The Politics of Bureaucratic Mobility in Westminster: A Historical Comparison

This paper traces the historical trends of deputy minister mobility in Canada's provincial bureaucracies from before the advent of the professional bureaucracy until the modern era. As a privilege of the first minister, the appointment of administrative elites is seen as having become a key means of controlling the bureaucracy. This paper seeks to better understand how the effects of political factors have evolved through varying historical contexts. To do so this paper uses statistical methods to explore the effects of political factors such as a government’s ideology and its legislative strength on the mobility of deputy ministers within varying historical periods.