Politicization of bureaucracy is one of the core themes of public administration research in political science. Large progress has been made in this research area in recent decades. As research progresses, we look on an ever finer grained picture about administrative traditions and the degree of politicization in national and comparative perspective. Because of their key role in policy-making and their proximity to the political sphere, many studies on politicization are focusing on the (de-)selection and role perceptions of senior civil servants (SCS). There is, however, a gap in existing literature: SCS are often treated as one homogeneous group without taking into account their heterogeneity. The proposed paper takes this research gap as a starting point. It is argued that the politicization of SCS differs dependent on their actual duties and working tasks. To test this hypothesis, the proposed paper explores if and how three types of SCS in government departments – political bureaucrats (as coined by Putnam), policy bureaucrats (policy experts), and administrators (i.e., SCS with responsibility for horizontal tasks such as budgetary matters, human resources, legal services or organization of the ministry) – vary with regard to their role perceptions and politicization. While most existing empirical research is focusing on the top level only but not on officials in lower hierarchical ranks, we consider it important to control for the hierarchical level. In similar vein, departmental culture is considered as a potential intervening factor. The empirical basis of the paper is a survey study on SCS conducted at federal level in Germany in 2017. Data cover a full inventory of the four highest hierarchical ranks (state secretaries, DGs, heads of sub-directorates, section heads; n=654).
