2014/03/12 by Dennis Grube
paper · doi:10.1111/gove.12088
Contemporary public service leaders are no longer the anonymous mandarins of W estminster folklore. Whether giving public speeches to outside organizations or communicating directly with the media, senior public servants are emerging from anonymity to become public actors in their own right. This article undertakes a comparative study across four W estminster jurisdictions— A ustralia, C anada, N ew Z ealand, and the U nited K ingdom—to examine the formal rules and guidelines that apply to public servants when making public statements in their official capacity. Drawing on the late P eter A ucoin's notion of “promiscuous partisanship,” the article argues that public servants are expected to demonstrate a new level of enthusiasm when explaining or justifying government policy to the public. This has implications for the extent to which nonpartisanship can continue to effectively function within W estminster systems.