The practice and politics of secretary general appointments
By: Dorp, Erik-Jan Van
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Material type: 
BookPublisher: American Review of Public Administration Description: 53(5-6), Jul-Aug, 2023: p.182-194.
In:
American Review of Public AdministrationSummary: The question of who is appointed to key administrative posts at the expense of whom lies at the heart of public administration research. In this paper, I study what career experiences have increased senior civil servants’ chances of being appointed to a secretary general position. The civil service politicization and core executive literatures suggest such appointments are impacted by loyalty, ability, and proximity to power. These hypotheses are investigated using a mixed methods research design combining quantitative analysis of the career paths of all active senior civil servants in the years 2000–2020 (n = 247) with 22 elite interviews with cabinet ministers and bureaucrats in the Netherlands. The main findings of this paper are that active affiliation with minister-delivering political parties and having worked in the prime minister's office significantly increased the odds of a candidate's appointment to an SG position, whereas managerial experience did not. These findings challenge the conventional theory of nonpoliticized appointments and unlock possibilities for comparative research on bureaucrats’ biographies. – Reproduced
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02750740231155408
| Item type | Current location | Call number | Vol info | Status | Date due | Barcode |
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Articles
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Indian Institute of Public Administration | 53(5-6), Jul-Aug, 2023: p.182-194 | Available | AR131093 |
The question of who is appointed to key administrative posts at the expense of whom lies at the heart of public administration research. In this paper, I study what career experiences have increased senior civil servants’ chances of being appointed to a secretary general position. The civil service politicization and core executive literatures suggest such appointments are impacted by loyalty, ability, and proximity to power. These hypotheses are investigated using a mixed methods research design combining quantitative analysis of the career paths of all active senior civil servants in the years 2000–2020 (n = 247) with 22 elite interviews with cabinet ministers and bureaucrats in the Netherlands. The main findings of this paper are that active affiliation with minister-delivering political parties and having worked in the prime minister's office significantly increased the odds of a candidate's appointment to an SG position, whereas managerial experience did not. These findings challenge the conventional theory of nonpoliticized appointments and unlock possibilities for comparative research on bureaucrats’ biographies. – Reproduced
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02750740231155408
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