Government: Have Presidents and Prime Ministers Misdiagnosed the Patient? (Volume 5)

by Donald J. Savoie

Citizens have lost trust in their institutions of public governance. In trying to fix the problem, presidents and prime ministers have misdiagnosed the patient, failing to recognize that government bureaucracies are inseparable from political institutions. As a result, career officials have become adroit at managing the blame game but much less so at embracing change.Donald Savoie looks to the United States, Great Britain, France, and Canada to assess two of the most important challenges confronting governments throughout the Western the concentration of political power and the changing role of government bureaucracy. The four countries have distinct institutions shaped by distinct histories, but what they have in common is a professional non-partisan civil service. When presidents and prime ministers decide to expand their personal authority, national institutions must adjust while bureaucracies grow to fill the gap, paradoxically further constricting government efficacy. The side effects are universal – political power is increasingly centralized; Parliament, Congress, and the National Assembly have been weakened; Cabinet has lost standing; political parties have been debased; and civil services have been knocked off their moorings.Reduced responsibility and increased transparency make civil servants slow to take risks and politicians quick to point fingers. Government astutely diagnoses the problem of declining trust in presidents and prime ministers have failed to see that efficacy in government is tied to well-performing institutions.

Genres: Nonfiction

312 pages, Hardcover

Published May 22, 2022

Reviews

[Matthew Stienberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the past forty years presidents and prime ministers have argued that there's something wrong with governments. But have they misdiagnosed the patient? Donald J. Savoie argues yes! In this sweeping review of four countries (Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and France) he looks at how each government, despite vastly different histories and political institutions, have all arrived at the same conclusion: bureaucracy is the problem. In doing so all have adopted almost the same approach, bring in new management styles from the private sector while presidents and prime ministers concentrate power in their offices so they can overcome the hurdles of bureaucracy.

Savoie argues that this has been a devastating failure. It has lead to a demoralization within the civil service while leading to disillusion among voters with government itself. All the while presidents and prime ministers concentrate ever more power in their offices in an effort to force government to work as they want it to, increasingly along partisan lines. This overwhelms the leaders (there is only so much time in the day) and increasingly forces civil servants to throw operations and permissions up the chain, making them ever more reliant on the limited time in a day that a president or prime minister can devote to any issue and robs them of their ability to respond to issues further perpetuating a destructive cycle.

Instead of trying to force government to behave like the private sector (something it is not, and cannot be) Savoie argues that leaders should look to the histories of these institutions and what they are meant to accomplish. By focusing more power in their offices, leaders rob their civil services of legitimacy and make them only responsive to whatever happens to be on a leaders mind at the time. Only when this is understood, can any positive effort at change be made.

It is an unsustainable cycle, one which cannot go on.