Serving the nation: Devolution and the Civil Service in Wales

Cole, Alistair Mark ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9222-0523 2012. Serving the nation: Devolution and the Civil Service in Wales. The British Journal of Politics & International Relations 14 (3) , pp. 458-476. 10.1111/j.1467-856X.2011.00470.x

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Abstract

The article captures the evolution of the moving object of Welsh devolution over its first decade through a case study of the civil service in Wales. Three positions are proposed as heuristics for understanding politico-administrative relations in devolved Wales: these are administrative persistence, capacity-building and bureaucratic capture. Rather than set these dynamics against each other, the case study of the civil service in Wales demonstrates the value of reasoning in terms of a mix of administrative, political and managerial pressures, requiring the development of hybrid responses and skills. Although the institutional capacity-building dynamic clearly had the ascendancy during the first decade, as the post-devolution Welsh polity gradually becomes more settled, there is likely to be a revival of more generic administrative and/or managerial concerns.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Department of Politics and International Relations (POLIR)
Subjects:	J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN101 Great Britain
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Wales; devolution; civil service; bureaucracy
Publisher:	Wiley-Blackwell
ISSN:	1369-1481
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	16 May 2023 11:04
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/14403

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