Policy Advisory Systems and the Functional Politicization of the Permanent Bureaucracy: A Comparison of Denmark and Norway

A wealth of political science research studies either policy advisory systems or the politicization of the permanent bureaucracy. Few scholars have studied how the two phenomena interconnect, and this paper aims to help fill this gap. Focusing on ministries, we ask whether the functional politicization of the permanent bureaucracy varies between countries depending on their internal policy advisory systems? There is large and long-lasting variety across countries in terms of the size, organization and roles of within-ministry functions staffed with political appointees, that is, individuals recruited based on political/loyalty criteria rather than on merit/competence criteria. This also applies to countries with very similar political-administrative systems and cultures: Denmark has no political appointees between the cabinet minister and the secretary general, the top official of the permanent civil service. As such, it is an extreme case comparatively. Norway is a more “normal” case, where cabinet minister may appoint 3-5 staff members each, including state secretaries that rank above the secretary general in the ministry hierarchy. There is also variety across countries in terms of the politicization of the permanent bureaucracy. The degree of recruitment to top positions based on loyalty (as opposed to open competition and party political neutrality) is commonly understood as formal politicization. Our focus is on functional politicization, which can be understood as the degree to which bureaucrats are expected to consider political implications in their advice to ministers. The provision of political advice requires distinct skills and competences that principals, ministers included, will emphasize when recruiting individuals to top positions, and when deciding whether to retain an individual in a top position or not. We are using several measures of functional politicization: First, we study the professional background of top officials as proxy for political skills. Second, following Christensen et al. (2014), we analyze whether changes in government, professional experience, and the number of political advisers affect turnover of secretary generals. We utilize a unique biographical dataset on all secretary generals in Denmark and Norway covering more than three decades, based on coding of data from open sources. Third, we compare formal and informal norms about top officials’ political role in both countries. Our general expectation is that absent an internal political advisory function, ministers become more reliant upon the permanent bureaucracy in general and the secretary general in particular. Specifically, we expect a higher turnover among secretary generals in Denmark compared to Norway, as ministers replace them to ensure responsiveness to their political preferences (with change of government, change of minister, as soon as fixed-term contracts expire, or anytime at the minister’s will). The social mechanism, we conjure, is that the presence of a layer of political appointees in Norway eases the pressure on top civil servants to be politically responsive. For secretary generals, in particular, this is a less complex role, with less conflict of interests, and less friction/frustration vis-à-vis the minister. This allows, we expect, secretary generals to stay longer in their positions in Norway than in Denmark.