Procedural Rationality in Westminster Systems: How De‐Separation Affects the Decision Premise

• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Author: Keith Dowding,Marija Taflaga
• Date: 01 September 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13459

Research Article:

HERBERT SIMON

Symposium

920Public Administration Review • September | Oct ober 20 22

Abstract: Westminster administrative systems were characterized by a clear separation between the political careers

and roles of elected ministers and career civil servants. The former set the values or aims of the organization; the

latter utilize those values when generating policy ideas. This separation provides what H.A. Simon calls “procedural

rationality.” The decision premise of public servants is (1) an apolitical commitment to government service, and (2) a

commitment to advise on and implement the current government values, including expert advice using their personal

and institutional memory and procedural knowledge. Using evidence from Australia and the United Kingdom, we

track the de-separation of political careers. Policy advice increasingly comes from outside the career public service,

including politically appointed special advisors. Furthermore, senior politicians are increasingly drawn from the world

of special and external advisors. De-separation changes the decision premise of all actors, which we argue deleteriously

affects the nature of policy formation.

Evidence for Practice

• Separate career paths for public servants and elected politicians provide for procedural rationality within the

public service.

• Westminster systems are undergoing a “de-separation” process where policy advice increasingly comes from

outside the career public service, and politicians emerge from the ranks of professional policy advisors.

• The de-separation of political careers is changing the decision premise of advisors, reducing institutional

memory and implementational expertise, with deleterious effects on public policy.

Australia and the United Kingdom provide prime

examples of the changing nature of Westminster

administrative systems. Westminster systems

once maintained a relatively clear separation between

the roles of politicians, who set the values and direction

of public policy, and of the senior public service, which

supplied policy advice. The senior public service was

appointed on merit with permanence and with little

political interference; this indeed was one of the defining

features of the Westminster system. As we document,

this has changed. Far greater political interference is

apparent in the appointment of senior bureaucrats;

more are appointed from outside the career civil service,

and they are no longer the major source of policy advice,

which now comes from outside experts and political

advisers.1 Moreover, senior politicians are themselves

increasingly selected from this professional policy-advice

background. We argue that this “de-separation” of

political careers (Dowding and Taflaga2020) changes

the decision premise of policy advisors.

The Decision Premise

Initially controversial, H.A. Simon’s Administrative

Behavior (Chisholm1989; Harmon1989) has since

become authoritative, going through four editions

(Bedeian and Wren2001; Dunn1988; Kerr2011).

Many of the concepts and ideas for which Simon is

justly famed derive from this book.2

Simon is best known for his account of bounded

rationality, developed as a critique of rationality

in terms of maximizing utility, and for arguing for

satisficing and procedural rationality. He first used

the latter two terms in 1957, in the introduction

to the second edition of Administrative Behavior

and in Models of Man (Simon1957). For Simon,

humans’ cognitive abilities, memory and knowledge

are limited, and therefore people satisfice rather than

maximize. That is, they look for satisfactory, and not

necessarily optimal, outcomes. The important aspect

of bounded rationality is that there is a relationship

between the limited abilities of an individual and the

complexity of the problem faced. The more complex

the problem, the more limited a single individual’s

ability to grasp solutions which become obvious when

problems are “sufficiently” difficult (Simon1996).

Organizations enhance individual cognitive abilities,

memory and knowledge, especially for difficult

Keith Dowding

Marija Taflaga

Australian National University

Procedural Rationality in Westminster Systems: How

De-Separation Affects the Decision Premise

Marija Taflaga is a Lecturer and the

Director of the Australian Politics Studies

Centre at The Australian National University.

Her research includes Australian politics

in comparative context. She is interested

in the career paths of political elites and

their relationship with political institutions

such as political parties, parliament and

the bureaucracy. She is also engaged

in understanding how career paths and

political institutions are gendered. Marija

is co-host of the Australian Politics Podcast

Democracy Sausage

. She is currently

engaged in the Australian Research

Council-funded Discovery Project

Pathways

to Power

, examining Australian political

careers and their impact on public policy.

Email: marija.taflaga@anu.edu.au

Keith Dowding is a Distinguished

Professor of Political Science and Political

Philosophy at the Australian National

University. He has published over 100

articles in major journals and written more

than 60 book chapters on comparative

politics, public administration and public

policy, philosophy and methods of political

science and normative theory, as well as on

various topics in political philosophy. He has

published over 20 books, the most recent

ones being

It’s the Government, Stupid:

How Governments’ Blame Citizens for

Their Own Policies

(2020); a new edition of

Rational Choice and Political Power

(2019);

Economic Perspectives on Government

(with Brad Taylor) (2019);

Power, Luck and

Freedom: Collected Essays

(2017);

Policy

Agendas in Australia

(with Aaron Martin)

(2017); and

The Philosophy and Methods

of Political Science

(2016). He edited the

Journal of Theoretical Politics

from 1996

to 2013. He is currently engaged on the

ARC-funded Discovery Project

Pathways

to Power

, examining Australian political

careers and their impact on public policy.

Email: keith.dowding@anu.edu.au

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 82, Iss. 5, pp. 920–930. © 2022 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13459.