based on the candidate’s support for or commitment to particular ideologies or
objectives.’’ Some found it more diYcult to hold the sanguine view that it was
‘‘personalisation not politicisation’’ (Plowden 1994 , 100 – 9 ).
In Australia, since Labor’s 1972 – 5 term of oYce, fears have been expressed about
a ‘‘creeping politicization’’ (Weller 1989 , 369 ). By the late 1990 s, it had escalated to
the point where many charged ministers were no longer receiving ‘‘frank and
fearless’’ advice. Others saw the shift as civil servants becoming more responsive
to their political masters (Weller 2001 ). There may have been no overt party
politicization of the public service in either country but it has lost its ‘‘institutional
scepticism’’ (Hugo Young cited in Plowden 1994 , 104 ). Rhodes and Weller ( 2001 ,
238 ) conclude from their six-country survey that top civil servants ‘‘are selected and
kept in part because of their style and approach, in part because of their policy
preferences, and in part because ministers are comfortable with them.’’ They also
note that for most changes Australia and New Zealand were the exceptions. For
most of the reforms, they had gone further, faster than any other country.
Peters, Rhodes, and Wright ( 2000 , x) argue that three conclusions stand out from
their country studies of the policy advice and policy capacity of core executives.
First, there are the increasing pressures for centralization as core executives
confront the diVerentiation and pluralization of government. Second, the staVs
of executive leaders have grown in size and have common tasks, but the weight
attached to each task varies from country to country. Finally, despite common
domestic and international pressures, national distinctiveness, rather than conver-
gence, characterizes the institutional response of the several countries. The
interplay of constitutional, political, and institutional factors, and above all
the governmental tradition in which actors construct their own interpretation of
the pressures and trends, shape the core executive’s response.
5 So What? The Consequences of
Institutional Differences
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
If prime ministerial power is the deWning debate in the literature about Westminster
systems, then the debate about the eVects of consensus government typiWes the
literature on West European systems. 3 The Westminster approach is not only
3 On the comparative analysis of executives in West European parliamentary systems see: Blondel and
Mu ̈ller-Rommell 1993 b, 1997 ;Jones 1991 ;PoguntkeandWebb 2005 c;Strøm,Mu ̈ller, and Bergman 2003.
executives in parliamentary government 335