How the Permanent Senior Professional Staff Can Enable Policy Capacity in the Face of Political Instability: Insights from the Israeli Experience

Abstract

The literature emphasizes the importance of establishing institutional mechanisms for enabling policy capacity. Yet, room remains for understanding how these institutions—usually run by senior professional administrative staff—function in the face of political instability. To explore this issue, we focus on the role of Deputy Directors-General for Strategy (DDS) and their forum, a new institution intentionally established by the Israeli cabinet in order to strengthen policy capacity and collaboration in strategic planning processes across ministries. We argue that political instability, defined as the frequent turnover of politicians and politically appointed high-level bureaucrats who head governmental ministries, implies that the permanent senior professional staff plays a larger role in terms of strategic planning and policy capacity. Using textual analysis and 19 in-depth interviews with Deputy Directors-General for Strategy and other senior officials, we analyze how they deal with political instability with regard to the government’s ability to function, as well as the strategies they use to do so.

Keywords:

• Policy capacity
• political instability
• politicians-bureaucrats’ interactions

Introduction

Policy capacity has long been recognized as an essential element that enables governments worldwide to engage in the strategic planning, designing, implementing and evaluating of public policy (Howlett et al., 2018; Howlett & Ramesh, 2016). Wu et al. (2015, p. 167) suggested that politicians and bureaucrats play a key role in defining policy outcomes, and that their policy capacity is determined by their skills, knowledge, expertise and judgment. They recommend exploring the implications of varying levels of the government’s policy capacity for the success and failure of policy, as well as for policy change (p. 170). Accordingly, we examine how political instability (Dowding & Kimber, 1983)—defined as the frequent turnover of politicians and politically appointed high-level bureaucrats (Milio, 2008, pp. 922–923) and frequent shifts in governmental coalitions (Grøn & Salomonsen, 2019, p. 444)—impacts the capacity of a government to design, implement and evaluate public policy. It is reasonable to assume that in an unstable environment, when elected politicians and politically appointed high-level bureaucrats are frequently replaced, the differences between their interests, goals and time frames and those of the tenured senior professional staff challenge the ability or inclination of the various actors to cooperate in designing and implementing effective policy.

While there are many players who can influence policy capacity (Wu et al., 2015), our focus is on the permanent senior professional staff. One may assume that when political instability arises, long-term tenured employees will be better able and more willing to enable policy capacity than temporary political appointees. Hence, we ask: How does the permanent senior professional staff enable policy capacity in the face of political instability?

Our specific question adds insights to the discussion in the literature that explores how policy capacity develops in cases of political instability (Cohen, 2023; Mele & Ongaro, 2014). Specifically, our findings indicate how policy capacity develops when both politicians and the high-level bureaucrats they appoint are frequently replaced. Moreover, through a case study, we test the possibility that the permanent senior professional staff’s actions can enable policy capacity in times of political instability. We should stress that studying policy capacity in this context is also important even in societies that are currently stable, as one cannot take for granted that they will remain so in the future.

We explore these questions through the Israeli case. While Israel is a relatively young nation, it is considered a vibrant democracy where improvization is customary and, with the exception of security issues, strategic long-term policies are either absent or introduced but fail to materialize (Cohen, 2015, 2023). Over time, various scholars, committees and think tanks have pointed to this lack of policy capacity, both in terms of strategic, long-term planning and in terms of the execution of public policy and performance measurements. Starting two decades ago, the Israeli government took a series of steps in order to strengthen the policy capacity of the government’s ministries in spite of the recurrent political instability (Arian et al., 2002; Cohen, 2016; Nachmias & Sened, 1999). In this paper we will focus specifically on one of those steps, the appointment of tenured Deputy Directors-General for Strategy and Policy at the ministry level. We will examine their contribution to improving the Israeli government’s policy capacity in the face of government instability.

Literature review

Politicians, bureaucrats and policy capacity

In recent decades, various societies have tried to remodel the function of high-level bureaucracy to improve its quality (Boston et al., 1996; Hood, 1991; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004) and to delineate its relationships with politicians. As part of the New Public Management (NPM) wave of reform, governments attempted to expand the political control over high-level bureaucrats, in part by limiting or eliminating tenure (Hood & Lodge, 2005). Thus, under the NPM paradigm, high-level bureaucrats are considered the agents of politicians who can replace them or appoint people they trust. While high-level bureaucrats have the freedom to manage their agencies, they do so while accountable to the values and priorities of the public and the politicians (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004; Vigoda, 2002).

The attempts to achieve more political control over the bureaucracy increased during the 1990s, with the emergence of the post-New Public Management paradigm (Cohen, 2016; Reiter & Klenk, 2019). It criticized NPM’s narrow focus on market principles, managerial control, and governmental efficiency (Lynn, 2006), claiming that it led to the hollowing of the state (Terry, 2005) and to increased vertical and horizontal specialization (Christensen & Lægreid, 2007). Post-NPM reforms were instituted to fix the problems that arose from the NPM’s failures. They sought to strengthen the central political and administrative level through structural reintegration and by increasing capacity at the top. The decentralization of authority that the NPM had advocated proved disadvantageous (Christensen & Lægreid, 2001). However, horizontal coordination between units and sectors was also deemed important, with the control of this coordination coming from top level individuals (Christensen, 2012). Thus, it represented an approach of “politically controlled negotiation and persuasion,” with high-level decision makers allowing bottom-up processes, even though they still regulated and coordinated them.

Such attempts to increase political control over the bureaucracy (Christensen, 2012) and create institutional mechanisms that would also increase policy capacity are understandable. Politicians and bureaucrats differ in their basic motives and usually interact in a world of asymmetric information (Peters & Pierre, 2004). Even though bureaucrats operate in a rather difficult position within increasingly complicated political processes (Howlett & Wellstead, 2011), they can, due to their expertise, dominate the policy process and marginalize the role of political leaders (Peters, 1987). As Peters (2015, p. 219) explained, bureaucracies work upward to their “nominal political masters.” They also work downward through their implementation of policy. Finally, they also work outwards toward the various stakeholders involved in their policies. During these processes, they are considered “stable” players in the policy arena and often seek to maximize their budgets, with the goal of expanding their role to shore up their power and position (Niskanen, 1971). In addition, they also possess an organizational memory “that can guide their actions and also inform other actors in the process” (Peters, 2015, p. 221). In contrast, politicians are usually not experts. They have long been described as players whose goal is to maximize their chances of (re)-election (Downs, 1957; Schumpeter, 1943) or to avoid blame (Boin et al., 2008; Ellis, 1994; Hood, 2011; Weaver, 1986). Nevertheless, even though bureaucracies persist and politicians come and go, the latter sometimes find ways to overcome the expertise-based manipulations of bureaucrats (Bendor et al., 1987).

In spite of these differing motives, the literature indicates that politicians and bureaucrats may cooperate to enable policy capacity because the interaction between them is often symbiotic. Politicians depend on bureaucrats to implement their policies, while bureaucrats rely on politicians to obtain sufficient budgets for their agencies (Niskanen, 1971). Moreover, although politicians usually want to control policy processes, they acknowledge the bureaucrats’ expertise and seek to utilize it rather than to oppose it. This point is particularly true when they both share a common understanding about what constitutes good policy and are members of a common “epistemic community” (Peters, 2015, pp. 225–226). Thus, a conflict—and as a consequence, a diminished policy capacity—may be more common when the political leader is not familiar with the policy domain.

This observation by Peters (2015) helps us understand why various governments experience different levels of policy capacity. However, in times of recurrent political instability, with frequent personnel changes in higher political and bureaucratic positions and frequent shifts in coalitions, the interactions between elected and appointed players may lead to significant disparities between politicians (and their politically appointed high-level bureaucrats) and the senior professional administrative staff. These disparities may challenge the ability to enable policy capacity.

Policy capacity has long been recognized as a desirable and necessary element for societies worldwide (Parsons, 2004; Painter & Pierre, 2005; Peters, 2005; Fukuyama, 2013; Lee & Liu, 2022), especially when dealing with increasingly complex policy problems (Wu, Howlett, et al., 2018). A higher level of policy capacity means that “policymakers are better equipped to engage with multiple information streams, and subsequently, attention can be distributed more proportionally…” (Epp & Baumgartner, 2017, p. 248). While not all agree on a specific definition of this fundamental concept (Aucoin & Bakvis, 2005; Gleeson et al., 2011), many tend to agree that it is the “set of skills and resources—or competences and capabilities—necessary to perform policy functions…” (Wu et al., 2015, p. 166).

As Howlett and Ramesh (2016) noted, the substance of the difference between governance modes lies in their “plurilateral or hierarchical nature and in the degree of leadership exercised by the state” (p. 306). Thus, the government is not just one of the possible actors in a governance mode. It is the key player. Based on this rationale, Wu et al. (2015, p. 167) categorized policy capacity into three types: political, operational, and analytical. They also maintained that each of these three competences involves resources or capabilities at three different levels: systemic, organizational, and individual. Their resulting framework consists of nine types of policy-relevant capacities. It recognizes that policy capacity at the macro level does not exist in a vacuum. The skills and competences of individual players and institutions “play decisive roles in performing key functions in policy processes.” At the individual level, politicians and bureaucrats play a major role in determining policy outcomes, and their policy capacity is determined by their skills, knowledge, expertise, and judgment. However, such capacity is not enough to guarantee effective policies. Other resources and capacities are required—both at the organizational level as well as at the system level—to ensure effective public policy (Wu et al., 2015, p. 167). Wu and colleagues also suggested exploring the implications of system, agency, and individual-level capacities for the success and failure of policy and the ability to change it (p. 170). We respond to this call by conducting such an investigation in the extreme context of continuous and ongoing political instability.

Political instability and policy capacity

Political stability is the regularity of the flow of political exchanges. The more regular and predictable the flow of political exchanges in a given society—the more stability it possesses (Ake, 1975). Thus, when both elected and politically appointed high-level decision makers are frequently replaced, the differences between their policy capacity levels and those of bureaucrats become challenging. This situation usually leads to poorer public performance (Fredriksson & Svensson, 2003).

Political instability is a broad concept that has been analyzed for different purposes and contexts in political science. Almost 50 years ago, Hurwitz (1973) identified five distinct approaches to political stability: (1) the absence of violence, (2) government longevity, (3) existence of a legitimate constitutional regime, (4) the absence of structural change, and (5) multifaceted societal attributes. Similar to Mele and Ongaro (2014) and Cohen (2023), we will narrow the scope of our investigation to government longevity in terms of “survival” (Dowding & Kimber, 1983; Sanders & Herman, 1977), meaning the actual duration of a government expressed as a percentage of its maximum institutional life.

One of the central features of democratic systems is the replacement of the ruling parties and incumbent politicians who influence the administrative system (Meier & O’Toole, 2006). These replacements may result in more frequent clashes in ideology, goals, and interests between politicians and bureaucrats. Such conflicts may challenge the state’s ability to act in a unified manner and affect the turnover rate of high-level bureaucrats, especially if the new politicians see them as an obstacle to their political goals. For example, in their study of Danish local governments, Grøn and Salomonsen (2019) found that various elements associated with political instability reduced the ability of local government to act in a unified manner. Their findings emphasize that “agenda instability” (i.e., changing political agendas) challenges the local administration’s ability to communicate with the media as a unified body in times of reputational threats. Similarly, Boyne et al. (2010) reported that changes in political party control and lack of organizational performance have both separate and joint positive effects on the turnover rate of high-level bureaucrats.

In the face of political instability, various policy actors may prefer short-term considerations over long-term ones and favor their own personal interests over ideological or national ones. The result may be an extreme “muddling through” process with regard to policy (Lindblom, 1959; Wildavsky, 1984) rather than a long-term strategic process that emanates from coherent goals, interim objectives and operative procedures. Due to the problems of governing and of “hard” and “soft” uncertainty (Dror, 1987), this process forces many of the players in the policy arena to “put out fires” and act based on short-term considerations (Cohen, 2015; Jabotinsky & Cohen, 2020).

Moreover, in times of instability, politicians may choose to signal their competence to their constituencies through legislative activism, which leads to the overproduction of laws and norms (Gratton et al., 2017). This choice further complicates the interactions between politicians and bureaucrats, reducing policy capacity. In their study of Italian civil service reform and innovation, Mele and Ongaro (2014) stressed how the brief duration of the political leadership represented a threat to the reform. Moreover, Golden (2003) argued that legislators deliberately designed the Italian public administration to be cumbersome and slow in order to be able to claim credit for improving service to the public.

Recently, Cohen (2023) used the Israeli experience to explore public administration reform in the context of political instability. He described Israel as a “wicked environment” for administration reform. Decision makers in such an environment find it difficult to plan strategically and formulate public policy and implement it effectively over time. Moreover, the study concluded that Israeli politicians have little motivation for such reform nor the ability to enable it even if they wanted to, given the high costs and limited benefits for politicians of doing so. Thus, the conditions that create the need for reform also create powerful barriers to such reform—particularly the lack of political will. Indeed, while politicians may talk about the importance of increasing policy capacity via reform, their lack of commitment to the goal has been evident in the past (Galnoor et al., 1998) and currently (Cohen, 2023). However, this analysis did not directly address how senior professional administrative staff members cope with this situation.

Our goal is to improve our understanding of how such bureaucrats muddle through political instability. Thus, while the literature emphasizes the importance of establishing institutional mechanisms for enabling policy capacity, we explore how such institutions, typically run by high-level bureaucrats, function in the face of political instability. While it is reasonable to assume that in such a situation, the permanent senior professional administrative staff would play a larger role in terms of strategic planning and policy capacity, room remains for analyzing how these senior bureaucrats deal with political instability with regard to the government’s ability to function, as well as the strategies they use to maintain policy capacity. We suggest that examining the Israeli case will provide some relevant insights. But first, we will introduce the Israeli context and our methodology.

The context: continuous political instability in Israel and the steps taken to enable policy capacity

Political instability in Israel

The Israeli political and administrative systems were established under the British Mandate in Palestine from 1917 to 1948. Under the British Mandate, the Jewish community, led by left-wing parties, had a relatively large measure of autonomy in managing its own affairs in most civilian domains. The Jewish leadership, elected via a relatively independent political establishment, created the basis for what in time would become Israel administrative system by establishing autonomous organizations separate from those of both the British authorities and the Arab community. These organizations sought to accelerate economic and demographic growth, provide public services, develop an electricity infrastructure, build roads, ensure a water supply, and construct buildings (Cohen, 2019).

On the political level, the victory of the right-wing Likud Party in the 1977 elections, close to three decades after the establishment of the State of Israel, was a major turning point in the country’s political history (Horowitz & Lissak, 1989), marking the first time the left in Israel had lost power. Likud ruled the country for most of the 1980s. However, from 1984 to 1986, Israeli politicians formed a unity government based on political cooperation between the Likud and the Ma’arach, Israel’s main left-wing party. In the years to come, the right-wing Likud party dominated the political arena, with several exceptions such as Ehud Barak’s left-wing government (1999–2001) and Ariel Sharon’s (2001–2006) and Ehud Olmert’s (2006–2009) center governments (both Sharon and Olmert started out in the Likud). Since 2009 and until June 2021, Benjamin Netanyahu served as the Israeli Prime Minister. Although this is a relatively long period, it is really not indicative of political stability. During that time, Prime Minister Netanyahu led four different cabinets and two additional interim ones that were marked by tumultuous politics, recurrent cabinet changes and short ministerial terms. For example, between 2009 and 2021, nine different ministers headed the Ministry of Communications, eight headed the Ministry of Economy, and six headed the Ministry of Environmental Protection. Indeed, as Barnea et al. (2013) indicated, the length of ministerial terms declined by 40% between 1990 and 2013.

Moreover, various characteristics of Israel’s political regime and public service sector may aggravate the impact of frequent ministerial changes. Governments in Israel are typically coalitions composed of representatives from a wide variety of political parties. This coalition structure implies that ministers have broad discretion over the policies they choose to adopt, particularly because the Israeli political and administrative systems are very centralized (Cohen, 2023; Galnoor, 2011; Mizrahi & Meydani, 2006). Therefore, the appointment of a new cabinet often gives the new ministers in office the ability to postpone, change, and even cancel decisions made by their predecessors. It is also common for new ministries to be created and units to be transferred between ministries when a new cabinet is formed. As a result, coordination between government ministries and long-term policy formulation may be even more challenging.

In addition, Israeli transition governments often last many months, up to a year or more (Fuchs & Kenig, 2022) During that long period, the government’s activities are severely restricted, and it is also unable to launch or even continue reforms. Finally, the impact of the political instability is aggravated by the existing gaps that impede the Israeli government’s capacity to take a strategic perspective. These gaps, recently diagnosed by a RAND corporation report, include the lack of involvement of the political leadership in strategy, the reactive posture to policy challenges, the lack of inter-ministerial coordination in policymaking, the low levels of governmental engagement with stakeholders and the public, the inadequate use of research and empirical findings, the difficulties in transitioning strategy to policies, and the inadequate measurement and evaluation of policies (Shatz et al., 2016).

Moreover, the Israeli Civil Service Law (Appointments −1959) adds to the disruptive effects of the transitions as it allows ministers to appoint senior administrative officials, primarily, the ministries’ Directors-General. Hence, these senior officials, and often other political nominees, are frequently replaced before completing a significant tour of duty. In fact, our analysis of the unpublished data collected by an Israeli think tank (The Civic Cabinet, 2021) indicates that the average tour of duty of Directors-General during the last two decades was just two and a half years. Indeed, many terms were much shorter. In such an environment, long-term strategic considerations take a back seat to short-term considerations in the conduct of the various players in the public policy arena (Cohen, 2015). Thus, the literature points to the inability of Israeli decision-makers to devise a long-term public policy and implement it effectively on the ground as a phenomenon that has characterized Israeli society for many decades (Arian et al., 2002; Cohen, 2016, 2023; Nachmias & Sened, 1999).

Steps taken to enable the Israeli government’s policy capacity

Over the years, various committees and think tank groups, both governmental and non-governmental, have recommended reforms in public administration in order to improve Israel’s policy capacity. In the late 1980s, the Kubersky Committee Report (1989) was the first to propose a comprehensive administrative reform of the public sector and its senior leadership. The report recommended de-politicizing and decentralizing the public administration. It noted the need to establish clear boundaries for political involvement in the public sector and to increase the managerial and policy capacity of the high-level bureaucrats, mainly by granting them greater discretion and flexibility. Several other committees made similar recommendations (for a review, see Cohen, 2019). Nevertheless, attempts to implement the Kubersky report (Galnoor, 2003) and the recommendations of other reports usually failed.

Recognizing the consequences of this reality, Israeli decision makers made additional attempts during the last two decades to increase the state’s policy capacity, especially regarding long-term planning and policy consistency. One important step in that direction was the establishment of Policy Planning Divisions at the ministerial level and the gradual nomination of Deputy Directors-General for Strategy (DDS) at the head of these divisions in most government ministries. The Civil Service Commission and the Policy Planning Division (both affiliated with the Prime Minister’s Office) initiated and launched these changes in 2011. This step followed a 2008 cabinet decision that emphasized the need to improve the planning, budgeting, measurement, and control processes of the ministries in the spirit of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) recommendations.

Indeed, the efforts to improve the state’s policy capacity redoubled due to Israel’s admission to the OECD in 2010 (Civil Service Commission, 2013, pp. 68–69). Another factor involved in this effort was the social unrest of summer 2011, when thousands of Israelis took to the streets to protest the cost of living. The Trajtenberg report written after these events urged the government to strengthen its planning and policy capacity and to empower its headquarters’ planning and evaluation capabilities. Consequently, in December 2011, the Israeli government established an additional commission to review the structure of the civil service staff. The committee’s report was submitted in April 2012. Based on its recommendations, the cabinet decided in November 2012 to strengthen the National Economic Council as the professional unit advising the Prime Minister. It also planned on creating institutions and processes that would ensure a solid foundation for strategic planning for the government in the economic and social spheres. Accordingly, the cabinet created a Strategy Forum in order to “identify and analyze trends that have a significant impact on the socio-economic situation… to present an analysis of trends and strategic issues to the Directors-General of government ministries… to formulate a strategic situation assessment, which will be presented to a new government upon formation… to assist in outlining strategic outline plans… and to strengthen collaboration in strategic planning processes in the socio-economic field across ministries…” (Cabinet Decision #5208). The cabinet decision stated that the Head of the National Economic Council should lead the forum’s deliberations and that the forum should meet once a month. The ministries typically appointed their DDSs to serve on the new forum, so it became known as the Deputy Directors-General for Strategy Forum (DDSF). The DDSF soon turned out to be the main meeting place for bureaucrats to discuss both strategic and policy matters, as well as the expression of the Israeli government’s determination to improve its policy capacity in unstable political times.

Method

This study is part of a larger project that focuses on the various implications of political instability for the Israeli public administration. As explained above, given the influence of this structural condition on the functioning of the administrative system, we explored how the high-level permanent bureaucrats in the DDSF dealt with the problems that resulted from this situation. We maintain that their experiences are instructive because they are implementing the institutional mechanism that is in charge of long-term planning and policy continuity and capacity.

To accomplish this goal, we found that the qualitative-constructivist research method most appropriate. This method allows us to understand individual experiences, perceptions and personal beliefs in light of the macro-level context and political environment. In other words, we can examine phenomena in their natural settings, attempting to make sense of or interpret them in terms of the meanings people bring to them (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). Rather than beginning with pre-conceived ideas and testing them, in this method, we begin with the data and look at the themes that emerge from them. In this field research, we used in-depth interviews and textual analysis.

Research design

In-depth interviews

Between November 2020 and January 2023, we conducted 19 interviews. First, we interviewed all of the relevant Deputy Directors-General for Strategy and Policy (DDS) except for one who declined our invitation and two who had retired and had not yet been replaced. Overall, we conducted 12 in-depth interviews with the DDSs in the Ministries of Justice, Environmental Protection, Homeland Security, Communications, Education, Agriculture, Religious Affairs, the Economy, Social Equality, and Labor, as well as the former DDS of the Ministry of Health who at the time of the interview served as the DDS of the Ministry of Social Affairs, and the DDS of the Population and Immigration Agency. These 12 interviewees, cited later in this paper as Anonymous 1 to 12, were all members of the Deputy Directors-General for Strategy Forum (DDSF).

In addition, in order to triangulate the accounts and narratives of the DDSF members we interviewed seven senior officials who were not DDSs (cited as Anonymous 13–19): the Director-General of the Ministry of Agriculture, a former director of the Governance and Society Division in the Prime Minister’s Office, a former deputy director of the Ministry of Health, the Deputy Director of the National Economic Council in charge of the operation of the DDSF, a former head of the Public Administration Reform Directorate, and two senior officials at the Ministry of Social Affairs. Given that we interviewed all but one relevant Deputy Director-General, we feel confident that we overcame potential biases related to any specific sampling strategy.

We asked the interviewees about their experience with political instability, the challenges they and their colleagues from the senior administrative staff face due to that instability, and the strategies they adopt to overcome them. The interviews were semi-structured. They typically began with an overview of the purpose of our research and the questions we were exploring. We asked the participants specifically to describe the DDSFs’ activities from their standpoint, their motivations and sources of influence. The interviews were rather open-ended. They lasted between 45 minutes and an hour and a half and were conducted via Zoom and recorded. We invited the interviewees to be outspoken and sincere and asked whether we could record and cite them. Most of the interviewees were reluctant to be cited by name, so we will refer to them as Anonymous. In order to ensure inter-referee as well as intercoder reliability (Campbell et al., 2013) reliability, all of the interviews but five included at least two interviewers (Note: The second author was a member of the DDSF of one ministry until 2019. We decided that he would not participate in the interview of his replacement. Anonymous 16, 17, 18 and 19 were also interviewed by a single author). Several respondents were interviewed twice for clarification and additions. All interviews were transcribed.

Textual resources

We triangulated our findings from the methods above with supplementary textual sources. The main goal of the complementary textual sources of information was to shed light on the current political instability and policy capacity in Israel and document the DDSF’s involvement in and dilemmas with regard to the issue. Our textual sources included legislative documents, protocols of the parliament’s special committee meetings on the subject and print and online press sources such as reports from the media, NGOs and the government on the subject of political instability and policy capacity. Textual resources were chosen on the basis of their relevance to the research topic.

Analysis

We used an inductive approach (Charmaz, 2014) to allow the characteristics of the DDSs’ engagement with policy capacity to emerge from the data without imposing prior expectations. Thus, data collection and analyses were approached without a priori assumptions about participants’ perceptions and actions. We gathered all the statements made by the interviewees and compared them with one another to decide which belonged together. Next, we created conceptual categories that reflected commonalities among the interviewees. For example, we grouped codes such as “politicians’ turnover” and “senior bureaucrats’ turnover” under the category “political instability.” In this stage, the analysis identified several sources of influence and practices in the realm of the DDSs’ experience and strategies. This form of analysis allowed us to create a coherent analytical story. In the final stage, we developed a storyline suggesting that when such bureaucrats in strategic units believe that strategic planning and policy capacity are short-term, given the political instability and frequent turnover of politicians, they will try to influence policy capacity using various strategies.

Findings

Our findings suggest that political instability and the recurrent appointments of new ministers and new Directors-General had a considerable impact on the morale of the senior professional staff. Most of the DDSs we interviewed noted that the “incessant turnover at the top” had a very disturbing impact on their work (e.g., Anonymous 3, 9, 11). In particular, they mentioned three consequences of the political instability for policy making and policy capacity: (1) short-term policymaking; (2) the de-professionalization of policymaking; and (3) planning and policymaking becoming empty rituals.

Consequences of political instability for policy making and policy capacity

Short-term policymaking

Our interviewees often indicated that whenever new ministers are appointed, they tend to ignore their predecessor’s plans and try to promote other agendas and goals. This change is often due to the desire of the newly appointed politicians to prove that they are competent and able to make changes rapidly. This tendency to ignore previous plans, even when carefully designed by competent bureaucrats (Anonymous 15), obviously impedes the permanent senior professionals’ efforts to engage in long-term strategic planning (Anonymous 3). In the words of one interviewee: “We have given up our big dreams” (Anonymous 17).

Political instability is also considered a problem because politicians’ considerations are primarily short-term politics. Therefore, bureaucrats “have no time to think and to prepare the plans for a better future” (Anonymous 6) and thus spend time and energy “on short term issues” (Anonymous 2). Another interviewee stated that due to their short stay in office, politicians are reluctant to make the needed decisions and to engage in policy implementation. “They worry that they will pay a political price for their decisions now but will not be there to collect the political gains” (Anonymous 15). One of the DDSs explained:

The political instability has a daily catastrophic effect, and this is becoming worse due to the recurrent elections. In our field, policy is inherently oriented to the longer term and changes are intrinsically slow. There is a constant conflict between that and the desire of politicians to show significant improvements a short time after their appointment. The major reforms we desperately need are stuck. Instead, ministers are trying to achieve narrow but publicly salient goals (Anonymous 6).

Similarly, another DDS reported: “We had 10 ministers during the last decade or so. In practical terms, that means that we cannot really make any significant progress in terms of legislation and regulation. In our ministry, which is basically a regulatory agency, this is really bad” (Anonymous 5). Anonymous 7 added: “We do not design our policy alone. We do that with other agencies. Thus, even when we enjoy relative stability in our own ministry, we often cannot accomplish what was agreed upon since the positions of our partners have changed.”

The de-professionalization of policymaking

Most of our interviewees regard the politicians’ tendency to cancel previous decisions and endorse new agendas as leading to unprofessional decisions that promote policies based simply on their presumed popularity. Given that the new politicians, as well as their appointed Directors-General, are well aware that they will probably stay in office only for a short time, they are looking for a short-term initiative that will attract positive attention from the press and the public. One of the Deputy Director-Generals explained: “This pressure to achieve a lot in a very short time results in decisions taken without any sound professional deliberations” (Anonymous 5). Another DDS added:

Politicization inexorably drips down. Bureaucrats learn how to behave so that the politicians are happy with them and promote them. Because of that, there is a process of de-professionalization of the senior level of the public sector. The ability to achieve whatever goals quickly is more cherished than knowledgeable reflection and careful planning (Anonymous 4).

Furthermore, while professional knowledge and expertise are essential to address the complex issues they face, “the ministers and the appointed Directors-General… usually have no background in the subject, and they do not get enough time to even start to grasp the issues at stake” (Anonymous 3). “Professional deliberations take time, and they are in hurry,” added Anonymous 16. Another one said more bluntly: “Policy and governance nowadays is press headlines and media presence. It used to be that professional deliberations were held before the press conference. Now, it is the other way” (Anonymous 4).

Planning and policymaking as empty rituals

In the face of political instability, strategic and yearly planning may become a “technical” ritual rather than “a real opportunity to review our policy and assess or achievements” (Anonymous 8), because “when governments last for a very short period, nobody cares about yearly goals and strategic plans” (Anonymous 5). Another interviewee added: “In any case, planning mechanisms are at best a necessary condition. They are not sufficient” (Anonymous 15).

The Sisyphean effort to write plans that will please short-term political appointees is frustrating. We also learned that the various functions and directives promoted by the Prime Minister’s Office to improve policy capacity and strategic planning despite political instability are fragile and can, in practice, be easily ignored even when implemented. “We write them although we often discover that this is rather useless. We do that since it at least builds a consensus among the senior professional staff” (Anonymous 4). Another interviewee added that the so-called long-terms plans are in fact “two-year ones maximum, as we have learned than it is not practical to plan further than that because of ministerial turnover” (Anonymous 10).

Thus, it appears that the DDSF did not fulfill its role as a champion of meaningful planning. Its ability to do so depends on the politicians’ willingness to actually use the strategic plans devised by the professionals as a tool for governance and decision-making (Desmidt & Meyfroodt, 2021). Anonymous 4 explained: “The DDSF has become a meaningless, empty body. Most of the DDSs do not believe anymore that the cabinet is genuinely attentive to the forum’s professional advice…” We also learned that despite the continuous effort to strengthen the new established Policy Planning Divisions, their contribution to policy capacity remains limited in the sense that they depend heavily on the willingness of the ministers and the Directors-General to rely on their work (Anonymous 1, 7). Furthermore, several interviewees (Anonymous 4, 7, 8) added that even the Budget Division in the Ministry of Finance, which historically has been considered an island of power that used to “think big,” has been systematically weakened. Hence, “nowadays they deal mainly with micro issues” (Anonymous 4). This is also the case for the National Economic Council and the Governance and Society Division in the Prime Minister’s Office whose strength and influence have declined according to most of the interviewees because of the prevalence of political considerations in times of governmental instability. The DDSs we interviewed also indicated that they are often expected to support partisan agendas rather than the policies proposed at the ministries’ professional headquarters.

All in all, the DDSs painted a disturbing picture of the interactions between politicians and bureaucrats in this extreme context of political instability. Anonymous 10 pointed out that “good people are leaving us, frustrated by their inability to bring their plans to an end.” Moreover, we “…hardly can recruit workers and managers when a transition government rules and that further reduces our capacity” (Anonymous 13). Additionally, DDSs see politicians’ claims about the excessive power of “bureaucrats” and their inability to govern because of an entrenched deep state as an excuse to cover their frequent policy changes. “They always proclaim that the bureaucrats are fixed and rigid and that they came to shake up the system,” complained Anonymous 16. As one DDS put it: “What they really want is just to do whatever they like - and do not want to be constrained by professional lines of reasoning” (Anonymous 4). Anonymous 5 added that the DDSs are in effect at the Directors-Generals’ mercy: “They can bring us to the top as well as totally ignore us.” In another DDS’s words: “It is as if we have to decide to serve the public or to obey the politician the public elected” (Anonymous 6).

We also found that the ability of ministers to modify the ministry’s existing policy quickly in accordance with their political agenda depends on the professionalism and stability of the permanent staff. Whenever the staff’s professional reputation is robust and it has strong support from the public and from relevant professional organizations, political interference is constrained. The politicians’ power also depends on the inability of the senior professional staff to act collectively as a collaborative leadership and resist political pressure (Anonymous 2, 9). As one DDS explained: “Regarding this specific policy issue, there was a lot of disagreement among us and because and this left a lot of discretion to the ministers. The result was that the policy changed every time a new minister was appointed” (Anonymous 3).

The senior professional administrative staff’s strategies to enable policy

Despite the political instability and the political pressure they often face, our findings indicate that the DDSs still try to maintain long-term planning processes and have been able to increase the policy capacity in their offices. Some of our interviewees stated that they were able to plan and implement various programs and reforms despite governmental turnovers (Anonymous 2, 13, 14). Our interviews revealed several strategies they use in that endeavor: (1) being prepared and marketing their plans; (2) sticking to routines, procedures and rules; (3) getting support from professional and epistemic communities.

Being prepared and marketing their plans

One strategy is to produce, in advance, different and varied contingency plans “for the drawer” that will be utilized according to the characteristics of the incoming minister (Anonymous 10, 12). The DDSs reported that they often prepare policy papers to be presented to newly appointed ministers. They also stressed the importance of the DDS’s ability to “market” the plans to the incoming ministers, “regardless of the political party they are coming from” (Anonymous 13). In that way, they try to convince the politicians to adopt their professional plans by persuading them that their proposals are consistent with the ministers’ political agendas and that they can be successfully implemented in a relatively short period (Anonymous 3, 7, 9). To do so, they sometimes adapt the wording they use in a way that fits more with the new minister’s preferences (Anonymous 16). Anonymous 5 added:

Whenever a new minister is appointed, the senior professionals of the ministry often compete as to who will be the first to meet with him and “sell” him his or her idea… and “recruit” the Minister in the efforts to raise more budget… The more sophisticated among us know how to convince him that their plans serve the political goals of the newly appointed minister.

Sticking to routines, procedures and rules

Many of our interviewees stated that although most of the planning routines imposed by the government planning manuals are used ritually and superficially, “they are still the main road to plan and to come closer to the minister’s agenda and viewpoints” (Anonymous 2). As Anonymous 17 stated, “When we articulate a program according to a widely accepted format, such as a logic model and we base our arguments on data and research, our position is stronger.” Another DDS added: “The good side of that is that when the minister has no political interest in the issue, he usually lets us go on with our plans and our policies and does not interfere. Also, when the new minister is ideologically close to his predecessor, the tendency is sometimes not to start from scratch, and that gives us some stability” (Anonymous 1).

As we gathered more data, we also learned that the impact of political instability differs from one ministry to another and depends on various factors. For example, whenever a ministry’s decisions and activities are legally endorsed and structured through rules, reporting standards, and formal procedures, the influence of political appointees is restricted. As one of the DDSs explained: “The Minister is well aware that his reputation is very closely linked to the achievements of the public agencies he oversees. He is therefore very careful not to impede our professional activities too much.” This is also the case whenever the policy is anchored in a formal cabinet resolution that includes a numerical outcome to be reached (Anonymous 15) and whenever governmental actions are guided by international conventions and directives, such as those emanating from UN agencies and the OECD. As one DDS stated: “In our field, we must follow [the] UN. That limits the minister’s room to maneuver” (Anonymous 5). Similarly, when regulations are subject to the approval of other offices and overseers such as the Justice Ministry or Knesset committees, previous decisions are not easy to change. In such cases, “ministers typically give up and look for areas where changes are more easily made” (Anonymous 3). However, some politicians “…tried to lean on OECD recommendations on regulatory regimes, and change policy. They pretended that they did so to make the government more agile, but in fact it is often just a pretext” (Anonymous 3).

Seeking support from professional and epistemic communities

We also found that the ability of ministers to modify the ministry’s existing policy quickly in accordance with their political agenda depends on the professionalism and stability of the permanent staff. Whenever the staff’s professional reputation is robust and it has strong support from the public and from relevant professional organizations, political interference is constrained. The politicians’ power also depends on the inability of the senior professional staff to act collectively as a collaborative leadership and resist political pressure (Anonymous 2, 9).

The DDSs invest continuous effort in building and strengthening their professional coalitions and epistemic communities within and across ministries, as well as with the civil society and professional organizations (Anonymous 2, 5, 16). The interviews revealed that the top professional staff in most offices is relatively stable. Hence, because “we are rather collegial with each other… this gives us strength… Moreover, we are careful to ‘socialize’ mid-level managers, so this creates an esprit-de-corps and a sense of professional pride and that helps when political interference occurs…” (Anonymous 5). One DDS explained: “Our ministry professional leadership is solid and powerful, and it has a strong conservative ethos and a tradition of resistance to political interference. The staff is not alone, and it can count on the support of powerful external allies” (Anonymous 2). Another DDS (Anonymous 7) mentioned that when his ministry actively involves citizens in the formulation of policy, a new minister cannot easily ignore the policy.

Discussion and conclusion

This article focuses on a cardinal topic of the public policy literature: the interaction between politicians and bureaucrats and its impact on policy capacity, particularly, strategic planning (Tama, 2018). Using Israel as a case study, we explore if and how high-level bureaucrats deal with political instability with regard to their ability to design and implement long-term policies. In such circumstances, the differences in the interests, goals and time frames of politicians and bureaucrats increase and may challenge their ability or desire to cooperate in designing and implementing effective policy.

The unit of analysis in this case was members of the Israeli government’s senior professional staff and more specifically, the Deputy Directors-General for Strategy of various ministries. All of them, but one, consistently pointed out that they regarded political instability as a major obstacle to policy capacity and long-term planning. Moreover, none of them insinuated that the frequent turnover at the political level is beneficial in giving them more influence on policy issues due to their expertise (Niskanen, 1971) and permanency (Peters, 1987). Rather, they pursued various strategies to enable policy and strategic planning processes in cooperation with the ministers and appointed Directors-General. The senior professional administrative staff we interviewed preferred to rely on their professional ability to argue for the policy proposals they had prepared ahead of time and on the reputation and cohesiveness of their teams. In Mele and Ongaro (2014) terms, they have learned to repackage their proposals to fit the politicians’ agendas, strengthen the internal and external professional communities of practice, and maneuver within the dynamics of the legal process.

Moreover, although they are well aware that cabinet resolutions, rules, legal and international statutes and standards as well as citizens’ engagement may restrain the politicians’ temptation to repeatedly modify policies, they do not intentionally use these methods to limit the power of elected ministers. This apparent restraint may be the result of the introduction of short-term employment contracts for senior bureaucrats by the Israeli Civil Service Commission, an NPM-inspired decision (Hood & Lodge, 2006) to limit tenure that is gradually being implemented. Another explanation is the tendency of bureaucrats to avoid conflicts. As one of our interviewees said: “We are not built for revolutions” (Anonymous 17).

This research contributes to the extant literature by suggesting that anchoring policy design in formal procedures and making their outcomes transparent and public can help reduce erratic policy making. Adopting this approach can help ensure that policies are methodically designed, substantiated, and evaluated. One method of doing so might be the compulsory publication of detailed strategic plans and annual work plans that establish the performance goals for the applicable year; requiring politicians to publicly justify changes in those plans as well as in the course of their implementation; sharing the evidence substantiating the usefulness of the policy and the statutes and information used to develop it; and the mandatory involvement of citizens in its design. Another method is to allow members of the senior professional administrative staff, whose duty it is to execute the policies and who are accountable for the achievement of their goals, to publicly express their positions as to the likelihood of the policies succeeding. They should be able to do so without fear of losing their jobs. They should be assessed solely on the basis of their professional excellence and their competence in terms of planning, implementing, and evaluating policy. Our findings pave the way for future studies seeking to continue the theoretical and empirical study of policy capacity in times of political instability. Although our findings are based on the examination of one single case, they have practical relevance for policy makers in countries worldwide that experience continuous political instability.

In times of political instability, politicians can easily promote short-term political agendas, disregard strategic and yearly planning directives, and take no real notice of professional expertise. Thus, the dichotomy between elected politicians, who represent the public will, and bureaucrats, who, although they may influence and advise, are mostly subordinate executors (Wilson, 1887), is constantly challenged (Peters & Pierre, 2004). Whenever political stability is the rule and ministers are appointed for a rather long period, this clear dichotomy ensures that bureaucrats genuinely assist the democratically elected politicians to carefully design and implement the policies and the strategies they campaigned on. In such a situation, there is an appropriate balance between political will and agility on one hand and professionalism and continuity on the other.

However, political instability disrupts this balance, encouraging politicians to endorse short-term political and personal agendas rather than strategic public interests (Cohen, 2023). In such a situation, it seems that another division of labor between politicians and bureaucrats is needed. It also means that in times of political instability, policy capacity is more than the ability to engage in strategic planning, and design, implement and evaluate public policies. In such situations, policy capacity should also include the ability of policy makers to improvise (Howlett & Ramesh, 2016; Howlett, Capano, et al., 2018), change courses of action as conditions change, and make “automatic or semi-automatic adjustments” (Moynihan & Soss, 2014).

The case presented here is specific with regard to time, place and policy content. Thus, we do not claim that the same mechanisms will operate similarly in different cultures and situations. The exploratory nature of this research and the idiosyncrasy of the Israeli political scene mean that we cannot draw clear conclusions or make universal recommendations as to the role of politicians and that of the bureaucrats in times of political instability. Nevertheless, it seems that we need new practices that limit erratic policy making and effective procedures that maintain the long-term accountability of bureaucrats to the public and to its elected representatives (Schillemans & Smulders, 2015).

Policy capacity is affected by political sustainability. However, such sustainability can never be safely assumed because even in stable societies, policymakers usually cannot make “binding commitments” (Patashnik, 2003). Moreover, earlier agreements can be revised or even nullified as new politicians and bureaucrats can always change their minds (Stiglitz, 1998). Political instability may strengthen such dynamics. Hence, frequent personnel changes in higher political and bureaucratic positions could lead to new opposing veto players who will reverse older polices and reduce the potential for maintaining any policy. We should stress again that studying policy capacity in the context of political instability is also important for societies that are currently stable, as one cannot take for granted that they will remain so in the future. Thus, studying policy capacity in the context of political instability is also important for stable societies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nissim Cohen

Nissim (Nessi) Cohen is the head of the Department for Public Administration and Policy at the University of Haifa in Israel. His research interests include interactions between politicians and bureaucrats, public administration reform, public budgeting, street level bureaucracy, policy entrepreneurship and social welfare and health policies.

Yekoutiel Sabah

Yekoutiel Sabah holds a PhD in Social Work, a master’s degree in Sociology of Education and a Bachelor in Social Work degree, all of them from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He also holds a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government. He has been a visiting scholar in various American universities and has published several articles and policy papers on social services managerial issues. Dr. Sabah has served as the Head of the National Statistical System Coordination Division at the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, as the Head of the Research, Planning and Professional Instruction Division at the Ministry of Social Affairs and as the Head of the Civil Service Reform Taskforce at the Israeli Civil Service Commission.