As citizens, why do we care about the everyday life of ministers
and civil servants? We care because the decisions of the great and
the good affect all our lives, for good or ill. For all their
personal, political, and policy failings and foibles, they make a
difference. So, we want to know what ministers and bureaucrats do,
why, and how. We are interested in their beliefs and practices.
In Everyday Life in British Government, a fascinating, new piece of
political anthropology, R.A.W. Rhodes uncovers exactly how the
British political elite thinks and acts. Drawing on unprecedented
access to ministers and senior civil servants in three government
departments, he answers a simple question: 'what do they do?' On
the basis of extensive fieldwork, supplemented by revealing
interviews, Rhodes tries to capture the essence of their everyday
life, describes the ministers' and permanent secretaries' world
through their own eyes, and explores how their beliefs and
practices serve to create meaning in politics, policy making, and
public-service delivery. Everyday Life in British Government goes
on to analyze how such beliefs and practices are embedded in
traditions; in webs of protocols, rituals, and languages.
The story Rhodes has to tell is dramatized through in-depth
accounts of specific events to show ministers and civil servants
'in action'. He challenges the conventional constitutional,
institutional, and managerial views of British governance. Instead,
he describes a storytelling political-administrative elite, with
beliefs and practices rooted in the Westminster model, which uses
protocols and rituals to domesticate rude surprises and cope with
recurrent dilemmas.
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