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To the Victor Go the Spoils Traditional Explanations for Bureaucratic Turnover
If they are to be understood, political theories must be constructed in relation to their material environment and ideological framework ... For despite occasional claims that public administration is a science with principles of universal validity ... [it] has evolved political theories unmistakably related to unique economic, social, governmental, and ideological facts. – Dwight Waldo, The Administrative State ([1948] 2007, 3)
They occupy the most powerful senior positions in the bureaucracy. In every government ministry, directly under the cabinet minister, sits a department head who manages hundreds of employees and oversees the spending of large sums of public tax dollars. In each country they go by a different name: in the United Kingdom, they are permanent secretaries; in Australia, they are departmental secretaries; in New Zealand, they are chief executives; and in Canada, they are deputy ministers (DMs). And unlike the vast majority of jobs in the public service, which are isolated from government influence, these senior bureaucrats are, in most cases, political appointments.
