The ambition of this paper is to explain variations within the relationship between ministers, higher civil servants (HCS) and special advisers across politico-administrative systems. Why do countries with similar political regime differ in this respect? The article compares Belgium (B), the Netherlands (NL) and Denmark (DK). Belgian ministers have been working for a long time with quite large “ministerial cabinets” (= special advisers) while in NL and DK HCS have been confronted with a “third party” more recently. Further, the relationship between special advisers and HCS are cooperative in NL and DK, while in Belgium the relationship is rather problematic. How do we explain these differences? Taking a point of departure in the Public Service Bargain (PSB) literature we argue that differences in PSB to some extent may explain differences in these “ménage a trois” relationships. Although the countries have similar political regimes, they differ on their respective PSB: B and NL are more of the trustee–type, DK of the agency type. However, as we also find differences in the relationship between ministers, HCS and advisers within the same type of PSB we further argue that, and as noted by the PSB literature, PSBs are not merely the result of a historically developed institutional structures but as importantly as the result of the interests of the actors involved in the bargain (Hood 2001; Hood & Lodge 2006). Hence differences in the interests of the same type of actors within the same type of PSB may also cause differences the relationships between the parties involved. To conceptualise differences within the relationship between ministers, HCS and advisers we further include literature on politicization (e.g. Rouban 2003; Peters and Pierre 2004; Page and Wright 2007; Eichbaum and Shaw 2008) The empirical data includes documentary analysis as well as interviews with and surveys sent to HCS in the three countries. These data was collected as part of a comparative project on PSB in the countries and are there for comparable.
