Abstract
Despite the description of the ideal bureaucrat—colorless, odorless, and tasteless—the politician must be on her guard around them, as they are privy to a lot of information about the politician which, if disclosed, can cause considerable damage. But the relationship between them need not, and in fact should not be hostile—just careful. Besides, bureaucrats, when respected by their political masters, can make the latter shine.
The Civil Service is like a rusty weathercock.
It moves with opinion, then it stays where it is until
another wind moves it in a different direction.
Tony Benn
Briefingfor “Cabinet and Premiership” course (Queen Mary and Westfield College) held at the House of Commons, March 1, 1995, in The Oxford Dictionary of Political Quotations, Anthony Jay, ed. (Oxford:1997), p. 37. Whose other opinion? The government’s? The people’s? More senior bureaucrats?
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Notes
- 1.
In New Yorker, October 18, 1958, ibid., p. 239. Hannah Arendt later called it, in Eichmann in Jerusalem, the rule of nobody.
- 2.
Diplomatic Diversions, ibid., p. 291.
- 3.
David Halberstam., op. cit. Jay, p. 196.
- 4.
Available for viewing at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_8IeYmFbvA Retrieved November 5, 2012 and June 27, 2018.
- 5.
C. Northcote Parkinson, op. cit. Jay, p. 285.
- 6.
Ibid., p. 26.
- 7.
The Prince, Niccolò Machivelli, George Bull, transl., Penguin (London: 1995), p. 63.
- 8.
The Great Schools.
- 9.
Diary, July 13, 1990, op. cit. Jay, p. 96.
- 10.
Satires, ibid., p. 201, perhaps best translated: But who shall watch the watchmen?
- 11.
https://www.economist.com/news/1955/11/19/parkinsons-law Retrieved June 27, 2018.
- 12.
The London Zoo (1961), op. cit. Jay, p. 340.
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Machiavelli, N. (2020). Concerning the politician and the bureaucracy. In: The Politician. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39091-4_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39091-4_15
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