Comparative Analysis of Financial Bureaucracies of Europe: The Influence of Policy Sector vs Administrative Tradition on the Attitudes of Finance Officials

Abstract

The broader goal of the paper is to explore one of the core questions in comparative research on public policy and administration: What is more important in influencing public officials’ attitudes towards policymaking − the distinctive administrative style of the country or the specific features of a policy sector? This article is particularly concerned with the attitudes of the public officials working in the field of finance regarding their policymaking roles. Overall, the results indicate that the national administrative traditions play a stronger role in influencing the policymaking attitudes of officials than their specific sector.

Keywords:

• administrative traditions
• comparative public policy
• comparative public administration
• public finance officials
• fiscal bureaucracy

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Eesti Teadusagentuur [PUT1142].

Notes on contributors

Ringa Raudla

Ringa Raudla is Professor of Fiscal Governance, Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia. Her main research interests are fiscal policy, public budgeting, public administration reform, and institutional economics.

James W. Douglas

James W. Douglas is a Professor in the Department of Political Science & Public Administration at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His main research interest are public budgeting, public debt, and fiscal policy.

Jason H. Windett

Jason Windett is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Administration, Associate Professor of Public Policy, and a Faculty Affiliate in the School of Data Science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. His research agenda focuses broadly on the area of representation in politics, with a focus on state politics, state courts, and identity politics.