IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/bjposi/v3y1973i03p257-290_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Political Attitudes of Senior Civil Servants in Western Europe: a Preliminary Report

Author

Listed:
  • Putnam, Robert D.

Abstract

Can there really be much doubt who governs our complex modern societies? Public bureaucracies, staffed largely by permanent civil servants, are responsible for the vast majority of policy initiatives taken by governments. Discretion, not merely for deciding individual cases, but for crafting the content of most legislation has passed from the legislature to the executive. Bureaucrats, monopolizing as they do much of the available information about the shortcomings of existing policies, as well as much of the technical expertise necessary to design practical alternatives, have gained a predominant influence over the evolution of the agenda for decision. Elected executives everywhere are outnumbered and outlasted by career civil servants. 1 In a literal sense, the modern political system is essentially ‘bureaucratic’ – characterized by ‘the rule of officials’.

Suggested Citation

  • Putnam, Robert D., 1973. "The Political Attitudes of Senior Civil Servants in Western Europe: a Preliminary Report," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(3), pages 257-290, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:3:y:1973:i:03:p:257-290_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0007123400007870/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ferdous Jahan & Asif Shahan, 2008. "Politics−Bureaucracy Relationship in Bangladesh: Consequences for the Public Service Commission," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 307-328, December.
    2. Michael C. Horowitz & Matthew Fuhrmann, 2018. "Studying Leaders and Military Conflict," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 62(10), pages 2072-2086, November.
    3. Park, Hyungmin & Squintani, Francesco, 2024. "The Choice of Political Advisors," QAPEC Discussion Papers 23, Quantitative and Analytical Political Economy Research Centre.
    4. Mandy Singer-Brodowski & Janne von Seggern & Anika Duveneck & Nadine Etzkorn, 2020. "Moving (Reflexively within) Structures. The Governance of Education for Sustainable Development in Germany," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-20, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:3:y:1973:i:03:p:257-290_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.