The permanent WG on politico-administrative relations was created at the 1998 NISPAcee conference in Prague. The following meetings and research resulted in the books ‘Who Rules’? (2001) and “Coalitions of the Unwilling: Politicians and Civil Servants in Coalition Governments” (2005)n 2005. second book entitled “Coalitions of Unwilling” was published in 2005. The third book “Politicians and Civil Servants in the Policy Making Process” is currently in the process of publication.

In the previous research the emphasis was primarily on the traditional dichotomy of the roles of elected politicians and top officials and on the ways of balancing those roles. This has been reflected in the titles of books produced by the working group to date. At the forthcoming 14th annual NISPAcee conference in Ljubljana (2006) the working group will focus on the dimension of governance where these roles intermingle not only on the level of actors, but also at the level of governance institutions. The research focus is on those actors and structures at the core executive that by definition should simultaneously play both political and administrative roles. We intend to study more thoroughly politico-administrative patterns at the Government Office (or Office of Council of Ministers, State Chancellery etc.), Office of Prime Minister or Office of President. In addition the research will also focus on the other structures servicing the core executive e.g. ministerial cabinets and supporting and advising structures to individual Ministers.

Cabinet/Prime Minister (PM) or President or Minister as primary decision-making authority of the executive branch must ensure efficient implementation of political roles aimed at increasing legitimacy (and survival) in the eyes of main sponsors: public at large, coalition partners, main interests groups. At the same time, it should ensure effective and professional policymaking, implementation of decisions and smooth administrative co-ordination of the whole administrative machine. To implement both successfully Cabinet, PM and President rely on support structures (offices) that are staffed or served by officials with different role patterns. On the one hand, officials within such bodies, commissions, ministerial cabinets can be politically appointed or are career officials who cooperate to achieve expected results in political as well as administrative coordination. On the other hand, core tasks within such institutions are simultaneously political and administrative i.e. at this level the actual differentiation between political and administrative tasks is frequently difficult if not impossible.

For instance, the assistance to PM or President in developing the agenda for formal Cabinet meetings may presume assistance in intensive negotiations between conflicting sides, in influencing actors views to achieve consensus, consulting leadership of coalition partners. These are clearly political tasks but at the same time also presume considerable organisational/ technical activities, like calling, holding and distributing protocols etc. Likewise in managing the policy agenda, support structures also attend to purely administrative tasks, starting from technical organization of Cabinet meetings and following briefings, organisation of information exchange between participants on the one hand, and undertaking analytical work to ensure the professional and technical accuracy of proposals subject to discussion at meetings on the other.

Our study should also focus on changes of formal tasks and actual roles of those support structures in managing the EU policy-making process at national level. European offices are in many countries located within the Government/ PM office. Participants should analyse and compare the changing roles of political and administrative coordination at accession as well as at membership stage. The integration of EU offices with the other politico-administrative structures is clearly a potential direction for research of this WG. Attention to the structures and officials who are acting in the space between the Minister and higher career official (secretary General) is also required in the context of EU membership. In some countries special Ministerial Cabinets are formed to ensure the capacity of minister to launch enough policy initiatives, to manage the elaboration of policy proposals and exert political control over the administration of the Ministry. In other countries simple advising units or posts are established to deal with those tasks. It would be especially interesting to analyse whether and how those support structures were evolved or even rearranged after Ministries entered directly into the chain of EU policymaking at national level.

We anticipate that researchers focus on support structures and officials either at the level of Core executive (Cabinet support structures) or at Ministerial level in order to avoid papers that are too general and descriptive. In the case of several applicants from one country choose similar analyses we expect to coordinate their analytical focus in order to receive as a complete an overview from the country in question as possible.

Participants should follow the research protocol as far as possible. The ability to follow the protocol is a major criterion for selection of papers and funding participant’s travel. Coordinators of the WG I are eager to consult applicants, especially those who are applying first time, in defining their research topic and developing their paper.