”61 She is one of the few presidents and prime ministers who did not let the urgent or the political issue of the day push aside what was important to her agenda. Senior career officials did not see the problem that Thatcher saw. As before, briefing books for her incoming government focused on policy and the more important challenges confronting the nation. Those drafting the briefing book had joined the civil service to

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contribute to shaping public policy, not managing operations. At the risk of repetition, senior career officials then and now are far more interested in “maximizing” policy work and advising political leaders than attending to cumbersome and tedious administrative work. Many career officials were likely puzzled by Thatcher’s desire to focus on how the civil servants were managing government programs.62 In addition, since very few senior career officials then or now have worked in other settings or institutions, they still do not readily see the flaws in their own institutions. Many civil servants continue to regard politicians as the root of many of the problems associated with bureaucracy.63 If presidents and prime ministers could not turn to career government officials to instill a bias for action and stronger management practices in government operations, they knew where they could get help – the private sector. The business community responded with many representatives agreeing to serve on special task forces to improve management in government – Derek Rayner in Britain, the Grace Commission in the United States, and the Nielsen Task Force in Canada (all in the 1980s). As we saw earlier, France also turned to private sector management practices for solutions, albeit later.64 The private sector had an impact in at least two areas – pushing governments to introduce a make-or-buy policy and the privatization of state enterprises. Privatizing state assets was straightforward: the government decided to sell an asset, a process was put in place, and the deal was done. There is a clear beginning and an end. Accountability also becomes clearer when a state enterprise is moved to the private sector. Things are different, however, when it comes to introducing new management practices in ongoing government operations. The process never ends, and it is left to senior career officials to report on progress, because no one else is in a position to do so. Senior career officials had every reason for giving the appearance of embracing change, even though many decided to stand still. For one thing, it is hardly a winning strategy to be seen as ignoring the wishes of their political masters. For another, as noted, they saw opportunities in the new approach, given that a number of centrally prescribed rules would be tossed out. All career civil servants have to continue to do is produce performance and evaluation reports that reveal very little and send them over to central agencies and oversight bodies. In return, managers were given much more flexibility in staffing their

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operations and reallocating financial resources within their allocated budgets.65 Managers know their staff can produce reports that would be harmless to the interest of their departments. But this hardly made things better either for politicians or accountability. Politicians are today no less critical of the ability of civil servants to manage government operations than Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were. Emmanuel Macron, for example, has voiced his displeasure on numerous occasions about France’s government bureaucracy, and so has Boris Johnson.66 If politicians cannot blame their civil servants when things go wrong, they can always blame the previous government or administration – and many do.67 Governments in all four countries, notwithstanding ambitious management reforms, continue to have to deal with bureaucratic gaffes and mismanagement. In France, for example, an audit officer revealed, in the summer of 2019, that there were “30 ghost bureaucrats” paid an annual salary since 1989 despite no longer holding a job. One of them actually ran a restaurant as opposed to working in government.68 One can still find similar examples of mismanagement in the other three countries. Doing away with many centrally prescribed rules created new problems. In Canada, for example, delegating authority to managers in staffing may well have compromised the merit principle, a key requirement in a non-partisan professional civil service. Jonathan Malloy, a highly respected student of government in Canada, writes: “Want a job with the federal government? You’d better know somebody. The vast majority of hiring in Ottawa is made through personal connection, not open competitions.”69 Since at least the early 1990s, the federal public service has recruited most of its members through word-of-mouth hiring. This may well explain why a number of politicians in Canada are now speaking out about “bureaucratic patronage.”70 Opposition mp s, the media, and even mp s on the government side were critical of the Department of Finance’s decision to spend $212,000 for a federal budget cover. One journalist explained that it was not just about the cost of the cover because “$212,000 is a mere drop in the $305-billion ocean of federal spending,” but rather about “the kind of breezy contempt for the public purse it reveals.”71 No one, however, was held accountable for the decision. The differences in accountability requirements between the private and public sector are distinct. Civil servants have to deal with

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a number of accountability requirements that do not apply in the private sector. They have a responsibility to the Constitution, to their country’s legal order, and to political institutions. They have to deal with more demanding regulations on conflict of interest, in ensuring impartiality, and in dealings with clients. In deciding to import private sector management practices to government, political leaders not only paid scant attention to the differences in accountability requirements between the two sectors, they also decided to leave things as they were. One thing has been consistent over the past forty years – a never-ending flow of new approaches to fix bureaucracy. In Canada, ten major initiatives to reform government bureaucracy have been launched over the past thirty years.72 The United States, Great Britain, and France have also launched a series of ambitious reforms to fix government operations, all of them introduced with great promise only to be replaced after a few years.73 It is not possible to make the case that any of these efforts have been successful or even improved things at the margin. One recently retired senior career official writes: “This is how public service goes from being an honourable calling to a debilitating grind – as was the case for me and many others. It has everything to do with the desire to avoid hard choices, present bad news, admit mistakes and own up to responsibility.”74

l o o k in g back Presidents and prime ministers were not happy with government operations forty years ago, and they introduced a number of reform measures. Yet, today politicians are no less critical of government bureaucracy. Donald Trump and his most senior political advisers were often highly critical of the civil service, accusing it of being overstaffed, incompetent, and disloyal.75 They are not alone. Justin Trudeau was quick to point the finger at the bureaucracy when a political scandal erupted and was widely reported in the media.76 Both Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron have also been critical of their civil services. It bears repeating that the civil services in all four countries are also plagued by serious morale problems. In Britain, 65 percent of civil servants have become ill due to stress. Surveys also point to “discouragement, bullying and harassment” as important reasons for “workplace unhappiness.”77 Surveys reveal morale problems in

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the US federal civil service. I note that the surveys were carried out before Donald Trump came to power.78 To be sure, things did not improve during the Trump years.79 A survey of Canadian civil servants reveals that managers “have become more stressed, unhappy, isolated and obese since the Association for Professional Executives of the Public Service of Canada (apex ) began tracking their health and the organizations they manage.”80 One recently retired senior government of Canada civil servant wrote that he has “dreaded going to work for the last ten years of his career.”81 Morale in France’s civil service is not faring any better. Archibald Buttle bluntly concluded that “les fonctionnaires ne sont pas heureux” (the civil servants are not happy).82 Why? Civil servants in all four countries are well paid and enjoy extremely generous employment benefits that are beyond the reach of the great majority of private sector firms in the same four countries. They have secure employment, and the civil service provides employment opportunities in a variety of sectors including health care, employment policy, and national defence. It is hardly possible to overstate the important role presidents and prime ministers play in leading their civil services – they decide machinery of government issues, they have an important say in how resources are allocated, they set the tone in the relationship between politicians and career officials, they are responsible for making key appointments at the top of government departments and agencies, and they decide if civil service reform measures should be initiated along with their timing and scope. They can decide to reduce the size of their civil service, as Margaret Thatcher did and Donald Trump threatened to do. Government reforms, over the past forty years, starting with npm measures have muddied accountability and created new tensions inside government. The divide has widened between top career officials and policy advisers on the one hand and program managers on the other. In addition, presidents and prime ministers from four different countries, from different institutional settings, and from different political perspectives have never stopped pointing the finger at the “incompetent bureaucracy.”83 To politicians, the media, and voters, accountability has more to do with government waste, management miscues, and scandals than with complex policy issues. A leading Canadian journalist took the government to task for spending $212,000 for a budget cover while saying little about the $333 billion in government spending in 2017.

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In the United States, the focus of waste watchers is on the $435 hammer while saying little about how the government is dealing with broad policy issues in its $7.3 trillion in total spending, this before the spike in government spending due to covid -19.84 Luc Rouban, in his review of npm measures in France, remarks, “The border that once existed between ministerial cabinets and division heads, as observed the 1970s, has to a great extent vanished, except perhaps in technical ministries, because the two groups now belong to the same sphere of political interest. The new border is now established at a lower level, separating political managers from career managers.”85 He adds that the low level of influence of front line managers has given way to a “low level of job satisfaction.”86 What Rouban sees in France, we saw also in the United States, Britain, and Canada, though earlier. In the process, we no longer have unified civil services like we had as recently as the 1970s. The message from governments in the four countries has been the same: all accountability requirements will stay the same, but everything else needs to change. Dame Anne Begg, chair of the Work and Pensions Committee in Britain, spoke to the point in her observation: “When the official gives evidence, what you get is the official ministerial line – you don’t get their views. I think if you’re going to do proper scrutiny, you want stuff that’s stripped away from all the political rhetoric, which you still get, because it’s all channelled through the minister.”87 Britain’s Institute for Government, in its review of accountability, argued that “there are fundamental gaps in accountability at the heart of Whitehall,” and then went on to conclude that “successive administrations have failed to ensure that accountability has kept pace with the increasing complexity of modern government.”88 One can only deduce that presidents and prime ministers have wrongly diagnosed the civil service for the past forty years. In the process, the misdiagnosis has weakened the civil service in the four countries and diminished it in the eyes of both elected officials and citizens. Traditional public administration developed with the understanding that there was an explicit distinction between the public and private sectors.89 This distinction is no longer as clear. The demarcation separating politics and administration is becoming even more ambiguous. We are seeing two civil services taking form in all four countries – one that looks up to serve the political and policy interests of the ruling government and another that looks down to serve its clients, all the while having to monitor what happens upstairs.

8 The Diagnosis

In the introduction I noted that presidents and prime ministers in four countries with distinct histories and political institutions have, over the past forty years, essentially come to the same diagnosis: their need for a firmer grip on the levers of power to shape policies to square with their priorities and improve management of government operations. The consensus: sidestep as much as possible political institutions, turn to partisan political advisers for advice, and look to the private sector for better management practices. Since the early 1980s, most presidents and prime ministers have come to power on the promise of great change that would strengthen efficiency, responsiveness, performance, frugality, and accountability in government. For the most part, they still believe that the private sector holds the answer to better management. This was as true for Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, and Stephen Harper as it was for Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Brian Mulroney, and as it is today for Boris Johnson. The diagnosis was not limited to Anglo-American democracies. Robert Tombs writes in Foreign Policy, “Elected on promises of great change, all presidents, whether right- or left-wing, have failed to deliver.” He goes on, “Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande all promised sweeping change and all ended despised and impotent.”1 Like his predecessors, Emmanuel Macron came to office with the promise of change to fix bureaucracy. He too looked to the private sector for inspiration on how to make government bureaucracy more efficient.2 It is worth underlying once again that presidents and prime ministers in four different countries operating under distinct institutional settings continue to come up with not only the same diagnosis but also the same remedy. That all

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four countries arrived at the same remedy is all the more remarkable because they wield power under vastly different circumstances, come from different perspectives on the political spectrum, and the political institutions in which they serve are shaped by markedly different histories. France has a much larger central administration, which gives its civil servants political clout because civil servants and their families also vote. French and American politicians and civil servants have to deal with more built-in checks and balances than their British and Canadian counterparts. Leading French politicians and senior civil servants are drawn from the ena while many of their British counterparts are drawn from Oxford and Cambridge universities. Leading American and Canadian politicians and senior civil servants come from a cross-section of universities and backgrounds. In France, the political and bureaucratic spheres have been fairly porous, at least since the birth of the Fifth Republic. Great Britain and Canada have also been moving in this direction since the 1980s.3 In the United States, partisan political appointees serve in several levels in the upper echelons of the civil service. The remedy tied to the diagnosis has made the patient worse. Compared to forty years ago, public trust in political institutions is now weaker, politics repels citizens more than it attracts them, government bureaucracies are less frugal, morale in the four civil services has fallen off sharply, and the roles of Cabinet and Cabinet secretaries and ministers have been downgraded. We also saw in earlier chapters that today government is less effective, less responsive, does not perform as well as it once did, and accountability requirements are more muddled than in years past – the very opposite of what the reforms were designed to achieve. I argue that the remedy tied to the diagnosis can only work when it is fully applied, when there is a clear break from the past, and when officials are asked to operate under different norms and accountability requirements. The remedy worked, for example, when the four countries embraced privatization. We have witnessed, over the past forty years, a veritable purging of state enterprises in Britain, Canada, and France. The United States had far fewer state enterprises to privatize. But even here, some federal state enterprises were privatized, and a number of local governments decided to answer Ronald Reagan’s call: “don’t just stand there, undo something.”4

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A large number of high-profile state enterprises in Great Britain, Canada, and France have been pushed out of the public sector, never to return. The following is hardly a complete list: British Steel, RollsRoyce, British Airways, British Telecom, British Gas; Air Canada, Canadian National Railway, Petro-Canada, Teleglobe; Air France, Renault, France Télécom, Le Crédit Lyonnais; and in the US Conrail, Railway Express Agency, and Intelsat. Privatization has been described as the “global economic phenomenon of the 1990s” and for good reasons.5 Governments, on both the political left and right in the four countries, unloaded over $3.25 trillion of state-run businesses between 1988 and 2015.6 In Britain, privatization knocked 800,000 employees off the public sector.7 There are today very few voices, on either the political left or right, calling for the re-nationalization of these private sector firms.8 We also have a multitude of studies on privatization, the majority singing its praises. One concludes that privatized firms “almost always become more efficient, more profitable, and financially healthier, and increase their capital investment spending.”9 Another argues that “the weight of empirical evidence on the state versus private ownership … strongly supports those who believe that private ownership is inherently more efficient than state ownership.”10 Yet another makes the case that “private ownership must be considered superior to state ownership in all but the most narrowly defined fields or under very special circumstances.”11 I could go on with other such studies. In contrast, there are only a few studies making the case that privatization was a mistake.12 Privatization also revealed problems that were hiding inside government, including unfunded pension liabilities and unclear debt levels.13 Privatization held still more advantages. It generated revenues for government at the time state enterprises were sold and also broadened a government’s tax base. State enterprises rarely export their products, but in some cases, things did change after they were privatized. It also enabled political leaders to say they were able to reduce the size of government or, at least, keep growth in check. Moving airport operations, for example, to the private sector or community groups, moved thousands of civil servants off government payrolls. Privatization makes the case that if governments truly want to pursue private sector management practices, then they need to shift operations to it. The transition from the public to the private sector, at least in terms of accountability, went smoothly in all four

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countries. To introduce private sector management practices to government operations and make them stick, governments would need to overhaul accountability requirements and establish new norms guiding the work of civil servants, something they have never been prepared to do. The point – private sector management practices belong to the private sector, not in government.

it is a l l a b o u t m oti vati on When it comes to motivation, the public and private sectors are different in both important and unimportant ways. This is a play on words from Wallace Sayre’s article in Public Administration Review published over fifty years ago.14 I also recognize that this view has been challenged.15 Those who challenge Sayre, however, need to explain why privatization has been successful and, conversely, why npm measures have not worked nearly as well as it had been hoped. When it comes to motivation, the public and private sectors march to a different drummer. Here the literature acknowledges sharp differences between motivating public sector employees and managers and their private sector counterparts.16 The literature is much less forthcoming, however, with regard to “the relative importance of the causes of these differences.”17 I maintain that formal organizations, their structure, norms, accountability requirements, and expectations shape motivation far more than it is assumed. Failure to take this into account explains why various management reform measures implemented over the past forty years have missed the mark. Unless policy-makers recognize this, future management reform measures will also be destined to fail.

m o t ivat io n b y w h at means? There are a number of ways to motivate managers and employees: authority, monetary rewards, appreciation, self-esteem, among others.18 James L. Perry’s seminal work on public service motivation points to several motivating forces: a desire to participate in shaping public policy, a desire to work for the public interest, and an attachment to patriotic values.19 It only takes a moment’s reflection to see that the Central Intelligence Agency operative who accepts a dangerous assignment in a war-torn country is motivated more by patriotic values than financial rewards or economic self-interest.

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Perry has continued to explore how individuals choose organizations for a career and how organizations are able to attract individuals. He and others have considered various incentives and tactics that managers can employ to motivate staff in government. They look, for example, at promoting recognition in delivering public services, values-based public service, and carefully crafted pay-for-performance schemes.20 B. Guy Peters, in his book Administrative Traditions, examines formal settings to explain bureaucratic behaviour. He explores formal legal explanations, the political process, rational action, bureaucratic institutions, their processes, and their accompanying logic of appropriateness.21 The point – there is a wide variety of forces that motivate career civil servants. It is not possible to identify just one that explains their behaviour in all circumstances and at all times. The examples identified above form part of a broad panoply of factors that shape the behaviour of career officials. Starting some forty years ago, politicians have come to power in the four countries convinced that career civil servants were not sufficiently motivated about things that should matter more to them in government – management – and, at the same time, overly motivated about things that come under their direct purview – policy-making. Politicians decided to borrow from the private sector and launch a number of ambitious management reform measures. They decided to leave essentially intact the accountability requirements within which they and civil servants operate. As we have seen, in introducing various management reform measures governments opted instead to play fast and loose with the customs, formal rules, and expected behaviours tied to the accountability requirements of their country’s political and administrative institutions. They did this essentially by putting a muffler on accountability requirements. With few exceptions, political leaders in the four countries conveyed this message to civil servants: respect your institutions’ rules, informal constraints, and expected behaviour, at the same time, don’t take these too seriously, and if you get caught playing fast and loose with the rules, you are on your own. Political leaders decided to pursue ambitious management reforms while leaving the most important defining characteristic of public administration – accountability – in a muddle. This has tilted the motivation of civil servants toward Homo economicus, or looking after their economic self-interest.

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s tark d if f e r e n c e s b e t w e en the two sectors A former senior Government of Canada official who left the public sector to join a large private firm told me a simple and likely wellworn saying: “in the private sector, you manage privately and in the public sector, you manage publicly.” The saying goes to the heart of the matter in understanding public administration and explains why private sector–inspired management reforms always fall short of the mark. He saw first-hand that the differences between the two sectors were stark and, in many ways, irreconcilable. He made it clear that he much preferred managing privately. The public dimension of public administration has been well documented in the literature.22 Political influence shapes what government bureaus do and how they do it. And their performances are assessed from a political perspective. Nothing can change this so long as the departments or agencies are part of government and they report to a political actor. Though there is continued pressure on them to be still more transparent, governments in all four countries have considerably opened up their operations over the past forty years. All four have either introduced or strengthened Access to, Right to, or Freedom of Information legislation. At least when compared to forty years ago, few things are off limits anymore. The legislation has not only opened up government, but also it has fuelled the blame game and strengthened further the transparency of public administration, making civil servants and government operations less secretive and even more risk-averse. The private sector, in the case of publicly traded firms, has also been forced to make its operations more transparent in the aftermath of the Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. High-profile failures such as Enron and WorldCom in the early 2000s gave rise to the legislation. Demands grew for greater transparency among publicly traded firms throughout the Western world, not just in the United States. Firms now have to deal with corporate governance requirements and stronger financial controls.23 The requirements, however, are not nearly as demanding as Freedom of Information legislations have imposed on government. Firms can declare off limits many requests for information to protect their commercial interests. Still, a growing number of publicly traded firms unhappy with the new reporting requirements are deciding to go private (see, among others, the examples of Dell and Kinder Morgan).

The Diagnosis

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Privately held firms, meanwhile, are able to avoid most transparency requirements. A journalist once began an interview with a leading entrepreneur with the observation: “I am here to talk about your business.” The entrepreneur responded: “My business is none of your business.”24 The interview was short-lived. Such an answer would not be tolerated if it were ever given by an elected politician or even a career official. The search continues for information that casts governments in a bad light. Management reform measures have not changed this. Freedom of Information legislation has. This legislation opened up government to the point that information is eagerly sought, particularly if it provides ammunition for opposing parties to score points against the government. In Canada, for example, the president of the Treasury Board was directed to reimburse his department $195 for gold-embossed cards he had ordered back in 2011. The president is a politician, not a career civil servant, and it may well be that the information was shared with the media through a brown paper envelope. The rules, at the time, did not allow for gold-embossed cards, at least not for a Cabinet minister.25 The president of the Treasury Board has wide-ranging responsibilities, including a central agency with a staff of 2,000 and total expenditure of $3.5 billion, in addition to government-wide responsibilities for both financial and human resources. In government the word “empowerment” works better in speeches, in vision exercises, and when a politician or a career official is not caught breaking the rules. One can hardly imagine a senior executive with even a medium-size private firm being instructed to reimburse the firm $195 for having ordered the wrong business cards. This is hardly an isolated case, either in Canada or in the other three countries.26 In Great Britain, for example, some ministers were called to task after information on the use of chauffeurs was made public under the Freedom of Information Act.27 To long-serving government officials, this matters more than the latest management fashion. Management reform measures come and go but the publicness of public administration is steadfast. Charles (Chuck) Guité, a career civil servant, discovered that npm measures did not square with government accountability requirements. Initially, he was regarded as the poster boy for government efforts to introduce private sector management to government operations. Here was an individual who could get things done. He was

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told to cut red tape and make things happen. He did, and he was awarded several promotions over a relatively short period of time. He was described as “a man of action, a man of decisions, it did not take him 50 years to reach a decision. In terms of client services, there were few who could beat him.”28 Here then was a modern-day bureaucrat, praised by senior elected politicians for his ability to respond to and accomplish their wishes. The pmo and the minister responsible for the program all supported Guité’s rapid promotions through the senior ranks of the civil service. Guité bypassed a number of procurement rules on awarding contracts in order to fast-track his program. He was soon embroiled in a political scandal, having signed contracts with firms with strong political ties to the party in power. When the media began reporting on the scandal, both politicians and senior civil servants ran for cover. Politicians and their political advisers made it clear that civil servants, not them, were responsible for managing the program. The more senior career officials said they were kept out of the loop and pointed the finger at politicians. Civil servants lower down the hierarchy believed that, if something were to go wrong, the politicians would take full responsibility and that in the end, no civil servant would be held accountable for the politicians’ actions. They were wrong.29 Woodrow Wilson’s “political administrative dichotomy” has had an uneasy existence ever since it was first outlined in 1887.30 We can now pronounce it dead. npm measures were the last attempt at taking politics out of administration, and they failed. Wilson sought to emphasize the distinct feature of public administration from politics by making the case that public administration “lies outside the people sphere of politics.” He saw politics as setting the task for administration and for civil servants to provide neutral competence, concerned with the efficient implementation of policies, as defined by the country’s political authorities.31 npm measures were never able to establish a proper footing in politically charged environments. Politics over the past forty years has not been able to erase the distinct feature of public administration. Civil servants, if no one else, understand that importing private sector management measures into government is not possible because the public aspect of public administration makes it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. Political authorities in the four countries have expanded their own offices and added partisan political advisers in all political offices.

The Diagnosis

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They did this not only to strengthen their hand in shaping policy but also to monitor the work of career civil servants in order to better manage controversies that may emerge from bureaucratic issues. The important roles partisan political advisers and assistants have come to fulfill in government cannot be overstated. Jean-Michel Eymeri-Douzans and others document their rise in France, making the case that “nothing happens without or against them” – rien ne s’accomplit sans ou contre eux.32 The same case can also be made for the other three countries. The new media, leveraging Freedom of Information or Access to Information legislation, have broken any barriers that may have existed between politics and administration. Clement Attlee, Britain’s Labour prime minister from 1945 to 1951, stated bluntly: “No Government can be successful which cannot keep its secrets.”33 Politicians know full well that disclosing information from their governments or administrations will serve to support the efforts of opposing parties and the media make them look incompetent in the eyes of voters. Long-serving civil servants understand this better than anyone. Max Weber was right when he wrote, “Bureaucratic administration always tends to be an administration of secret sessions in so far as it can, it hides its knowledge and action from criticism … The concept of the official secret is the specific invention of bureaucracy.”34 Career civil servants equate the ability to work under the cover of anonymity with their ability to be loyal to the government of the day.

d e a l in g w it h t h e publi cnes s of p u b l ic a d m in istrati on At a decisive moment in implementing npm measures, Margaret Thatcher balked when it came to accountability. She decided not to address accountability when she gave the green light to a more active private sector–inspired managerial style to government operations. Sir Robert Armstrong, then secretary to the Cabinet and head of the Home Civil Service, tabled a memorandum on “The Duties and Responsibilities of Civil Servants in Relation to Ministers” on 2 December 1987. Thatcher made it clear in the Commons that the note was tabled with her consent. It is striking to note that the Armstrong memorandum, as it is known, barely acknowledged the long-term significance of Thatcher’s management reform measures and its potential impact on accountability.35 It

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essentially argued that all is well and best to leave the status quo intact, at least when it comes to accountability and the relationship between politicians and career officials. In brief, the note made clear that career civil servants are accountable to the duly elected government of the day and they have no constitutional links with Parliament. This is precisely what Great Britain did. Canada quickly followed Britain’s lead, and the status quo continues to this day with respect to accountability requirements in both countries. The United States and France have also left accountability requirements in government operations as is, when pursuing management reform measures. Presidents and prime ministers prefer it that way because it allows for top-down management. They remain the “boss” and it permits them to issue directives to start an initiative they support or stop one they do not like, if it comes to their attention. However, for issues that do not come to their attention, of which there are many, these are quite another matter. The status quo also allows presidents and prime ministers to claim political credit whenever an initiative is successful. In addition, it makes it easier for them and their advisers to ensure that the departments and agencies do run as they are told because accountability is tied at the hip to hierarchy and to a command-and-control style of management. It allows them to reach down into departments and agencies and secure answers to all their questions. Career officials also prefer the status quo because, at least in theory, it inhibits, if it no longer stops them from becoming political actors or visible to those outside government. If blame is to be assigned when things go wrong, best to point the finger at politicians if they can, or if politicians have not pointed the finger at them first. Producing performance and evaluation reports that reveal very little is a small price to pay, if it means leaving accountability requirements intact. I know of no case where performance and evaluation reports were able to expose political or bureaucratic scandals or miscues. However, Freedom of Information or Access to Information legislation exposed more than a few, including the Chuck Guité sponsorship scandal.36

m u f f l in g ac c o untabi li ty No one has been able to establish how to assess the performance of program managers when they show too much caution, too much rigidity, a bias for inaction, and not enough innovation – precisely

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what npm was designed to address. However, this has not stopped politicians from delegating more management authority to managers to hire staff and reallocate financial resources. To be sure, this was not without risks. It threw a wrench into both hierarchy and the command-and-control style of management at a time when government was forced to be more transparent and when twenty-fourhour cable news channels and social media became trusted sources of information for those interested in politics and government.37 What to do? If you cannot overhaul accountability requirements, then the next best thing is to muffle them. This is what governments in the four countries have done. However, the move is precisely what governments should not do if the objective is to introduce private sector management practices to government operations. A highly successful entrepreneur insists the most important management practice for both large- and medium-sized businesses is to make certain that managers and their staff “own what they say” and “own what they do.” He adds that this is the best way to ensure they get great satisfaction in their work, motivate managers and their staff, and promote strong morale at all levels in the organization.38 He insists that this works better than financial rewards in motivating managers and their staff. Government officials at all levels cannot own what they say or own their work. This is particularly true for program managers and their staff. Accountability requirements are such that presidents and prime ministers, and to a lesser extent their Cabinet secretaries or ministers, own what their governments say. They are also responsible for the work of their governments and they are accountable for it. If risks are to be taken, politicians take them, not career officials. In addition, whatever career officials say – at least publicly – can never be at variance with what presidents and prime ministers say. If it is, their career advancement is apt to come to a full stop. Career officials know intuitively that their loyalty to the government of the day is expected. After forty years of government reforms, no government in any of the four countries under review have been able to transform accountability requirements. The requirements are still about when something goes wrong, not about government policies, programs, and operations meeting objectives or about ensuring careful management of both human and financial resources.39 The most effective way to muffle accountability and ensure that civil servants are

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protected from owning what they say and what they do is to make government thicker by adding management levels and strengthening central agencies. This is precisely what governments in all four countries have done over the past forty years. When John F. Kennedy was president, he had to deal with seventeen layers of leadership, but by the time Donald Trump took office, he had to deal with seventy-one.40 Paul Light writes that the “thickening starts at the very top of government with the steady expansion in the number of titles at the top,” and some of those titles include “tongue twisters such as the associate principal deputy assistant secretary for regulatory and policy affairs at energy; associate assistant deputy secretary for innovation and improvement at education; principal deputy associate attorney general and principal deputy assistant attorney general at Justice.”41 Light catalogues how the US government has continued to grow thicker at the top: under Ronald Reagan and his “war on waste”; under Bill Clinton and his commitment to “create a government that works better and costs less,” and his pledge to “reinvent government”; under George W. Bush and his pledge to “force federal employees to compete against contract employees for work”; under Barack Obama and his promise to “drag the bureaucracy into the 21st century”; and under Donald Trump and his commitment to go to Washington “to drain the swamp” and cut government spending. Government spending reached record levels under the Trump administration and, contrary to popular perception, a number of new “red tape” requirements were added to numerous government programs.42 In brief, all presidents, over the past forty years, ended their terms having created more management layers at the top of government.43 And yet politicians in Washington today remain no less critical of government bureaucracy.44 In Canada, the federal government announced with considerable fanfare some thirty years ago that it would “cut executive-level jobs in a bid to improve morale and operations.” It became concerned in the age of npm that the executive group had grown to 2,562 members. It made the case that “if you take a whole layer out of the management pyramid, then the managers below automatically gain greater control over their operations.”45 Nothing came of this initiative and no one was held accountable. Several years later, this line of thinking was completely abandoned, as new management levels and associate positions emerged in every department. The executive category has also grown to nearly 7,000 members.46

The Diagnosis

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The category has grown at twice the pace of the civil service and has increased threefold since the late 1970s. This, even after the government moved a number of responsibilities to the private sector and to provincial governments. The fact that senior departmental officials have been empowered to classify and reclassify positions with minimum control from central agencies largely explains this growth. Evaluation and performance reports – the fabricated bottom line in government – do not explain or justify it. Forty years ago, the Department of Industry (today renamed Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada) had one deputy minister or one permanent head of the department. Today, it has nine and numerous associate positions at different management levels throughout the organization. Departments and agencies have also added a number of liaison, coordination, and evaluation units in their head offices. This has made it more difficult for career officials on the ground to develop a greater sense of ownership in their work and deliver programs and services because of never-ending requests to feed information up the line. This too has served to muffle accountability requirements. The shift has considerably strengthened the hand of departmental head offices. For example, forty years ago, over 70 percent of federal civil servants in Canada worked in regional or local offices. Today, 58 percent do.47 Great Britain has gone further than the other three countries in embedding private sector management measures to its government operations and in reducing the size of government. Prime ministers since Margaret Thatcher have pushed the government to restructure how it generates policy, delivers programs and services, and coordinates government policies and programs. Britain’s executive agencies continue to enjoy more management flexibility than line departments. The challenge for the centre of government remains the need to establish or strengthen its monitoring ability. This became necessary because it was decided that the status quo would prevail with regard to accountability. As was the case before the agencies were established, if things go off the rails ministers still have to answer for it in Parliament. In brief, nothing has changed about the things that matter the most in public administration – accountability. This led prime ministers, the Cabinet Office, and the Treasury to add resources to strengthen capacity to deal with departments and

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agencies.48 The prime ministers and ministers also saw the need to organize stronger bureaucratic capacity to stay connected to the agencies, which would remain ultimately accountable for their home departments. If central agencies add capacity to monitor line departments and agencies, then departments, in turn, have to add capacity to respond to central agencies.49 But there is more: the British government has recently added new oversight capacity by attaching numerous “advisory” and “expert” bodies to line departments and agencies.50 Canada decided to follow Great Britain’s lead and established agencies – the Canadian government labelled them Special Operating Agencies rather than Executive Agencies. The effort dwindled shortly after it was launched, and only a handful of agencies were ever created. However, much like Britain, in recent years the Government of Canada has added substantial resources to its central agencies and oversight bodies to more closely oversee things.51 France, at least since 1958, has had a strong capacity at the centre of government to oversee the work of departments and agencies. The centre has even located a presence inside its ministries. The oversight capacity has been fortified in recent years as the government pursues “la décentralisation fonctionnelle.”52 France is strengthening the oversight capacity by growing its central agencies and enlarging le cabinet ministériel (office of the minister). As noted earlier, the office of the minister is in a strong position to keep close tabs on government managers, notably at the senior level, because it has a foot in both camps – the political and the bureaucracy. Jean-Régis Catta sums it up well: “Conceived as a transmission belt between two worlds, it is difficult to know which prevails over the other.”53 It will be recalled that the Macron government recently announced it would add five new positions to all ministerial offices.54

a d j u s t in g to n e w e nvi ronments State enterprises or government entities that were moved out to private sector accountability have taken new forms, and things are working out as envisaged. New forms meant new accountability requirements, and as individuals became part of the private sector, they adjusted quickly to the new rules, new norms, and new incentives. Very few of them decided to transfer back to government employment.

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Career officials in departments, agencies, and units that remain in government have not had to go through major adjustments. They continue to do what they have always done and in the same fashion. They only had to adjust to deal with more headquarter units, central agency units, and oversight bodies. All career civil servants in the four countries have had to adjust to working with or around the fault line that now divides their institution into those that look up to political authorities and those that look to programs and their clients. Relations between politicians and career civil servants have been weakened, as have accountability requirements.55 Politicians no longer have the confidence they once had in career civil servants. Recent observations by Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, and Donald Trump only serve to confirm this view.56 It bears repeating that morale in the four civil services has been on a downward slide in recent years.

a fau lt li ne Efforts by presidents and prime ministers to secure a stronger hold on the policy-making levers and embed private sector management practices in government operations have created a fault line inside the civil service. The fault line divides managers and civil servants on the front line delivering programs and services from those who serve and offer advice to presidents, prime ministers, Cabinet secretaries and ministers. Those below the fault line have to divide their focus between the hierarchy and clients. Those above the fault line are preoccupied with managing up and are focused solely on the politics of the day, the media, and the blame game. The balance of influence has shifted toward those operating above the fault line. The overburdened agendas of presidents and prime ministers allow for little time to focus on issues below the fault line, unless something goes off the rails and generates controversy in the media. Presidents and prime ministers start their day with a look at what the media are reporting, and most of the issues that dominate media involve developments that occur above the fault line. This explains in part why the civil service above the fault line has grown both in size and influence, far more than is the case for the civil service below the line. The thinking behind the management reform measures we have seen over the past forty years was to make work easier for those below fault line. These measures have done the opposite.

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When civil servants below the fault line look up, they see layers of management levels. We saw earlier that US presidents now have some 4,000 political jobs to fill, compared with only 450 in the early 1960s. In France, the president not only recently increased the number of staff in ministerial offices, but also officials in these offices are now more senior and have stronger skill sets than in years past. In both Britain and Canada, politically partisan advisers and assistants have also grown in number, status, and influence in recent years. The above hardly tells the whole story. Peter H. Schuck writes that for “the most important public services (e.g., air traffic controllers and irs agents) employees in 1996 reported upward through sixteen layers on policy and budget questions.” He adds that today, employees receive “guidance through nearly sixty layers of decision makers.”57 In Canada, the front line civil service worker reports upward through twelve layers and that is not counting the many “associate” and “assistant” positions tagged to management positions going up the bureaucracy and to several central agencies.58 Great Britain and France have similar hierarchical structures, though Britain has fewer management levels.59 The most senior managers in turn report to their political masters. It takes brave front line employees to think that they can own what they say or own their work in such an environment. Contrast this with the work of former civil servants who accompanied their state enterprises to the private sector. Civil servants below the fault line have no choice but to adjust to new working conditions. And, unlike in years past, it is now virtually impossible for those working as front line managers to work their way up the hierarchy to occupy the most senior positions in departments. Those positions are now reserved for those who have political and policy skills, who can assist politicians with attending to a crisis and manage the blame game. An important measure of success for those operating below the fault line is not getting a call from those operating above the line.60 A call means that things have gone off the tracks and have attracted the attention of politicians or the media or both, rarely a good sign. Performance indicators can be manipulated but not a phone call to ask questions from a senior career official or a partisan political adviser operating close to the country’s political leadership. Civil servants on the front line, delivering programs and services, have less ownership of their work than in years past. We are

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witnessing a tendency to “delegate up” rather than delegate down or push decisions to more senior management levels for resolution – the exact opposite of the call to let the manager manage. One senior career official explains that what is urgent, what is important, and at times what is not urgent but what may be controversial is pushed up the organization for resolution. This, he adds, includes what front line managers and staff do every day.61 The problem is that there are far too many issues being “delegated up” for presidents and prime ministers to address all of them, even important ones, unless they blow up in the media. Some observers point to the “ever-thickening hierarchy” of government departments in Washington to explain the lack of preparedness and capacity to deal with the fallout of hurricane Katrina, for example.62 Civil servants on the front line did not think that they could get through to key decision-makers to deal with the emerging crisis. Katrina is hardly the only case when front line civil servants decided that there were too many management layers to get through to send an important message up the line to the political authority. However when an issue hits the media, the connection between the front line manager and the political level is certain to happen. But, by then, it is often too late to deal effectively with the issue. Program managers have to decide which issues they need to delegate up the line. It is all too often a one-way street – they feed information up the line, but they do not always know how far up the line it travels nor are they told how the information was dealt with. Delegating information or decisions up the line is also not without risks – it brings their work and program to the attention of politicians and senior management.63 Notwithstanding this, front line workers in public administration appear to enjoy the trust of citizens much more than do their political masters. The cevipof Political Trust Barometer reveals that citizens have a higher level of trust in hospitals and schools in both France and the United Kingdom than in political leaders, including prime ministers and mp s.64 There is also evidence to suggest that front line workers delivering services directly to citizens, or those operating below the fault line, for example health-care workers, show signs of being much more overworked than those operating above the fault line at the political and bureaucratic levels managing the relationships.

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va l u e f o r m o n ey audi ts: a lways l o o k b e l ow t he fault li ne The origin of value or performance audits dates back to the late 1970s and ’80s in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. France followed. Value or performance audits differ from financial audits. Auditors in the four countries have, since the early 1980s, moved far beyond their traditional financial and compliance audits. Traditional financial audits are by the numbers: clear, detached, and objective. Performance audits, on the other hand, do not always go by the numbers and, at times, read more like policy studies or evaluations than audits. Performance audits have transformed the role of auditors in government and given opposition politicians and the media more ammunition with which to take aim at government departments. The target is below the fault line, rarely above it. I know of no value for money or performance audit that looked at the work of policy, liaison, coordination or evaluation units; management above the fault line; or the impact that changing working relations between politicians and senior departmental officials have had on program efficacy. The US gao outlines the reasons for performance audits: “To most effectively contribute to fundamental improvements in the performance of 21st century government, gao has found that auditors need to be more and more focused on governance, including assessing and recommending how to improve connections across organizations, levels of government, sectors, and policy tools.”65 In France, Jean-Marie Bertrand, head of the Cour des comptes française, underlines the important role performance audits now play in the work of his office, insisting that it provides a more comprehensive perspective of how government decides and what it contributes.66 In Britain, the National Audit Office now carries out sixty value audit studies every year. The office explains that the objective “is to form a judgment on whether value for money has been achieved.”67 In Canada, nearly 60 percent of the Office of the Auditor General’s budget now goes to what is described as “qualitative” and “soft reviews.”68 Many doubt whether accountants have the capacity to carry out performance audits, since many government programs result from political judgment alone. Still others even question whether it is appropriate for accountants to undertake value for money audits on government

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programs. Certainly, auditors have made some sweeping statements since performance audits were introduced, audits that serve to raise the eyebrows of many in and out of government. One performance audit, for example, expressed doubt that the Canadian Department of Defence could successfully engage in a war effort. Defence specialists openly wondered how “hordes” of accountants were in a position to make such an assertion and, in any event, questioned whether it was the proper role of auditors to arrive at such a judgment.69 Government auditors in all four countries insist their performance audits are designed to assess front line managers to improve the efficiency of their programs and services.70 Front line managers do not share this view. They view auditors as always playing the “gotcha game” rather than helping managers. They have a point – auditors arrive in government departments with the position, “I have the right to ask the government of the day any information required to do the job” – hardly a calling card to be helpful.71 A number of independent studies also reveal that managers see little benefit in performance audits.72

l o o k in g back Politicians today are no less frustrated with government bureaucracy than their predecessors were forty years ago. Boris Johnson, Emmanuel Macron, and previously Donald Trump have, if anything, been even more critical of bureaucracy than were Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterrand. Justin Trudeau has said very little about the merit of government bureaucracy, though he did undermine its role in the snc -Lavalin affair. He also pointed to the work of civil servants to account for why a program to help students during the covid -19 crisis awarded a sole-source contract to a firm with strong personal ties to his family members and to the minister of finance.73 All the above has not been for a lack of ambitious efforts from presidents and prime ministers to fix government bureaucracy. For the past forty years, presidents and prime ministers in the four countries have arrived in office convinced that civil servants still have too much influence on policy and that they continue to be poor managers. Initially at least, they looked to career civil servants for advice on what to do. Civil servants had little to offer other than saying to one another, “Politicians should fix their institutions before trying to

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fix the civil service.” Politicians soon gave up asking civil servants for advice on how to fix government bureaucracy and turned to private sector executives.74 Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron, among others, have given up thinking that bureaucracy can fix itself. They and others of like mind would much rather take the axe to the civil service, engage in bureaucracy-bashing, or add senior political and policy advisers to help them manage their government bureaucracies.75 This, forty years after Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and others introduced sweeping changes to make public sector management look like private sector management. On policy, politicians continue to be at liberty to look wherever they want to for advice. However, striking a new policy is much more complex than it may appear to someone who has no experience in government. Long-serving career officials know this instinctively, but most aspiring politicians do not. Those sitting on the outside of government, sitting in opposition, waiting for their turn as aspiring politicians all see a problem too often in isolation of other issues and exclaim, “Why can’t government fix it?” Presidents and prime ministers decided to fix bureaucracy when it comes to policy-making rather than their own political parties or other political institutions. For the past forty years, political parties in the four countries have been running on empty when it comes to policy. They have been turned into little more than election-day organizations, fundraising machines, and convenient organizations to select candidates at election time. They are also running out of members.76 Surveys in France reveal, for example, that “only 7 percent of French people trust their political parties.”77 Over 60 percent of Canadians report that traditional political parties don’t care about people like them.”78 Presidents and prime ministers still see little need to fix their political parties, at least, when it comes to policy-making. A leading pollster and a key adviser to a former Canadian prime minister explains why: “Parties don’t run on what their members think and can’t if they want to be successful. They run on what will get them the most votes. It is a strategic marketing exercise rather than a genuine contest of ideas.”79 This alone should prompt citizens to ask, “Why would I ever want to join a political party?” The result is that political parties are ill-equipped to offer opportunities to citizens to generate policy alternatives for consideration by politicians or

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career officials. If you are going to personalize your political party, as Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau, Emmanuel Macron, and Boris Johnson have done, why not personalize the government you have been elected to lead? Presidents and prime ministers still see little need to fix political institutions – the US Congress, the British and Canadian Parliaments, and the French National Assembly. In all cases, we have seen measures that have served to weaken them. Both the US Congress and the National Assembly have been morphed into a junior partner of the executive. The British and Canadian Parliaments are both failing badly in their responsibilities at holding the executive to account.80 Presidents and prime ministers have turned their respective Cabinets into little more than focus groups. US presidents have been free to make use of their Cabinets as they see fit. However, we expect more from British and Canadian Cabinets, given the history of how their country’s political institutions took form. Presidents and prime ministers see little merit in sharing their power with Cabinet colleagues, thinking it best to hold all levers of power close at hand to better manage permanent election campaigns, the blame game, and a more transparent government operating under the watchful eye of twenty-four-hour cable news networks and social media. Being the boss may well be an advantage in managing these issues; however, it also serves to burden further their already overloaded agendas, creating a bottleneck of issues awaiting resolution. Too often this makes it impossible for senior front line program managers to connect to political authority to resolve issues. When it came to diagnosing the patient, presidents and prime ministers decided not to scrutinize their own work or the work of political institutions with their deep historical roots to gauge if they were in need of repair. For the past forty years, presidents and prime ministers have all concluded the problem was government bureaucracy and its management practices – or lack of them. Politicians have been trying to square a circle that simply cannot be squared. Politicians have been asking career civil servants to continue to accept fundamental principles of public administration in their work – respecting jurisdictions and hierarchy, procedures, and legal authority – but at the same time, manage as if they were in the private sector. No bottom line? Well, just fabricate one, and if they cannot find anything better, try evaluating their programs and

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activities using performance indicators that may or may not apply to government operations. Just make sure that the evaluations do not create political problems. Career officials know better than anyone that evaluation exercises, if ever properly done, would create problems not only for their political masters but also for their own organizations. The incentive to produce rigorous, well-thought-out evaluations or performance assessments has been absent from the very beginning. The result – the patient is in much worse shape than was the case forty years ago. Misdiagnosing the patient has also entailed a number of unintended consequences. First, the civil service above the fault line has grown both in management layers and in the number of senior career officials. There are still no consequences for poor management at any level, unless a spending scandal erupts and makes it to front-page news. Because governments have done away with many centrally prescribed rules governing financial and human resources, the frugal culture long associated with government bureaucracy has been severely hampered. The reforms have also served to merge the political and administrative spheres, particularly for those career civil servants operating above the fault line.

9 Institutions and the Efficacy of Government

Political leaders – particularly when they represent different parties – rarely agree on what needs to be fixed, let alone how to fix it. But right-of-centre politicians (Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and Nicolas Sarkozy); those at the centre of the political spectrum (Bill Clinton and Jean Chrétien); and those at the left (François Hollande, and by US standards Barack Obama), among others, all agreed that government bureaucracy was the problem, and what’s more that importing private sector management measures to government operations was the solution. They also concluded that civil servants had too much influence in shaping policy and so they needed to get a firmer grip on the levers of power. The focus of political leaders has always been on the civil service. Their efforts at reform, however, have not worked out as envisaged. Civil services in all four countries are still accused of being bloated, slow, ineffective, and unaccountable. Too many civil servants now “dread going into work in the mornings.”1 No one is happy with the state of the civil service. This includes politicians now in power (Boris Johnson and Emmanuel Macron) and civil servants themselves. Margaret Thatcher stands out as one political leader who kept a close watch on her efforts to reform bureaucracy. But even in Great Britain, the verdict on government reform is hardly positive. Boris Johnson has served notice that the civil service is “in his line of fire,” because his government believes that the bureaucratic “machine is broken,” it has a “desperate shortage of practical skills,” and there are still too many “urban metropolitan thinkers.”2 Johnson wants more doers – civil servants with a bias for action – and less “fuddy-duddy” policy thinkers. This is precisely what Margaret Thatcher sought to

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do. The Economist has issued a challenge for Britain in the post covid-19 era: build “a better bureaucracy” some forty years after Thatcher set out to do exactly that.3 As previously noted, presidents and prime ministers come to power with easy slogans, such as do more with less, deliverology, joined-up government, empower managers, drain the swamp, fix bureaucracy. Once in office, their focus quickly shifts to more pressing issues and intense demands on their agendas. How else can one explain why so many presidents and prime ministers have turned their fire on the very institutions they are being asked to lead? The implications are wide-ranging for the study of government and public administration. Readers will recall that, shortly after she came to power, Thatcher asked senior career officials to read public choice theory.4 If public choice theory did not paint an accurate picture of what motivated government officials in the 1970s, it does now, to a degree. The management reforms of the past forty years have undermined traditional public administration. They pushed career civil servants to look after their self-interest much more than in years past, which is why senior management layers and positions have been added and why many career officials go on to lucrative private sector assignments when leaving government. We saw in earlier chapters that senior career officials are much more often prepared to promote the political interest of their political masters than support front line managers. The willingness to be, as we saw, promiscuously partisan generates visibility before political leaders and gives rise to promotions a great deal faster than those operating below the fault line.5 Senior career officials know how to operate above the fault line because it is a world they know well. The vast majority of them are a product of it. As noted, precious few senior career officials now come up through the ranks after gaining first-hand experience with program management and delivering services to clients.6 Government operations and government bureaucracies remain fundamentally political because politics is always a key part of the equation. Whether politics and administration should be separated is not the point but rather it is that they cannot be separated, beyond a superficial level, so long as civil servants and their work answer to politicians. If politicians want meaningful change, they need to move the activities outside the ambit of their responsibility, as they did when they privatized state enterprises. For example, as Tony Blair did

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when he decided to give the Bank of England independence from the government.7 Attempts to reform government operations, however ambitious, can only play at the margin unless accountability requirements are also fundamentally altered. Presidents and prime ministers, unwittingly or not, unleashed powerful forces when they told government managers to embrace private sector management practices while leaving accountability requirements intact. Their management reform efforts were little more than shots in the dark, generating unintended consequences, undermining what they sought to accomplish, and giving birth to new problems. The reforms changed the behaviour of career officials.

g ov e r n in g f ro m the centre a n d t h e ov e r l oad problem President Obama spoke for other presidents and prime ministers when he wrote: “My daily schedule had suddenly become a behindthe-scenes tug-of-war between various staffers, agencies, and constituencies, each one wanting their causes highlighted or their issues addressed, outcomes spit out through a hidden machinery that I never understood.”8 But even that does not tell the whole story. Presidents and prime ministers now have to perform before an increasingly hostile audience fuelled by social media and twenty-four-hour cable news channels. Forgive the cliché for its truth: there are simply not enough hours in the day for presidents and prime ministers to attend to all the issues that come, or should come, to their attention. Rather than rethink the machinery of government to better manage the many issues that need to be addressed, they all extended the ambit of their power. Governing from the centre, or from the offices of presidents and prime ministers, is now how government decides. This is true no matter the political system under which they operate. Instead of addressing the long-standing overload problem in government, presidents and prime ministers have made matters worse. The offices of presidents and prime ministers demand far too much, even for the most competent politician. Forty-five years ago, Anthony King put his finger on the reason why governments rarely deliver what they promise: “just as the range of responsibilities of government has increased, so to a large extent independently, their capacity to exercise their responsibility has declined.”9 Though too few students of government now pay attention to the overload

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problem, it has grown exponentially since the mid-1970s.10 This, even though governments have moved a number of state enterprises to the private sector. Citizens continue to turn to government to solve problems, be it climate change, race relations, regional economic disparities, healthcare challenges, and the list goes on. But that is hardly the whole story. We have seen, over the past forty years, the rise of lobbyists pressuring policy-makers, the internet, and social media, in conjunction with the sharp decline of deference toward politicians. Presidents and prime ministers now have to contend with factions in society who believe only they know the “secret of good government” and with “the culture of instantaneous abuse in social media.”11 It is clear that presidents and prime ministers have, over at least four decades and in four countries, misdiagnosed the patient in several ways: failing to see that the problem is not in government bureaucracy but in political institutions, failing to understand what government bureaucracy is good at, failing to appreciate that management in the private sector cannot be imported to government bureaucracy, and failing to understand that government policy-making and decision-making are intrinsically political.12 It is necessary to reiterate that the wrong diagnosis gave rise to the wrong medicine that made the patient’s condition worse. There are reasons why government bureaucracy is hierarchically organized and governed by formal rules and procedures. The military showed how best to organize government bureaucracy. Rome had to develop a bureaucracy to manage its empire that stretched from West Asia, to Europe, and North Africa, and had an army 350,000 strong. It did not have to look far to define a bureaucratic model. The military had a series of successes because of its organization, discipline, and full-time salaried personnel with defined spheres of responsibility.13 Rome determined its bureaucracy, like the military, would have a chain of command, hierarchy, and a graded scale. Rome also divided responsibility by function, with some looking after the emperor’s household, others responsible for drafting legislation, and still others responsible for handling financial transactions.14 The model has met the test of time – it took root in the four countries surveyed in this book. It served England well as it extended its empire all across the globe. Government bureaucracy served France as a beacon of stability through several periods of political chaos, the United States as it introduced federalism to the world and made

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representative democracy work, and Canada as it brought together two nations and several regions with distinct economies over a vast but thinly populated territory. Government bureaucracy also played a pivotal role in the four countries through two world wars. Economists expected a post– World War II depression, but government bureaucracy designed economic reconstruction plans at home and abroad (the World Government Bonds, the International Monetary Fund, and the Marshall Plan). It provided the guiding hand in developing and managing the welfare state. Government bureaucracy later became the trusted institution when political leaders sought to pursue the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and a Just Society. Confidence in government bureaucracy was high until the early 1980s, and the best and brightest wanted to join its ranks. Sir Robin Butler, self-described as Sir Humphrey from the bbc Yes, Minister series and former Cabinet secretary under three prime ministers, did what many of his generation did, or at least tried to do.15 After graduating from Harrow School and Oxford, he joined the civil service. He explained: “There was no other place where I wanted to go. It was the one place where I knew that I could make a contribution.”16 The bureaucratic model as it developed in the four countries held advantages for everyone. For politicians, the military-inspired topdown command and control was precisely what they wanted – it gave them the ability to accomplish their goals during their often short stay in power and held everyone accountable. Politicians also saw merit in career civil servants being loyal to the government of the day. For career officials, the civil service provided stable employment, opportunities to serve, generous benefits, and an understanding that they would publicly receive neither praise nor blame for their work. They knew they had two masters – politicians and citizens. Citizens were also secure in the knowledge that government bureaucracy would work through established procedures, deliver programs and services from set rules, and ensure that they would be treated equally, regardless of their standing in society. If something went wrong, the problem was with the rules, not the civil servant. Politicians and citizens also saw evidence of a parsimonious culture in the civil service because of centrally prescribed rules and regulations overseen by a command-and-control culture. However, by the early 1980s, political leaders everywhere began to turn on their civil services. Some said that they disliked bureaucrats

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as a breed, others that they were going to Washington to drain the swamp, and still others insisted that they would give pink slips and running shoes to bureaucrats once in power. Matters have not improved since. Political leaders, notably Tony Blair, talked about the nefarious nature of the deep state and that he has “scars on the back after … two years trying to reform the public sector.”17 As has been established, civil servants no longer work under the cover of anonymity. They now work in “Open Government” where transparency is in fashion. Their emails are now accessible, as are their job descriptions. They are invited to participate online and in various public forums to explain government policy or how to access programs. Politicians expect their civil servants to support their government in public. Civil servants know from experience that what they might consider benign statements can be exploited by politicians to attack the government. The rise of partisan media, social media, and twenty-four-hour cable news channels have made politics more partisan and polarized. Career civil servants have to operate in this world. The point – civil service anonymity is dead and this is the case in the four countries. For the past forty years, presidents and prime ministers have stressed the need to cut government bureaucracy down to size, to move away from the fundamental pillars of public administration – command-and-control hierarchy and convert civil servants from policy advisers to better managers. The rhetoric is one thing, reality is quite another. Government bureaucracy has not been cut down to size. On the contrary, although President Reagan pledged to slim down government, he had fifteen departments when he left, an increase from the fourteen he had inherited when he came to office. George W. Bush added seven management layers during his stay in office, and Obama added a few more.18 Canada and France have seen their civil services grow in recent years, and both also added new management levels. Readers will also recall that Tony Blair decided to centralize decision-making in the centre of government. David Cameron was highly critical of the move, until he came to office. Once he sat in the prime minister’s chair, he decided to imitate Blair.19 Justin Trudeau pledged to do away with governing from the centre to bring back Cabinet government in 2016. Once in power, he instead further strengthened governing from the centre.20 Emmanuel Macron has decided to further centralize presidential power in a system that already favoured

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presidential power.21 In a similar trend former presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump had one thing in common: they all sought to expand presidential power.22 Joe Biden served notice in coming to power that he would make full use of executive orders to pursue his agenda and issued thirty of them in only three days.23 Presidents and prime ministers have debased all institutions, except their own offices. We saw that Parliament, Congress, and the National Assembly have lost standing. In Great Britain, the Cabinet, Parliament, political parties, and the civil service now count for much less than they did. They have all lost standing inside and outside government. A Downing Street adviser said that “Basically in No. 10 Downing Street, there is a complete contempt for Parliament and that attitude permeates the entire government.”24 A leading Canadian journalist writes that the country’s Parliament “has become the most dysfunctional in the English-speaking world, weaker and more irrelevant that the U.S. Congress or the parliaments of Britain, Australia or New Zealand.”25 In the United States, Congress’s ability to perform its checks and balances role has been “eroded” and this predates Trump.26 Emmanuel Macron has sought to weaken the role of the National Assembly through constitutional reform.27 This even though observers have called France’s legislature “one of the weakest in Europe. Because the president wields huge power, it is difficult for the legislature to shape legislation and hold the government to account.”28 We saw earlier that political parties in the four countries are bleeding members and that they are little more than empty vessels on policy. The mainstream media are being attacked from both the political right and left while social media, lacking in editorial control, continues to gain ground and readership. The civil services in the four countries have not only lost standing, they have lost their way.

w h y t h e d if f i culti es ? The civil service, operating under traditional public administrative principles and values, can perform at a high level. But there are conditions to meet that require the political class to establish clear goals – pursuing the war effort during World War II comes to mind. When the political class comes up with unclear or conflicting goals, the civil service will internalize these conflicts and put things on hold. The civil service can never play the role that politicians are asked to play.

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Civil servants will respond whenever politicians give them clear directions, as Donald Trump did with the proposed wall between Mexico and the United States, Thatcher did in privatizing state enterprises and in reducing the size of the civil service, and Justin Trudeau is doing on climate change. The problem – for every issue they provide a strong direction, a great many more go unattended.29 To be sure, issues that can easily be resolved never make it to the desks of presidents and prime ministers; however, there are also many important issues that never make it there. For these issues, civil servants can never provide clear political direction. They will attend numerous meetings all the while treading water because that is all that they can do. If they start giving political direction on political or high-profile policy issues, they will be taken to task, as they should be. Management reform measures did not change this. Firm political direction from the top works well under traditional public administration, given its top-down command-and-control characteristic. It even works when it goes directly against the interest of civil servants. Margaret Thatcher one day asked her Cabinet secretary for an extra £400 million in cuts by the next morning. He did as he was told and his team identified the cuts in short order. Her terse response: “I should have asked for more.”30 At times, she met more resistance on issues from her ministers than from the civil service.31 To sum up, presidents and prime ministers have, over the past forty years, concentrated more and more power in their own hands and offices, and they have the capacity to change policy in whatever sector they decide to focus on. When given clear direction, civil servants will respond. But presidents and prime ministers can never attend to all the issues that require their attention, and herein lies a big part of the problem.

t h e b u b b le Presidents and prime ministers operate in a bubble and their focus is on politics, the media, and the political crisis of the day. Longterm planning or planning that goes beyond the next election is very often put off to the Greek calends. Central agencies are there to support presidents and prime ministers and to identify future challenges. But their focus in more recent years has been on supporting these political leaders to deal with political crises and with keeping

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Cabinet secretaries and ministers from creating political problems. Presidents, prime ministers, and their most senior advisers deal as best they can with an overloaded agenda that includes the key priorities they want to pursue, the pressures of the day, managing the blame game, and the media. Cabinet, Cabinet secretaries and ministers, and senior civil servants no longer wield the weight they once did to attend to some of these issues, many of which are now delegated upstairs. Indeed, the machinery of government in all four countries has learned to kick issues upstairs, above the fault line, for resolution, where they invariably run up against an overloaded agenda. This explains why so many issues are placed on hold and why the status quo prevails in government operations. Above the fault line is also where many issues, ideas, and new approaches to management and budgeting go to die. Central agency officials can ask questions of line departments and agencies about financial resources, but an overloaded agenda and the shift away from line item budgeting have placed them at a disadvantage. They know, for example, that line departments and agencies have funds squirrelled away or a surplus of funds to manage their operations. Departments also know, however, that if they report where possible spending cuts can be made, they will lose the funds. Why, then, would they ever tell? Central agencies in the four countries have had a long history of providing advice without fear or favour to presidents, prime ministers, and Cabinet. However, they have in recent years been “subjugated” to the offices of presidents and prime ministers.32 In brief, central agency officials have joined partisan political advisers to become “courtiers” in the court of presidents and prime ministers, often appeasing them and managing delicate political issues rather than challenging them.33 To be sure, presidents and prime ministers much prefer listening to partisan political advisers and civil servants who are prepared to do their bidding than to “fuddy-duddy” civil servants. Many career civil servants lament the growing tendency to focus all efforts in government on securing favourable media coverage in order to manage permanent election campaigns. This explains why presidents and prime ministers have centralized decision-making even though, as President Obama acknowledged, the pressure on their agenda is unrelenting.

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re v is it in g t h e p u b l ic ness of poli ti cs a n d p u b l ic a d m ini strati on Activities that belong to government operate under norms that cannot be altered unless accountability requirements are also changed. Changing the rules of the game while leaving everything else intact hinders the ability of government bureaucracy to deliver programs and services.34 Importing private management practices to government operations that run counter to the publicness of public administration are doomed to fail for a number of reasons, including (ironically) in large measure because of earlier efforts to borrow management measures from the private sector. Political-level decisions to overhaul the expenditure process, to let the manager manage, while also introducing collective bargaining laid the groundwork for political leaders to become impatient with government bureaucracy. As we saw earlier, these efforts led to a never-ending series of new approaches to budget-making in all four countries. The four countries are still at it, trying to fix their budget process. A long-serving senior career official explains, to his chagrin, the transition to a private sector ethos in government. He writes: “Without blushing or even without a second thought, we now talk about our ‘customers’ or ‘clients’ in a way that would not have occurred to public servants three or four decades ago. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.” He adds: “Sometimes the results of this attempt to reinvent the public sector into the private sector are quite bizarre. I recently visited a well-meaning colleague who proudly presented to me the organizational renewal efforts of a high-priced foreign consultant that consisted in, among other things, the translation of all terms of public administration and parliamentary democracy into private sector equivalents, including the reinvention of members of Parliament as the shareholders of the corporation and Cabinet as the Board of Directors.”35 Career civil servants who understood how their country’s political institution took form and the history of public administration knew that this would not hold, when put into practice. We also saw in preceding chapters that until the early 1980s, former senior career government officials would quietly retire with their public service pension, happy in the knowledge that they had served their country away from the limelight. Some did volunteer work, others wrote their memoirs. Today, they sit on corporate boards and many join law offices, not as lawyers, but as lobbyists helping clients make

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their way through the government decision-making process. Front line government managers and their employees have no such opportunities because they were never in the know about how things get done above the fault line. Decisions that are of economic value to the private sector are very often struck above the fault line, not below. The fault line that npm measures have created inside government bureaucracy continues to separate the civil service into two orbits, creating a “we” and “they” institution. Both sides are able to play things to their advantage. Civil servants below the fault line have every reason to produce reports that reveal little because it is in their interest. Civil servants above the fault line continue to receive vapid reports without challenging their contents because it is also in their interest. In brief, the management reforms of the past forty years have become a self-fulfilling prophecy. They have pushed career civil servants to become much more Homo economicus – interested in looking after their economic interests.

c h a n g in g m o ti vati on Civil servants are rational actors, and they will pursue self-interest in their work. But this pursuit of self-interest never, at least in the past, explained everything. Civil servants are also guided by a set of beliefs about morality, serving the public interest, and by norms grounded in the history of the institutions they serve. The work was never solely about economic self-interest or serving the public interest and respective institutional norms. The balance between the two was never static. As noted earlier, management reform measures introduced over the past forty years have tipped the balance toward self-interest. Institutions and their accountability requirements continue to go a long way in shaping the behaviour of civil servants. If accountability requirements are altered, so will the behaviour of civil servants be altered. Political leaders from Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Brian Mulroney, Boris Johnson, and Emmanuel Macron told their civil servants on many occasions that their ability to manage was lacking and they should look to the private sector for guidance on how to improve. Many civil servants listened, and they went about dismantling centrally prescribed rules and regulations. As we saw, salaries went up sharply for senior career officials. As we also saw, many moved on to lucrative work in retirement.

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In Canada, Kevin Lynch, a recently retired Clerk of the Privy Council and head of the public service, agreed to chair the board of a large private sector firm, with close commercial ties to the government in which he had recently served. He displayed no compunction about contacting the then head of civil service to pressure the government to pursue a Deferred Prosecution Agreement for the firm embroiled in a scandal and thereby help avoid a trial.36 It was not always so. Former senior federal public servants in Ottawa like to tell the story of the ethics of former clerk of the Privy Council Robert Bryce. I heard the story on several occasions recounted by former senior civil servants who had known Bryce. Bryce’s son once asked him to borrow his pen while he was doing his homework. Bryce replied that he could not loan him the pen because it did not belong to him, but to taxpayers.37 In retirement, Bryce wrote his memoirs, Maturing in Hard Times: Canada’s Department of Finance through the Great Depression, and he continued to serve in Canada in several public service capacities.38 I am on safe ground to assert that Bob Bryce would not have agreed to serve as chair of a board of a large private firm that had strong business ties with the government in which he had recently served. I am still on safe ground to venture that he would not have contacted a former colleague who had become the country’s most senior career civil servant to apply pressure to disregard the recommendations of a senior Department of Justice career official. So what has changed? How does one explain that the head of the civil service and deputy minister of finance in the 1950s and 1960s brought values to his work that are in sharp contrast from another former senior civil servant who served in the same two positions from 2000 to 2009. Bob Bryce’s values were shaped by the institutions in which he served, history and tradition, and a sense of procedural fairness and accountability. He was apolitical, serving at the most senior levels under two different political parties. In short, Bryce embraced the traditional model of public administration. In doing so, he was able to earn the esteem of others and become a role model to other career civil servants. One can make the case that the esteem of others spoke to Bryce’s self-interest. It makes the point, however, that many forces speak to what motivates career civil servants, not just the rational actor looking after his or her economic self-interest.39 Contrast the above with Kevin Lynch who occupied the very same positions in government but forty years later. Lynch’s pension

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arrangements were much more generous (90 percent of his salary, best six years, and indexed to inflation) than Bryce’s (70 percent of his salary, best six years, and indexed to inflation). In retirement, Lynch became vice-chairman of bmo Financial Group and chair of the board of directors of snc -Lavalin. I also note that throughout his career in government, Lynch was highly respected by both politicians and career civil servants for his skills and his staunch commitment to his work. He, too, was non-partisan and a role model for other career civil servants. Lynch joined a growing number of the more senior civil servants in Canada, the United States, Britain, and France in going on to lucrative opportunities after retiring from the civil service.40 In the United States, about 75 percent of all retired three- and four-star generals have gone into the defence business, many as lobbyists. In contrast, George Marshall, former Chief of Staff under President Truman, went to work for the Red Cross in his retirement.41 In Britain, a political controversy erupted when retired military leaders boasted that they were able to secure military procurement contracts for their clients.42 France is also seeing an increasing number of senior career civil servants moving to the private sector for a second career. The Homo economicus label applies more easily to Lynch and generally to retiring senior civil servants today than it did to Bryce and those who retired forty years ago. In brief, management reform measures in government have moved the civil services in the four countries further away from the norms long embedded in government bureaucracy. Different norms have taken form recently and civil servants have responded.

in s e a rc h o f va l ues and ethi cs Some twenty years after management reform measures came in fashion, governments in all four countries saw the need to launch values and ethics exercises. I note that efforts to strengthen ethics in government had appeared earlier in the United States in response to Watergate. The Ethics in Government Act of 1978, was, for the most part, directed at the political class and required them to disclose their personal finances.43 The 1978 act was not the end of the story. The Ethics Reform Act of 1989, the Executive Order 12674 signed in the same year, and new regulations introduced in the 1990s looked to both politicians and

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civil servants. They carried a number of provisions, including ethics training for executive branch officials. The regulations established core values for the civil service. The efforts were designed to underline a number of important points, including: (1) Public service is a public trust requiring employees to place loyalty to the Constitution, the laws, and ethical principles above private gains; (2) employees shall not use public office for private gain; (3) employees shall act impartially and not give preferential treatment to any private organization or individual. These and other core values are printed on posters, in pamphlets, and made available on the internet.44 They contrast with some of the values private firm senior executives hold, who are, for example, expected to give preferential treatment to their best customers. The US government reports that in recent years it has launched a number of investigations into the activities of senior officials of the executive branch in connection with “misuse of official position” and conflicting outside activities.45 The US government also established an independent office – the United States Office of Government Ethics – in 1988 to develop and monitor standards of conduct for the executive branch. It helped the George H.W. Bush administration develop the Standards of Ethical Conduct in 1992 and, three years later, implement new ethics regulations. The director of the office is appointed by the president after securing Senate confirmation.46 The office adds to the growing number of oversight bodies for executive branch managers and their employees. Great Britain launched a series of initiatives in the mid-1990s to establish an ethical framework to guide both ministers and career civil servants. The government established a Civil Service Code and a new position, Commissioner for Public Appointments. The code, which has been amended on a few occasions, outlines core values for civil servants, including “selflessness, integrity, and accountability.” The core values are given to newcomers to the civil service, distributed to all existing civil servants, and are also made available on the government website. In addition, there are guidelines for those working in the “political-administrative sphere,” and civil servants are reminded to maintain “political impartiality.”47 The Canadian government soon followed suit. It explained why “the relationship between the public service and the private sector has been undergoing a transformation as each seeks to increase the amount of contact.”48 The government established a high-level committee of

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senior career officials “to look into the question of changing values and ethics in the public service.”49 The concern among senior civil servants in Canada was that promoting a business culture and a private sector ethos would erode the values long associated with the government and public administration. The then highly respected permanent head of the justice department, John Tait, led the initiative to equip the civil service with a set of values and ethics. He and colleagues produced a report that was not only widely read but also became the talk of the Canadian civil service for several years. The report led to numerous initiatives to shore up values and ethics in government. The Tait report defined several core values, starting with “democracy and the accountability of public servants.”50 On accountability, the report restated the doctrine of ministerial responsibility. However, Tait was quick to add that a number of civil servants told him the doctrine had become “unclear, outdated, just unreal or meaningless.”51 The report reminded civil servants that citizens are not customers but rather the “bearers of rights and duties in a framework of community.”52 It spoke about the difference in “managing up” – the need to respond to the wishes of ministers – and “managing down” – looking down to employees and the quality of the organization and its performance. Without stating it outright, the Tait report identified a fault line inside the civil service, separating senior career officials concerned with managing up from front line managers looking to clients. Canadian civil servants are now required to adhere to a Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector as a term and condition of employment. The code carries much of the same in terms of values and ethics noted above for the United States and Britain. Among others, it calls on civil servants to act “at all times with integrity … never use their official roles to inappropriately obtain an advantage for themselves,” and take “all possible steps to prevent and resolve any real, apparent or potential conflicts of interest between their official responsibilities and their private affairs in favour of the public interest.”53 France has a “code d’éthique” or “code de déontologie.” The term pantouflage (pantoufles or slippers) is widely known in both government circles and in the media in France.54 Pierre France and Antoine Vauchez document how the lines dividing the public and private sectors have been collapsing since the 1990s, enabling career civil servants to pursue economic opportunities.55 It speaks to the ease

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with which civil servants can move from a public sector position to the private sector and back again. Pantouflage has been established in the vocabulary in France for over a century, but it has “gained momentum” in recent years.56 France decided in 1993 to outline values that its civil servants should adhere to. In addition, there are guidelines specific to certain groups such as the police, the post office, and the administration of prisons. The code de déontologie for civil servants was updated recently and it calls on them to serve with “dignity, impartiality and probity.” It also calls on all civil servants to reveal all situations that could expose them to conflicts of interest. The code outlines rules governing how civil servants can come and go to the private sector and their involvement in partisan politics.57 As is the case for the other three countries, the government established an oversight body to monitor the application of the code de déontologie, Commission de déontologie de la fonction publique. The commission produces an annual report that provides a detailed account of developments in the sector.58 Bob Bryce and George Marshall did not need to turn to a code of ethical conduct or a public sector code to understand what a career in public service expected from them, not only throughout their career but also in retirement. However, senior civil servants now need public sector codes to tell them what is appropriate and what is not. Public service values and ethics exercises tied to codes of conduct and oversight bodies are now in fashion in the four countries. The codes, however, do not appear to have improved matters.

i t i s now a b o u t va l u e s , not accountabi li ty There is a remarkable degree of similarity among the four countries under review in terms of the timing and contents of their values and ethics. All four saw the need to underline the importance of established public sector values as private sector–inspired reform measures were being implemented in government. Senior career government officials understood the challenge: how to remain true to public sector values while pursuing private sector–inspired management reform measures. They recognized the slow eroding of fundamental values long tied to traditional public administration and the need to tell career civil servants “not to use public office for private gains.” They also saw the need to remind themselves and other

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career civil servants to serve with “dignity, impartiality and probity.” There is little to show, however, that the values and ethics exercises have been able to slow the erosion of traditional public service culture in any of the four countries. There is also no evidence to suggest that relations between politicians, political advisers, and career civil servants have improved in any of the four countries, just as there is no evidence to suggest that morale has improved as a result of the values and ethics exercises. The same can be said about the quality of public services being delivered to citizens. We have seen that the parsimonious culture long associated with traditional public administration has been diluted. I asked Ralph Heintzman, one of the key architects and the lead author of the Tait report on values and ethics in the Canadian civil service, if they had paid sufficient attention to accountability requirements in compiling the report. His response – “accountability is the hole in the doughnut.”59 The values and ethics exercises in the four countries worked around accountability requirements which, in all four cases, were left largely unattended. What the exercises did in the four countries was add new oversight bodies to existing ones, including officers of Parliament and offices of Inspector General, all designed to keep a watch on the work of civil servants.

i t i s w h at p r e s id e n t s a nd pri me mi ni sters h av e a lways wanted Over the past forty years, presidents and prime ministers in the four countries have been busy piling on solutions to deal with what they perceived has been wrong with the civil services, the very institutions they were elected to lead. They all came to the same conclusion about what needed to be fixed. In short, in all four countries they have succeeded in pushing back the influence of senior career officials on policy. However, it is still not clear what has been gained. On management, preceding chapters make the case that the various management reform measures have at least not lived up to expectations, and at most made things worse. Presidents and prime ministers have misdiagnosed the patient, thinking that the ills of government bureaucracy are behavioural rather than institutional. By diagnosing the ailment as behavioural, they made it a behavioural issue. They have turned senior career civil

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servants into courtiers. npm measures have motivated them to look up to promote the interest of their political masters and their own interest rather than look down to support front line managers and workers in delivering public services. Career officials have been able to carve out a role to assist their political masters not by recommending what they ought to do but rather recommending what they can do. They have become adroit at diffusing a political crisis, managing the blame game, and falling on what amount to hand grenades to protect presidents and prime ministers. This does not, however, square easily with traditional values of public administration – serving with integrity, impartiality, and offering advice to presidents and prime ministers without inhibition of fear or favour. Because they made it to the top by understanding how best to manage the blame game and to make things happen for their political masters, they have a circumscribed understanding of how best to help front line managers deliver programs and public services. If senior career officials do not want to play the part of courtiers, they know that the politicians in power will turn elsewhere to accomplish their objectives, and there are now many places for politicians to turn for advice and deliver what they desire. On management, politicians decided – wittingly or not – to play fast and loose with institutional norms long associated with public administration. They wanted to install a bias for action inside government operations without addressing accountability requirements. They, in effect, created a half house, which has not been able to deliver on their expectations of doing more with less and at the same time improving service delivery.

a fa il u r e o f p oli ti cs The failures of government of the past forty years have been more about failures of politics than government bureaucracy. If politicians believed that government could no longer manage the overload problem and that their civil services were overstaffed, it was for them to address the problems. Margaret Thatcher did through the privatization of state enterprises and by reducing the size of the British civil service. She simply announced cuts from above and nothing stopped her, not even civil servants. She realized what other politicians elsewhere may not have: government bureaucracies cannot generate their own resources or launch a new policy or major initia-

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tive. Only political actors can accomplish these things. In the final analysis it is always politicians – no one else – who decide who gets what in government spending. They – not civil servants – have the final word on spending and the size of their civil services. Presidents and prime ministers have failed to fully recognize that government bureaucracies are political institutions. These political bosses continue to be “accountable for just about everything that goes on in the name of the governments they lead, regardless of the fact that even the most ambitious among them can know about, let alone control, only a modest part of all businesses that is being transacted.”60 If vaccines to fight the covid -19 pandemic are not made readily available, people will point the finger at Boris Johnson, Joe Biden, Justin Trudeau, and Emmanuel Macron, not bureaucrats. The relationship between when citizens receive the coronavirus vaccine and the office of presidents and prime ministers is separated by a sea of management levels. No matter – the blame lies with the lone heads of the government because it is their government and administration. Presidents and prime ministers did not make government less of a political institution by centralizing more and more political power into their own hands. Rather, they have made government operations even more political and, at the same time, further eroded the efficacy of government. The management reform measures have produced more management levels and by extension a multiplicity of principals adroit at managing the blame game and blocking change. No matter, government operations in all four countries still remain accountable to political control, not economic. The political and public characteristics of government operations shape the behaviour of civil servants, not the other way around. Presidents and prime ministers looked away from issues that cried out for attention – the structure of government based on ministries and departments, reassigning responsibility and accountability requirements, and the apparent inability or unwillingness of politicians and their institutions to provide clear goals. Rather than fundamental change, they continue to opt for fantasies, or for the latest fashions and fads, only to abandon them when they turned out not to constitute the solution. Career civil servants are left saying, “Oh Lord, lead us not into new approaches.” The results of the diagnosis and the various new approaches are anything but positive. Today the four civil services are bloated at the

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top, less productive, more wasteful, less creative, and less willing to advise politicians on what they ought to do. Consequently, service to the public has deteriorated in all four countries, and civil servants have become much more Homo economicus than ever before.

Notes

i nt roduct i o n 1 Tony Blair made the observation in an interview with Fareed Zakaria, gps , “cnn Transcripts,” 31 August 2020, https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/ fareed-zakaria-gps?episodeguid=923b1d09-e152-4460-93b1ac2701038d1a. 2 Douglass North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1990). 3 See, for example, Philippe Bezes and Patrick Le Lidec, “Steering from the Centre in France in the 2000s: When Reorganizations Meet Politicization,” in Steering from the Centre: Strengthening Political Control in Western Democracies, ed. Carl Dahlström, B. Guy Peters, and Jon Pierre (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011), 17–53. 4 Melanie Zanona, “Trump Tweet May Doom House gop Effort on Immigration,” The Hill, 22 June 2018, https://thehill.com/homenews/ house/393678-dim-prospects-for-house-immigration-bill-after-trumpstweet. 5 B. Guy Peters, “Central Agencies and Executive Power,” paper presented at ecpr Joint Workshops, Helsinki, Finland, May 2007, mimeo, 1. 6 See, among others, David J. Samuels and Matthew S. Shugart, Presidents, Parties, and Prime Ministers: How the Separation of Powers Affects Party Organization and Behavior (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 7 Mark Garnett, The British Prime Minister in an Age of Upheaval (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2021). 8 William G. Howell, Thinking about the Presidency: The Primacy of Power (Princeton, nj : Princeton University Press, 2013).

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9 David S. Bell, Presidential Power in Fifth Republic France (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2001). 10 Donald J. Savoie, Governing from the Centre: The Concentration of Power in Canadian Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 71. 11 See, for example, Michael Foley, The Rise of British Presidency (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993); Daniel P. Gitterman, Calling the Shots: The President, Executive Orders, and Public Policy (Washington, dc : Brookings Institution Press, 2017); and Ronald Tiersky, “Macron’s World: How the New President Is Remaking France,” Foreign Affairs 97, no. 1 (January/February 2018): 87–96. 12 Chris Stanford, “Power Struggle over Virus Limits,” New York Times, 14 April 2020. 13 Savoie, Governing from the Centre. 14 Rem Westland, Running for the People? How Canadian Elections Favour the Career Politician (Ottawa: Polarbear Lane Editions, 2015), 34. 15 Jim Malone, “Both Parties Agree – Trump Drives the Midterms,” Voice of America (voa ) United States News, 16 October 2018. 16 See, for example, Nicholas Vinocur, “Kim Jong Macron? The Case for a Fairer French Parliament,” Politico, 14 June 2017. 17 Philip Giddings, “Purpose and Prospects,” in The Future of Parliament: Issues for a New Century, ed. Philip Giddings (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 265. 18 See, among others, Tim Ross, Kitty Donaldson, and Alex Morales, “Boris Johnson Plunges His Tories into an Identity Crisis,” Bloomberg, 27 June 2020. 19 Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern President: The Politics of Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan (New York: Free Press, 1991), 10. 20 Jae Hyung Chai, “Presidential Control of the Foreign Policy Bureaucracy: The Kennedy Case,” Presidential Studies Quarterly (1978): 391–403. 21 Donald J. Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney: In Search of a New Bureaucracy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994), 90. 22 John Hart, The Presidential Branch (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1987), 126. 23 Ibid., 123. 24 David Nakamura and Damian Paletta, “Trump Unrestrained: Recent Moves Show President Listening to His Gut More than Advisers,” Washington Post, 13 March 2018. 25 Quoted in Philip Rucker, “‘A Rogue Presidency’: The Era of Containing Trump Is Over,” Washington Post, 22 December 2018.

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26 David Jackson, “President Trump Holds First Cabinet Meeting,” usa Today, 13 March 2017. 27 Dave Boyer, “Trump Holds Cabinet Meeting as Term Nears End,” Washington Times, 16 December 2020. 28 Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “Trump’s Cabinet, with a Prod, Extols the Blessing of Serving Him,” New York Times, 12 June 2017. 29 Eleanor Beardsley, “‘King Macron’: French President Earns Comparisons to Napoleon,” npr , 6 July 2017. 30 See www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/. See also Beardsley, “‘King Macron.’” 31 “Conseil des ministres: Macron donne le cap à son gouvernement,” 18 May 2017, www.ouest-France.fr/politique/conseil-des-ministresemanuel-macron-donne-le-cap (page discontinued). 32 Mark Bevir and R.A.W. Rhodes, “Prime Ministers, Presidentialism and Westminster Smokescreens,” Political Studies 54, no. 4 (2000): 671–90. 33 “Bagehot: Sleaze and Boris Johnson’s Redecorating of Downing Street,” The Economist, 29 April 2021. 34 Senator Lowell Murray, “Power, Responsibility, and Agency in Canadian Government,” in Governing: Essays in Honour of Donald J. Savoie, ed. James Bickerton and B. Guy Peters (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2013), 27. 35 See Savoie, Governing from the Centre, 328. 36 “Bagehot: Long Live the Tory Revolution!” The Economist, 3 August 2019, 49. 37 See, among many others, Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman, “Fear and Loyalty: How Donald Trump Took over the Republican Party,” New York Times, 21 December 2019. 38 William Cross and Lisa Young, “Are Canadian Political Parties Empty Vessels? Membership, Engagement and Policy Capacity,” Choices, Institute for Research on Public Policy, 12, no. 4 (4 June 2006): 14–32, https://irpp. org/research-studies/choices-vol12-no4-2/. 39 Rémi Lefebvre, “Vers un nouveau modèle partisan? Entre déclassement des partis de gouvernement et avènement des partis-mouvement,” Cahiers de la Recherche sur les Droits Fondamentaux no. 16 (2018), https:// journals.openedition.org/crdf/301. 40 See, for example, Ulrich Beck, Power in the Global Age (Maiden, ma : Polity Press, 2005), 3. 41 R.A.W. Rhodes, John Wanna, and Patrick Weller, Comparing Westminster (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 78. 42 Ibid., 233.

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43 Daniel Galvin and Colleen Shogan, “Presidential Politicization and Centralization across the Modern-Traditional Divide,” Polity 36, no. 3 (April 2004): 480. 44 Quoted in Stanford, “Power Struggle over Virus Limits.” 45 W.A. Matheson, “Prime Minister of Canada,” in The Canadian Encyclopedia, Historica Canada, article published 8 April 2009; last edited 23 March 2021, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ prime-minister/. 46 See, for example, Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “Rumblings of a ‘Deep State’ Undermining Trump? It Was Once a Foreign Concept,” New York Times, 6 March 2017. 47 Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump) “We have a long way to go,” Twitter, 6 March 2020. 48 Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, The Minister and the Official: The Fulcrum of Whitehall Effectiveness, Fifth report of Session 2017–19 (London: House of Commons–hc 497, 18 June 2018), 8. 49 Canada, 2017 Fall Reports of the Auditor General of Canada to the Parliament of Canada – Report 1, Phoenix Pay Systems (Ottawa: Office of the Auditor General, June 2018). 50 David Chazan Paris, “France’s Finishing School for Politicians Faces Crisis,” Telegraph (UK), 7 April 2018. 51 “La relation schizophrène des Français avec les fonctionnaires, qu’ils aiment autant qu’ils critiquent,” Huffington Post, 22 May 2018. 52 Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (New York: Crown, 2018); Patrick J. Deneen, Why Liberalism Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018); James Allan, Democracy in Decline: Steps in the Wrong Direction (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014); and Alasdair Roberts, Four Crises of American Democracy: Representation, Mastery, Discipline, Anticipation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017). 53 Allan, Democracy in Decline, 124–5. 54 Rhodes, Wanna, and Weller, Comparing Westminster, 6. 55 Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution, 2nd ed. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1873), 197. 56 Donald J. Savoie, Democracy in Canada: The Disintegration of Our Institutions (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019). 57 “Against the Tyranny of the Majority,” The Economist, 4 August 2018. 58 Rhodes, Wanna, and Weller, Comparing Westminster, 49. 59 Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney, 8.

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60 Ferrel Heady, Public Administration: A Comparative Perspective (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1966), 52. 61 Canada, The Roles and Responsibilities of Central Agencies (Ottawa: Library of Parliament, 2009), 1. 62 Patrick Weller, Don’t Tell the Prime Minister (Melbourne: Scribe Publications, 2002), 72. 63 Tobias Back and Kai Wegrich, “Politicians and Bureaucrats in Executive Government,” in The Oxford Handbook of Political Executives, ed. Rudy B. Andeweg, Robert Elgie, Ludger Helms, Juliet Kaarbo, and Ferdinand Müller-Rommel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming), mimeo, 4. 64 Peters, “Central Agencies and Executive Power,” 7. 65 See, among many others, Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney. 66 See, among others, Christopher Pollitt and Geert Bouckaert, Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 67 See, for example, Donald J. Savoie, Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher? How Government Decides and Why (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013). 68 Robert F. Adie and Paul G. Thomas, Canadian Public Administration: Problematical Perspectives (Scarborough: Prentice Hall, 1982), 141. 69 See, for example, Yehezkel Dror, The Capacity to Govern: A Report to the Club of Rome (Abingdon, Oxon: Frank Cass, 2002), 117. 70 Martin Lodge and Kai Wegrich, The Problem-Solving Capacity of the Modern State: Governance Challenges and Administrative Capacities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 71 Carl Dahlström, B. Guy Peters, and Jon Pierre, “Steering from the Centre: Strengthening Political Control in Western Democracies,” in Steering From the Centre, ed. Dahlström, Peters, and Pierre, 8. 72 Richard Wike, Laura Silver, and Alexandra Castillo, Dissatisfaction with Performance of Democracy Is Common in Many Nations, Pew Research Center, 29 April 2019, www.pewresearch.org/global.

c ha p t e r o n e 1 Nevil Johnson, In Search of the Constitution: Reflections on State and Society in Britain (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1977), 34. 2 Ibid., 31. 3 David J. Crankshaw, “The Tudor Privy Council c. 1540–1603,” King’s College, London, undated, mimeo, 5.

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4 Michael Everett, The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015). 5 For an excellent biography of Thomas Cromwell, see Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cromwell: A Life (New York: Viking, 2018). 6 Geoffrey Marshall, Constitutional Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 17. 7 Samuel E. Finer, The History of Government from the Earliest Times, vol. 3 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 1275. 8 Jeffrey Goldsworthy, The Sovereignty of Parliament: History and Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 135. 9 James Madison, “The Utility of the Union as a Safeguard against Domestic Faction and Insurrection,” The Federalist Paper: No. 10, Daily Advertiser, 22 November 1787 (New York), 51. 10 Cheryl Simrell King and Camilla Stivers, “Citizens and Administrators: Roles and Relationships,” in Government Is Us: Public Administration in an Anti-Government Era, ed. Cheryl Simrell King, Camilla Stivers, and Collaborators (Thousand Oaks, ca: Sage Publications, 1998); and Richard C. Box and Deborah A. Sagen, “Working With Citizens: Breaking Down Barriers to Citizen Self-Government,” in Government Is Us, 158–174. 11 Barry Coward, The Cromwellian Protectorate (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002). 12 Goldsworthy, The Sovereignty of Parliament, 141. 13 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “You Ask Me, Why, Tho’ Ill at Ease,” Poems, 2 vols (Boston: W.D. Ticknor, 1842), https://www.poetryfoundation.org/ poems/45393/you-ask-me-why-tho-ill-at-ease. 14 See, among others, Edward Vallance, The Glorious Revolution: 1688, Britain’s Fight for Liberty (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007). 15 See, for example, Edward Pearce, The Great Man: Sir Robert Walpole: Scoundrel, Genius and Britain’s First Prime Minister (London: Pimlico, 2000). 16 Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (London: George Allen and Unwin, [1867] 1984), 112. 17 Bagehot quoted in Sir Norman Chester, The English Administrative System, 1780–1870 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 81. 18 John Simon Bercow, “The House of Commons – On the Road to Recovery,” a speech delivered on 2 February 2012 at the University of Birmingham, mimeo, 3.

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19 Charles D. Yonge, The Life and Administration of Robert Banks, Second Earl of Liverpool, K.G. (Lindon London: Macmillan and Company, 1868), 3:340. 20 Quoted in Goldsworthy, Sovereignty of Parliament. 21 Quoted in ibid., 277. 22 Christopher Foster, British Government in Crisis (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2005), 8. 23 Adam Tomkins, Public Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 164. 24 See Savoie, Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher?, 41. 25 Quoted in H.C.G. Matthew, Gladstone: 1809–1874 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 85. 26 Peter Hennessy, Whitehall (London: Fontana, 1989), 39. 27 E.N. Gladden, Civil Service of the United Kingdom 1857-1970 (London: Frank Cass, 1967). 28 See, for example, James Madison, The Federalist Papers: No. 10, https:// avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed10.asp, undated. 29 Charles-Louis de Secondat de Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois (1748, repr., Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1995). 30 Alexander Hamilton, “The Real Character of the Executive,” The Federalist Papers: No. 69, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/ fed69.asp. 31 See article 11 of the Constitution, The Constitution of the United States of America – Literal Print, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPOCONAN-1992/pdf/GPO-CONAN-1992-6.pdf. 32 T. Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, “Bill of Rights,” Encyclopedia Britannica, 24 March 2020, https://www.britannica.com/topic/ Bill-of-Rights-United-States-Constitution. 33 Thomas Paine, “Common Sense,” in The Writings of Thomas Paine, vol. 1, 1774–1779, ed. Moncure Daniel Conway (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894), 72 and 79, https://www.law.gmu.edu/assets/files/academics/ founders/Paine_CommonSense.pdf. 34 Section 7.1 of the Constitution reads: “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representative.” 35 Bill of Rights (1688), Chapter 21 Will and Mar Sess 2, https://www. legislation.gov.uk/aep/WillandMarSess2/1/2/introduction. 36 The Constitution, https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/ amendment/amendment-ii, Passed 25 September 1789.

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Notes to pages 34–40

37 William F. Duker, “The President’s Power to Pardon: A Constitutional History,” William and Mary Law Review 18, no. 3 (Spring 1977): 475–538. 38 See, for example, Noel Cox, “The Gradual Curtailment of the Royal Prerogative,” The Denning Law Journal 25 (2012): 65–83. 39 Royal prerogatives are outlined in Section 9 of the British North America Act (1867). 40 Lily Rothman, “See Thomas Jefferson’s Letter Declaring that He Wouldn’t Give A State of the Union Speech,” Time magazine, updated 29 January 2018, https://time.com/4166680/thomas-jefferson-state-of-the-union/. 41 See, among others, ushistory.org, “8a. The Development of the Bureaucracy,” American Government Online Textbook, 2021, https:// www.ushistory.org/gov/8a.asp. 42 Paul P. Van Riper, “The Pendleton Act – A Centennial Eulogy,” American Review of Public Administration 17, no. 1 (Spring 1983): 11. 43 See Paul P. Van Riper, History of the United States Civil Service (Evanston, il: Row Peterson, 1958), 85, 83; and Lionel Murphy, “The First Federal Civil Service Commission: 1871–1875,” Public Personnel Review (October 1942): 319. 44 Van Riper, History of the United States Civil Service, 101. 45 Gordon Stewart, The Origins of Canadian Politics: A Comparative Approach (Vancouver: ubc Press, 1986). 46 J.M.S. Careless, Canada: A Story of Challenge, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 47 Canada, Constitution Act, 1867, 30&31 Victoria, c. 3 (U.K.), https://lawslois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-1.html. 48 Quoted in J.K. Johnson and P.B. Waite, “Macdonald, Sir John Alexander,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 12 (University of Toronto, 1990), n.p. 49 Donald Creighton, John A. Macdonald: The Young Politician (Toronto: Macmillan, 1952). 50 Quoted in Jennifer Smith, Federalism (Vancouver: ubc Press, 2004), 49. 51 The Latin inscription reads, “Principum munus est resistere levitati multitudinis,” from Cicero, Pro Milone 22, https://sencanada.ca/en/about/ brochure/words-of-wisdom/PMERLM1-e. 52 Robert MacGregor Dawson, The Government of Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), 251. 53 Quoted in 1870 “Patronage and Party Control,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, http://www.biographi.ca/en/special.php?project_id=98&p=24. 54 Dawson, Government of Canada, 252.

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55 Oscar D. Skelton, Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1921), 270. 56 J.E. Hodgetts, The Canadian Public Service: A Physiology of Government 1867–1970 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973), 265. 57 Skelton, Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, 503. 58 For an excellent account of French politics since the revolution, see Edward Berenson, Vincent Duclert, and Christopher Prochasson, eds., The French Republic: History, Values, Debates (Ithaca, ny : Cornell University Press, 2011). 59 Niccolò Machiavelli, chapter 6 in The Prince, trans. George Bull (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1961). 60 For an overview of the French Republics, see Pierre Brasme, Histoire de la République française et de ses présidents (Rennes: Ouest-France, 2007). For a more in-depth review, see Berenson, Duclert, and Prochasson, The French Republic. 61 Josef Joffe, “Charles in Charge,” New York Times, 17 August 2012. 62 Jonathan Fenby, The General: Charles De Gaulle and the French He Saved (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010). 63 Robert Tombs, “France’s Presidency Is Too Powerful to Work,” Foreign Policy, 2 May 2017, https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/02/ francs-presidency-is-too-powerful-to-work-emmanuel-macron-elections/. 64 Charles de Gaulle, Discours et Messages, vol. 2 (Paris: Plon, 1970), 168. 65 See, for example, Jack Hayward and Vincent Wright, Governing from the Centre: Core Executive Coordination in France (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002), 32. 66 Bell, Presidential Power in Fifth Republic France, 1. 67 Ibid., 7. 68 “Michel Debré (1912–1996),” Oxford Reference, https://www.oxford reference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095704979, n.d. 69 Constitution de la République française, www.assemblée-nationale.fr, 4 October 1958. 70 See, for example, Jean V. Poulard, “The French Double Executive and the Experience of Cohabitation,” Political Science Quarterly 105, no. 2 (Summer 1990): 243–67. 71 See article 21, “Texte intégral de la Constitution du 4 octobre 1958 en vigueur,” www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr. 72 Bell, Presidential Power in Fifth Republic France, 178. 73 Ibid., 242. 74 Agence France-Presse, “Quels sont les pouvoirs du président de la République?”Le dauphin, 20 March 2017.

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Notes to pages 45–9

75 Malcolm Anderson, Government in France: An Introduction to the Executive Power (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1970), 19. 76 Luc Rouban, La fonction publique (Paris: La Découverte, 2004). 77 Marie-Christine Kessler, La politique de la haute fonction publique, volume histoire (Paris: Presses de la fnsp , 1978). 78 Quoted in Karim Tadjeddine, “‘A Duty to Modernize’: Reforming the French Civil Service,” McKinsey & Company, 1 April 2011, https://www. mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/a-duty-tomodernize-reforming-the-french-civil-service#. 79 Philippe Bezes and Gilles Jeannot, “The Development and Current Features of the French Civil Service System,” in Civil Service Systems in Western Europe, ed. Frits M. van der Meer, (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2011), 185–215. 80 Luc Rouban, “Public Management and Politics: Senior Bureaucrats in France,” Public Administration 85, no. 2 (June 2007): 473–501. 81 Ibid. 82 Richard Heffernan and Paul Webb, “The British Prime Minister: Much More than ‘First among Equals,’” in The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies, ed. Thomas Poguntke and Paul Webb (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 26–62; and Mark Bennister, “Tony Blair and John Howard: Comparative Predominance and ‘Initiation Stretch’ in the U.K. and Australia,” The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 9, no. 3 (2007): 327–45. 83 “United States v. Nixon,” Oyez, accessed 24 January 2019, https://www. oyez.org/cases/1973/73-1766. 84 Olivier Duhamel, “France’s New Five-Year Presidential Term,” Brookings, 1 March 2001. 85 Ray Raphael, Mr. President: How and Why the Founders Created a Chief Executive (New York: Vintage Books, 2013). 86 Larry Berman, The Office of Management and Budget and the Presidency, 1921–1979 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979). 87 Nicole L. Anslover, Harry S. Truman: The Coming of the Cold War (New York: Routledge, 2014). 88 Graham Allison, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis (Boston: Little Brown, 1971). 89 See, for example, Lorraine Boissoneault, “The Debate Over Executive Orders Began with Teddy Roosevelt’s Mad Passion for Conservation,” Smithsonian magazine, 17 April 2017. 90 Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr, The Imperial Presidency (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1973).

Notes to pages 49–53

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91 Binyamin Appelbaum and Michael D. Shear, “Once Skeptical of Executive Power, Obama Has Come to Embrace It,” New York Times, 13 August 2016. 92 Chris Cillizza and Sam Petulla, “Trump Is on Pace to Sign More Executive Orders than Any President in the Last 50 Years,” cnn (website), 13 October 2017. 93 Peter M. Shane, How Executive Power Threatens American Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). 94 Quoted in Claudia Grisales, “House Approves Defense Bill by Veto-Proof Margin, Despite President Trump’s Threats,” NPR, 8 December 2020, www.npr.org/2020/12/08/944263124/house-approves-defense-bill-by-vetoproof-margin-despite-president-trumps-threat. 95 Savoie, Democracy in Canada, chapters 3 and 4. 96 Tyler Dawson, “Ontario Isn’t Friendly, Alberta Resents Everyone Else and Nobody Likes Quebec: Poll,” National Post, 24 January 2019. 97 Savoie, Governing from the Centre. 98 Ged Martin, John A. Macdonald: Canada’s First Prime Minister (Toronto: Dundurn, 2013), 148. 99 For example, see Seth McLaughlin, “Sen. Jeff Flake calls for ‘Ending Tribalism,’” Washington Times, 1 October 2018. 100 Anderson, Government in France. 101 Nick Hewlett, “Nicolas Sarkozy and the Legacy of Bonapartism: The French Presidential and Parliamentary Elections of 2007,” Modern and Contemporary France 15, no. 4 (November 2007): 405–22. 102 Michael Stothard, “The Sun King: Macron Burnishes His Presidential Image,” Financial Times, 12 July 2017. 103 “In Macron’s Shadow: Why 35% of French People Cannot Name Their Own Prime Minister,” The Economist, 22 February 2018. 104 See, among many others, Peter H. Schuck, Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014). 105 Elizabeth Goitein, “Trump Showed How Easily Presidents Can Abuse Emergency Powers. Here’s How Congress Can Rein Them In,” Politico magazine, 22 January 2021. 106 Web Desk, “Biden Signs 30 Executive Orders in Three Days,” The Week magazine, 23 January 2021. 107 K.C. Wheare, Federal Government, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), 10. 108 Tombs, “France’s Presidency Is Too Powerful to Work.”

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Notes to pages 55–64

c h a p t e r t wo 1 Quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr, The Coming of the New Deal: The Age of Roosevelt (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1959), 518. 2 Quoted in Rhodes, Wanna, and Weller, Comparing Westminster, 78. 3 “Bagehot: The Impossible Job,” The Economist, 27 February 2021, 46. 4 See, among others, Alex Marland, Brand Command: Canadian Politics and Democracy in the Age of Message Control (Vancouver: ubc Press, 2016). 5 Quoted in ibid., preface. 6 Michael W. McConnell, The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power under the Constitution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020), 3–4. 7 Chris Hall, “Justin Trudeau Begins His Bold Experiment in ‘Government by Cabinet,’” cbc News, 5 November 2015. 8 See, for example, Rhodes, Wanna, and Weller, Comparing Westminster. 9 There are a number of excellent studies on the motivation of politicians. See Oliver H. Woshinsky, The French Deputy: Incentives and Behavior in the National Assembly (London: Lexington Books, 1973); and James L. Payne, Patterns of Conflict in Colombia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968). 10 See Donald J. Savoie, The Politics of Public Spending in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 329–31. 11 See, for example, ibid. 12 Lawrence Douglas, “Why Was Jeff Sessions Fired? For Being Loyal to His Office, Not Trump,” Guardian, 8 November 2018. 13 See, among others, John English, Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Volume 2: 1968–2000 (Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2010). 14 See, Seth Motel, “Who Runs for Office? A Profile of the 2%,” Pew Research Centre – Fact Tank (Washington: Pew Research Centre, 2014). 15 See, for example, Lucy Ward, “‘President Blair’ Killed Cabinet, Says Mowlam,” Guardian, 16 November 2001. 16 Quoted in “In Macron’s Shadow: Why 35 Percent of French People Cannot Name Their Own Prime Minister,” The Economist, 24 February 2018. 17 “Fiscal Year 2017 Omnibus Summary – Financial Services and General Government Appropriations,” House Appropriations Committee, retrieved 30 January 2019. 18 See, among others, Nahal Toosi, “Inside Stephen Miller’s Hostile Takeover of Immigration Policy,” Politico, 29 August 2018.

Notes to pages 64–7

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19 Eddie Goldenberg made this observation in a conversation I had with him when he was in Right Honourable Jean Chrétien’s office. 20 Ian Katz, “The Inside Man,” Guardian, 15 March 2008. 21 Robert Brescia, “The White House Chief of Staff – the Most Powerful Person in Washington,” pa Times – American Society for Public Administration, 16 June 2017. 22 Tom Kent, A Public Purpose: An Experience of Liberal Opposition and Canadian Government (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1988), 225. 23 This number includes officials supporting the prime minister located in both the pmo and the Privy Council Office, see The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, Canada 2016–2017 – Departmental Results Report (drr ) – Privy Council Office (Ottawa: Treasury Board Secretariat, 2017). 24 George Jones and Andrew Blick, “The pm and the centre of UK government from Tony Blair to David Cameron. How much will change in the transition from a single-party to coalition government,” London School of Economics and Political Science (lse blog), 21 May 2010. 25 Dennis Kavanagh and Anthony Seldon, The Powers Behind the Prime Minister: The Hidden Influence of Number Ten (London: Harper Collins, 2013), 256. 26 See, for example, Emilio Casalicchio, “Boris Johnson Goes Presidential,” Politico Europe, 5 August 2020. 27 Cour des comptes, “Les comptes et la gestion des services de la présidence de la République,” 24 July 2018. 28 See, for example, “Emmanuel Macron veut façonner une administration à sa main,” Le Figaro, 10 June 2019. 29 See, for example, George E. Condon Jr, “On White House Staff: Obama Chooses Loyalty over Change,” The Atlantic, 24 January 2013. 30 Quoted in Savoie, Governing from the Centre, 101. 31 James Pfiffner, “Cabinet Secretaries versus the White House Staff,” Brookings, 24 March 2015. 32 See, among others, Brent Rathgeber, Irresponsible Government: The Decline of Parliamentary Democracy in Canada (Toronto: Dundurn, 2014); and Canadian Press, “Stephen Maher: ‘The Boys in Short Pants’ – Government Run by pmo ’s Youthful Zealots, ex-Tory mp says,” National Post, 13 October 2014. 33 Elliott Jaques, Requisite Organization: A Total System for Effective Managerial Organization and Managerial Leadership for the 21st Century (Arlington, va : Cason Hall, 1996), 97.

238

Notes to pages 67–9

34 See, for example, ”France: Ratio of government expenditure to gross domestic product (gdp ) from 2016 to 2026,” Statista, 26 October 2021, https://www.statista.com/statistics/275345/ratio-of-governmentexpenditure-to-gross-domestic-product-gdp-in-france/#statisticContainer; “imf Executive Board Concludes 2020 Article IV Consultation with France,” International Monetary Fund, 21 November 2014, www.imf.org/ en/News/Articles/2021/01/19/pr2014-france-imf-executive-boardconcludes-2020-article-iv-consultation. 35 France, Rapport sur l’état de la fonction publique et les rémunérations (Paris: Rapport annuel sur l’état de la fonction publique, 2017), 7. 36 J.L. Granatstein, The Ottawa Men: The Civil Service Mandarins 1933–37 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 12; and Savoie, Governing from the Centre, 315. 37 Donald J. Savoie, Court Government and the Collapse of Accountability in Canada and the United Kingdom (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 38. 38 “American Government,” www.ushistory.org, n.d. 39 “A-Z Index of US Government Departments and Agencies,” www.usa.gov, n.d. 40 “Total public sector current expenditure as a share of gross domestic product (gdp ) in the United Kingdom (UK) from 1977/78 to 2020/21,” Statista, 22 July 2021, https://www.statista.com/statistics/298478/ public-sector-expenditure-as-share-of-gdp-united-kingdom-uk/. 41 Oliver Morley, “UK Government – Did We Rule the Empire with 4,000 Civil Servants?,” National Archives blog, 1 August 2012, https://blog. nationalarchives.gov.uk/uk-government-did-we-rule-the-empire-with4000-civil-servants/. 42 J.E. Hodgetts, Pioneer Public Service: An Administrative History of the United Canadas, 1841–1867 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1955), 49. 43 Gary Andres, Patrick Griffin, and James Thurber, “The Contemporary Presidency – Managing White House-Congressional Relations: Observations from inside the Process,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 30, no. 3 (September 2000): 558. 44 Rachel Roubein, “The gop ’s Failed Effort to Repeal ObamaCare,” The Hill, 26 September 2017. 45 See, for example, Law Library of Congress (US) and Global Legal Research Directorate, National Parliaments (Washington: Library of Congress, 2016). 46 Geoffrey Howe, Conflict of Loyalty (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995).

Notes to pages 70–3

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47 Simon James, British Cabinet Government (London: Routledge, 1992), 104. 48 Consultations between a senior Government of Canada official and the author, 19 January 2020. 49 See, for example, Hailey Waller, “LaGuardia Chaos May Have Helped Push Trump to End Shutdown,” Bloomberg, 25 January 2019. 50 Tom Rosenstiel, The Beat Goes On: President Clinton’s First Year with the Media (Washington, dc : Twentieth Century Fund Essay, 1994), 30. 51 David Taras, The Newsmakers: The Media’s Influence on Canadian Politics (Scarborough: Nelson Canada, 1990); and Joshua Meyrowitz, No Sense of Place (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). 52 John C. Crosbie, No Holds Barred: My Life in Politics (Toronto McClelland and Stewart, 1997), 300. 53 Savoie, Governing from the Centre, chapter 4. 54 See, among others, Michael Grynbaum, “Trump Calls the News Media the Enemy of the American People,” New York Times, 17 February 2017. 55 Rosemary Belson, “Emmanuel Macron: French Media Are ‘Totally Narcissistic,’” Politico Europe, 20 September 2017. 56 Josh Lowe, “Tony Blair, ‘Not Everything Trump Says about the Media Coverage Is Unfair,’” Newsweek, 5 November 2017, https://www.newsweek.com/tony-blair-donald-trump-fake-news-media-coverage-607362. 57 George Bain, Gotcha! How the Media Distort the News (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1994). 58 See, among others, Charlie Beckett, SuperMedia Saving Journalism So It Can Save the World (London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008). 59 See, among others, James Ball, “Distrust of Social Media Is Dragging Traditional Journalism Down,” Guardian, 22 January 2018. 60 Jay David Bolter, “Why Social Media Are Ruining Political Discourse,” The Atlantic, 19 May 2019. 61 Le Monde with afp , “‘Gilets jaunes’ – pour Emmanuel Macron, la France a besoin de retrouver un fonctionnement normal,” Le Monde, 14 December 2018. 62 “The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787,” vol. 3, https://oll. libertyfund.org/title/ farrand-the-records-of-the-federal-convention-of-1787-vol-3. 63 Richard Gwyn, John A: The Man Who Made Us, volume 1, 1815–1867 (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2008), 390. 64 When Harold Macmillan was asked what he feared most for his administration, his widely reported reply: “Events, my dear boy, events.”

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Notes to pages 73–9

65 See, for example, Martha Joynt Kumar, Managing the President’s Message: The White House Communications Operation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010). 66 Tombs, “France’s Presidency Is Too Powerful to Work.”

c h a p t e r t h re e 1 Colin Campbell and George J. Szablowski, The Superbureaucrats: Structure and Behaviour in Central Agencies (Toronto: Macmillan, 1979). 2 See, among many others, Pollitt and Bouckaert, Public Management Reform. 3 See, among others, Thomas Poguntke and Paul Webb, The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies (Oxford: Oxford Scholarship Online, April 2007). 4 “Roles of the Centres of Government,” in Government at a Glance 2015 (Paris: oecd , 2015), https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/governance/ government-at-a-glance-2015/roles-of-the-centres-of-government_ gov_glance-2015-26-en. 5 oecd , Delivering from the Centre: Strengthening the Role of the Centre of Government in Driving Priority Strategies (Paris: oecd , 2015), 5. 6 Ibid. 7 I was present at several meetings between pmo officials and Hon. Pierre DeBané. I also accompanied DeBané to a public meeting in Causapscal on 10 September 1980. See also Jean Bonneville, La papeterie de la Matapédia: du projet à la lutte (Rimouski: Université du Québec, 1986), 80–7. 8 The Minister and the Official: The Fulcrum of Whitehall Effectiveness (London: Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee – Fifth Report of Session 2017–19, House of Commons, 12 June 2018), 3. 9 See, for example, Josiah Ober, “The Original Meaning of ‘Democracy’: Capacity to Do Things, Not Majority Rule,” Constellations 15, no. 1 (2008): 1–9. 10 See, for example, Dennis Grube, “Responsibility to be Enthusiastic? Public Servants and the Public Face of Promiscuous Partisanship,” Governance 28, no. 3 (July 2015): 305–20. 11 Steve Frank, “Drain the Swamp of the Federal Bureaucracy – and Start with Middle Management,” Chicago Tribune, 31 January 2017. 12 Bok, “A Daring and Complicated Strategy,” 49. 13 See, among others, Monica Crowley, “How Trump Can Beat the DeepState Coup,” Washington Times, 5 December 2018.

Notes to pages 79–82

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14 Ingrid Melander and Michel Rose, “In Sun King’s Palace, Macron Threatens to Ram through Parliament Reform,” Reuters, 3 July 2017. 15 Peter Hennessy made the same point as far back as 1989 in Whitehall, 235. 16 See, among others, Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney. 17 Peter Aucoin, “New Political Governance in Westminster Systems: Impartial Public Administration and Management Performance at Risk,” Governance 25, no. 2 (March 2012): 177–99. 18 See, among others, Donald J. Savoie, Breaking the Bargain: Public Servants, Ministers, and Parliament (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003). 19 Frida Boräng, Agnes Cornell, Marcia Grimes, and Christian Schuster, “Cooking the Books: Bureaucratic Politicization and Policy Knowledge,” Governance 31, no. 1 (January 2018): 8. 20 See, for example, Christopher Hood, “De-Sir Humphreyfying the Westminster Model of Bureaucracy: A New Style of Governance,” Governance 3, no. 2 (April 1990): 206. 21 Walter Williams, Washington, Westminster and Whitehall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 62. 22 Quoted in Christopher Hood and Martin Lodge, The Politics of Public Service Bargains; Reward, Competency, Loyalty and Blame (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 9. 23 Quoted in Savoie, Governing from the Centre, 156. 24 Hon. Bernard Valcourt made this observation when I was carrying out interviews for Breaking the Bargain, 124. 25 D.E. Lewis, The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance (Princeton, nj : Princeton University Press, 2008). 26 Ibid. 27 T.M. Moe, “The Politicized Presidency,” in The New Direction in American Politics, ed. John E. Chubb and Paul E. Peterson (Washington, dc: Brookings Institution Press, 1985). 28 Scott Waldmann, “Trump to Put Climate Change Denier in Charge of Key U.S. Report,” Science (website), 10 November 2020. 29 “Trump officials deleting mentions of climate change, from U.S Geological Survey press releases,” www.sciencemag.org, 8 July 2019. 30 George A. Grouse and Anne Joseph O’Connell, “Experiential Learning and Presidential Management of the U.S. Federal Bureaucracy: Logic and Evidence from Agency Leadership Appointments,” American Journal of Political Science 60, no. 4 (October 2016): 920.

242

Notes to pages 82–6

31 Carolyn Ban and Patricia W. Ingraham, “Short-Timers: Political Appointee Mobility and its Impact on Political-Career Relations in the Reagan Administration,” Administration and Society 22, no. 1 (May 1990): 106–24. 32 James S. Bowman and Jonathan P. West, “State Government ‘Little Hatch Acts’ in an Era of Civil Service Reform: The State of the Nation,” Review of Public Personnel Administration 29, no. 1 (2009), 24. 33 David E. Lewis, The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance (Princeton, nj : Princeton University Press, 2008). 34 See a typical minister’s office at www.canada.ca. 35 See, for example, lse gv 314 Group, “New Life at the Top: Special Advisers in British Government,” Parliamentary Affairs 65, no. 12 (2012): 715–32. 36 Jonathan Craft and John Halligan, Advising Governments in the Westminster Tradition: Policy Advisory Systems in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 12. 37 Andrew Greenway, “Lurking Your Way to the Top: Life as a Private Secretary,” Civil Service World, 23 January 2019. 38 Akash Paun, Supporting Ministers to Lead: Rethinking the Ministerial Office (London: Institute for Government, n.d.), 8. 39 For an excellent overview of public administration in France, see Andrew Knapp and Vincent Wright, The Government and Politics of France (London: Routledge, 2006), 290–2. 40 Barthélémy Philippe, “Emmanuel Macron autorise ses ministres à embaucher plus de conseillers: à quel prix?” Capital, 5 November 2019, https:// www.capital.fr/economie-politique/macron-autorise-ses-ministres-aembaucher-plus-de-conseillers-pour-quelle-facture-1354487. 41 See, for example, Nicolas Chapuis and Cédric Pietralunga, “Gouvernement Castex: des fidèles d’Emmanuel Macron sont placés dans les cabinets ministériels,” Le Monde, 8 July 2020, www.lemonde.fr/politique/ article/2020/07/08/remaniement-emmanuel-macron-place-les-siens-dansles-cabinets-ministeriels_6045544_823448.html. 42 Quoted in The Minister and the Official, 11. 43 Among many others, Robert Fife, Steven Chase, and Daniel Leblanc, “snc -Lavalin Chair Kevin Lynch Sought Michael Wernick’s Help to Secure Deferred Prosecution Agreement,” Globe and Mail, 6 March 2019. 44 Robert Fife, “Top Bureaucrat Michael Wernick Resigns over snc -Lavalin Affair,” Globe and Mail, 18 March 2019.

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45 Taylor Blewett, “It’s Time to Rethink the Role of the Clerk of the Privy Council, Expert Says on Wernick’s Resignation,” Ottawa Citizen, 18 March 2019. 46 Robert Fife, Steven Chase, and Janice Dickson, “Trudeau Expels WilsonRaybould and Philpott from Liberal Caucus over snc -Lavalin Affair,” Globe and Mail, 2 April 2019. 47 Gordon Robertson, “The Changing Role of the Privy Council Office,” Canadian Public Administration 14, no. 4 (1971): 467–508. 48 Trevor Cole, “Is snc -Lavalin Worth Saving? ‘Big Time,’ Says Former Government Insider and cn Rail ex-ceo Paul Tellier,” Globe and Mail, 24 March 2019. 49 Savoie, Democracy in Canada. 50 Roger Gough, An End to Sofa Government: Better Working of Prime Minister and Cabinet (London: Conservative Democracy Task Force, 2007). 51 Christopher Foster, British Government in Crisis (London: Hart Publishing, 2009), 170. 52 Quoted in Boris Johnson, “How Not to Run a Country,” Spectator (UK), 11 December 2004. 53 Peter Cardwell, “Boris Johnson Is Right. Civil Servants Shouldn’t Be Neutral Arbiters,” Politico, 4 September 2020, www.politico.eu/ article/boris-johnson-is-right-civil-servants-shouldnt-be-neutralarbiters/. 54 Laura Kuenssberg, “Ex-civil Servant Boss Mark Sedwill Makes Concerns Crystal Clear,” bbc News, 21 October 2020, www.bbc.com/news/ uk-politics-54617749. 55 See, for example, Dennis C. Grube, “An Invidious Position? The Public Dance of the Promiscuous Partisan,” The Political Quarterly 85, no. 4 (2014): 420–7. 56 Bezes and Jeannot, “The Development and Current Features of the French Civil Service System,” 185–15. 57 Quoted in Ronald Tiersky, “Macron’s World,” Foreign Affairs (January/ February 2018). 58 Ibid., 217. 59 Dominique Chagnollaud, Les cabinets ministériels, côté cour … (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999); and “Le nombre de conseillers dans les cabinets ministériels a augmenté de 76% en deux ans,” Le Monde, 13 October 2021. 60 See www.ena.fr/eng/Alumni/anciens-eleves-ena, n.d. 61 See, for example, Peter Gumbel, France’s Got Talent: The Woeful Consequences of French Elitism (Amazon Digital Services, 2013).

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Notes to pages 89–92

62 Bezes and Jeannot, “The Development and Current Features of the French Civil Service System,” 212. 63 John Morgan, “Will Macron’s Move against His Alma Mater Make France’s he System Fairer?,” Times Higher Education, 19 September 2019. 64 “What Is ena and Why Does Macron Want to Abolish France’s Most Elite University?,” 25 April 2019, https://www.thelocal.fr/20190425/ what-is-frances-elite-college-ena-and-why-would-macron-want-to-close-it/. 65 Philippe Bezes and Gilles Jeannot, Public Sector Reform in France: Views and Experience from Senior Executives, Report as part of the Coordination for Cohesion in the Public Sector of the Future, May 2013, 29. 66 Janice Charette, “Preparing Canada’s Public Service to Meet the Challenge,” Policy Options, 6 July 2015. 67 See, for example, Charlotte Sausman and Rachel Locke, “The Changing Role of the British Senior Civil Service: Challenge and Reform,” in The Changing Role of Top Officials in European Nations, ed. Edward C. Page and Vincent Wright (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 189–207. 68 See, among others, Joseph S. Nye Jr, Philip D. Zelikow, and David C. King., eds., Why People Don’t Trust Government (Cambridge, ma : Harvard University Press, 1972). 69 See, for example, Helen Ward, “We Scientists Said Lock Down. But UK Politicians Refused to Listen,” Guardian, 15 April 2020. 70 Howard Risher, “Why Is Public-Employee Morale So Bad?,” Governing, 23 August 2016. 71 Sarah Dawood, “Civil Service Morale: You Dread Going into Work in the Mornings,” Guardian, 14 November 2014. 72 Staff, “Mental-Health Disability Claims among Federal Public Service Staff Increased in 2018,” Benefits Canada, 26 June 2019. 73 See, for example, Savoie, Breaking the Bargain. 74 See, for example, S. Carter, B. Plewes, and H. Echenberg, Civil Society and Public Policy Choice: A Directory of Non-Profit Organizations Engaged in Public Policy (Toronto: Maytree Foundation, 2005), 6. 75 Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, “Non-Governmental Organizations (ngo s) in the United States” (Washington, dc : US Department of State, 20 January 2017). 76 See, among others, Patrick Dunleavy, Alice Park, and Ros Taylor, eds., The UK’s Changing Democracy: The 2018 Democracy Audit (London: lse, 2018).

Notes to pages 92–7

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77 For a widely read book on the work of Congress, see Roger H. Davidson, Walter J. Oleszek, Frances E. Lee, and Eric Schickler, Congress and Its Members (Washington, dc : cq Press, 2006). 78 Joshua D. Clinton, David E. Lewis, and Jennifer L. Selin, “Influencing the Bureaucracy: The Irony of Congressional Oversight” (working paper 5, Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions, Nashville, 2012). 79 See, for example, Alexander Burns, “Renewing Bond with the nra , Trump Appeals for Help in the Midterms,” New York Times, 4 May 2018. 80 See John Greenwood, “td Bank Puts Its Faith in Lord Gus (a.k.a. God),” Financial Post, 12 June 2012. 81 snc -Lavalin, “Kevin Lynch Named as snc -Lavalin Chairman as Lawrence Stevenson Confirms His Retirement,” Cision: News, 19 December 2001. 82 Elisabeth Bauer and Marie Thiel with Irene Vlad, Transparency Unit, Directorate-General for the Presidency, New Lobbying Law in France (Brussels: European Parliamentary Research Service, July 2018). 83 See, among others, Stephen P. Osborne, ed., The New Public Governance: Emerging Perspectives on the Theory and Practice of Public Governance (London: Routledge, 2010). 84 Dennis Grube, “Civil Servants Are Taking on an Increasingly Public Role, Allowing for Perceptions of Partisanship to Emerge,” London School of Economics and Political Science (lse ), 25 February 2015. 85 John Halligan, “Politicization of Public Services in Comparative Perspective,” Oxford Research Encyclopedia, 22 January 2021, https://doi. org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.1372. 86 Dean Beeby, “Top Bureaucrats Met to Resist Partisanship Imposed on Public Service,” cbc website, 2 November 2015. 87 Simon Caulkin, “Policy Tsars – Do They Ever Work?,” Guardian, 5 June 2013. 88 See, for example, David Dayen, “Trump Kicks Off the Return of the Czars,” The Nation, 22 December 2016. 89 Clement Fatovic, Outside the Law: Emergency and Executive Power (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). 90 Kevin Sholette, “The American Czars,” Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy 20, no. 1 (Fall 2010): 224. 91 “AP Sources: Trump Considers Adding ‘Immigration Czar,’” nbc News website, 1 April 2019. 92 David Scott Bell, Presidential Power in Fifth Republic France (Oxford: Berg, 2000), 123.

246

Notes to pages 99–104

c ha p t e r f o u r 1 Hayward and Wright, Governing from the Centre, 60. 2 Mickey Edwards, “We No Longer Have Three Branches of Government,” Politico magazine, 27 February 2017. 3 John A. Fairlie, “The Administrative Powers of the President,” Michigan Law Review 2, no. 3 (December 1903), 192. 4 Jonathan Craft and John Halligan, Advising Governments in the Westminster Tradition: Policy Advisory Systems in Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). 5 Chris Eichbaum and Richard Shaw, “Two faces of Politicisation: Administrative and functional politicization within the New Zealand Core Executive,” International Conference on Public Policy, Montreal, 26–28 June 2019. 6 See, for example, Craft and Halligan, Advising Governments in the Westminster Tradition, 55. 7 Shirley Williams, “The Decision Makers,” in Royal Institute of Public Administration, Policy and Practice: The Experience of Government (London: ripa , 1980), 81. 8 See, for example, Sandford F. Borins, “Public Choice: ‘Yes Minister’ Made It Popular, but Does Winning a Nobel Prize Make It True?,” Canadian Public Administration 31, no. 1 (Spring 1988): 22. 9 Jonathan Craft, “Conceptualizing Partisan Advisers as Policy Workers,” Policy Sciences Journal 42, no. 2 (2015): 141. 10 Former prime minister Jean Chrétien made this point to me on three occasions. I was a member of his transition team when he came to power in 1993. 11 The full name was Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities, otherwise known as the Gomery Commission, appointed in 2004. 12 “Executive Branch,” article of the Constitution, signed in convention 17 September 1787 and ratified 21 June 1788, www.constitutioncenter.org. 13 “Appointments Clause,” n.d., https://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/ articles/2/essays/91/appointments-clause. 14 Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, Why Is Trump’s Staff Turnover Higher than the 5 Most Recent Presidents? (Washington, dc : Brookings, 2018). 15 See, for example, “Why Is It So Hard for Joe Biden to Hire People?,” The Economist, 27 March 2021, https://www.economist.com/unitedstates/2021/03/25/why-is-it-so-hard-for-joe-biden-to-hire-people.

Notes to pages 104–7

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16 Anne Joseph O’Connell, After One Year in Office, Trump’s Behind on Staffing but Making Steady Progress (Washington, dc : Brookings, 2018). 17 Ibid. 18 Natasha Bach, “All the Acting Heads of Trump’s Presidency,” Fortune, 27 November 2019. 19 Quoted in Sabrina Siddiqui, “Donald Trump’s Preference for ‘Acting’ Senior Officials Alarms Experts and Allies,” Guardian, 10 April 2019. 20 See, among others, David E. Lewis, “Presidential Appointments and Personnel,” Annual Review of Political Science 14 (June 2011): 47–66. 21 Hugh Heclo, A Government of Strangers: Executive Politics in Washington (Washington, dc : Brookings Institution Press, 2011). 22 William T. Gormley, Taming the Bureaucracy: Muscles, Prayers and Other Strategies (Princeton, nj : Princeton University Press, 1989), 134. See also Terry M. Moe, “The Politicized Presidency,” in The New Direction in American Politics, ed. John E. Chubb and Paul E. Peterson (Washington, dc: Brookings Institution Press, 1985), 260. See, among others, Steven Kelman, Making Public Policy: A Hopeful View of American Government (New York: Basic Books, 1987), 101; and the Reagan adviser was Henri Salvatore, quoted in Dom Bonafede, “Reagan and His Kitchen Cabinet Are Bound by Friendship and Ideology,” National Journal 12, no. 15 (April 1981): 608. 23 See, among others, Julian E. Zelizer, The Presidency of Barack Obama: A First Historical Assessment (Princeton, nj : Princeton University Press, 2018). 24 See, for example, Robin Bravender, “Documents Reveal Trump Is Building His Own ‘Deep State’ by Leaving Political Appointees behind in Government for the Biden Administration,” Business Insider, 12 November 2020, www.businessinsider.com/trump-burrowingadministration-biden-government-employees-agencies-deep-state2020-11. 25 See, for example, Emily Haws, “‘Kids in Short Pants’ Rule All, Says New Samara Report,” Hill Times, 5 November 2018, 1 and 32. 26 C.E.S. Frank, “Tenure of Canadian Deputy Ministers, 1996–2005: Notes and Comments” (unpublished paper, Kingston, on , 29 June 2006), 7 and 15. 27 Donald J. Savoie, Court Government and the Collapse of Accountability in Canada and the United Kingdom (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 247. 28 Jacques Bourgault, Profile of Deputy Ministers in the Government of Canada (Ottawa: Canada School of Public Service, 2005), 14.

248

Notes to pages 107–12

29 Canada, Merit and Non-Partisanship under the Public Service Employment Act (2003) (Ottawa: Public Service Commission of Canada, March 2011), 7, www.canada.ca/content/dam/canada/public-servicecommission/migration/abt-aps/rprt/psea-lefp/special/docs/special-eng.pdf. 30 I was given a copy of the letter signed by Ruth Hubbard, president of the Public Service Commission of Canada, dated 21 November 1997. 31 Arthur Kroger quoted in Savoie, Governing from the Centre, 302. 32 Sir Christopher Foster, Why Are We So Badly Governed? (London: Public Management and Policy Association, 2005), 11. 33 See, for example, Jacques Bourgault and Christopher Dunn, eds. Deputy Ministers in Canada: Comparative and Jurisdictional Perspective (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014). 34 See, for example, Andrew Greenway, “Churn to the Top of the Civil Service Rewards Managers, not Leaders,” Civil Service World, 14 November 2016. 35 Quoted in the Newsroom, “Blair’s Rule Full of Gaffes, Spin and Control Freakery, Says Mandarin,” Scotsman, 10 December 2004. 36 lse gv 314 Group “New Life at the Top: Special Advisers in British Government,” Parliamentary Affairs 65, no. 4 (2012): 715–32. 37 See, for example, Keith Dowling, The Civil Service (London: Routledge, 1995). 38 See, among others, Andrew Blick, “Special Advisers in the United Kingdom: Tensions in Whitehall,” in Ministers, Minders and Mandarins: An International Study of Relationships at the Executive Summit of Parliamentary Democracies, ed. Richard Shaw and Chris Eichbaum (London: Edward Elgar, 2018), 180–97. 39 Code of Conduct for Special Advisers (London: Cabinet Office, 2009), https://www.civilservant.org.uk/library/2009_spads_code.pdf. 40 Gordon Brown, My Life, Our Times (London: The Bodley Head, 2017), 128. 41 See, for example, Craft and Halligan, Advisory Government in the Westminster Tradition, 93. 42 Ibid., 94–5. 43 Ibid. 44 See, for example, “Cummings v the blob,” The Economist, 8 February 2020, 50. 45 Craft and Halligan, Advisory Government in the Westminster Tradition. 46 Edward C. Page and Bill Jenkins, Policy Bureaucracy: Government with a Cost of Thousands (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 47 Anderson, Government in France, 18.

Notes to pages 112–16 48 49 50 51 52

53 54 55 56

57

58

59

60 61

62 63 64 65

249

Ibid., 19. Ibid., 20. Ibid., 114. “Emmanuel Macron in Office,” www.elysée.fr, n.d. Philippe Bezes, “The Reform of the State: The French Bureaucracy in the Age of New Public Management,” in Developments in French Politics 4, ed. Alistair Cole, Patrick Le Galès, and Jonah Levy (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2008), 261–88. Andrew Knapp and Vincent Wright, The Government and Politics of France, 5th ed. (London: Routledge, 2006), 289–92. Paun, Supporting Ministers to Lead. Ibid., 9. Gildas Tanguy, “Des hauts fonctionnaires au service de l’État ou du pouvoir? Retour sur l’histoire d’un corps: les préfets de la République,” in France and Its Public Administrations: A State of the Art, ed. Jean-Michel Eymeri-Douzans and Geert Bouckaert (Brussels: Groupe Larcier, 2013), 129 and 131. Charles S. Clark, “Deconstructing the Deep State,” Government Executive, n.d., https://www.govexec.com/feature/gov-exec-deconstructingdeep-state/. See, among others, Christopher Pollitt and Geert Bouckaert, Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis – New Public Management, Governance and the Neo-Weberian State, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). See, for example, Alastair Cole, “Reforming the French State: New Public Management and Its Limits” (paper presented to the Workshop on Administrative Reform, Democratic Governance, and the Quality of Government, Joint Sessions of the ecpr , Rennes, 11–16 April 2008). Bezes and Jeannot, Public Sector Reform in France, 33. Merit and Non-Partisanship Under the Public Service Employment Act (2003), A Special Report to Parliament (Ottawa: Public Service Commission of Canada, March 2011), 7, 10, and 17. See, among many others, Savoie, Democracy in Canada. See, among many others, Bezes and Jeannot, Public Sector Reform in France, 34. See, among others, Eric Katz, “Firing Line,” Government Executive, n.d., https://www.govexec.com/feature/firing-line/. Christopher Hood and Martin Lodge, The Politics of Public Service Bargains: Reward, Competency, Loyalty – and Blame (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

250

Notes to pages 116–24

66 Savoie, Breaking the Bargain. 67 Vernon Bogdanor, “Oxford and the Mandarin Culture: The Past that Is Gone,” Oxford Review of Education 32, no. 1 (February 2006): 160. 68 See, among others, David Ewing Duncan, “Why Do Our Best and Brightest End Up in Silicon Valley and Not dc ?,” The Atlantic, 6 May 2012. 69 Michael White, “Margaret Thatcher: Looking Back on the Life of the Iron Lady,” Guardian, 8 April 2013. 70 Marshall Cohen, “Trump Contradicts Past Denials, Admits Sending Giuliani to Ukraine,” cnn Politics, 14 February 2020. 71 Ruth Levitt, “Why Are Tsars so Popular with This Government,” Guardian, 15 October 2013. 72 See, for example, Committee on Standards in Public Life, The Seven Principles of Public Life (London: GOV.UK, May 1995), https://www.gov. uk/government/publications/the-7-principles-of-public-life. 73 See, for example, Kathryn May, “Canadians Lack Faith in Upper Ranks of Public Service: Survey,” Ottawa Citizen, September 7, 2016; and Lee Rainie, Scott Keeter, and Andrew Perrin, “Trust and Distrust in America,” Pew Research Center, July 22, 2019, www.pewresearch.org/politics/ 2019/07/22/trust-and-distrust-in-america/.

c h a p t e r f i ve 1 Hugh Heclo and Aaron Wildavsky, The Private Government of Public Money: Community and Policy Inside British Politics (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1981). 2 See, among others, Savoie, The Politics of Public Spending in Canada. 3 Douglas G. Hartle, “The Role of the Auditor of Canada,” Canadian Tax Journal 25, no. 3 (1975): 197. 4 Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney, 4. 5 Allen Schick, Budget Innovation in the States (Washington, dc : Brookings Institution, 1971). 6 Deborah Shapley, Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert McNamara (Boston: Little Brown, 1993). 7 Barry Anderson, Sandy Davis, and Theresa Gullo, “The Evolution of the Federal Budget Process,” Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting and Financial Management 15, no. 2 (2003): 239–50. 8 A.W. Johnson, “ppb and Decision Making in the Government of Canada,” Cost and Management, March–April 1971, 14. 9 Robert F. Addie and Paul G. Thomas, Canadian Public Administration (Scarborough, on : Prentice Hall, 1987), 171.

Notes to pages 125–9

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10 Kenneth Kernaghan and David Siegel, Public Administration in Canada (Toronto: Methuen 19877), 532. 11 Allen Schick, “Can National Legislatures Regain an Effective Voice in Budget Policy?” oecd Journal on Budgeting 1, no. 3 (2002): 18. 12 See, among others, Gene A. Brewer, “All Measures of Performance Are Subjective: More Evidence on U.S. Federal Agencies,” in Public Service Performance: Perspectives on Measurement and Management, ed. George A. Boyne, Kenneth J. Meier, Laurence J. O’Toole Jr, Richard M. Walker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 13 Ian D. Clark and Harry Swain, “Distinguishing the Real from the Surreal in Management Reform: Suggestions for Beleaguered Administrators in the Government of Canada,” Canadian Public Administration 48, no. 4 (Winter 2005): 458. 14 See Canada, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat – Industry Canada Report, Estimates and Supply, 2011–12, www.tbs-sct.gc.ca. 15 James E. Campbell, The American Campaign: U.S. Presidential Campaigns and the National Vote (College Station, tx : Texas A&M Press, 2000). 16 Ruth Hubbard and Gilles Paquet, “Not in the Catbird Seat: Pathologies of Government,” Optimum Online, June 2009, 6. 17 US Government, Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (Washington, dc : Congress), accessed 10 April, 2019, https://www. congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/senate-bill/20. See also Alfred Ho, “gpra after a Decade: Lessons from the Government Performance and Results Act and Related Federal Reforms,” Public Performance and Management Review 30, no. 3 (March 2007): 307–11. 18 US Government, gpra Modernization Act of 2010, 4 January 2011, www.congress./111/plaws/publ352/PLAW-111publ352.pdf. 19 Ibid., 3 20 Donald Moynihan, “United States,” in Towards Next-Generation Performance Budgeting, ed. Donald Moynihan and Ivor Beazley (Washington, dc : World Bank Group, 2016), 150–7. 21 David A. Good, The Politics of Public Spending Money, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014). 22 Derek Armstrong, Performance (-informed) Budgeting in the Government of Canada (Canada: Treasury Board Secretariat, October 2018). 23 Julian Kelly, “Performance Budgeting: United Kingdom Experience,” (paper presented to the 11th Annual oecd Asian Senior Budget Officials Meeting, Bangkok, 17 December 2015). 24 See, among others, Michael Barber, Instruction to Deliver: Fighting to Transform Britain’s Public Services (London: Methuen, 2008).

252

Notes to pages 129–32

25 Gregory Richards and Matt Chegus, “Does ‘Deliverology’ Deliver?,” mimeo, n.d., 13–4, https://old.iog.ca/research-publications/publications/ does-deliverology-deliver/. 26 See, for example, Rachel Curran, “Will ‘Deliverology’ Work for the Federal Government?,” Policy Options, 27 April 2016, https://policyoptions.irpp. org/magazines/april-2016/is-deliverology-right-for-canada/. 27 Adam Radwanski, “Trudeau’s ‘Deliverology’ on the Verge of Becoming a Punchline,” Globe and Mail, 17 November 2017. 28 Konrad Yakabuski, “Trudeau Government’s Deliverology Experiment Ends with a Whimper,” Globe and Mail, 6 March 2020. 29 Delphine Moretti, “Budgeting in France” (presentation to the oecd at the 39th Annual sbo meeting, Jerusalem, 6–7 June 2018). 30 Ibid. 31 Gilles Jeannot and Danièle Guillemot, “French Public Management Reform: An Evaluation,” International Journal of Public Sector Management 26, no. 4 (2013): 283–97. 32 France, Budget Reform and State Modernisation in France (Paris: Ministère de l’Économie, des Finances et de l’Industrie, 2018), 2. 33 Frank Mordacq, “France,” in Toward Next-Generation Performance Budgeting, ed. Donald Moynihan and Ivor Beazley (Washington, dc : World Bank Group, 2016), 87–8. 34 oecd , Performance Budgeting: A User’s Guide (Paris: oecd Policy Brief, 2008), 2–3. 35 Public Governance Committee Working Party of Senior Budget Officials, oecd Best Practices for Performance Budgeting (Paris: oecd , 23 November 2018), 8–9. 36 Richard Dicerni, former deputy minister of industry in the federal government, made this observation in an interview with the author, while working on an earlier book, Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher? 37 See, among many others, Canada, Evaluating the Effectiveness of Programs, 2009 Fall Report of the Auditor General of Canada (Ottawa: Office of the Auditor General of Canada, 2009), 3–5. 38 Inger J. Pettersen and Kari Nyland, “Management and Control of Public Hospitals – The Use of Performance Measures in Norwegian Hospitals: A Case Study,” The International Journal of Health Planning and Management 21, no. 2 (2006): 133–49. 39 See, among many others, Christopher Pollitt, “The Evolving Narratives of Public Management Reform,” Public Management Review 15, no. 6 (September 2013): 899–922.

Notes to pages 133–7

253

40 Paul C. Light, A Cascade of Failures: Why Government Fails and How to Stop It (Washington, dc : Brookings, July 2014), 1. 41 Peter H. Schuck, Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better (Princeton, nj : Princeton University Press, 2014), 4. 42 See, for example, Donald J. Savoie, Democracy in Canada: The Disintegration of Our Institutions (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019). 43 See Donald J. Savoie, What Is Government Good At? A Canadian Answer (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015), 66. 44 Allen Schick, “Can National Legislature Regain an Effective Voice in Budget Policy?,” oecd Journal on Budgeting 1, no. 3 (2002): 29. 45 “How Should Tax Money be Spent?,” bbc News (London), 25 September 2010, https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/haveyoursay/2010/09/how_should_ tax_money_be_spent.html. 46 Chad Merda, “Americans Say Federal Government Wastes 51 Cents on the Dollar,” Chicago Sun Times, 18 September 2014. 47 “Sondage: 74% des Français favorables à la baisse des dépenses de l’État,” Contrepoints, 12 February 2019. 48 Canada, Financial Management and Government Sending: Reports to Parliament by Topic (Ottawa: Office of the Auditor General, Spring 2020). 49 See, for example, Sandford Borins, “The Theory and Practice of Envelope Budgeting” (York University, Toronto, Faculty of Administration Studies, January 1980), 3. 50 Jean Chrétien, Straight from the Heart (Toronto: Key Porter Books, 1985), 117–18. 51 Ibid., 117. 52 Peter Hennessy, The Blair Centre: A Question of Command and Control? (London: Public Management Foundation, 1999), 9. 53 David Cameron, “The Age of Austerity” (speech), 26 April 2009, https:// conservative-speeches.sayit.mysociety.org/speech/601367. 54 For a full account of the impact the Wall Street Journal editorial had on the government, see Peter Aucoin and Donald J. Savoie, “Launching and Organizing a Program Review Exercise” (paper prepared for the Canadian Centre for Management Development, Ottawa, 1988), 2. 55 See Arthur Kroeger, “The Central Agencies and Program Review” (paper prepared for the Canadian Centre for Management Development, Ottawa, n.d.), 11. 56 Ibid. See also Edward Greenspon and Anthony Wilson-Smith, Double Vision: The Inside Story of the Liberals in Power (Toronto: Doubleday Canada, 1996).

254

Notes to pages 137–41

57 David Chazan and Henry Samuel, “Emmanuel Macron Unveils Plans to Slash Taxes and Public Sector Jobs,” Telegraph (UK), 24 February 2017. 58 Alissa J. Rubin, “France’s Top General Resigns in Dispute over Military Spending,” New York Times, 19 July 2017. 59 Kevin Breuniger and Jacob Pramuk, “Trump Says Each Cabinet Secretary Should Slash 5% of their Budgets after He Pledges to Cut Spending,” cnbc, 17 October 2018. 60 Bill Curry, “Speaker Rebukes Morneau over ‘Massive’ Budget Bill,” Globe and Mail, 6 November 2018. 61 See, among others, Joseph Choi, “Ocasio-Cortez, Other Lawmakers Criticize Lack of Time to Review Mammoth Bill,” The Hill News, 21 January 2020. 62 oecd , “France’s High Council for Public Finances,” oecd Journal on Budgeting no. 2 (2015): 117–26; and Frank Mordacq, “Budgetary Reform and Parliament: The French Experience” (paper presented to the International Symposium on the Changing Role of Parliament in the Budget Process, Turkey, 8–9 October 2008). 63 Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney. 64 William A. Niskanen, “Reaganomics,” Library of Economics and Liberty, 1988, https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Reaganomics.html. See also Monica Prasad, Starving the Beast: Ronald Reagan and the Tax Cut Revolution (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2018). 65 Budgets and Projections, “Spending Has Increased $800 Billion Under President Trump,” Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, 12 February 2020, www.crfb.org/blogs/spending-has-increased-800billion-under-president-trump. 66 Peter Hennessy quoted in Michael Cockerell, Blair’s Thousand Days: The Lady and the Lords (59:27 min.), bbc Two Production, 30 January 2000. 67 The note was prepared for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien for a meeting with his minister of finance to be held on 20 February 2002 in Ottawa. 68 Congressional Budget Office, www.cbo.gov, n.d. 69 Donald F. Kettl, “Bureaucracy,” in Understanding America: the Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation, ed. Peter H. Schuck and John Q. Wilson (New York: Public Affairs, 2008), 139. 70 See, among others, Jeff Stein, Erica Werner, and Renae Merle, “Trump Attempts to Wrest Tax and Spending Powers from Congress with New Executive Actions,” Washington Post, 8 August 2020. 71 See, for example, Martin J. Smith, “The Institutions of Central Government,” in Fundamentals in British Politics, ed. Ian Holliday, Andrew Gamble, and Geraint Parry (London: Macmillan, 1999), 103.

Notes to pages 141–9

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72 Allen Schick, “The Metamorphoses of Performance Budgeting,” oecd Journal on Budgeting 13, no. 2 (2014): 51. 73 “Canada Returns to Complex Spending System after Failed Attempts at Reform,” Hill Times, 26 February 2020, 1 and 6.

chapter six 1 Karime Tadjeddine, “‘A Duty to Modernize’: Reforming the French Civil Service,” McKinsey and Company, 1 April 2011. 2 “The Meaning of Conservatism,” The Economist, 14 March 2020, 45. 3 Ronald Reagan, “Inaugural Address,” Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute, 20 January 1981, https://www.reaganfoundation. org/ronald-reagan/reagan-quotes-speeches/inaugural-address-1/. 4 David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit Is Transforming the Public Sector (New York: Plume, 1993). 5 See, among others, Christopher Hood, “Public Management for All Seasons,” Public Administration 69, no. 1 (March 1991): 3–19. 6 Consultation with a senior government of Canada official, by telephone with the author, 26 August 2019. 7 See, among others, Christopher Hood, The Blame Game: Spin, Bureaucracy and Self-Preservation in Government (Princeton, nj : Princeton University Press, 2010). 8 Christopher Hood, Colin Scott, Oliver James, George Jones, and Tony Travers, Regulation Inside Government: Waste-Watchers, Quality Police, and Sleaze-Busters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). 9 Paul Light, Monitoring Government: Inspectors General and the Search for Accountability (Washington, dc : Brookings Institution Press, 1993). 10 David Chazan, “French Taxpayers Spend More than $1.4 million on Wages of 30 Civil Servants for Doing Nothing,” Ottawa Citizen, 30 June 2019; Jolson Lim, “$78 Pens, 5,200 Rubber Ducks among $6.7M in Promo Items Bought by Feds,” iPolitics, 23 May 2019; Brian Riedl, “50 Examples of Government Waste,” Heritage Foundation, 9 October 2009; and “Eighinger: Shipping Charges for Those 89-cent Washers Can Bust Budget,” Herald-Whig, 1 November 2012. 11 Jack Aubry, “Government Spent $25,000, Got 2 Pages on Accountability,” Ottawa Citizen, 13 March 2004, 4. 12 Hood, The Blame Game. 13 Ibid., 5.

256

Notes to pages 150–2

14 Sharon Sutherland, “The Al-Mashat Affair: Administrative Accountability in Parliamentary Institutions,” Canadian Public Administration 34, no. 4 (1991): 583. 15 Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney. 16 See, for example, Gwyn Bevan and Christopher Hood, “Have Targets Improved Performance in the English nhs ?” British Medical Journal 332 (February 2006): 419–22. 17 Quoted in Guy Lodge and Ben Rogers, Whitehall’s Black Box: Accountability and Performance in the Senior Civil Service (London: Institute for Public Policy Research, 2006), 48. 18 Donald J. Savoie, chapter 11 in Court Government and the Collapse of Accountability in Canada and the United Kingdom (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008). 19 See, among others, John Stein Monroe, “Pay for Performance Haunted by nsps Failure,” fcw (Federal Computer Week), 29 October 2009. 20 oecd , Performance-Related Pay Policies for Government Employees (Paris: oecd , 2005), 118. 21 John P. Burns, “Policy Challenges of Public Sector Human Resource Management,” in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Public Administration, ed. B. Guy Peters and Ian Thynne (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021); and James L. Perry, Managing Organizations to Sustain Passion for Public Service (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). 22 See, among others, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, 2019 Public Service Employee Survey (Ottawa: Government of Canada, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, 2019). 23 Robert D’Aoust, Federal Public Service Management Reforms: Consolidated Views and Results (Ottawa: University of Ottawa, 2021), 2, 4. 24 See, for example, Edward C. Page and Bill Jenkins, chapter 5 in Policy Bureaucracy: Government with a Cast of Thousands (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 25 Peter Aucoin, “New Political Governance in Westminster Systems: Impartial Public Administration and Management Performance at Risk,” Governance 25, no. 2 (2012): 177–99. 26 “The Partisan Brain,” The Economist, 8 December 2018, 33. 27 Thomas Homer-Dixon, Heather Douglas, and Lucie Edwards, “Fix the Link Where Science and Policy Meet,” Globe and Mail, 23 June 2014, 6. 28 Hannah Devlin and Sarah Boseley, “Scientists Criticise UK Government’s ‘Following the Science’ Claim,” Guardian, 23 April 2020.

Notes to pages 152–5

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29 Ian Sample, Kate Proctor, and Rowena Mason, “UK Scientists Being Drawn into ‘Very Unpleasant’ Political Situation,” Guardian, 6 May 2020. 30 Aucoin, “New Political Governance.” 31 The document “Reviewing Expenditures” was prepared, as far back as 9 June 2002, by the Government of Canada. 32 Denis Saint-Martin, Building the New Managerialist State: Consultants and the Politics of Public Sector Reform in Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 191. 33 Alistair Cole, “Reforming the French State: New Public Management and Its Limits” (paper presented to the Workshop on Administrative Reform, Joint Session of the ecrr , Rennes, 11–16th April 2008), mimeo, 4. 34 Archibald Buttle, “Libérons les fonctionnaires,” Contrepoints, 9 May 2019, www.contrepoints.org/2019/05/09/336661-liberons-lesonctionnaires. 35 Bezes and Jeannot, Public Sector Reform in France, 56. 36 Alistair Cole and Glyn Jones, “Reshaping the State: Administrative Reform and New Public Management in France,” Governance 18, no. 4 (2005): 580. 37 Saint-Martin, Building the New Managerialist State, 191. 38 Alistair Cole, “Où va la réforme de l’État en France,” in La France et ses administrations: un état des savoirs, ed. Jean-Michel Eymeri Douzans and Geert Bouckaert (Bruxelles: Groupe Larcier, 2013), 539. 39 Christopher Hood and Colin Scott, “Bureaucratic Regulation and New Public Management in the United Kingdom: Mirror-Image Developments?” Journal of Law and Society 23, no. 3 (September 1986): 321. 40 National Audit Office, Reducing Bureaucracy for Public Sector Frontline Staff (London, UK: National Audit Office, 2019), 4. 41 Ibid., 19. 42 “Leaner Government–The President’s Management Agenda,” n.d., https:// trumpadministration.archives.performance.gov/PMA/PMA.html. 43 gao (Government Accountability Office), Managing for Results (Washington, dc : United States Government Accountability Office, September 2018). 44 See, for example, Forrest V. Morgeson and Claudia Petrescu, “Do They All Perform Alike? An Examination of Perceived Performance, Citizen Satisfaction and Trust with US Federal Agencies,” International Review of Administrative Sciences 77, no. 3 (September 2011): 451–79. 45 See, for example, Aamer Baig, Andre Dua, and Vivian Riefberg, Putting Citizens First, McKinsey and Company, November 2014.

258

Notes to pages 155–8

46 Andrew Dugan, “U.S. Satisfaction with the Government Remains Low,” Gallup: Politics, 28 February 2018. See first graph on “U.S. System of Government, How Well It Works.” 47 “Public Service Survey,” Ipsos mori , 12 February 2007, https://www. ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/public-services-survey. 48 ukcsi , The State of Customer Satisfaction in the UK – July 2020 (London, UK: Institute of Customer Service, 2020). See also Deloitte Perspectives, “What Citizens Think about the Public Sector: The State of the State” (London: Deloitte, 2020). 49 Canadians’ Satisfaction with Public Services (Toronto: Environics Institute, September 2019). 50 See Brian Marson and Ralph Heintzman, From Research to Results: A Decade of Results-Based Service Improvement in Canada (Toronto: iapc, 2000). 51 Special Feature: Serving Citizens (Paris: oecd , 2014). 52 Nada Abdelkader Benmansour, “Qualité et services publics ‘à la française’: où en est-on de la qualité publique en France?” Recherches en sciences de gestion 4, no. 85 (2011): 109–46. 53 See, among other contributions, Luc Rouban, “La réforme e la fonction publique: Mission impossible?” L’actualité juridique fonction publique no. 2 (April 2018): 63–5. 54 Claude Fouquet, “Services publics: L’opinion des Français s’est nettement améliorée,” LesEchos, 14 December 2017. 55 Steven Van de Walle, “Explaining Citizen Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction with Public Service,” The Palgrave Handbook of Public Administration and Management in Europe (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 227–41. 56 Pippa Norris, Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 57 Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (Cambridge, mit : Harvard University Press, 1970). 58 Daniel Leblanc, “Millions of Canadians Unable to Reach Federal Government on the Phone: Auditor General,” Globe and Mail, 7 May 2019. 59 Aaron Lorenzo, “Please Hang Up and Try Again: irs Phone Lines Already Swamped,” Politico, 16 February 2021, https://www.politico.com/ news/2021/02/16/irs-tax-season-469182. 60 “Here’s What the French Hate about Bureaucracy in France,” The Local (France), 25 September 2019, www.thelocal.fr/20190925/ too-much-bureaucracy-in-france-study-finds.

Notes to pages 158–60

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61 Sean Worth, Better Public Services: A Roadmap for Revolution (London: Policy Exchange, 2013), 19. 62 Complaints Procedure, www.gov.uk/government/organisations/cabinetoffice/about/complaints-procedure. 63 Andrew Greenway, “For e-Government to Flourish, Policy-Making Must Change,” Policy Options, 31 January 2019, https://policyoptions.irpp.org/ authors/andrew-greenway/. 64 Pew Research Center, “Beyond Distrust: How Americans View Their Government,” 23 November 2015, https://www.pewresearch.org/ politics/2015/11/23/beyond-distrust-how-americans-view-their-government. 65 American Customer Satisfaction Index, acsi Federal Government Report 2014, 27 January 2015, www.the acsi.org. 66 Based on the survey “Citizen Engagement and Service in the Federal Space” conducted by the Government Business Council, in “New Study Reveals 60% of Federal Executives Recognize Citizens are “Frustrated” with Government Customer Service,” Business Newswire, 16 March 2011, https://www. businesswire.com/news/home/20110316005507/en/New-Study-Reveals-60-ofFederal-Executives-Recognize-Citizens-are-%E2%80%9CFrustrated%E2 %80%9D-with-Government-Customer-Service. 67 Tim Hwang, “The Government’s Failure to Keep Up with Technology Is Hurting All of Us,” Government Executive, 6 December 2017. 68 Colin Talbot, “Executive Agencies: Have They Improved Management in Government?” Public Money and Management 24, no. 2 (2004): 104–12. 69 Colin Talbot and Carole Johnson, “Seasonal Cycles in Public Management: Disaggregation and Re-aggregation,” Public Money and Management 27, no. 2 (2007): 104–12. 70 Tom Christensen and Per Laegreid, “The Whole-of-Government Approach to Public Sector Reform,” Public Administration Review 67, no. 6 (November-December 2007): 1059–66. 71 Vernon Bogdanor, Joined-Up Government (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 005). 72 Gemma Carey and Brad Crammond, “What Works in Joined-Up Government? An Evidence Synthesis,” International Journal of Public Administration 18 (2005): 1–10. 73 Brian Head and John Alford, “Wicked Problems: Implications for Public Policy and Management,” Administration and Society 47, no. 6 (2013): 711–39. 74 Donald F. Kettl, The Next Government of the United States: Why Our Institutions Fail Us and How to Fix Them (New York: W.W. Norton, 2009), 97.

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Notes to pages 160–6

75 B. Guy Peters, “The Challenge of Policy Coordination,” Policy Design and Practice 1, no. 1 (2018): 4. 76 Colonel Kenneth R. Dahl, New Security for New Threats: The Case for Reforming the Interagency Process (Washington, dc : Brookings Institution, 2007), 12. 77 Ibid., 4. 78 Canada, Canada’s Public Service in 2017 (Ottawa: Policy Horizon, n.d.). 79 Barry Bozeman, “A Theory of Government Red Tape,” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 3, no. 3 (1993): 273–304. 80 Wesley Kaufmann, Gabel Taggart, and Barry Bozeman, “Administrative Delay, Red Tape, and Organizational Performance,” Public Performance and Management Review 42, no. 3 (2019): 545. 81 Oliver James, “The Rise of Regulation of the Public Sector in the United Kingdom,” Open Edition Journals 47, no. 3 (July–September 2005): 331, https://journals.openedition.org/sdt/26631. 82 oecd , Cutting Red Tape: Publication Series (Paris: oecd , n.d.). See, in particular within the series, Comparing Administrative Burdens across Countries (Paris: oecd , 2007). 83 Reducing Bureaucracy for Public Sector Frontline Staff (London: National Audit Office – Briefing for the Regulatory Reform Committee, December 2009), 5. 84 Quoted in Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney, 9. 85 Talbot, “Executive Agencies,” 104. 86 Canada, 2017 Public Service Employee Survey (Ottawa: Treasury Board Secretariat, 2013). 87 Kathryn May, “Canadians Lack Faith in Upper Ranks of Public Service: Survey,” Ottawa Citizen, 7 September 2016. 88 See, among others, Christoph Demmke, Are Civil Servants Different Because They Are Civil Servants (Luxembourg: European Institute of Public Administration, 2005).

c h a p t e r se ve n 1 Donald J. Savoie, What Is Government Good At? A Canadian Answer (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2015), 119. 2 Bernardo Zacka, “Why Bureaucrats Don’t Seem to Care,” The Atlantic, 12 October 2017. 3 Benoit Guerin, Julian McCrae, and Marcus Shepheard, Accountability in Modern Government: What Are the Issues? (London: Institute for Government, 2018), 3.

Notes to pages 166–9

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4 Emmanuel Martin, “France’s Bureaucratic Challenge,” Geopolitical Intelligence Services, 10 July 2020, https://www.gisreportsonline.com/ frances-bureaucratic-challenge,politics,3239.html. 5 Canada, Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities, 2005 and 2006. 6 See, for example, Schuck, Why Government Fails So Often. 7 B. Guy Peters, “Searching for a Role: The Civil Service in American Democracy,” International Political Science Review 14, no. 4 (1993): 373–86. 8 See, among many others, Hood and Lodge, The Politics of Public Service Bargains. 9 See, for example, Ron Hodges, “Joined-Up Government and the Challenges to Accounting and Accountability Researchers,” Financial Accountability and Management 28, no. 1 (February 2012): 26–51. 10 Elaine C. Kamarck, “Civil Servants and Politicians – A Not So Civil Relationship,” Governing magazine, 19 July 2006. 11 See, among others, Victor Mallet, “France Launches ‘Profound’ Reform of Civil Service,” Financial Times, 27 March 2019. 12 Anthony King and Ivor Crewe, The Blunders of Our Governments (London: Oneworld Publications, 2014). 13 Sir David Normington, “The Blunders of Our Governments – Review by Sir David Normington gcb ,” review of The Blunders of our Governments, by A. King and I. Crewe, Civil Service Quarterly, 15 July 2014. 14 See, among many others, the Colette Bowe and the Westland affair in Britain, the Al-Mashat affair in Canada, and the numerous instances when political advisors held “off-the-record briefings” to the media and identified career officials. 15 Guerin, McCrae, and Shepheard, Accountability in Modern Government, 5. 16 Quoted in Mayank Aggarwal, “‘He Works for Me’: Trump Jealously Hits Out at Favourable Media Coverage of Fauci,” Independent, 4 January 2021. 17 Grace Panetta, “Fauci Says He Doesn’t Regret Telling Americans Not to Wear Masks at the Beginning of the Pandemic,” Business Insider, 16 July 2020. 18 See, among others, Karen J. Greenberg, “Government Accountability Has Been Long Gone in the US,” The Nation, 4 August 2020. 19 “Americans’ Struggles with Truth, Accuracy and Accountability,” Pew Research Center, 22 July 2019. 20 Andrew Cohen, “Double Foil and Trouble, Foreign Burn and Trade Bubble,” Globe and Mail, 22 February 2005.

262

Notes to pages 169–73

21 Fraser Institute, Government Failure in Canada, 2005 Report (Occasional Paper Series 86, Vancouver: Fraser Institute, October 2005), 39. 22 “Phoenix Replacement Chosen for Testing,” cbc News (Ottawa), 6 March 2020. 23 Tyler Dawson, “Senior Bureaucrats Managing Problem-Plagued Phoenix Pay System Received nearly $2M in Bonuses,” Ottawa Citizen, 5 February 2021. 24 Ibid. 25 Canada, Twenty-First Annual Report to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada (Ottawa: Privy Council Office, 2014), 23. 26 See, among many others, Canada, Report I – Building and Implementing the Phoenix Pay System (Ottawa: Office of the Auditor Genera, 2018), 25–38; Michelle Carbert, “Senior Bureaucrats in Charge of Phoenix Pay System Weren’t Fired,” Globe and Mail, 14 June 2018. 27 See, among others, Christopher Kam, “Not Just Parliamentary, ‘Cowboys and Indians,’ Ministerial Responsibility and Bureaucratic Drift,” Governance 13, no. 3 (July 2000): 380. 28 See, for example, Sir K.C. Wheare, Maladministration and Its Remedies (London: Stevens and Sons, 1973), 94. 29 See, among others, Barry K. Winetrobe, The Accountability Debate: Ministerial Responsibility (London: Home Affairs Section, Research Paper 9716, 28 January 1997), 9. See also Peter Aucoin and Mark D. Jarvis, Modernizing Government Accountability: A Framework for Reform (Ottawa: Canada School of Public Service, 2005), 67. 30 Alex Himelfarb in testimony before House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, 3 May 2004. 31 “14 gaspillages publics qui nous coûtent des milliards d’euros,” Capital, 2 March 2017. 32 Jean-Baptiste Leon, Le livre noir des gaspillages (Paris: Contribuables Associés, 2019). 33 Pierre-Mathieu Duhamel quoted in Franck Dedieu, Béatrice Mathieu, Christian David, and Stéphanie Benz, “Gaspillage de l’argent public: des doublons à foison,” L’Express, 14 November 2013. 34 Chloé Woitier, “Une fonctionnaire risque l’exclusion pour avoir critiqué l’administration dans un livre,” Le Monde, 1 July 2010. 35 Zoé Shepard, Absolument débordée: ou le paradoxe du fonctionnaire (Paris: Albin Michel Littérature, 2010). 36 “Underworked but Exhausted? That’s Not Burnout, That’s Boreout,” Guardian, 9 June 2000.

Notes to pages 173–6

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37 Brian Amble, “Telling It Like It Is,” Management Issues, 2 July 2010, https://www.management-issues.com/news/5982/telling-it-like-it-is/. 38 Government at a Glance, 2017 – France (Paris: oecd , 2017). 39 See Citizens Against Government Waste, “About Us,” www.cagw.org, n.d. 40 See, among others, the Cata Institute. It has a broader mandate than the Citizens Against Government Waste but it does occasionally produce reports under the Government and Politics heading that deal with management in governments. 41 Airon A. Mothershed, “The $435 Hammer and $600 Toilet Seat Scandals: Does Media Coverage of Procurement Scandals Lead to Procurement Reform?,” Public Contract Law Journal 41, no. 4 (Summer 2012): 855–80. 42 See, among others, Brian Riedl, “Top 10 Examples of Government Waste,” Heritage Foundation, 4 April 2005. 43 2020 Annual Report (Washington, dc : Government Accountability Office), 19 May 2020. 44 Charles T. Goodsell, “The Grace Commission: Seeking Efficiency for the Whole People?,” Public Administration Review 44, no. 3 (May-June 1984), 196–204; Gerald E. Caiden, Administrative Reform Comes of Age (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1991), 216. 45 See Steven Kelman, “The Grace Commission: How Much Waste in Government?” The Public Interest no. 78 (Winter 1985): 62. 46 Schuck, Why Government Fails So Often, 310. 47 Janet Nguyen, “The U.S. Government Is Becoming More Dependent on Contract Workers,” Marketplace, 17 January 2019. 48 See Kristin Tate, “The Sheer Size of Our Government Workforce Is an Alarming Problem,” The Hill, 2 November 2020. 49 Lisa Rein, Tom Hamburger, Juliet Eilperin, and Andrew Freedman, “How Trump Waged War on His Own Government,” Washington Post, 29 October 2020. 50 Schuck, Why Government Fails So Often, 316. 51 Paul C. Light, A Government Ill Executed: The Decline of the Federal Service and How to Reverse It (Cambridge, mit : Harvard University Press, 2009). 52 Paul C. Light, “Perp Walks and the Broken Bureaucracy,” Wall Street Journal, 27 April 2012. 53 Light, Government Ill Executed, 58. 54 Schuck, Why Government Fails So Often, 318. 55 John Hudak, “The US Civil Service: Protectors of the Republic,” Brookings, 29 November 2019.

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Notes to pages 176–9

56 For a discussion on this topic, see Canadian Audit and Accountability Foundation, Practice Guide to Auditing Oversight, (Ottawa: ccaf-fcvi , 2013), https://www.caaf-fcar.ca/images/pdfs/practice-guides/PracticeGuide-to-Auditing-Oversight.pdf. 57 Oliver James, “Evaluating Executive Agencies in U.K. Government,” Public Policy and Administration 16, no. 3 (2001): 24. 58 “Background Notes for an Address by Brian Mulroney” (Ottawa, Progressive Conservative Party), 28 August 1984. 59 “First Inaugural Address of President Ronald Reagan,” Avalon Project, Yale Law School, 20 January 1981, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_ century/reagan1.asp. 60 Hugo Young, The Iron Lady: A Biography of Margaret Thatcher (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1989), 158. 61 Ibid. 62 Tobias Bach and Kai Wegrich, “Politicians and Bureaucrats in Executive Government,” mimeo, n.d., 12. 63 Bev Dewar, former deputy minister of national defence, Canada, made this observation to me in Ottawa, 17 October 1997. 64 See, for example, Muriel Jaouën, “Quand la fonction publique se met aux méthodes du privé,” Capital, 7 March 2011 65 Canada, for example, overhauled its Public Service Employment that relegated its Public Service Commission to carry out an audit role from playing a staffing role. See Canada Merit and Non-Partisanship Under the Public Service Employment Act (a special report to Parliament by the Public Service Commission of Canada, Ottawa, March 2011). 66 See, for example, Marc Semo, “L’‘État profond’ ou le fantasme d’une administration parallèle,” Le Monde, 11 September 2019. 67 See, for example, Grant Robertson and Kirsty Kirkup, “Trudeau Blames Cuts under Harper for Public Health’s Ills,” Globe and Mail, 3 October 2020. 68 Emily Ferguson, “France Fury as Taxpayers Pay Civil Servants Millions Despite Not Working for 25 Years,” Express, 1 July 2019. 69 Jonathan Malloy, “The Search for Merit Is Killing Canada’s Civil Service,” Globe and Mail, 10 September 2002 and reprinted 28 April 2018. 70 I note that the Public Service Agency warned against bureaucratic patronage in a paper it sponsored. See Kenneth Kernaghan, A Special Calling: Values, Ethics and Professional Public Service (Ottawa: Canada Public Service Agency, n.d.), https://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/psm-fpfm/ve/code/scv-eng.pdf. 71 Andrew Coyne, “Bloated, Glossy $212,000 Federal Budget Cover a Fitting Symbol of Modern Government,” National Post, 25 October 2017.

Notes to pages 180–2

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72 Ralph Heintzman, Renewal of the Federal Public Service: Towards a Charter of Public Service (Ottawa: Canada, 2020), 6. 73 See, for example, Howard Risher, “Civil Service Reform Again,” Government Executive, 3 March 2020, www.govexec.com/ management/2020/03/civil-service-reform-again/163480. 74 A senior civil servant who retired in 2018 wrote this observation in correspondence with the author on 17 December 2020. 75 See, for example, Peter Murphy, “Why It Matters That So Many Senior Civil Servants Are Quitting under Boris Johnson,” The Conversation (Canada), 2 September 2020. 76 Paul Vieira, “Justin Trudeau Faces Questions after Contract Awarded to Charity with Links to Family,” Wall Street Journal, 29 July 2020. 77 Sarah Dawood, “Civil Service Morale: You Dread Going into Work in the Mornings,” Guardian, 4 November 2014. 78 Lisa Rein, “Federal Employees Unhappy with Senior Leaders, Suffer Low Morale,” Washington Post, 2 October 2014. 79 Michael Stratford, “Trump’s Been President for 3 Years, Government Morale Has Dropped for Two of Them,” Politico, 17 December 2019. 80 Ruth Hubbard, “Performance, Not Model Employer,” Optimum Online 43, no. 2 (June 2013). 81 He made the observation in an email to the author dated 17 December 2020. 82 Buttle, “Libérons les fonctionnaires.” 83 Mahboubeh Fatemi and Mohammad Reza Behmanesh, “New Public Management Approach and Accountability,” International Journal of Management, Economics and Social Sciences 1, no. 2 (2012): 42. 84 The Federal Budget in 2019 (Washington, dc : Congressional Budget Office, 2019). 85 Luc Rouban, “Public Management and Politics: Senior Bureaucrats in France,” Public Administration 85, no. 2 (2007): 489. 86 Ibid., 492. 87 Quoted in Akash Paun and Pepita Barlow, Civil Service Accountability to Parliament (London: Institute for Government, 2015), 17. 88 Guerin, McCrae, and Shepheard, Accountability in Modern Government, 5. 89 John Halligan, “Destabilising the Relationship between Democracy and Bureaucracy: The Consequences of System Imbalance for an Anglophone Country” (Paper for Panel 84, Democracy and Bureaucracy. ecpr Virtual General Conference, University of Innsbruck, Austria, n.d.).

266

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chapter eight 1 Robert Tombs, “France’s Presidency Is too Powerful to Work,” Foreign Policy, 2 May 2017, foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/02/francs-presidencyis-too-powerful-to-work-emmanuel-macron-elections/. 2 See, among others, “Le programme d’Emmanuel Macron pour l’action publique et la fonction publique,” En Marche!, n.d., en-marche.fr/ emmanuel-macron/le-programme/action-publique-fonction-publique; and Philippe Bezes and Gilles Jeannot, Public Sector Reform in France: Views and Experiences from Senior Executives, Coordination for Cohesion in the Public Sector of the Future (cocops ), May 2013, core.ac.uk/ download/pdf/18513507.pdf. 3 See, for example, David Howard, “Editorial: Comparing Public Administration Reform in France and the UK,” Public Policy and Administration 16, no. 4 (Winter 2001): 1–7. 4 John B. Goodman and Gary W. Loveman, “Does Privatization Serve the Public Interest?,” Harvard Business Review, November–December 1991, hbr.org/1991/11/does-privatization-serve-the-public-interest. 5 Ibid. 6 William L. Megginson, “Privatization Trends and Major Deals in 2014 and Two-Thirds 2015,” The pb Report 2014/2015 (Milan: feem , 1 November 2015), 5–32, https://assets.kpmg/content/dam/kpmg/ pdf/2015/12/pb _AR2014-2015.pdf. 7 Civil Service Statistics (London: hmso , 1993 and 1997). 8 One is David Hall in “We’ve Crunched the Numbers – Nationalisation Would Be a Bargain,” Guardian, 9 December 2019. 9 William L. Megginson and Jeffrey M. Netter, “From State to Market: A Survey of Empirical Studies on Privatization,” Journal of Economic Literature 39, no. 2 (June 2001): 48, www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2698243.pdf. 10 William L. Megginson, The Financial Economics of Privatization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 66. 11 Ibid., 52. 12 One study argues that privatization erodes political legitimacy but does not make the case from an efficiency perspective. See, Chiara Cordelli, “Why Privatization Is Wrong,” Boston Review, November 24, 2020, bostonreview.net/politics-philosophy-religion/chiara-cordelli-whyprivatization-wrong. Another challenges the efficiency argument. Stephen Martin and David Parker, “Privatization and Economic Performance throughout the UK Business Cycle,” Managerial and Decisions Economics 16, no. 3 (May–June 1995): 225–37.

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13 David R. Myddelton, “The British Approach to Privatisation,” Economic Affairs 34, no. 2 (June 2014): 134. 14 Wallace S. Sayre, “Premises of Public Administration: Past and Emerging,” Public Administration Review 18, no. 2 (Spring 1958): 102–5. 15 George A. Boyne, “Public and Private Management: What’s the Difference?” Journal of Management Studies 39, no. 1 (January 2002): 7. 16 See, among others, Hal G. Rainey and Barry Bozeman, “Comparing Public and Private Organizations: Empirical Research and the Power of the A Priori,” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 10, no. 2 (2000): 447–69. 17 Marc Buelens, Herman Van den Broeck, “An Analysis of Differences in Work Motivation between Public and Private Sector Organizations,” Public Administration Review 67, no. 1 (January 2007): 65–74. 18 Zhou Dan, “Differences in Work Motivation between Public and Private Sector Organizations,” American Journal of Business, Economics and Management 3, no. 2 (February 2015): 86–91. 19 James L. Perry, “Measuring Public Service Motivation: An Assessment of Construct Reliability and Validity,” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 6, no. 1 (January 1996): 5–22. 20 James L. Perry, Managing Organizations to Sustain Passion for Public Service (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021). See also Craig Matheson, “The Motivation of Public Sector Employees: An Outline of Six Orientations to Work,” Administration and Society 44, no. 2 (2011): 207–37. 21 B. Guy Peters, Administrative Traditions: Understanding the Roots of Contemporary Administrative Behaviour (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 6–20. 22 See, among many others, Udo Pesch, “The Publicness of Public Administration,” Administration & Society 40, no. 2 (February 2008): 170–93. 23 “Sarbanes Oxley Act,” Corporate Finance Institute, n.d., www.corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/other/sarbanes-oxley-act/. 24 Donald J. Savoie, Harrison McCain: Single-Minded Purpose (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013), 99. 25 Dean Beeby, “Tony Clement Refunds Taxpayers for Gold-Embossed Business Cards,” Toronto Star, 14 January 2014. 26 See, for example, US Merit Systems Protection Board, Blowing the Whistle: Barriers to Federal Employees Making Disclosures (Washington, dc: A US Merit Systems Protection Board, November 2011). 27 “Fury as Tory Ministers Spend £400,000 Getting Chauffeurs … for Their Briefcases,” www.mirror.co.uk, 4 September 2017.

268

Notes to pages 190–4

28 “Before You Clamour for Results-Based Management in the Civil Service, Remember Chuck Guité Could Be Its Poster Boy,” Globe and Mail, 23 November 2005. 29 Donald J. Savoie, Court Government and the Collapse of Accountability in Canada and the United Kingdom (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 323. 30 Woodrow Wilson, “The Study of Administration,” Political Science Quarterly 2, no. 2 (June 1887): 210. 31 Ibid. 32 Jean-Michel Eymeri-Douzans, Xavier Bioy, and Stéphane Mouton, Le Règne des entourages – Cabinets et conseillers de l’exécutif (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2015). 33 Quoted in Kevin Theakston, The Civil Service since 1945 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995), 176. 34 Max Weber, Essays in Sociology, translated and edited by H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946), 233–4. 35 I strongly encourage readers to consult Great Britain, Minutes of Evidence Taken Before the Treasury and Civil Service Sub-Committee on the Armstrong Memorandum (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1986). The material makes for a fascinating read with some of the leading political and academic thinkers in Britain presenting their views on the principle of ministerial responsibility. 36 If it were not for a journalist and Access to Information legislation, Canadians would probably never have known about the sponsorship scandal. See Savoie, Democracy in Canada, 298. 37 See, for example, Jeffrey E. Cohen, The Presidency in the Era of 24-Hour News (Princeton, nj : Princeton University Press, 2008). 38 Donald J. Savoie, The Rural Entrepreneur: John Bragg – The Force Behind Oxford Frozen Foods and Eastlink (Halifax: Nimbus Publishing, 2021). 39 Mark Jarvis also makes this point in Mark Jarvis, Creating a HighPerforming Canadian Civil Service Against a Backdrop of Disruptive Change (Toronto: Mowat Centre, June 2016), 21. 40 Paul C. Light, “People On People On People: The Continued Thickening of Government” (New York: Volcker Alliance, 5 October 2017), www. volckeralliance.org/publications/people-people-people. 41 Ibid., 2. 42 See, among others, Paul C. Light, The True Size of Government Is Nearing a Record High (Washington, dc : Brookings, October 2020). 43 Ibid., 3.

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44 See, for example, Lisa Rein, “How Trump’s First Year Has Decimated Federal Bureaucracy,” Independent, 31 December 2017. 45 “Treasury Hopes Senior Cuts Will Boost Employee Morale,” Ottawa Citizen, 18 April 1989. 46 Canada, Demographic Snapshot of Canada’s Public Service, 2018 (Ottawa: Treasury Board Secretariat, 2019), 32–40. 47 Ibid., 43. 48 See, “The hm Treasury,” www.gov.uk, undated. 49 See, for example, “Organogram or Staff Roles and Salaries,” data.gov.uk, various dates. 50 Cabinet Office (UK), Functional Review of Bodies Providing Expert Advice to Government (London, UK: Cabinet Office, March 2017). 51 Savoie, Whatever Happened to the Music Teacher? 52 “Qu’est-ce que la décentralisation?,” Vie publique, undated. 53 Jean-Régis Catta, “Le cabinet ministériel à la française, un serviteur entre deux maîtres,” Éthique publique 20, no. 1 (2018): 15–22. 54 Radio France, “Gouvernement: davantage de personnels au sein des cabinets ministériels, » France Info, 11 July 2020. 55 Mahboubeh Fatemi and Mohammad Reza Behmanesh, “New Public Management Approach and Accountability,” International Journal of Management, Economics and Social Sciences 1, no. 2 (2012): 42–9, www. ijmess.com/volumes/volume-I-2012/issue-II-12-2012/full-3.pdf. 56 See, among others, Jim Dunton, “Boris Johnson Says Civil Service Must ‘Respond Faster and Better’ to Needs of Public,” Civil Service World, 17 September 2020; and Rein, Hamburger, Eilperin, and Freedman, “How Trump Waged War on His Own Government.” 57 Schuck, Why Government Fails So Often, 318. 58 Savoie, Democracy in Canada, chapter 13. 59 See, David Howarth, “Comparing Public Administrative Reform in France and the UK,” Public Policy and Administration 16, no. 4 (Winter 2001). 60 See, for example, Savoie, What Is Government Good At?, chapter 6. 61 Ibid., 195. 62 Light, A Cascade of Failures, 10. 63 See, among others, Schuck, Why Government Fails So Often. 64 See, for example, “Le Baromètre de la confiance politique,” Sciences Po, n.d. 65 Performance Auditing: The Experiences of the United States Government Accountability Office (Washington, dc : US gao , 25 September 2013), www.gao.gov/assets/660/658105.pdf.

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66 Jean-Marie Bertrand, “La Cour des comptes européenne: de l’audit de régularité à l’évaluation de l’efficience et de l’efficacité des projets et des programmes européens,” mimeo, 25 September 2013. 67 Value for Money Studies (London: National Audit Office, 2020). 68 See Sharon Sutherland, “Parliament’s Unregulated Control Bureaucracy,” Briefing Notes (Kingston: Queen’s University School of Policy Studies, 2002), 9. 69 Donald J. Savoie, The Politics of Public Spending in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 35. 70 See, among others, Value for Money Studies. 71 “Notes for an address by Sheila Fraser,” fca , Auditor General of Canada, 17 February 2003, Toronto, Ontario, 2. 72 See, for example, Sir Donald Brydon cbe , Assess, Assure and Inform: Improving Audit Quality and Effectiveness (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, December 2019). 73 “The we Charity Controversy Explained,” cbc News, 9 September 2020. 74 See Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney. 75 See, for example, Tom McTague, “Boris Johnson vs. British Officialdom,” The Atlantic, 4 March 2020, theatlantic.com/international/ archive/2020/03/boris-johnson-britain-dominic-cummings/607363/. 76 For an excellent survey of the issues from a comparative perspective, see, Harold D. Clarke and Marianne C. Stewart, “The Decline of Parties in the Minds of Citizens,” Annual Review of Political Science 1 (1998): 35778. 77 “The ‘Flaws’ of French Democracy,” bbc News, 12 June 2014, https:// www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27310566. 78 Keri Breen, “Most Canadians Feel Society Is Broken, Politicians Don’t Care about Them: Ipsos Poll,” Global News, 6 September 2019. 79 David Herle, “Poll-Driven Politics – The Role of Public Opinion in Canada,” Policy Options, 1 May 2007, https://policyoptions.irpp.org/ magazines/the-arctic-and-climate-change/poll-driven-politics-therole-of-public-opinion-in-canada/. 80 See, among many others, Kelly Blidook, Constituency Influence in Parliament: Countering the Centre (Vancouver: ubc Press, 2012).

chapter nine 1 Kenneth J. Meier, Mallory Compton, John Polga-Hecimovich, Miyeon Song, and Cameron Wimpy, “Bureaucracy and the Failure of Politics: Challenges to Democratic Governance,” Administration and Society 51, no. 10 (September 2014): 1576–1605; and Sarah Dawood, “Civil Service

Notes to pages 205–10

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6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

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20

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Morale: ‘You Dread Going into Work in the Mornings,” Guardian, 4 November 2014. Sebastian Payne and George Parker, “The Smashing of the British State,” Financial Times, 8 October 2020. “Bagehot: Giving the Bureaucrats a Rocket,” The Economist, 4 July 2020. Savoie, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney. The debate whether it is possible to separate administration from politics is as old as the field of public administration. Woodrow Wilson launched the debate in 1887 in his essay, “The Study of Administration.” See, among others, Hood and Lodge, The Politics of Public Service Bargain. Tony Blair, A Journey: My Political Life (New York: Vintage Books, 2011), 484. Barack Obama, A Promised Land (New York: Crown, 2020), 41. Anthony King, “Overload: Problems of Governing in the 1970s,” Political Studies 23, no. 2–3 (1975): 286. That said, see Michael Moran, “Whatever Happened to Overload Government” The Political Quarterly 89, no. 1 (2018): 29–36. Ibid., 32. King, “Overload,” 289. Christopher S. Mackay, Ancient Rome: A Military and Political History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). I note that China developed an effective bureaucracy that dates back to the Qin and Han dynasties. S.E. Finer, The History of Government, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 583–5. Sue Cameron, “Book Review: Robin Butler – At the Heart of Power from Health to Blair,” Civil Service World, 7 July 2017. Sir Robin Butler told me this during one of several conversations I had with him while I was a visiting fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, in 2006. Nick Assinder, “UK Politics – Blair Risks over Public Sector,” bbc News, 7 July 1999. See, among others, James P. Pfiffner, “Decision Making in the Bush White House,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 39, no. 2 (June 2009): 363–84. George Jones and Andrew Blick, Premiership: The Development, Nature and Power of the Office of the British Prime Minister (London: Imprint Academia, 2010); and David Cameron, For the Record (London: Harper Collins Publishers, 2019). Savoie, Democracy in Canada.

272

Notes to pages 211–16

21 “An Unknown Prime Minister Reinforces Macron’s Centralised Presidency,” The Economist, 9 July 2020. See also Emmanuel Martin, “France’s Bureaucratic Challenge,” Geopolitical Intelligence Services (gis ), 10 July 2020. 22 See, among others, David Graham, “The Strangest Thing about Trump’s Approach to Presidential Power,” The Atlantic, 7 June 2018. 23 Matt Visser, Seung Min Kim, and Annie Linskey, “Biden Plans Immediate Flurry of Executive Orders,” Washington Post, 8 November 2020. 24 Quoted in Peter Oborne, Alastair Campbell: New Labour and the Rise of the Media Class (London Aurum Press, 1999), 160. 25 John Ibbitson, “Few Countries Can Claim Such a Pathetic Parliament,” Globe and Mail¸ 8 January 2010. 26 James M. Goldgeier and Elizabeth N. Saunders, “The Unconstrained Presidency: Checks and Balances Eroded Long before Trump,” Foreign Affairs, 4 August 2018. 27 Alcyone Wemaëre, “Macron’s Proposed Constitutional Reforms Weaken Separation of Powers, Critics Say,” France 24, 23 July 2018. 28 “The ‘Flaws’ of French Democracy.” 29 Meier, Compton, Polga-Hecimovich, Song, and Wimpy, “Bureaucracy and the Failure of Politics,” 1576–2019. 30 Quoted in Cameron, “Book Review: Robin Butler.” 31 See, for example, Martin Stanley, “Civil Service Reform 2,” n.d., https:// www.civilservant.org.uk/csr_detail-note2.html. See also David Cannadine, chapter 6 in Margaret Thatcher: A Life and Legacy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). 32 Mark Landler, “Boris Johnson Launches War on UK’s Own ‘Deep State,’” New York Times, 7 March 2020. 33 See Savoie, Democracy in Canada. 34 For a balanced perspective, see Victor Lapuente and Steven Van de Walle, “The Effects of New Public Management on the Quality of Public Services,” Governance (Special Issue) 33, no. 4 (13 May 2020): 461–79. 35 Ralph Heintzman, “The Effects of Globalization on Management Practices: Should the Public Sector Operate on Different Parameters?” (paper presented to the ipac National Conference, Fredericton, New Brunswick, 31 August 1999), 7–9. 36 Fife, Chase, and Leblanc, “snc -Lavalin Chair Kevin Lynch Sought Michael Wernick’s Help to Secure Deferred Prosecution Agreement,” 1. 37 John L. Manion, a long-serving deputy minister in Ottawa and later associate clerk of the Privy Council, told me this story.

Notes to pages 216–20

273

38 Robert Bothwell, “Robert Bryce,” in The Canadian Encyclopedia, Historica Canada, 16 December 2013. 39 See, among others, Geoffrey Brennan and Alan Hamlin, “Revisionist Public Choice Theory,” New Political Economy 13, no. 1 (March 2008): 77–88. 40 For example, former British Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell joined the Toronto-Dominion Bank in retirement. 41 Thomas E. Ricks, “Generals Turned Fatcat Lobbyists,” Foreign Policy, 3 January 2011. 42 “MoD to Investigate Military Lobbying Claim,” bbc News, 14 October 2012. 43 Ethics in Government Act of 1978, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/ USCODE-2010-title5/pdf/USCODE-2010-title5-app-ethicsing.pdf. 44 oecd , Trust in Government: Ethics Measures in oecd Countries (Paris: oecd, 2000), 317–27. 45 Ibid. 46 See www.oge.gov/web/OGE.ncf/about-what-we-do. 47 oecd , Trust in Government, 309–15. 48 Ibid., 117. 49 Ibid. 50 John C. Tait, A Strong Foundation: Report of the Task Force on Public Service Value (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Management Development, 1996), 7. 51 John Tait, “A Strong Foundation: Report of the Task Force on Public Service Values and Ethics (the Summary),” Canadian Public Administration 40, no. 1 (1997): 8. 52 Tait, A Strong Foundation, 8. 53 See Values and Ethics Code of the Department of Justice (Ottawa: Department of Justice, n.d.), https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/cp-pm/ vec-cve/intro.html. 54 “Pantouflage,” Oxford Reference, 2021. 55 Pierre France and Antoine Vauchez, Sphère publique, intérêts privés: Enquête sur un grand brouillage (Paris: Les Presses de Sciences Po, 2017). 56 Louis Hausalter, “Hauts fonctionnaires: Le pantouflage a pris une ampleur inédite depuis que Macron est au pouvoir,” Marianne, 2 June 2020. 57 “Les points clés de la loi relative à la déontologie et aux droits et obligations des fonctionnaires, 29/06/2016,” Le portail de la Fonction publique. 58 Rapport d’activité (Paris: Commission de déontologie de la fonction publique, 2017).

274

Notes to pages 221–3

59 Ralph Heintzman, consultations made by the author, various dates. 60 Paul Strangio, Paul ’t Hart, and James Walter, “Prime Ministers and the Performance of Public Leadership,” in Understanding Prime-Ministerial Performance: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Paul Strangio, P.T. Hart, and J. Walter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1.

Index

Absolument débordée (Absolutely Snowed Under) (Boullet), 172–3 access/right to information legislation: and anonymity, 90, 168; and blame game, 188; and exposure of scandals, 189, 192; media and, 191; policy participants and, 62; service delivery time, 157–8; and transparency, 188, 189 accountability: action bias/doers vs, 222; anonymity and, 165–6; answerability and, 171–2; authority and, 171; of Cabinet ministers/secretaries, 193; in Canada, 166, 169–72; change to requirements, 207; of civil servants/service, 91, 112, 116, 118, 165–6, 176, 215; collective action of civil service and, 165; and command-and-control management, 192; complexity of government and, 182; compliance vs performance, 148; of departments, 74; to elected government, 192; ethics/values and, 221; federal government (US)

and, 168; in France, 166, 172–3; and front line program managers, 164; in government spending, 121; in Great Britain, 166, 168, 177–8, 195; hierarchy and, 171, 192; Institute for Government on, 166; lack of change in requirements, 193; loyalty and, 173; management failure and, 133; management reform and, 167, 177, 181, 187, 191–2; managers and, 122; ministerial responsibility, 171, 219; in minister-Parliament relationship, 29; muffling of requirements, 193–4, 195; multiple processes/instruments, 74; npm and, 116, 150, 151, 154, 174, 189–90; oversight bodies, 176; and ownership of work, 193; performance and, 130; performance/evaluation reports and, 150, 155, 192; to political vs economic control, 223; of politicians by other politicians, 165; of presidents (US), 49; presidents/ prime ministers and, 223; of

276

Index

presidents/prime ministers vs monarchs, 55; in prime minister– Parliament relationship, 29; private sector and, 178; private sector management and, 207; privatization and, 185–6; in public vs private sector, 179–80; and status quo, 166, 192, 195; timing of, 55; in US, 166, 168, 174–7; waste/miscues/scandals vs policy issues as emphases in, 181–2; weakening of, 197. See also blame Act of Succession (Great Britain), 27 Act of Union (1840) (Canada), 37, 39 Administrative Burdens Reduction Programme (Great Britain), 155 Administrative Traditions (Peters), 187 Affordable Care Act (US), 69 American Revolution, 14, 32 Amos, Sheldon, 28–9 Anderson, Malcolm, 112 anonymity: and accountability, 165–6; of civil service, 78, 90–1, 94, 171, 191, 210; loyalty and, 191; media and, 168; “open” government and, 90; permanent election campaigns and, 168; in policy advisory role, 94; porosity of policy-making and, 90; right to information legislation and, 90, 168 appointment powers/process, 117; and acting appointees, 104; in Canada, 106–8, 115–16; central agencies and, 21; Civil Service Commission (Canada) and,

115–16; command-and-control governance and, 146; delegation of, 115–16; executive branch (US) and, 104–5; in France, 114; French president and, 113; in Great Britain, 108–11; ideology/ loyalty and, 105–6; merit principle in, 115, 179; and partisan political advisers, 101, 102; personal connection vs competition in, 179; politician control of machinery of government through, 117; Senate and, 103–4; and senior executive/ management cadre, 105; transparency requirements and, 102, 103; turnover in, 103; US presidents and, 99, 103–6. See also political appointees/ appointment Armstrong, Robert: “The Duties and Responsibilities of Civil Servants in Relation to Ministers,” 191–2 Atlantic, The: “Why Social Media Are Ruining Political Discourse,” 72 Attlee, Clement, 191 Aucoin, Peter, 152, 153 Auditor General (Canada): annual reports, 134; on Phoenix pay system, 170; qualitative, “soft” reviews, 200 Bagehot, Walter: on monarch-Parliament relationship, 28; on representative democracy, 13–14; on role of Parliament and Cabinet, 46 Balladur, Édouard, 44

Index Bay of Pigs operation, 62 Begg, Anne, 182 Bell, David, 5, 44 Benmansour, Nada, 156 Bercow, John Simon, 28 Bertrand, Jean-Marie, 200 Bevir, Mark, 9 Bezes, Philippe, 114, 154 Biden, Joe: executive orders, 49, 52, 211; political appointments, 104; and program evaluation, 128 Bill of Rights (Great Britain), 34 Bill of Rights (US), 32–3 Blackburn, Chief Justice, 28 Blair, Tony: centralization of governance, 59, 64, 210; and deliverology, 129; and “joined-up” government, 159; on media, 72; and partisan political advisers, 109, 110; power of key advisers in pmo , 64; “presidency” of, 9; privatization by, 206–7; spending cuts, 136 blame: access to information legislation and, 188; central agencies and, 17; in Guité scandal, 190; management reform and, 149; media and avoidance of, 149–50; politician– career official relationship and, 81; politicians and, 78, 192; presidents/prime ministers and, 149, 203; senior career officials and, 222; senior positions and, 198. See also accountability Blick, Andrew, 64 Blunders of Our Governments, The (King and Crewe), 167 Bogdanor, Vernon, 117 Bok, Derek, 78

277

Bonaparte, Napoléon, 42, 45, 111–12 Boullet, Aurélie: Absolument débordée (Absolutely Snowed Under), 172–3 Bourgon, Jocelyne, 93, 171 brand: within Cabinet–president/ prime minister relationships, 56–7, 69–70; media and, 56–7; presidents/prime ministers– Cabinet relationship and, 62–3 Brexit, 59, 73, 111 British Broadcasting Corporation (bbc ): government spending survey, 134; Yes, Minister, 98, 101–2, 209 Brookings Institution, 176 Brown, George, 37–8 Brown, Gordon, 110, 136 Bryce, Robert, 216, 217, 220; Maturing in Hard Times, 216 budget(s): Cabinet and, 60–1; in Canada, 128, 129, 138; central agencies and, 20; centralization of power and, 133; Congress vs Parliament role in, 136; decision-making in, 134–5; in France, 129–30, 138–9, 141; in Great Britain, 128–9, 138; guardian–spenders framework in, 121; importance of, 121; individual vs institutional interests in, 122; line-item process, 125, 127, 130, 213; national legislatures and, 133–4; new spending, 139–41; performance budgeting, 127, 128–9; ppbs in, 123–5; presidents/prime ministers and, 60–1; private sector management and, 214;

278

Index

program objectives and, 124–5; quantitative analysis in, 124, 125–7, 128; in US, 121, 127–8, 138, 140–1. See also spending, government bureaucracy/bureaucracies: advantages of bureaucratic model, 209; history of, 208–10; influence of, 5; military and, 208; as political institutions, 223; and welfare state, 209; and world wars, 209. See also career officials; civil service Bush, George H.W., 218 Bush, George W.: on civil service, 194; and management layers, 210; and political appointees, 106; and presidential power, 211; relationship with Congress, 57 Butler, Robin, 87, 109, 209 Buttle, Archibald, 181 Cabinet: Bagehot on role, 46; differences between, 59; and expenditure budget, 60–1; as focus groups, 203; government, 110, 210; loss of standing, 3. See also ministers/secretaries; president-Cabinet relationship; prime minister–Cabinet relationship Cabinet (Canada), as focus group vs decision-maker, 9, 50 Cabinet (Great Britain): Crossman and, 7; office, and pmo, 87; partisan political advisers and, 110; Wellington and, 55 Cabinet-president relationship: about, 11, 55–6; brand within,

56–7, 62–3, 69–70; disagreements within, 55; one-on-one working within, 58; permanent election campaigns and, 58; and policy, 57; power sharing in, 203; presidential appointment power in France, 59; in US, 7, 8, 59 Cabinet–prime minister relationship: about, 55–6; brand within, 56–7, 62–3, 69–70; Cabinet as focus group in Canadian, 50; Cabinet as source of advice vs decision-making, 4; concentration of power in Canadian, 9; concentration of power in Great Britain, 9; disagreements within, 55; oneon-one working within, 58; permanent election campaigns and, 58; and policy, 57; power sharing in, 203; in Westminster model, 11 Cabinet/secretaries (US): about, 59; as appointed vs elected, 59; Eisenhower and, 8; Lincoln and, 55; presidential appointment, 59; Reagan and, 8; relative weakness of, 59; Trump and, 7, 8; White House staffers and, 65–6 Cahuzac, Jérôme, 93 Cameron, David: and Cabinet government, 110; centralization of decision-making/power, 110, 210; health-care spending, 139; reducing government size, 136; spending cuts, 135, 136 Canada East (Quebec), 37 Canada West (Ontario), 37 career officials: accountability and behaviour of, 215; anonymity,

Index 90–1; and anonymity, 78, 90–1, 191; attitudes toward npm , 163; communication with political advisers, 85; and conflicts of interest, 219; dm s as separate community among, 108; as “doers,” 145, 205; ethics/values, 218, 219–20; and interest groups, 92–4; merit principle, 107; mistakes by, 169; moving to private sector, 196–7, 198, 206; neutrality of, 87–8, 89; numbers of, 19; organization of priorities, 77; partisanship of, 80; performance pay, 150–1; policy advisory role, 77–8, 83; and political appointees, 82–3; politicization of, 105; presidents’/prime ministers’ expectations of, 73; as program managers vs policy advisers, 79; recruitment of, 107; risk aversion, 168; road to top, 109; self-defence, 165–6; self-interest, 206, 215, 224. See also politician–career official relationship career officials (France): ethics/ values, 219–20; in ministerial cabinets, 88–9; moving between private and public sectors, 220; partisan political advisers mixed with, 111 career officials (Great Britain): ethics/values and, 218; history of relationship with monarchy, 29–30; history of relationship with politicians, 29–30; independence in politician relationship, 31; and political impartiality, 218

279

Cartier, George-Étienne, 37–8 Case, Simon, 87–8 Catta, Jean-Régis, 196 central agencies: about/role, 15, 17, 18, 19–20, 77; addition of capacity to, 196; advice provision, 213; and appointments in government, 21; changing role of, 15; and civil service, 79; coordination of government activities, 21; dm s having served in, 106; expansion in size of, 73–4; fiscal crisis (2008) and strengthening of, 76; in France, 76, 140, 196; gain in influence, 75; and line departments/agencies, 16, 17, 20, 76, 79; linking of administrative and political, 16; and management reform, 146; managing up and down by, 16; misunderstanding of, 16–17; and new spending, 140; npm and, 75–6; officials, 75, 76; officials as courtiers, 213; and overload problem, 213; and partisan political advisers, 17, 20, 76–7; and performance budgeting, 131; and performance reports on staffing, 117; policy advice, 19–20, 77–8, 79, 85; and politician–civil service relationship, 17; ppbs and, 125; presidents/prime ministers and, 15, 119, 140, 212–13; and program evaluation, 126; six fundamental activities of, 15–16; speaking truth to power, 19–20, 77; and spending cuts, 138; and spending increases, 135; in Great Britain, 76; in US, 76, 140–1

280

Index

Central Government Office (cgo ) (US), 16 centralization: and budget process, 133; in civil service–prime minister relationship (Great Britain), 110; of decision-making, presidents/prime ministers and, 213; in France, 88; and overload problem, 207; permanent election campaigns and, 58; and policy coherence, 15; of power, 3, 4–5; presidents/prime ministers and, 57–8, 64, 110–11, 223. See also concentration of power cevipof Political Trust Barometer, 199 Charles I, king, 26 Charles II, king, 27 Charte des services publics (France), 156 checks and balances: Canadian institutions and, 40; Congress and, 211; judiciary and, 47; prime ministers and, 4; in US, 32, 47 Chirac, Jacques, 44, 156, 172, 183 Chrétien, Jean: infrastructure spending, 139; and loyalty, 65; program review process, 137; on sources of power, 103; spending cuts, 135, 137 Chrétien, Raymond, 169 Cicero, 31, 39 Citizens Against Government Waste (US), 174 Citizen’s Charter (Great Britain), 156 civil service (Canada): accountability and, 116; British influence in,

40; classification and pay system, 41–2; entrance examination, 40; growth of, 68; hiring through personal connection vs competition, 179; In vs Outside services, 41; management layers, 198; merit principle in, 40; ministerial appointments to, 41; partisanship and, 41; patronage and, 40–1; pay system overhaul, 170–1, 172; performance evaluation and, 116; political influence and, 40–1; risk aversion of, 116; self-assessment, 161; US influence in, 40, 41–2 civil service (France): about, 184; attacks on, 45; composition, 113; distinct status in government relationship, 45; elitism within, 113; entrance examinations, 45–6; gaffes/mismanagement, 179; grandes écoles and, 44–5, 112; growth, 67; history, 44–6; Macron and, 12; merit-based, 112; military model for, 112; modernization of, 45; morale problem, 181; Napoléon and, 45; npm and, 114; partisan advisers in, 113; and partisanship, 46; pay-for-performance in, 151; pay system overhaul, 170–1, 172; and policy, 46, 113; political instability and, 113; and politics, 46; private sector management in, 154; recruitment of, 45–6, 112; regional offices, 113; revolution and, 45 civil service (Great Britain): accountability, 177–8; centralization of power in prime minister

Index relationship, 110; competition/ examination for entry into, 30–1; Crimean War and, 30; cuts to, 222; deregulation of, 154–5; history, 25; merit and, 30, 31; Northcote-Trevelyan Report on, 30–1; professionalization of, 31; strong centre vs, 110; Thatcher and, 7, 177–8, 205–6 civil service(s): accountability and, 91, 118, 165–6; advantages of employment in, 181, 209; anonymity, 90–1, 94, 171, 210; central agencies and, 79; central agencies and politician relationship with, 17; changes in role of, 51–2; and common good/public interest, 117, 118, 171; criticisms of, 52, 78–9, 89, 209–10; cuts to, 210; fault line in, 197–9; merit principle in, 179; mid-level officials’ appointments, 114; morale, 10, 90, 151, 180–1, 197, 205; motivation in, 186–7; parsimonious culture in, 209; partisan political advisers’ attitudes toward, 105; and partisanship, 153; patronage and, 51; policy role, 10–11, 205; political appointees embedded in, 83; politicization of, 80, 95; prime minister relationship with, 7–8; problem as behavioural vs institutional, 221– 2; public opinions on, 155–6; risk aversion, 146; roles, 15, 19; seen by presidents/prime ministers as problem, 205; size of, 223–4; transparency and, 210; weakening of, 91. See also career officials; central agencies; departments

281

civil service (US): accountability of, 176; contract workers, 175; entry into, 36; Founding Fathers and, 34–5; grant employees, 175; growth, 68, 175; independence in politician relationship, 37; morale, 180–1; neutrality, 36; pay-for-performance in, 151; Pendleton Civil Service Act and, 35–6; political patronage and, 35–6; presidential relationship with, 7–8, 12, 175; and representative bureaucracy, 36 Civil Service Act (1882) (Canada), 40 Civil Service Act (1908) (Canada), 41 Civil Service Code (Great Britain), 218 Civil Service Commission (Canada), 41–2, 107, 115 Civil Service Commission (US), 36–7 Civil Service Reform Act (1978) (US), 35 civil war (US), 39 Clinton, Bill: and acting appointments, 104; on government, 194; and political appointees, 106 Cockburn, Justice, 28 code d’éthique/code de déontologie (France), 219–20 Code of Conduct for Special Advisers (2009) (Great Britain), 110 Cohen, Andrew, 169 Cole, Alistair, 154 Comey, James, 118 command-and-control governance/ management, 146, 192, 193, 209, 212

282

Index

Commissioner for Public Appointments (Great Britain), 218 concentration of power, 3–4; and elites, 13; French president and, 43–4; in French prime minister– president relationship, 8–9; in increasingly few hands, 99; presidents/prime ministers and, 14, 48, 212; prime minister (Canada) and, 87; in prime minister–Cabinet relationship, 9. See also centralization Confederation, 37–40, 47 conflicts of interest, 93, 180, 219, 220 Congress (US): as bicameral, 34; and budget process, 138; central agencies serving, 140; and checks and balances, 211; and executive branch, 34; and expenditure budget, 136; as junior partner of executive, 203; presidential relationship with, 48, 57–8, 69; and revenue, 34; states’ representation within, 33; weakening role of, 3 Congressional Budget Office (cbo ), 140–1 Constitution (Canada): and public vs private sector accountability, 180; Great Britain influence in, 38 Constitution (France): de Gaulle and, 43; on role of president, 11; and working of government, 14 Constitution (US): history of, 32–3; and presidential appointment powers, 103; on role of president, 11; states’ representation

under, 33; and working of government, 14 Constitutional Bylaw on Budgets Acts (2001) (France), 138–9 Constitutional Convention, Philadelphia, 33, 38, 72 constitutions: about, 24–5; inheritance of, 24; Great Britain and, 25, 28–9 controversies. See crises; miscues; scandals coordination: npm and, 151, 159, 160, 161; in Great Britain, 159; in US, 160 Council of Minister (France), 9 Cour des comptes/Court of Accounts (France), 113, 153, 176, 200 covid-19 pandemic, 72, 73, 122, 139, 182, 201, 223 Craft, Jonathan, 84 Crewe, Ivor: The Blunders of Our Governments, 167 Crimean War, 30 crises: central agencies and, 17; delegation and, 148; management of, 108, 109–10; partisan advisers and, 191; presidents/ prime ministers and, 67; senior career officials and, 198, 222; and spending growth, 122. See also miscues; scandals Cromwell, Oliver, 26–7 Cromwell, Richard, 27 Cromwell, Thomas, 25–6, 85 Crossman, Richard: The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, 7, 98 Cummings, Dominic, 111

Index Dawson, Robert MacGregor, 40 DeBané, Pierre, 77 Debré, Michel, 43 Defense Department (US), 123 de Gaulle, Charles, 42–4; and ena , 88; and Fifth Republic, 43–4, 47; and Gaulliste party, 50–1; and presidential regime, 43–4; as representing political power vs institutions, 111–12; and republican monarchy, 43 delegation: of appointment powers in Canada, 115–16; to line departments/agencies, 147–8; of/ within management, 159, 193–4; and miscues, 148; to policy/ program bureaucracies, 21–2; to program managers, 159; up vs down, 199 deliverology, 129 democracy: French Revolution and, 42; Macron on incomplete, 88; Madison on pure, 26; public opinion regarding, 23; representative, 11, 13–14, 33, 46 Department of Defence (Canada), performance audit in, 201 Department of Finance (Canada), budget cover affair, 179 Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (Canada), splitting of, 169 Department of Industry (later Innovation, Science and Economic Development), growth of executive level in, 195 departments: accountability, 74; Civil Service Commission and autonomy of Canadian, 41;

283

growth in numbers of US, 68; head offices vs regional/local offices in Canada, 195; history of in Great Britain, 25; managers as heads in Great Britain, 109; performance assessment of, 176; policy issues cutting across lines, 57; and spending cuts, 138. See also line departments/agencies deputy ministers (dm s): appointment of, 106–8; at centre of government, 107–8; length of tenure, 106–7; loyalty and, 107, 108 Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, The (Crossman), 7, 98 division of powers (US), 31, 32 doing more with less, 144, 162–3, 222 Duhamel, Pierre-Mathieu, 172 Dulles, Allen, 61–2 “Duties and Responsibilities of Civil Servants in Relation to Ministers, The” (Armstrong), 191–2 École nationale d’administration (ena ), 12, 88–9, 112, 153, 184 economic self-interest (Homo economicus). See self-interest (Homo economicus) Edwards, Mickey, 99 efficacy of government: individual vs institutional power and, 11; well-performing institutions and, 3–4 Eisenhower, Dwight D.: and Cabinet, 8; and civil service, 7 elections: in France, 47; party leaders and campaigns, 6–7;

284

Index

presidents’/prime ministers’ promises during, 57–8; US presidential, as permanent, 48; US 2020 Presidential, 47; voting turnout, 10. See also permanent election campaigns Enron, 188 Ethics in Government Act (1978) (US), 217–18 Ethics Reform Act (1989) (US), 217–18 ethics/values, 217–21; and accountability, 221; in Canada, 218–19; in France, 219–20; in Great Britain, 218; private sector and, 219; Standards of Ethical Conduct (US), 218; in US, 217–18 executive agencies (Great Britain), 159, 195 executive branch (US): accountability to Congress, 34; central agencies serving, 140; fusion with legislative, 4; legislative branch vs, presidents and, 99; numbers within, 48; power of appointment, 104–5 Eymeri-Douzans, Jean-Michel, 191 Fauci, Anthony, 168 fault line, 197–9, 200, 204, 206, 215 federal government (Canada): hybrid federalism and, 49; public opinion on, 156; and science, 152 federal government (US), public opinion regarding accountability in, 168

federalism (Canada), 37; hybrid, 49; Macdonald and, 38–9; US influence in, 38–9; Westminster parliamentary system and, 14 federalism (US), 31–3 Fillon, François, 144 Finer, Samuel E., 26 fiscal crisis (2008), 76 Ford Motor Company, 123 Foster, Christopher, 87, 109–10 France, Pierre, 219 Franklin, Benjamin, 48 Freedom of Information Act (Great Britain), 189 freedom of information legislation. See access/right to information legislation French Revolution, 14, 42, 45, 111 front line employees: as overworked, 199; ownership of work, 198 front line managers: accountability and, 164; autonomy, in France, 130; empowerment of, 17; independence, 159; lack of upward mobility, 198, 206; performance/evaluation reports, 164; and performance evaluation system, 132; and private sector career opportunities, 215; senior career officials and, 164, 222; and service delivery vs policy issues, 164. See also line managers frugal culture. See parsimonious culture gaffes. See miscues Galt, Alexander, 37–8

Index Garnett, Mark, 4–5 Gaulliste party, 51 George I, king, 27–8 Giuliani, Rudy, 118 Gladstone, William, 30, 52 globalization, 11, 100 Glorious Revolution (Great Britain), 27 Gormley, William, 106 Gough, Roger, 87 Government Accountability Office (gao ) (US), 16, 174, 200 Government of Strangers, A (Heclo), 105 Government Performance Results Management Act (US), 127 Grace Commission (US), 78, 175, 178 Great Compromise, 33, 39, 47 Greenway, Andrew, 84 Grey, Earl, 30 Grube, Dennis, 95 Guité, Charles (Chuck), 189–90, 192 Halifax, Edward Wood, Earl of, 56 Halligan, John, 84, 95 Hamilton, Alexander, 31, 32, 48 Hamilton, Alvin, 56 Harper, Stephen: concentration of power, 87; spending cuts, 135; and Wernick, 86 Hartle, Douglas, 122 Heady, Ferrel, 16 Heclo, Hugh, 121; A Government of Strangers, 105 Heintzman, Ralph, 96, 221 Henry VIII, king, 25–6, 85 Heritage Foundation (US), 174

285

hierarchy: in accountability, 171; delegation of management and, 193; and follow-up action, 146; in the history of bureaucracy, 208; in management, and accountability, 192; and management layers, 198; and ownership of work, 198; and regulations/red tape, 161–2 Himelfarb, Alex, 171 Hollande, François, 112, 183 Homo economicus. See self-interest (Homo economicus) Hood, Christopher, 116, 149 House of Commons (Great Britain): and monarchy, 28; Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, 12 House of Lords, Canadian Senate compared, 39 House of Representatives (US), states’ representation within, 33 Howe, C.D., 56 Howe, Geoffrey, 61 Howell, William, 5 Hutton inquiry, 108 impartiality. See neutrality Imperial Presidency, The (Schlesinger), 49 Institute for Government (Great Britain), 84, 166, 168, 182 institutions. See political institutions interest groups: career officials and, 92–4; and policy-making, 91–2 Jaques, Elliott, 66–7 Jeannot, Gilles, 114, 154

286

Index

Jefferson, Thomas, 32, 34, 35, 48 Jenkins, Roy, 56 job classification system (Canada), 169 Johnson, Boris: appointment power, 111; and Brexit, 73; centralized governing style, 64; and civil service, 179, 202, 205; and Conservative Party, 7; and neutrality of career officials, 87–8; power of appointment, 110–11; replacement of Sedwill with Case, 87–8 Johnson, Nevil, 25, 52 Jones, George, 64 Jones, Glyn, 154 Jospin, Lionel, 44 judiciary (US): and checks and balances, 47; counterbalancing presidential power, 48 Katrina, Hurricane, 83, 199 Kelly, David, 108 Kennedy, Edward (Ted), 56 Kennedy, John F.: appointments, 175; and civil service, 7; and Cuban missile crisis, 48; Dulles and, 62; and management levels, 194; and McNamara, 123 Kent, Tom, 64 Kettl, Donald, 141, 160 King, Anthony, 207; The Blunders of Our Governments, 167 Kissinger, Henry, 56 Kohler, Alexis, 112 Kudlow, Larry, 61 Laurier, Wilfrid, 41

Law on Planning and Governance of Public Finances (2012) (France), 138–9 Lefebvre, Rémi, 10 legislative branch (US): executive branch vs, presidents and, 99; fusion of executive with, 4 legislative branches, presidents/ prime ministers taking for granted, 4 Leon, Jean-Baptiste: Le livre noir des gaspillages, 172 Lewis, David, 82–3 Light, Paul C., 133, 175, 194 Lincoln, Abraham, 55 line departments/agencies: audits, 20; central agencies and, 17, 20, 76, 79; central agency officials in French, 140; delegation of authority to, 147–8; management reform and, 144; managers in, 115; and new spending, 140; oversight bodies attached to, 196; and performance budgeting, 131; policy advisory role of policy advisers in, 85; spending cuts and, 213; surplus of funds, 213 line managers: central agencies and, 16; and deregulation, 155; empowerment of, 145; performance assessment of, 176; and performance/evaluation reports, 155; and performance measurement, 145–6; and political appointees, 176. See also front line managers livre noir des gaspillages, Le (Leon), 172

Index lobbyists/lobbying: French répertoire of, 93; growth in numbers of, 89; and policy/decisions, 13, 94; power of, 92; role, 79–80; senior career officials as, 94, 214–15 Locke, John, 31, 32, 33 Lodge, Martin, 116 Loi organique relative aux lois de finances (France), 130 Lord Protector (Great Britain), 27 loyalty: accountability and, 173; anonymity and, 191; of career officials to government, 193; competence vs, 82; in dm appointments, 107, 108; and policy, 152; and presidential appointments, 105; presidents/ prime ministers and, 65; US presidents and, 82 Lynch, Kevin, 93, 216–17 Macdonald, John A., 37–40, 49, 50, 72–3 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 42 machinery of government: inheritance of, 24; media and, 70–2; moving issues up, 213; partisan politics in, 85; politician control through appointment process, 117; politicizing of, 223; presidents/prime ministers and overhaul of, 5; presidents’/prime ministers’ expectations of, 73; spending cuts in, 135; status quo, 213; thickening of, 74, 117 MacKay, Elmer, 165 Mackenzie, Alexander, 68 Macmillan, Harold, 73

287

Macron, Emmanuel: and centralization of power, 88, 210–11; and civil service, 12, 79, 179, 202; concentration of power, 8–9; and cutting government spending, 73; on democracy, 88; and ena , 88, 89, 112; and Kohler, 112; and loyalty, 65; and management reform, 144; media and, 72; and political patronage, 85; and power with effectiveness, 74; and private sector, 183; public debate on government spending, 134; as representing political power vs institutions, 112; and La République En Marche, 6–7, 51; research and development spending, 139; and size of ministerial offices, 85, 113; spending cuts, 135, 137; strengthening of Office of the President, 65; as “Sun King,” 50; weakening of National Assembly role, 211 Madison, James, 26, 31, 32, 34, 48 Malloy, Jonathan, 179 Malraux, André, 56 management: decentralization of, 114; delegation within, 159, 193–4; lack of consequences for, 204; layers/levels, 175–6, 194–5, 198, 204, 210, 223; motivation in, 187; new practices introduction, 178–9; private sector and, 183; privatization and, 185–6; in public vs private sector, 186; up vs down, 219 management reform: and accountability, 167, 177, 187, 191–2;

288

Index

central agencies and, 146; from compliance to performance, 148; and coordinating policies, 159–61; and “doers,” 144; and doing more with less, 162–3; and empowerment, 145; and ethics/ values, 217–20; and fault line, 197; in France, 153–4, 156; in Great Britain, 154–5, 158; and line departments, 144; and performance/evaluation reports, 145, 155; and policy, 144; and rise in senior career officials’ salaries, 215; as self-fulfilling prophecy, 215; and self-interest, 215; in US, 155; and worsening conditions, 221. See also New Public Management (npm ) managers: and accountability, 122; deregulation and, 153; letting manage, 17, 162, 199; and performance evaluation system, 132; taking personal responsibility, 150. See also front line managers; line managers; program managers Marshall, Geoffrey, 25 Marshall, George, 56, 217, 220 Martin, Emmanuel, 166 Martin, Paul, 169 Mary II, queen, 27 Maturing in Hard Times (Bryce), 216 May, Theresa, 59, 73, 111 McCarthy, Kevin, 49 McConnell, Michael, 58 McNamara, Robert, 123, 127 media: and access to information legislation, 191; and anonymity, 168; and blame avoidance, 149–50;

and branding, 56–7; central agencies and, 15; on civil service, 165; and constituents’ letters to representatives, 92; and fault line, 197; and front line manager/political level connection, 199; and government operations, 70–2; and interest groups, 93; management of, 109–10; message control before, 57, 73; missteps and, 165; new vs old, 72; objectivity of, 71; and partisan advisers, 108; and party leaders, 56–7; permanent election campaigning and, 213; and policy-making/issues, 57, 62, 89; and political actors vs process, 71; politicians and, 70; presidents/prime ministers and, 5, 18, 56–7, 58, 61, 67, 70–3; process participants and, 62; role of, 72; senior career officials and, 57, 70; social vs mainstream, 211; status participants and, 61; twenty-four-hour news cycle, 11, 57, 62, 71, 193. See also social media members of Parliament (mp s): relationship with party, and independence of, 29; spending cuts and, 138 merit principle: in appointments, 115, 179; in Canadian civil service, 40; career officials and, 107; in civil service, 179; in French civil service, 112; in Great Britain civil service, 30, 31 Migeon, François-Daniel, 45 Miller, Stephen, 63–4 ministers (Canada): appointment of civil servants, 41; changes in, 106; office staff, 83–4

Index ministers/secretaries: accountability of, 193; agendas, 60; command-and-control governance, 146; Crossman on Great Britain, 7; firing of, 69–70; four participant groups, 60, 61–3; ministerial responsibility, 171, 219; as mission participants, 60, 61–2; and partisanship, 61; as policy participants, 60, 62; power in prime ministerial relationship with, 5; power of, 56; as process participants, 60, 62–3; resignation on matter of principle, 61–2; as status participants, 60, 61. See also Cabinet; Cabinet/secretaries (US) ministers/secretaries (France), 59; administrative vs political staff, 112; answering National Assembly members’ questions, 59; as appointed vs elected, 59; career officials in, 88–9; directeurs/chefs de cabinet, 112; elitism in, 113; ena and, 88–9; hybridity, 59; importance of role, 113; partisanship and, 89; and policy, 113; presidential appointment, 59; presidential dismissal power, 59; size/staffing of offices, 84–5, 88, 196 ministers/secretaries (Great Britain): accountability in Parliament relationship, 29; hybridity of offices, 111; offices, and policy, 84; permanent election campaigns and, 84; size/staffing of ministries, 84 miscues: civil servants and, 169; delegation and, 148; in French civil service, 179; media and,

289

165; policy vs, and accountability, 181 Mitterrand, François, 44 Moe, Terry, 82, 105 monarchy: accountability of, compared to presidents/prime ministers, 55; Paine on, 33–4 monarchy (France), absolute power of, 88 monarchy (Great Britain): history of, 25–8; history of relationship with civil servants, 29–30; Parliament and, 27–8; relationship with citizens, 26–8; US rejection of, 31 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, 31, 32 Mordacq, Frank, 130 More, Thomas, 85 Morrison, Herbert, 56 Morse, Amyas, 85 motivation, 186–7; ownership of work, and, 193; public choice theory and, 206 Moynihan, Donald, 128 Mueller report (US), 168 Mulroney, Brian: and concentration of power, 87; and pmo , 87; on waste in government, 177 Murray, Lowell, 9 National Assembly (France): and budget process, 138–9; elections for, 47; as junior partner of executive, 203; Macron, and weakening of role, 211; ministers and, 59; power of, 50; presidents and, 43, 44; weakening role of, 3 National Audit Office (Great Britain), 154–5, 176, 200

290

Index

National Park Service (US), 135 National Rifle Association, 93 Nielsen Task Force (Canada), 178 neutrality: of career officials, 89; of Great Britain career officials, 87–8, 218; in policy matters, 87–8; and public vs private sector accountability, 180; senior career officials and, 96; of US civil service, 36 New Deal, 48 New Public Governance (npg ), 21, 95 New Public Management (npm ): about, 17; and accountability, 151, 154, 174, 189–90; and central agencies, 75–6; and Civil Service Commission, 42; and coordination, 151; and decentralization, 114, 154; and delegation, 119; and deregulation, 154; and doing more with less, 144; and ebb and flow pattern, 148; effects of, 116, 120; and fault line, 215; in France, 46, 114, 130, 144, 153–4, 156; and growth of executive group, 194; impact on public administration, 21; and management practices staying same, 174; and morale of civil service, 151; and policy, 151–2; and policy coordination, 159, 160, 161; and political institutional workings, 160; in politically charged environments, 190; politician vs civil servant support for, 163; public administration compared, 146–7; regulations/ red tape and, 147–8, 161–2; and self-interest, 222; and service delivery, 155–8; and traditional

accountability requirements, 150; in Great Britain, 159 Niskanen, William, 122 Nixon, Richard, Supreme Court and, 47 non-governmental organizations (ngo s), 91–2 Normington, David, 167 Northcote-Trevelyan Report (Great Britain), 30–1, 35, 75 Obama, Barack: Affordable Care Act, 69; appointments, 103, 106; and appointments, 104; and civil service, 194; and Congress, 57–8; and executive authority, 49; and expert advice, 59; and loyalty, 65; and management levels, 210; on overload problem, 207, 213; and policy czars, 96; and presidential power, 211; and program evaluation, 128 O’Donnell, Gus, 93 Office of Management and Budget (omb ) (US), 16, 48, 155, 174 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (oecd ): on citizen satisfaction with governments, 156; on effect of 2008 fiscal crisis, 76; on pay-for-performance schemes, 151; on performance budgeting, 131; public expenditure in oecd countries, 173 overload problem, 67–70, 213 ownership of work, 193, 195, 198–9 Paine, Thomas, 31, 32, 33–4 pantouflage (France), 219–20

Index Parliament (Canada): adoption of Westminster model, 14; presidentialization of, 9; supremacy of, 50 Parliament (Great Britain): accountability in relationships with prime minister/ministers, 29; and Constitution, 28–9; golden age of, 28; and monarchy, 27–8; and power, 28–9; prime ministerial contempt for, 211 Parliament(s): Bagehot on role, 46; and budget process, 138; and expenditure budget, 136; holding executive to account, 203; lack of precision in Westminster model, 11; weakening role of, 3 parsimonious culture, 146, 204, 209, 221 partisan political advisers: appointment of dm s, 106; attitudes toward civil service, 105; and Cabinet, 110; in central agencies, 76–7; central agencies and, 17, 20; communication with career officials, 85; and controversies, 191; as courtiers, 213; and crisis management, 110; expansion of advisory units, 89; and hybridity of ministers’ offices, 111; media and, 108; in ministerial offices, 83–4; narrowing of priorities, 77; numbers of, 101, 109, 111, 117; in pmo (Canada), 106; and politicians’ agendas, 102; politicians’ appointment powers and, 101, 102; public profile, 111; role, 15, 110; use of, 190–1. See also political appointees/ appointments

291

partisan political advisers (France): mixed with career officials, 111; moving in and out of civil service, 113; and policy shaping, 89 partisanship: administrative world vs, 109; Cabinet secretaries/ ministers and, 61; Canadian civil service and, 41; career officials and, 80; civil service and, 153; French civil service and, 46; in French ministerial cabinets/ offices, 89; law and, 86; in machinery of government, 85; New Public Governance and, 95; policy advisory role and, 77–8; in politician–career official relationship (Great Britain), 109; promiscuous, 80, 95, 96, 97, 132, 153, 206; senior career officials and, 96, 206 patronage: and Canadian departments, 41; and civil service, 35–6, 40–1, 51; Macdonald on, 40. See also partisanship Pendleton Civil Service Act (1883) (US), 35, 75 performance budgeting: in Canada, 128; direct, 131; evaluation of programs through, 131–2; in France, 130; in Great Britain, 128–9; oecd on, 131; and operation costs, 132; and thickening of government, 132; in US, 128 performance/evaluation assessments/reports, 145–6; accountability and, 150, 155, 192; audits, 200–1; and blame, 149; in Canadian civil service, 116; deliverology and, 129; of departments/managers, 176; and

292

Index

exposure of scandal, 192; front line program managers and, 164; fudging of, 149; introduction of new management practices, 178–9; lack of incentive for, 204; line managers and, 155; and management layer growth, 195; numbers of, 155; political perspective on, 188; private sector and, 21; and private sector management, 150; of program managers, 192–3; purposes of, 20 permanent election campaigns: and anonymity, 168; and centralization of power, 58; and confessions of failure, 126; media and, 213; and ministerial offices, 84; New Public Governance (npg ) and, 95; and policy-making, 89; presidents/prime ministers and, 203; process participants and, 62; and senior career officials, 95; in US, 48; US presidential, 48 permanent secretaries (Great Britain): length of tenure, 108; as policy advisers, 83; Thatcher and, 177 Perry, James L., 186 Pétain, Philippe, 42 Peters, B. Guy, 4, 160; Administrative Traditions, 187 Peyrefitte, Alain, 56 Philippe, Édouard, 144 Phoenix pay system (Canada), 170–1 Planning Programming Budgeting System (ppbs ), 21, 123–5, 128, 129

policy: appropriate vs inappropriate responsiveness toward, 88; central agency officials and, 75; change by presidents/prime ministers, 212; civil service politicization and, 80; civil services and, 10–11; coherence, 15; delivery vs, 80–1; across departmental lines, 57; evidence-based advice, 152; expert-based advice in, 90; French civil service and, 46; funding, 121; as glamour of government work, 145, 158; globalization and, 100; lobbyists and, 13; loyalty and, 152; management reform and, 144; media, and disagreements on, 62; media, and issues regarding, 57; ministerial cabinets/offices (France) and, 113; neutrality in matters of, 87–8; npm and, 151–2; passions shaping, 80; policy participants and, 62; political appointments and, 82; politicians vs career officials, and, 79; presidents/prime ministers vs Cabinet and, 57; process participants and, 62; responsive advice on, 152; science and, 152–3; senior career officials and, 221 policy advice/advisers: and anonymity, 90, 94; career officials and, 83; of central agencies, 85; central agencies and, 19–20, 77–8, 79; changes in, 89; of line department policy advisers, 85; policy czars, 96–7; politicians and, 202; program managers vs advisers, 79; of senior career

Index officials, 80. See also partisan political advisers policy-making/shaping: civil service and, 205; competence vs responsiveness in, 82; evidence-based advice and, 94; French civil service and, 113; interest groups and, 91–2, 94; lobbyists and, 94; media and, 89; motivation in, 187; new, 202; ngo s and, 91–2; in opposition vs government, 81; partisan political advisers in France and, 89; permanent election campaigns and, 89; political parties and, 202–3; politicians in France and, 89; politics and, 76–7; porosity of, 90; presidents and, 5; prime ministers and, 5; transparency requirements and, 89 political appointees/appointments: and appropriate vs inappropriate responsiveness toward policy, 88; career officials and, 82–3; changing role, 83; embedded in bureaucracy, 83; in France, 111–14; negative effect of, 82; and policy, 82; and politician– career official relationship, 83; and program managers, 176; in US, 184; US president and, 81–2. See also partisan political advisers political institutions: bureaucracies as, 223; elites and, 13; evolution of, 13–14; inheritance of, 24; npm and, 160; presidents/prime ministers and debasement of, 211; presidents/prime ministers

293

and fixing, 203; and public vs private sector accountability, 180; supporting representative democracy, 13; trust in, 3; well-performing, and efficacy in government, 3–4 political institutions (Canada): British influence on, 37–8, 40; and checks and balances, 40; gradualist evolution of, 14; history of, 49; and prime ministerial concentration of power, 40; in unitary state in federal setting, 38 political institutions (France), individual/personal vs, 111–12 political institutions (Great Britain), gradualist evolution of, 14 political parties: characteristics of, 202; debasement of role, 3; discipline, 29; in Great Britain, 29; Great Britain mp s’ independence in relationship with, 29; loss of membership, 10, 202; malaise of, 10; personalization of, 203; and policy-making, 202– 3; pollsters and, 10; presidents/ prime ministers and, 69, 202–3; public opinion of, 202; rise of, and party politics, 29 political party leaders: and discipline, 29; and election campaigns, 6–7; media and, 56–7; power/brand of, 10, 51 political patronage. See patronage politician–career official relationship: and blame game, 81; breaking of bargain in, 116–19; career official advice in, 85–6; central

294

Index

agencies and, 17; changing machinery of government and, 5; civil service independence in US, 37; criticisms of civil service in, 117, 165, 178, 179; delivery vs policy in, 80–1; division of labour in, 111; in France, 45, 114; frustration of politicians with, 201; history of, 116–17; influence over appointments in France, 114; new pay system implementation in Canada and, 12; political appointees and, 83; political/policy agendas in, 100–1; politician goals in, 211–12; weakening of, 197 politician–career official relationship (Great Britain): civil servant independence in, 31; history of, 29–30; partisanship in, 109; and reform of civil service, 12; in Yes, Minister, 101–2 politicians: agendas of, 100–1; and blame game, 78, 192; blaming previous government/ administration, 179; and career officials as managers vs policy advisers, 79; and challenging political/policy environment, 21–2; and change as motivation, 100; and communications/media, 70; control of machinery of government through appointment process, 117; delegation of authority to policy/program bureaucracies, 21–2; and expert/ scientific advice, 90; holding one another accountable, 165; personal finance disclosure, 217–18; and policy, 79; and policy advice,

202; policy shaping in France, 89; and ppbs , 123–4; and program quantitative analysis, 125–6; role, 15; slogans of, 163; and spending cuts, 223; US, ethics/values and, 217–18. See also members of Parliament (mp s); presidents; prime ministers Politics of Public Spending in Canada, The (Savoie), 60 Pompidou, Georges, 43 power: Cabinet ministers/ secretaries and, 56; within Congress-president relationship, 57–8; individual vs institutional, 11; leadership-centric, 75–6; legitimate vs lack of legitimate, 78; monarchy and, 25–8; of National Assembly, 50; Parliament and, 28–9; personalization of, 58; political parties and, 29; presidents/prime ministers and, 18–19, 43–4, 50–1, 99–100; of prime ministers vs ministers, 5; sharing in French prime minister–president relationship, 8–9; sharing in president/prime minister–Cabinet relationship, 203; unintended consequences of, 74 president (France): about, 43–4; appointments, 112, 113; and central agencies, 76; Constitution on role of, 11; constraints upon power, 69; de Gaulle and, 43–4; elections for, 47; and National Assembly, 43, 44; numbers of ministerial office staff, 198; Office of the President, 64–5,

Index 112; power of, 5, 43–4, 50–1, 210–11; prime ministerial relationship with, 8–9, 44, 47–8, 63; term, 47 president (US): accountability of, 49; appointment powers, 99, 103–6; and Cabinets, 203; and central agencies, 76, 140; civil service relationship with, 7; concentration of power, 5, 48; Congress and, 48, 57–8, 69; Constitution on role, 11; elections, 47; executive actions, 141; Executive Office, 48; executive orders, 49; and executive vs legislative branches, 99; expansion of power/role, 48–9; impeachment of, 32; increasing power/ influence, 4, 5; and loyalty vs competence, 82; and management levels, 194; numbers of appointments, 198; pardon, power of, 34; permanent election campaigns, 48; and policy czars, 96–7; political appointments, 81–2; Presidential Personnel Office (US), 104; The President’s Management Agenda, 155; prime ministerial acting, 4 president-Cabinet relationship: about, 11, 55–6; brand within, 56–7, 62–3, 69–70; and decision-making in US, 59; disagreements within, 55; permanent election campaigns and, 58; and policy, 57; presidential dismissal power in France, 59; in US, 7 presidents: and accountability, 223; appointment powers, 59;

295 audience as increasingly hostile, 207; authority of, 54; and blame game, 149, 203; in “bubble,” 212; and budget, 60–1; and bureaucracies as political institutions, 223; and bureaucracy/civil service, 73, 78–9, 177, 181, 203, 205, 209–10; and central agencies, 15, 119, 212–13; centralization/concentration of power, 3, 7, 14, 57–8, 212, 223; centralization of decision-making, 213; challenging environment for, 21–2; civil service relationship with, 7–8; claiming of political credit, 192; constraints on, 55; demands on, 19; efficacy of government as goal, 7; election campaign promises, 57–8; expansion of office, 63–6, 73–4; and expert advice, 59; and firing of Cabinet members, 69–70; globalization and, 203; institutional constraints on, 69; and legislative branches, 4; and long-term planning, 212; and loyalty, 65; and machinery of government, 5, 73; media and, 18, 56–7, 61, 67, 70–3; message control, 73; names borne by governments, 54; and new spending, 139–41; numbers of subordinates reporting to, 66–7; overload problem, 67–70, 163–4, 207–8, 213; and performance budgeting, 132–3; perks of office, 54; and permanent election campaigns, 203; and personalities vs politics/ governing, 59; policy change by,

296

Index

212; and policy czars, 96–7, 118; policy shaping, 5; political battles in achieving status, 6–7; and political institutions, 203, 211; and political parties, 202–3; powers, 18–19, 69, 99–100; power sharing in Cabinet relationship, 203; priorities, 54–5, 65–6, 67, 73, 77; and program quantitative analysis, 125–6; promise of change, 183; protection by staff, 65; responsibilities, 19; and responsive policy advice, 152; shifting agenda, 206; shortness of tenure, 119; shortterm thinking, 73; slogans, 163, 206; sources of resistance toward, 55; and spending cuts, 135–9; and spending proposals, 60–1; and “surprises,” 73; television and, 71; time constraints, 18–19, 66; and transparency, 203 prime minister (Canada): accountability of, 169; appointment of dms, 106, 107; and central agencies, 76; chief of staff, 64; concentration of power, 87; dominance of, 50; partisan advisers in pmo , 106; pmo decision-making, 9; pmo expansion, 64; and Privy Council clerks, 86–7; royal tradition/precedents and evolution of, 14; source of authority for role, 11–12 prime minister (France): lack of visibility of, 51; Office of the Prime Minister, 112; relationship with president, 8–9, 44, 47–8, 63

prime minister (Great Britain): and appointments, 108; and central agencies, 76; centralization of power, 64, 110–11; chief of staff, 64; contempt for Parliament, 211; definition of role, 28; expansion of office, 64; pmo and Cabinet office, 87; royal tradition/precedents and evolution of, 14 prime minister–Cabinet relationship: about, 11, 55–6; brand within, 56–7, 62–3, 69–70; and Canadian Cabinet as focus group, 50; concentration of power in, 9; disagreements within, 55; and firing of Cabinet members, 69–70; permanent election campaigns and, 58; and policy, 57; power sharing in, 203; as source of advice vs decision-making, 4; in Westminster model, 11 prime ministers: and accountability, 223; accountability in Great Britain Parliament relationship with, 29; audience as increasingly hostile, 207; authority of, 54; and blame game, 149, 203; in “bubble,” 212; and budget, 60–1; and bureaucracies as political institutions, 223; and bureaucracy/civil service, 7–8, 73, 78–9, 177, 181, 203, 205, 209–10; and central agencies, 15, 119; central agencies and, 140, 212–13; centralization/ concentration of power, 3, 7, 14, 40, 57–8, 59, 212, 223; centralization of decision-making, 213;

Index challenging environment for, 21–2; checks and balances upon, 4; claiming of political credit, 192; constraints on, 55; demands on, 19; and efficacy of government as goal, 7; election campaign promises, 57–8; expansion of office, 63–6, 73–4; globalization and, 100; institutional constraints, 69; and legislative branches, 4; and longterm planning, 212; and loyalty, 65; and machinery of government, 5, 73; media and, 5, 18, 56–7, 61, 67, 70–3; message control, 73; ministers’ relationships with, 5; names borne by governments, 54; and new spending, 139–41; numbers of subordinates reporting to, 66–7; overload problem, 67–70, 163–4, 207–8, 213; partisan political advisers to, 83; party support and, 69; and performance budgeting, 132–3; perks of office, 54; and permanent election campaigns, 203; and personalities vs politics/governing, 59; and policy, 5; policy change by, 212; and policy czars, 96–7, 118; political battles on way to status, 6–7; and political institutions, 203, 211; and political parties, 202–3; powers, 18–19, 69, 99–100; presidential acting by, 4; priorities, 54–5, 65–6, 67, 73, 77; and program quantitative analysis, 125–6; promise of change, 183; protection by staff, 65;

297

responsibilities, 19; and responsive policy advice, 152; shifting agenda, 206; shortness of tenure, 119; short-term thinking, 73; slogans, 163, 206; sources of resistance toward, 55; and spending cuts, 135–9; and spending proposals, 60–1; and “surprises,” 73; television and, 71; time constraints on, 18–19, 66; and transparency, 203 principal agent theory, 122, 124 private sector: accountability in, 178, 179–80; and better management, 183; career officials/civil servants moving to, 93, 196–7, 198, 206; “doers” in, 144; electronic-based service delivery in, 157; and ethics, 219; and evaluation, 21; fault line and, 215; and make-or-buy policy, 178; motivation in, 186; and operations tied to performance, 21; ownership of work, 193; and privatization of state enterprises, 178, 196–7; public sector differences from, 188–91; and public sector management, 107; service delivery in, 156, 158; on task forces to improve management in government, 178; transparency in, 188–9; waste in, 177 private sector management, 79; and accountability, 193, 207; and budget process, 214; and empowerment of front line managers, 17; and fault line, 197; in French civil service, 154; in Great Britain government

298

Index

operations, 195; performance/ evaluation reports and, 150; public administration vs, 203–4, 214; in public sector, 145; public sector and, 144; public sector vs, 148–9; as solution to public sector problems, 205; superiority of, 17; terminology of, 214. See also management reform; New Public Management (npm ) privatization, 178, 184–6, 206–7, 222 Privy Council (Canada): and appointment of dm s, 107; clerks, 86–7; and snc -Lavalin affair, 86, 216–17 Privy Council (Great Britain), history of, 25–6 program evaluation(s), 124–5, 126; and baseline to compare management measures, 177; in France, 129–30; inability, through performance indicators, 131–2; program objectives and, 124–5; in US, 127–8 program managers: career officials as, 79; delegation of authority to, 159; and delegation up, 199; independence, 159; performance assessment of, 192–3; policy advisers vs, 79; and political appointees, 176. See also managers programs: assessment of spending impact, 127; funding, 121; interlinking of, 132; linking to outcomes, 132; quantitative analysis and, 125–6 provincial governments (Canada): hybrid federalism and, 49; public opinion on, 156

public administration: command-and-control management, 212; move away from pillars of, 210; npm compared, 146–7; and parsimonious culture, 221; political influence in, 188; politics vs, 190; private sector management methods vs, 203–4, 214; and public–private sector distinction, 182; and senior career officials, 222; topdown direction in, 212; transparency in, 188 public choice theory, 122, 206 public opinion: of civil service, 155–6; of democracy, 23; of federal government (US) accountability, 168; of front line workers vs political masters, 199; of government spending, 134; of political parties, 202; of US federal government programs/services, 158–9 Public Service Commission (Canada), 115–16; Association for Professional Executives, 181 Radwanski, Adam, 129 Rayner, Derek, 178 Reagan, Ronald: and Cabinet, 8; and civil service, 7, 78, 145, 175, 210; on government as problem, 177; and military funding, 139; political appointments, 103, 105–6; and privatization, 184; spending cuts, 135, 139; and waste, 194 Reform Acts (1832/1867) (Great Britain), 28

Index regulations/red tape: advantages of, 161; Great Britain reduction of, 162; mixed messages regarding, 162; npm and, 147–8, 161–2; purposes of, 147; Trump administration and, 194 La République En Marche, 6–7, 51 resentment, politics of, 13 Rhodes, R.A.W., 9 Richardson, James, 61 right to information legislation. See access/right to information legislation risk(s): aversion in civil service, 116, 146, 168; “intelligent,” 146; politicians vs career officials and, 193 Robertson, R. Gordon, 87 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 48; and Executive Office of the President, 63 Roosevelt, Theodore, 48–9, 51 Ross, Wilbur, 61 Rouban, Luc, 46, 156, 182 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (rcmp ), 134–5 Saint-Martin, Denis, 153 Sarbanes-Oxley legislation (US), 188 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 45, 50, 183 Savoie, Donald J.: The Politics of Public Spending in Canada, 60 Sayre, Wallace, 186 scandals: access to information legislation and, 192; and accountability, 181; partisan advisers and, 191; performance/ evaluation reports and, 192; policies vs, 166, 181; snc -Lavalin,

299

86, 93, 201, 216–17; sponsorship, 189–90, 192 Schick, Allen, 125, 133–4 Schlesinger, Arthur Jr: The Imperial Presidency, 49 Schuck, Peter H., 198; Why Government Fails So Often, 133, 174–6 secretaries of state (Great Britain), 84 Sedwill, Mark, 87–8 self-interest (Homo economicus), 122, 187, 206, 215, 224 Senate (Canadian): House of Lords compared, 39; Senate (US) compared, 39; and smaller regions, 39; and sober second thought, 39 Senate (US): confirmation of political appointments, 81, 96, 103–4; and presidential appointments, 103–4; Senate (Canadian) compared, 39; states’ representation within, 33 senior career officials: and blame game, 222; as courtiers, 221–2; employment in law firms, 94; and evidence-based advice, 95; and fault line, 206; and front line managers, 164, 222; growth in numbers of, 204; information on financial assets in France, 93; as lobbyists, 94, 214–15; management reform, and rise in salaries, 215; and media, 57, 70; and neutrality, 96; and overload problem, 213; and partisanship, 96; and performance budgeting, 132–3; permanent election campaigns and, 95; and policy, 221;

300

Index

policy advisory role, 80; post-employment opportunities, 94; and ppbs , 123–4; in private sector, 93; promotion of political interest of masters, 206; public administration and, 222; and public sector values vs private sector reform measures, 220–1; retirement employment, 215–17; roles, 222; self-interest, 217; and service delivery, 222; as serving political power vs state in France, 113–14 service/program delivery, 133; in Canada, 157–8; deterioration of, 224; doing more with less, vs, 222; electronic-based, 157–8; in France, 156, 158; in Great Britain, 158; npm and, 155–8; in private sector, 156, 157; senior career officials and, 222; in US, 158–9 Sessions, Jeff, 61 Shane, Peter, 49 Shepard, Zoé. See Boullet, Aurélie Sholette, Kevin, 96 Smith, Albert, 39 snc-Lavalin, 86, 93, 201, 216–17 social media: delegation of management and, 193; effect of, 11; and miscues, 149; and policy issues, 62; and quick decision-making, 71; traditional vs, 72 Special Operating Agencies (Canada), Executive Agencies, 196 Specter, Arlen, 56 spending, government: accountability, 121; central agencies and, 135; command-and-control

governance and, 146; in France, 67, 172, 173; in Great Britain, 68; growth in, 67, 68, 121–2; new, 134, 139–41; omnibus bills, 138; presidents/prime ministers and, 60–1; public opinion regarding, 134; structural reductions in, 144. See also budget(s) spending cuts: central agencies and, 138; and departments, 213; departments/agencies and, 138; in government operations, 135; mp s and, 138; politicians and, 223; on popular programs, 134–5; presidents/prime ministers and, 135–9; Thatcher and, 212 sponsorship scandal, 189–90, 192 State of the Union address (US), 34 status quo, 51, 83, 101, 120, 142, 150, 177; accountability and, 166, 192, 195; in France, 113; in Great Britain, 101–2; in operations, 213 Supreme Court (US), 47 Tait, John, 219 Tait report, 219, 221 Talbot, Colin, 163 Tanguy, Gildas, 113–14 television, 71. See also media Tellier, Paul, 87 Tennyson, Alfred, Lord, 27 Thatcher, Margaret: and accountability, 191; appointments, 107, 117; and civil service, 7, 78, 79, 117, 177–8, 205–6, 212, 222–3; Howe and, 61; and npm , 114; number of staff, 64; and party backbench support, 69; and

Index policy, 79, 152; privatization, 212, 222; and public choice theory, 122; reducing government size, 136; spending cuts, 135, 136, 139, 212; and Yes, Minister, 101 Tocqueville, Alexis de, 42 Tombs, Robert, 43, 183 Tomkins, Adam, 29 transfer payments (Canada), 49 transparency: access to information legislation and, 188; and appointment powers, 102, 103; of civil service, 210; delegation of management and, 193; in France, 93; and policy-making, 89; presidents/prime ministers and, 203; private sector and, 188–9; in public administration, 188 Treasury Board, 189 Trudeau, Justin: and Cabinet government, 58, 210; and centralization of power, 87; on civil service, 201; and climate change, 73, 139, 212; covid -19 program for student help, 201; and deliverology, 129; and governing from centre, 210; and Liberal Party, 7; and omnibus spending bills, 138; and snc -Lavalin affair, 86, 201 Trudeau, Pierre: and concentration of power, 87; and DeBané, 77; and expansion of pmo, 64; government from centre, 58; Richardson and, 61; spending cuts, 136 Truman, Harry S., 7, 48 Trump, Donald: and accountability, 168; and acting appointments,

301

104; and Affordable Care Act, 69; and border wall, 73, 100, 139, 212; and Cabinet, 8; and Cabinet secretaries, 61; and civil service, 7, 12, 78–9, 106, 114, 175, 194; and climate change, 82, 95, 152, 153; on dealing with individuals vs institutions, 118; executive orders, 49; and expert/ scientific advice, 59, 90; family members in office, 65; on Fauci, 168; and fusion of executive and legislative branches, 4; and Kudlow, 61; on mainstream media, 72; and management layers, 194; and National Rifle Association, 93; and partial government shutdown, 70; and passions shaping policy, 80; personalization of power, 58; policy agenda, and career officials, 101; and policy czars, 96, 97; political appointments, 103, 104, 106; and presidential power, 5, 11, 211; The President’s Management Agenda, 155; and program evaluation, 127–8; and Republican Party, 7, 10; and senior position vacancies, 103; spending cuts, 137, 139; Supreme Court and, 47; “Trump factor” in 2018 election, 6 truth: as moving target, 78, 80; political leaders and, 79–80; as resistance, 78 Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector (Canada), 219 Van Riper, Paul P., 35 Vauchez, Antoine, 219

302

Index

Victoria, queen, 31 Walpole, Robert, 28 Washington, George, 72 waste, government, 166; and accountability, 181–2; in France, 172; in private sector compared, 177; in US, 174 Weber, Max, 17, 111, 191 welfare state, 117, 122, 145, 209 Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, duke of, 55 Wernick, Michael, 86 Wheare, K.C., 52 Why Government Fails So Often (Schuck), 133, 174–6 “Why Social Media Are Ruining Political Discourse” (The Atlantic), 72

Wildavsky, Aaron, 121 Willes, Justice, 28 William of Orange, king, 27 Williams, Shirley, 101 Wilson, Harold, 64 Wilson, Woodrow, 190 Wilson-Raybould, Jody, 86 WorldCom, 188 Yakabuski, Konrad, 129 Yes, Minister (bbc ), 98, 101–2, 209 Yonge, Charles D., 28 Zacka, Bernardo, 165