Communication Experts in Public Bureaucracies: Linking the Spheres of Politics and Administration

Communication experts are increasingly found in public bureaucracies (Jacobs & Wonneberger 2017; Sanders, Crespo & Holtz-Bacha 2011). Online news outlets and social media has created 24/7 news cycles and made deadlines continuous (Fenton 2010), spurring a need for actors dedicated to deal with the growing media pressure in ministries. These developments possibly also affect the regular civil servants. The clear Weberian divide between politics and administration remains an ideal, and in reality these spheres are closely intertwined, although to various degrees in different countries (Lee and Raadschelders 2011). It is important to understand how communications experts affected the relationships between ministers and civil servants, because an impartial bureaucracy has been seen as the foundation of responsible governance (Fukuyama 2011; Rothstein & Teorell 2008). The Nordic countries have long traditions of a neutral civil service (Dahlström, Peters and Pierre 2011). However, studies have found evidence of a politicization even here (Hustedt & Salomonsen 2014). This paper investigates how non-partisan communication experts affect the political responsiveness of civil servants. Based on a survey to communications experts in Norwegian ministries, as well as in-depth interviews with communication experts, the political leadership, and senior civil servants within one ministry, we find that communication experts are deeply integrated in the political leadership, and work closely with the expert departments. Our findings suggest that communication experts should be viewed as translators, linking the spheres of politics and administration, and we argue that this special breed should be included in future studies on politicization in public bureaucracies.