Politically Appointed Ministerial Advisors Versus Merit Based Recruited Impartial Civil Servants

The politically appointed ministerial advisor is a category of public officials that have increased in numbers in many OECD countries. While their numbers and possibility to influence politics varies a lot, this is a category that has seldom be scrutinized in political science. They are neither elected politicians nor traditional impartial civil servants but are centrally placed close to the minister. This paper reports result from a project in which about thirty such persons working in the Swedish government have been interviewed for finding out what they do, why they do it and what difference it makes. Two specific policy decisions (cases) are analyzed both of which has received a large amount of mass media attention in the country. One is an arms deal between the Swedish Government and Saudi-Arabia and the other concerns when the state-owned energy company (Vattenfall) expanded by buying another energy company in Europe. In both cases, ministerial advisers played a central role and seem to have had more influence in the decision process than the merit based high level civil servants.