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"Why can't the political appointees and the technocrats be formally separated in the same way as the executive, the legislative and the judiciary? " In the UK,
by ajb 5y ago
"Why can't the political appointees and the technocrats be formally separated in the same way as the executive, the legislative and the judiciary? "
In the UK, this is formally the case. The Civil Service is below the line, Ministers and 'political advisers' are above it. Civil Servants are legally barred from standing for election and have a duty to be politically neutral. However for this reason the Civil Service can't " keep [the politicians] in check" because that would be antidemocratic.
They are supposed to at most act as an intelligence-upgrade to the politicians.
- jessriedel 5y agoIt's also the case in the US too: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_appointments_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_appointments_in_th... It's pretty clearly established at each agency which positions are turned over when a new administration gains power and which are protected as non-political, and this interacts with the formal rules (e.g., you need cause to fire non-political positions but not political ones). Perhaps the author of the post is arguing that there should be stronger checks and that in practice the political influence extends below the nominal line, but he's wrong if he thinks this is somehow ignored by statute.
- Ericson2314 5y agoThanks to this thread for pointing out that in multiple governments the distinction is in fact formal. I am tempted to grumble that, once again, the rationalists are ignorant of the ways the world actually works.
- jessriedel 5y agoEven if the authors was mistaken on this point, the rest of the post is still useful and interesting. These are mostly just people blogging in their spare time; doesn't seem sensible to smear the community for a minor mistake like this.