Government Special Advisers As Media Players: to What Extent Do
Work in progress. Not to be circulated without author’s permission. Government special advisers as media players: to what extent do they contribute to the ideal of good government and the informed citizen? Ruth Garland, PhD Researcher, London School of Economics Abstract The number of special advisers doubled within two years of the 1997 election, and has continued to rise, but despite their obvious utility, they are probably the least understood and most demonised of political actors and have been subjected to repeated criticism in numerous government and parliamentary reviews ((Fourth Report: Special advisers - boon or bane?, 2000; Hillman, 2014; Public Administration Select Committee, 2012; Hillman, 2014; Wright, 2002; Yong & Hazell, 2014). In this paper I use data from 26 in-depth interviews with former government press officers, journalists and special advisers, together with contemporary and archival documentary analysis, to examine how the rise of the special adviser, especially in media-related roles, has impacted on the public purposes of government communications. The Whitehall model traditionally enshrines the ideal of a ‘neutral serving elite’ (Tashir, 2015: 280) as guardians of good government and yet, as Du Gay has stated, one interpretation of “enhanced democratic rule” holds that “bureaucracies should be more responsive to the wishes of their political masters and to the people they serve” (Du Gay, 2005:51). The rise of the special adviser has been described as one obvious manifestation of responsiveness (Greer, 2008) p132), but to whom and in whose interests? Introduction “Those special advisers whose role focuses on communications, facilitating contacts with the media and the wider political sphere, are of less obvious benefit to anyone other than the ministers who appoint them and the political parties they represent.” (Committee on Standards in Public Life, 2012).
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