More Than a Situationship? Working Relationships Between Politicians, Advisors and Bureaucrats in the Executive Triangle

This paper explores how the working relationships within the executive triangle between ministers, political advisers and senior civil servants are understood and experienced by the very same actors. Whilst political science and public administration research has long emphasized formal roles, accountability, and politicization, much less is known about how everyday cooperation, boundaries, and influence are enacted in practice, especially in settings where personal political staff have become increasingly prominent. Drawing on research on the relationship between politicians, advisors, top-level bureaucrats, we examine how actors develop and revise their role expectations, define 'good performance' at the top of the administration, describe their day-to-day interactions within the executive triangle, interpret task allocation, overlaps and joint decisions, as well as grasp the distribution and sources of influence within the executive triangle. The empirical backbone of the paper builds on over 20 in-depth semi-structured interviews with ministers, political advisors and senior civil servants from six European countries, which cover diverse administrative traditions and configurations of democratic institutions. The analysis allows us to theorize role conceptions and relationship patterns “from the inside”, connecting actors’ narratives to broader debates about authority, trust, and the organization of the executive triangle.