Article

American Review of Public Administration

Into the Purple Zone: Deconstructing the 2017, Vol. 47(7) 752­–763
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0275074016638481
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John Alford1,2, Jean Hartley3, Sophie Yates2, and Owen Hughes4

Abstract
We add new data to the long-standing debate about the interface between politics and administration, deploying theory and
evidence indicating that it varies. It can be either a “purple zone” of interaction between the red of politics and the blue of
administration, or a clear line. We use survey responses from 1,012 mostly senior public managers in the United Kingdom,
Australia, and New Zealand, along with semi-structured interviews with 42 of them, to examine the extent to which public
managers perceive that they “cross” the line or go into a zone, and the ways in which they do so. Our inclusion of a zone
as well as a line recasts how roles and relationships between politicians and administrators can be conceived. Moreover, it
raises questions about how particular contingencies affect whether public managers perceive and work with a line or a zone.

Keywords
politics/administration dichotomy, political management, political astuteness, political skills

Introduction position has supported the dichotomy on democratic

The perennial debate about the validity and extent of the
separation between politics and administration has given rise
to numerous interpretations and labels since Woodrow
Wilson’s (1887) classic formulation and Weber’s (1922/1994)
theory of bureaucracy. Empirically, the central argument is
about whether such a line between the domains of politics
and administration exists (Campbell & Peters, 1988; Svara,
2006a), although the dispute takes many shapes. Contending
interpretations of whether Wilson really meant a dichotomy,
a separation, or a boundary jostle with alternative terms such
as complementarity, separability, independence, or subordi-
nation, each with its own implications for the nature of the
interface (Svara, 2006b). Probably the majority but certainly
not exclusive view is that the dichotomy is theoretically and
empirically questionable (Aberbach & Rockman, 1994;
Behn, 2001; Demir & Nyhan, 2008; Overeem, 2005), and
that both politicians and administrators often breach it in
practice (Sayre, 1958; Svara, 1999). Instead of a clear delin-
eation between the domain of administration and that of poli-
tics, public managers (and indeed politicians) may encounter
a blurred area, in which there is a degree of indeterminacy
about the roles and relationship between the two domains
(see Figure 1a). Sometimes they may perceive a shifting line,
where the boundary moves. Svara (2006b) proposes that a
continuum may better describe the variety of relations
between elected politicians and public servants.
Normatively, there is contention about how legitimate it
is for public managers to cross that line or blurred area.
Although at various times since Wilson, the traditional
grounds, in recent decades, its legitimacy is under chal-
lenge. There is a widespread view that public managers as
policy experts have a duty to be involved in policy delibera-
tion, by placing their expertise in the service of the elected
government—and by implication, the citizenry (Moore,
1995; J. Wilson, 1989). At the same time, other scholars see
the separation as “a useful fiction” (Peters, 2001, p. 82),
and suggest that it plays a legitimizing role.
In consequence, the literature is replete with contending
positions. It lacks a broadly settled view about the actual or
desirable relationship between the political and administrative
realms (Demir, 2009). Much of the literature involves scholars
arguing about binary choices or pursuing “one-size-fits-all”
constructs: Is the interface between politics and administration
typically a clear line or a blurred one? For the sake of exposi-
tion, we refer to the blurred or shifting line as a purple zone,
representing where the “red” of political activity overlaps with
the “blue” of administration (see Figure 1b).
Based on our interviews, we see the zone as an area of
transition. It was explicitly articulated in New Zealand
(Matheson, Scanlan, & Tanner, 1997) as “an amalgam of
1
The University of Melbourne, Australia.
2
Australia and New Zealand School of Government, Melbourne, Australia
3
The Open University, UK
4
RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Corresponding Author:
John Alford, Australia and New Zealand School of Government, P.O. Box
230, Carlton South, Victoria 3053, Australia.
Email: j.alford@anzsog.edu.au
Alford et al. 753
Figure 1.  Images of the dichotomy.
separation and integration . . . an arena of conversation
between ministers and their senior officials” (Matheson et al.,
1997, p. 5). However, some studies have identified not uni-
versally fixed but varying types of interface between politics
and administration (e.g., Aberbach, Putnam, & Rockman,
1981; Svara, 2006b)—an approach likely to yield a more real-
istic understanding of the roles and relationships.
Also rarely considered in the literature is one of the key
activities and functions of the relationship: the making of
decisions (and of “non-decisions”; Bachrach & Baratz, 1962;
Lukes, 1974). The relative influence of managers and politi-
cians in political matters usually takes shape in the form of
decisions or decision-shaping, but hardly any of the research
looks at how decisions (or non-decisions) are made and in
whose interests, and therefore how power is distributed
between the two realms.
This article seeks to broaden our understanding and offer
a new metaphor. First, with respect to the “line” or “zone,”
we argue instead for a variable approach, in which neither is
the dominant arrangement, but the nature of the interface
varies according to circumstances. Our inclusion of a zone as
well as a line broadens the conceptualization of roles and
relationships between politicians and administrators.
Second, we illuminate decision making by deconstructing
the steps through which a decision passes. We deploy a
widely used framework for thinking about policy making,
the policy cycle, to explore this. We also apply the distinction
elaborated by Bachrach and Baratz (1962) and Lukes (1974)
between a “decision” and a “non-decision.”
Drawing on 42 depth interviews with mostly senior public
managers in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New
Zealand, and data from an associated survey of 1,012 public
managers, we explore the extent to which public managers
perceive that they “cross” the line or zone, and the ways in
which they do so, by addressing the three following
questions:
1. What is the nature of the relationship or interface
between politics and public administration: a clear
line, a blurred zone, or varying between the two?
2. In what ways do public managers say they engage in
politics? Why?
3. How legitimate do they report this engagement to be?
After defining key terms and outlining the contours of the
debate, we explain our methodology. Then our main findings
shed light on how public managers themselves perceive and
react to the zone as well as the line. We explore their accounts
of the contextual factors giving rise to those responses.
We find that the normal functioning of government
requires public managers to engage with politics in various
ways to create what they see as value for the public.1
Managers’ forays into the political domain are influenced by
their concern to implement tasks and deliver good quality
services in the public interest. Many report working in a zone
with some degree of ambiguity, but they see this as necessary
given the complexity of tasks and roles. At the same time,
they also need to be sensitive to the boundaries beyond which
754 American Review of Public Administration 47(7)
they should not push. How this plays out in practice varies
according to the situation. Our notion of a zone conceptual-
izes complex and interconnected tasks where roles interact,
contrasting with earlier ideas of governance based on legally
defined roles where a “line” can be policed. We submit that
this notion better encompasses these interactions.
Definitions and Constructs
Obviously, a central issue is what we mean by “politics”.
Drawing on our earlier work on political astuteness, politics
is defined as
about mobilising support for, and consent to, action in the context of
diverse, and sometimes competing interests and may involve either
collaboration or competition depending on purpose; that politics
can be legitimate as well as illegitimate; that it can be about pursuing
either or both of self-interest and organisational interests; and that
these activities can take place externally or internally to the
organisation. (Hartley & Fletcher, 2008)
Two aspects of this general definition require elaboration.
First, it covers politics both internal and external to the orga-
nization, because the authorizing environment confronting
each manager is likely to contain other, sometimes more
senior managers in the same department as well as actors
outside the organization. (Consequently, it involves interact-
ing with the public domain, and with the institutions, inter-
ests, and processes within that domain, such as the public
interest, public trust, and fiduciary duty. However, these phe-
nomena are not our central focus.) Second, it encompasses
public managers’ relations with a diverse range of stakehold-
ers, but concentrates particularly on their work with formal,
elected politicians—as our focus is on the dichotomy—while
taking the others into account where relevant.
Political behavior in public managers contrasts with what
are typically seen as administrative behaviors and stances.
These are neutral, non-partisan, scientific or relying on tech-
nical expertise, and relate to the gathering of information, the
smooth running of government agencies, and the practical
implementation of policies and decisions made by politicians
(Svara, 1999). Politicians do of course engage in managerial
or administrative behavior (i.e., entering the purple zone
from the “red” side) but it is beyond the scope of this article
to encompass this issue (see Di Francesco, 2012, for a dis-
cussion of the managerial role of ministers).
Against this backdrop, we focus on the roles of public
managers in stages of the policy cycle and the pattern of
decisions or non-decisions they make within each. We start
from the simple premise that managers engage in politics to
influence decision making, and that their perceptions of how
much they do this, and in what manner, will provide insight
into their political roles.
This raises the issue of what to call the public servants and
their political masters. The literature offers many meanings,
borne of complex debates. Rather than try to find the “cor-
rect” definition, for the sake of consistency, we adopt the fol-
lowing terminology. First, we use the term public
managers—that is, officials who are appointed and who
serve the government of the day (or in the case of some local/
devolved governments, serve all elected politicians on the
council or assembly), often serving several governments
over the course of their career. Where others use the terms
senior public servants or administrators, we will use them as
substitutes, although our own preference is to recognize the
complexity of managerial work by labeling them managers.2
Second, we focus on people called politicians—that is, offi-
cials who are elected.3 As our sample mainly comprises
senior managers working to portfolio ministers in state and
national governments, the politicians we discuss here are
largely the limited class who exercise executive authority
(i.e., members of the political executive). To a lesser extent,
we also discuss local government chief executives working
to local councillors and leaders, and those managers dealing
with politicians representing their constituencies (i.e.,
backbenchers).
Finally, we use the term non-decision. In a nutshell, if a
“decision” is “a choice among alternative modes of action,”
a non-decision is made when an actor affects the surrounding
consciousness, structures, processes, or other factors that
shape what is perceived as possible or desirable, so that those
who might have expressed or exercised their preferences
never even get to do so (Bachrach & Baratz, 1962).
The Politics/Administration Dichotomy
This article focuses particularly on Anglo-American (with
data from Westminster) systems, and thus its point of depar-
ture is Woodrow Wilson’s “Study of Administration.”
Contrary to common attribution, Wilson himself did not use
the term dichotomy, and the idea was not fully crystallized
until the 1940s (see Svara, 1999).4 Its primary focus was
separation, positing a clearly defined line between elected
politicians, whose role was to decide policy, and administra-
tors, whose job was to carry it out—each remaining in his or
her own territory (Goodnow, 1900).5 From the 1920s, the
separation hardened: “Scholars . . . uncritically accepted the
existence of a comprehensive dichotomy model” (Svara,
1999, p. 684).
However, from the 1950s, the dichotomy was the target
of numerous critiques, on the grounds that it lacked empir-
ical validity because it is often breached in practice—by
political leaders as well as public managers (Sayre, 1958;
Svara, 2001; Waldo, 1984). The dichotomy has been exten-
sively debated since then, with the weight of the argument
tending to view it with skepticism (Demir & Nyhan, 2008;
Overeem, 2005; Peters, 1987; Svara, 1999, 2001, 2006a).
Another perspective is that there are necessary intercon-
nections between the two realms. Svara’s (1999, p. 678;
Alford et al. 755
2001) complementarity of politics and administration is
“characterized by interdependency, extensive interaction,
distinct but overlapping roles, and political supremacy and
administrative subordination coexisting with reciprocity of
influence.” Although the separation theme tended to over-
shadow the connection idea, Svara (2006a) argues that the
latter informed the theories of many public administration
scholars.
Also important, but peripheral to these conceptualiza-
tions, is the literature on “public service bargains,” which
posits various models of interaction between public servants
and politicians based on agreed exchanges between them of
both tangible and intangible goods (see, for example, Hood
& Lodge, 2006). It implicitly argues that the normative valid-
ity of public managers’ encroachment into politics varies
from regime to regime. However, this school of thought,
although promising, has attracted only modest empirical
research.
This variability is also evident in a few cross-national
studies. Aberbach et al. (1981) defined four “images,” rang-
ing from the starkest dichotomy (Image I), to convergence
between politics and the bureaucracy (Image IV). However,
their classic study was published more than 35 years ago,
and its data were collected about 45 years ago. Since then,
major contextual changes have occurred. Indeed, Aberbach
et al. (1981) themselves describe that period as “a time of
some turbulence.” We have seen the emergence of “wicked
problems” (Rittel & Webber, 1973), the reorientation of
political forces, and most particularly the development of
the New Public Management (NPM), which gave the dichot-
omy a new lease of life (MacDermott, 2008) with its separa-
tion of “steering from rowing” (Osborne & Gaebler, 1993).
Then came new public governance, which has blurred it
again (Torfing & Triantafillou, 2013). Other studies simi-
larly suffer from being dated (Heclo & Wildavsky, 1974;
Kaufman, 1969; Peters, 1987; Schaffer, 1973). More
recently, both Hood (2002) and Svara (2006b) have con-
structed typologies of the relationships, with some types
paralleling those in Aberbach et al. (1981). But these later
studies are theoretical rather than data based.
Thus, although this discourse has generated a substan-
tial literature, only a small proportion has proffered much
empirical evidence (Aberbach et al., 1981; Carboni, 2010;
Demir & Reddick, 2012; Miller & Wright, 2011; Mouritzen
& Svara, 2002; Page, 2012; Stocker & Thompson-Fawcett,
2014; van der Wal, 2013; Zhang, 2014). Moreover, of
those works offering such evidence, not many look in
detail at public managers’ attitudes, beliefs and behaviors
in respect of the dichotomy—that is, what they actually
think and do when they are straying into politics.
The metaphor of “the line” has been prevalent in the lit-
erature, but our data indicate first that many public managers
regard it more as a “zone”—a shared space between politi-
cians and public managers, rather than one in which politi-
cians inhabit one realm and public managers a separate one.
At the same time, it is more realistic based on our data to say
that relationships between politicians and public managers
vary in type.
Method
This article uses mainly qualitative but also quantitative data
from a large study examining the political astuteness of pub-
lic managers. We surveyed 1,012 public managers in three
Westminster countries: Australia, New Zealand, and the
United Kingdom,6 and interviewed 42 public managers. The
wider study looked at a variety of issues concerning public
managers and politics (Hartley, Alford, Hughes, & Yates,
2013), but here, we focus specifically on the dichotomy. Our
intention was to understand how managers see politics and
what kinds of activities public managers engage in when
they say they are being political. The interviews enabled us
to obtain a nuanced view of participants’ self-reported per-
ceptions and behaviors in their relationships with
politicians.
The interviewees were a selection of volunteers from our
survey sample, encompassing national, state, and local gov-
ernments, and covering central and line agencies as well as a
range of professional services (e.g., policing, environment,
and human services) and all regions in each country.
Additional U.K. interviews came from a related research
project (Manzie & Hartley, 2013). Participants were assured
that responses would be anonymized. The interviews were
semi-structured and followed up some of the areas of the sur-
vey in more depth. All interviews except three were audio-
recorded (detailed notes were taken for the rest). We used
NVivo to undertake thematic coding, and also performed
keyword searches on the transcripts. We did not use inter-
views to assess the frequency of particular views, but rather
in an interpretive way to understand the perceptions of public
managers. The survey question about in what situations man-
agers found it valuable to use political skills was a 5-point
Likert-type scale from no value to extremely valuable.
A challenge in analyzing a potentially controversial but
also pervasive phenomenon is that respondents’ statements
about it are necessarily summary accounts, which may be
“stylized” or modified to fit more comfortably into their per-
ceptions of what they are expected to say. We addressed this
by first deconstructing public managers’ work into its con-
stituent elements and asking about concrete behaviors and
practices for them. We then asked directly about managers’
views of politics and the dichotomy in their jobs.
Public Managers’ Political Activities
To deconstruct the ways public managers “do” politics, we used
the stages of the policy cycle. Since its original formulation by
Lasswell (1958), it now has many versions (e.g., Althaus,
Bridgman, & Davis, 2012; Bardach, 2008; Weimer & Vining,
1995), but fundamentally it sets out the steps in the life of a
756 American Review of Public Administration 47(7)

Table 1.  Elements and Aspects of Public Managers’ Decisions in Each Stage of the Policy Cycle.

Engagement Extent of public

supporting or managers’
Stage of policy Decisions, non-decisions opposing political political
cycle Typical “political” behaviors of managers or both? master(s)? engagement
Identifying Controlling information Mainly decisions, some Mainly supporting Mixed
problems/issue Defining terms non-decisions
framing Managing time
Influencing third-party stakeholders
Generating Shaping options Both Mostly supporting High
options and Controlling information
criteria Utilizing processes
Adding or curbing alternative policy
capabilities
Deciding policies Utilizing processes Mainly decisions, some Mainly supporting, Substantial
Adding or curbing alternative policy non-decisions sometimes
capabilities disputing
Influencing other stakeholders
Implementation Utilizing processes Mainly decisions, some Mainly supporting Mixed
Managing time non-decisions
Influencing other stakeholders

public policy from problem identification or issue framing
through a series of processes to implementation, albeit in a styl-
ized fashion (Table 1). The stages do not necessarily occur in
lockstep order, and are typically more variable than in text-
books. For analytical purposes, this framework is more relevant
than alternatives because it identifies domains that are typically
political, administrative, or shared (Skok, 1995).
Within each stage of the cycle lie actions that public manag-
ers take that can either advance or retard a given purpose—as
managerial politics might be directed toward either progress-
ing or stifling a policy development. Analysis of the inter-
view data shows several types of managerial political
behavior (see Table 1):
1. Controlling information, for example, selecting or
burying relevant facts for consideration by politicians
or other stakeholders;
2. Supplementing or reducing alternative policy capa-
bilities for the politician;
3. Using processes, for instance, persuading parties to
submit the issue to a cabinet committee, a consultative
forum, or a judicial proceeding likely to delay or dis-
tort the deliberations;
4. Shaping options in a way that highlights or favors
some and downplays others;
5. Managing time to either delay an urgent decision or
speed up something that requires more thorough and
lengthy consideration;
6. Defining terms in ways that clarify, obfuscate, or dis-
tort key issues;
7. Persuading or influencing third-party stakeholders—
beyond the politician’s office—in ways that shape
their authorizing environments. This limits, enhances,
or distorts politicians’ room to maneuver and consti-
tutes an intervention in what is usually the domain of
the politician.
Dealing With Political Actors
We first draw from findings in each of the four stages of
the policy cycle. Then, we broaden the lens, to ask more
generally about perceptions of the dichotomy. But before
we go into detail for each stage of the policy cycle, we
should stress that managers’ interactions with third-party
stakeholders cut across all of these stages. Third-party
stakeholders include other politicians or public sector
organizations; other governments at national, sub-national,
or local levels; lobby groups; suppliers and contractors to
the organization; relevant regulatory bodies; the media;
and significant bodies of public opinion—what Moore
(1995) has termed the authorizing environment.
Dealing with these other actors is generally thought to be a
primary function of elected politicians, and more than a few of
the interview respondents made it clear that this was a useful role
politicians played—insulating public managers to a degree, per-
suading stakeholders of positions, playing a part in negotiating
outcomes, and bestowing ministerial authority on decisions.
P04: . . . there’s no way that I’m in the political domain in that
sense. The actor on that stage is very much the minister and the
minister’s supporters.
But it was equally necessary, and from our interviews, it
seemed common, for public managers also to deal with key
stakeholders in various ways.
Alford et al. 757
P06: So much of our work involves the broader community,
different layers of government, a whole range of different
external stakeholders, and again it’s about how you engage with
those stakeholders in order to achieve what you’re trying to
achieve for the organization as a whole in support of what
community objectives are.
A quite common phenomenon is for ministers to conduct
the main dealings, but for public managers to provide them
with background information about the substance of the
issue and also about the players, their interests and influ-
ences (P01: “I need to be able to serve them up the informa-
tion that they use to then deal with those people”).
In summary, although officially the job of dealing with
external policy actors is the preserve and duty of elected
politicians, in practice, they share this role with senior public
servants to varying degrees. We turn now to the four stages.
Problem Identification/Issue Framing
Kingdon (2011) found in his research three decades ago that
the identification or framing of an issue—that is, its emer-
gence (or non-emergence) into the consciousness of policy
actors—was largely the preserve of (“visible”) politicians
rather than (“hidden”) civil servants. However, our inter-
views revealed a more complex picture: Although managers
felt that primary responsibility for raising issues rested with
politicians, sometimes managers played a role in either iden-
tifying or framing an issue. Contrary to what might be
expected, they reported only a modest level of interest-based
conflict with politicians. Rather, dealings were often about
assisting them when they lacked capabilities.
To the extent that they did seek to push ministers in a par-
ticular direction, they tended to use non-decision-making
processes such as providing or controlling information,
defining terms, clarifying agendas, managing time, and
influencing other stakeholders. One variant occurs when
ministers don’t know quite what they want (see Di Francesco,
2000), and need the help or encouragement of expert public
service advisers to crystallize or clarify their position:
P09: . . . if you have a minister who really doesn’t know what
they want, the real issue is to be able to try to craft what some of
the policy propositions are and you go through different sorts of
processes, walk them through . . . why you think this should be
a priority, and would you like to take it in this order, well we’ll
do this first, so effectively you try and create the agenda for
them as well.
P30: I think you need a skill where you are genuinely enabling
politicians to reach a view on what they want to do, and [the skill
also] allows you to help them find how they want to do it.
A version of “not knowing” was where the policy was
internally contradictory, perhaps because it reflected the
party platform or had not been thought through.
P01: Uh, no they’re not clear about what they want and they
often say contradictory things because they’re trying to appease
the whole . . . group of people.
A further gap in elected politicians’ awareness concerned
issues for the long term, beyond the current political horizon—
for instance, whether and how to fund the burgeoning require-
ment for baby boomers’ retirement incomes. This requires
considering the longer-term value of policies and actions ini-
tiated now, but which may have consequences beyond the life
spans of most voters.
P03: . . . in some ways it’s a classic short-term long-term thing,
like they’re trying to prosecute their stuff almost on a daily
basis, whether it’s surviving Question Time or the next whatever
that they’re worried about, and we’re trying to look at well
you’ve said that your aspiration is a long term reform of this
sort, so our advice . . . is set in a longer term context.
In short, although ministers’ authority to set the agenda is
broadly accepted, and they do so to a considerable degree,
public managers find there are situations where they inter-
vene in political issue framing when ministers are unwilling
or unable to perform this role properly due to lack of knowl-
edge or a short-term viewpoint. In these situations, public
managers typically seek to help politicians rather than bypass
or even challenge them, but in doing so they can sometimes
stray well into the purple zone, effectively substituting their
own policy preferences for their political masters. Only some
of these situations entailed “non-decisions.”
Generating Options and Criteria
The next policy stage involves identifying options and
assessing their relative value against criteria (Sidney, 2006).
This is traditionally the preserve of public service policy spe-
cialists, and has the potential to influence actors in the politi-
cal arena. The generation or framing of policy options can
improve, limit, or distort the choices available to politicians.
The extent to which this occurred was partly related to the
outlook of the managers themselves and partly related to
how much they had to compete with alternative sources of
advice sought by the minister.
On the question of public managers’ outlooks, the short-
term/long-term theme offers a clear case of non-decisions,
with several interviewees seeing their role in formulating
options as one of marrying political reality with longer-term
objectives:
P36: I always say that my role, when I am at my best, is to be
able, within the political parameters of the party politics, to lay
out a series of options that will allow them to get to the outcome
they want. It’s for them then to choose the outcome . . . to choose
the option. . . . The more “nous,” the clearer I am about the
political constraints, the clearer I can be about the options and
the advice I can give in terms of how to move forward.
758 American Review of Public Administration 47(7)
This effectively elevated some positions and side-lined
others. Non-decision making was also prevalent where some
of the otherwise viable options might be selectively left out
by advisers.
P20: . . . depending on the information that you give people and
how you present it, you sometimes realize that that might
influence an outcome, but you still need to be careful. You
certainly wouldn’t lie or anything, but you might just put a
particular emphasis on something if you’re trying to get a better
outcome for a client.
As with “problem identification,” the encroachment of
public administrators into the zone was mainly based on their
concern to help the minister be clear about what they want—
but at the same time, politicians could be vulnerable to even
subconscious differences between their mind-sets and those
of public servants.
Deciding on a Policy Approach
This is typically a multi-faceted part of the policy cycle, a
key point at which public managers might encroach on poli-
ticians’ roles. Most obviously, it entails recommending a
choice based on the options provided—or sometimes, oppos-
ing a particular course of action. This is mainly about active
decisions, but some participants related their experiences
with non-decisions too.
Our participants reported using most of the methods listed
in Table 1 for influencing ministers to adopt particular poli-
cies, or modifying ones already under discussion. These
methods were not just about tendering good advice based on
sound evidence to make a case for a particular position. One
manager (P24) found that the minister was showing decision
papers to third-party stakeholders, who gave well thought-
out responses. She reflected, “we got quite upset about this
until we learned how to game with it,” which meant taking
“wider soundings” of the policy environment, and determin-
ing how to influence (or at least take account) of those stake-
holders who in turn had influence over the minister.
On occasion, a combination of influence techniques—
such as controlling information, asking questions, and
managing time—can make it difficult for a particular view
to gain traction—sometimes even eliminating it from
consideration. The following is a clear example of a non-
decision, where a manager thinks a particular request is
undesirable and uses a technique of thoughtful questioning
to make his interlocutors reconsider what they wanted in
the first place:
P21: I’ll . . . just keep asking questions, and when you think
you’ve got the answer, think of some more questions to ask.
And often then the person you’re asking the questions of, they
come in to get an answer, you ask them a lot of questions, and
if they go away and say “oh listen I’ll need to think about this
a bit more, I’ll come back to you again when I work out what
question I want to do,” you’ve done your job.
This manager often found that in this way he could reveal the
real problem underlying their request, and recalibrate the
issue accordingly.
Not only do public managers help shape content catego-
ries but they also influence the decision-making process or
the time frame for the decision, for example, in scheduling
meetings or deadlines:
P03: What we tend to do with the current minister is to have
what are called small group discussions, so we’ll identify
something that’s not quite cooked or that needs sorting in terms
of where are we going to drive the truck, both us and him, and
we need to get back in—we need to get in tune, we need to sort
of know that the way we’re going to do it is going to work for
him and vice versa, so that we’ll organize a small group meeting
. . . and talk it through. And that works quite well.
This is the typical pattern for some politicians, who may
as a result be swayed in a particular direction. But more
experienced ministers are usually less susceptible to these
devices, and are more able to put their stamp on departments’
policy direction.
Implementation
Implementing policies is the raison d’etre of public manag-
ers, and therefore well into the blue of administration.
Deploying and directing staff, facilities, and funding are
clearly administrative tasks. But both the literature and our
data make it clear that it is difficult to perform that function
without calling on authorization or capabilities from actors
in the political environment (Pressman & Wildavsky, 1973).
Among the aspects of implementation that called for politi-
cal engagement are securing financial resources, securing
and operationalizing legislation (“legal resources”), and
mobilizing staff and other stakeholders.
Many interviewees indicated that they found it hard to do
their jobs of putting policy into action without the support,
cooperation, effort or resources of various stakeholders—not
only those with formal authority such as ministers or finance
departments:
P08: What wasn’t sought in the project before I started, and
probably what I didn’t do as good a job as I would like in
retrospect, was building bureaucratic political support for the
project. [A major department said to me] “Oh dear, [name],
we’re the Department of [X]. There are over 100,000 people
working for us. We’ve ignored Cabinet decisions in the past, we
will ignore them into the future, so you coming in here with your
little ‘Cabinet told me that we have to do it’ thing is just not
going to cut it, it’s not good enough.” And at that point I realized
I’d significantly politically misplayed the situation.
Alford et al. 759
P19: I had to go in and actually find out why these [stakeholders]
were concerned. Why was this policy that seemed on the face of
it pretty vanilla, very non-controversial, creating a lot of angst
and concern? . . . and eventually I just rang up people I knew in
the sector and said look tell me what the hell the story is here,
what’s driving it? It was something else [worrying them] . . . I
mean you actually had to go behind and find out what was
driving it, and then tell the manager involved to change it, even
though he saw no particular reason to do so. Because it was
obvious that this was going to hurt the minister big-time.
Thus, although implementation is commonly seen as sep-
arate from politics and policy, our participants found that
often it was hard to draw a line between them. Apparently,
administrative matters tended to burgeon into political ones.
A variant on this was where public managers calculatedly
wielded an externally endowed source of influence, such as
the politician’s fear of adverse publicity. One local govern-
ment manager (P38) warned his political master that if he
continued to insist on a policy action that would substantially
deplete council funds, he would put on the record that the
policy was financially imprudent and against his advice.
A Line or a Zone?
The central issue in this article is whether public managers
themselves see their interface with elected officials as a line
or a zone. The strong implication from analyzing the stages
of the policy cycle is that this varies between managers rather
than being common across all of them. This is borne out by
our survey and interview data about public managers’ views
of the interface, which vary considerably.
First, to understand the context of the public managers’
work, the survey asked respondents about when they found it
valuable to use political skills. Respondents gave most
prominence to situations where they were dealing with
elected politicians: in the Australia/New Zealand case, min-
isters (3.44 on a scale of 0-4) or central agencies (3.14), and
in the U.K. case, working with central government (3.12) or
regional/local government (3.2). In all three countries, they
gave almost as much value (3.1) to public opinion.
This indicates that the interface between public managers
and politicians is very salient to their work. The next ques-
tion, therefore, is whether they see that as crossing a line (an
implicitly less legitimate behavior) or entering a zone, which
they understand as being shared with politicians. Interviewees
had various responses on this issue. The clear message from
most was that they saw no sharp line. A few talked explicitly
of a zone rather than a line, also used the terms no man’s land
(P11), a gray line (P10), and blurry (P07). Some saw it as a
shifting line, incorporating either more politics or more
administration at different times (depending on what kind of
minister they had, for example):
P06: I don’t think it is particularly clear. It never is, when people
talk about us they talk about the separation of powers, but . . . to
the credit of this government and our minister, he’s basically
said that “I’ll leave you to run the organization, but when it
comes around to the policy direction, that’s what government-
and that’s what I’ll be responsible for,” and I don’t think we
really had that as clearly articulated with our previous ministers.
Others saw a gap between rhetoric and reality:
P11: I think there’s a clear line formally, I think informally there
is a little bit of overlap. There has to be really when you’re
expected to provide advice, you do fudge it a bit sometimes . . .
you know I could be very strict and say I’m giving you this
advice and that’s it, I have no opinion . . . and these are our
recommendations in ranked order. I could do that. But I don’t
believe that happens . . . I think we do express viewpoints. I
wouldn’t say they were strongly party-political, but we probably
express a viewpoint according to our particular beliefs I suppose.
P07: Look I think over the years it’s become more and more
unclear, you know the whole Westminster principles and the
Westminster system and the stuff that you sort of learn in
government 101 when you first start, and has got very blurry.
However some participants, when asked “is there a clear
line between the two or is it an overlapping zone,” affirmed
the dichotomy in principle and often in practice as well:
P04: I’m not entering their domain at all . . . I suppose [I’m] the
person behind the scenes who does everything that can be done
to make implementation of what was thought of possible.
P05: I like to keep a clear line between the two . . . How do I
explain what that means for me as an executive? [pause] I think
for me it’s about articulating the policy and the direction of our
department and being able to relate that back to the direction
being set by government rather than being out there promoting
or advancing the agenda of the government directly if that makes
sense.
Even when managers knew that there was substantial
ambiguity in the dichotomy, some pointed to the problems
involved in going too far into the zone:
P07: I think some of that is very blurry . . . in terms of looking at
the boundaries I get very nervous about people trying to cleverly
second-guess what government wants . . . maybe I’m being
naive but I think it’s really really dangerous, I think there is still
a role for providing clear advice . . . I think if you start guessing
what the minister might want, you’re getting into very dangerous
territory.
Thus, in some cases, managers who conceded that the
dichotomy did not really hold in practice found that to be a
cause for anxiety or regret. Overall, most interviewees did not
see a clear line between policy and administration or a clear line
between what they did and what their political leaders did.
Rather, they tended to see a zone as a more accurate representa-
tion of their reality. Those who mentioned difficulties were
760 American Review of Public Administration 47(7)
worried about what they saw as “politicization” of the public
service, but there was only minority agreement with the idea of
a simple, clear line between what they did and what political
leaders did or should do. Instead, many public managers found
themselves affected by or engaging in politics in various ways.
How Far Should Managers Be Political?
All of this raises the question of how there can be confidence
that public managers will not take advantage of their access
to the purple zone to peddle their own priorities and usurp the
decision-making prerogatives of politicians. Our analysis
suggests some safeguards, none of them foolproof, but
together amounting to a credible set of constraints on
managers.
First is the simple fact that ministers have more influence
over managers’ employment tenure than vice versa. Indeed,
the weight of this power is increasingly on the side of the
politicians under NPM-style reforms such as term contracts
and performance incentives (Hood & Lodge, 2006). Second,
the purple zone is a shared zone, in which both politicians
and managers operate, with the likely consequence that each
is subject to pressures from the other. The influence is a two-
way street, not just one in which the public servant has sway
over the politician. Third, our interviewees understood that
even the zone has limits: Public managers can only press so
far through the purple and into the red zone.
Finally, we argue that the extent to which public managers
encroach into territory beyond the purple zone is influenced by
values and skills of those managers. Findings from our inter-
view data lend weight to this argument. Interviewees reported
that they (and their colleagues) were more aligned to achieving
public purposes than to pursuing their own agendas at the
expense of the public or politicians. Of course, there could be an
element of self-serving bias in their survey or interview
responses, but the former was anonymous, and in the latter, they
also spoke of dilemmas, mistakes they had made, and concerns
that preoccupied them at times. This seemed to indicate that
self-serving behaviors and discourses, if present, were attenu-
ated. We know from some of our other work (Hartley et al.,
2013) that the more senior managers report higher levels of
political skills, suggesting that they become more sensitive to
political dilemmas with experience.
Discussion and Conclusion
This article began by reviewing and questioning the “poli-
tics/administration dichotomy” and arguing that although it
might function as a useful myth, the empirical reality is more
complex. A number of writers have proposed various models
to account for the limits of the dichotomy and to express dif-
ferent perspectives on the boundaries between politicians
and administrators (e.g., Aberbach & Rockman, 1994; Svara,
2001, 2006a; Zalmanovitch, 2014). However, the issues
still tend to be discussed using words such as “line” or
“boundary.” We have argued for adding to (not replacing) the
line with the concept of the zone, which differs metaphori-
cally and conceptually because it connotes an intermediate
space, with a gradual transition rather than a sharp boundary.
Svara (2006b) comes close when he discusses overlapping
roles, but his work still refers to lines and boundaries.
The zone concept adds a degree of fluidity to public man-
agers’ movements in and out of potentially political spaces
and recognizes that politics can be informal as well as for-
mal. In the absence of clear markers, there is a degree of
ambiguity in the intermediate space, so that managers might
find they have gone too far across the zone. In addition, the
transitional zone is itself dynamic, so that sometimes manag-
ers will find themselves in a different position than they
envisaged whereas at others they will have failed to move
out of their traditional role sufficiently to advance valuable
purposes.
We have also argued that a proper picture of what is hap-
pening in each stage is more likely if non-decisions as well as
decisions are taken into account. This is especially apposite
in this field with its institutional intricacies and the political
astuteness of its players.
Our empirical evidence shows that many public managers—
even in Westminster systems where they are particularly
expected to be impartial—find it necessary to push into the
shared area of the purple zone to do their jobs better. They
say they use political skills at all stages in the policy cycle,
depending on a variety of factors.
Furthermore, these forays into politics have a degree of
legitimacy in the eyes of public managers: Their purpose, as
they report it, is not to usurp the role of politicians, but rather
to assist them in achieving public purposes, particularly
where issues are complex (wicked) and pressured. They
endorse prosocial views and uses of politics rather than self-
interested ones, and use political skills in a variety of con-
texts, with a range of stakeholders. This is not to say that “the
line” is outdated or irrelevant. A minority of managers said
they were uncomfortable with the idea of a zone, and pre-
ferred to stay firmly within the technical aspect of their role
that has always been a key part of any public manager’s job.
Others said they respected it at some times, but that work or
external circumstances often called for positioning them-
selves in the purple zone.
This all relates to another potentially very useful implica-
tion of our study: It offers a platform for further research on
when and why public managers work in the purple zone.
From all appearances, the extent to which public managers
encroach into the purple zone varies according to the policy
issue and the context. This is consistent with the literature
and our interview evidence. For any given issue, sometimes
the politician and the public servant both play a role in the
same activity, and sometimes one does so whereas the other
is more quiescent. Given the variability of the phenomena
under consideration, it is clear that a contingent approach
would add important insights.
Alford et al. 761
Such research would usefully probe the factors influenc-
ing public managers’ forays into the zone, which appear to be
inherent in the contexts, structures, or processes of the public
sector. First, the degree of controversy over a policy issue is
a contextual factor that public managers said made them
more likely to use their political skills, partly to understand
and engage a variety of stakeholders on a topic, and partly to
help the politician navigate choppy waters. Second, manag-
ers sometimes compensate for politicians’ inability or unwill-
ingness to crystallize their own position on an issue. In this
sense, the duo is a dancing partnership where the public man-
ager may guide, for a short while, the steps of the politician
(Manzie & Hartley, 2013). However, this is not the puppetry
sometimes alluded to in the literature (or on “Yes Minister!”)
of public managers usurping the role of politicians. Both
their own values and their political sensitivity to context sug-
gest that they give a helping hand but no more. The third
contingency to investigate is the relative power of the two
parties, which is a function both of the public manager’s and
politician’s capacities and of the extent to which politicians
have alternative sources of advice available to them.
Differences across varied countries and therefore governance
regimes would also be valuable.
Where situations are routine, stable, and uncontested, the
orderly separation of roles inherent in the dichotomy may
apply. However, Rittel and Webber (1973) and others note
the increasing prominence of “wicked” problems. This
makes the work of both politician and public manager more
complex than in the past, requiring engagement with a wider
variety of stakeholders. Kettl (2009) also notes the different
approaches to management in government according to
whether problems are routine or non-routine. Behn (2001)
argues against the acceptance of “the fallacy of efficient,
non-political administration” (p. 49). Finally Moynihan and
Ingraham (2010) argue in the U.S. context that “the nature of
governance has changed in important ways, incorporating a
greater range of tasks, more complex tasks, and more com-
plex structural characteristics” (p. 229). We can see this in
non-U.S. governments as well.
The “line” between politicians and administrators may
have been devised at a time when problems were largely con-
ceptualized as “tame” (Rittel & Webber, 1973), that is, solv-
able with technical solutions and by “administrators.” The
concept of a zone, which is a transition space, arguably better
fits governmental roles and relationships where issues are
wicked and where management skills are called for. There
are clearly going to be limits, for democratic accountability
reasons, but the debate about limits may be better served by
the metaphor of a zone than a line.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Michael Di Francesco for his sug-
gestions for this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This
research was made possible with the assistance of a grant from the
Australia and New Zealand School of Government.
Notes
1. Conversely, it may sometimes be legitimate for politicians to
engage in administrative matters, but we leave that issue aside:
our primary focus is on public servants. However, it is note-
worthy that both roles may be affected by legal and constitu-
tional constraints.
2. In some quarters, it is standard practice to describe appointed
officials as administrators or bureaucrats, but in our view, this
compounds the problem of analyzing roles and relationships
because it treats their work as routine, predictable, and orderly.
In such a context, they are dealing with technical or tame prob-
lems and the use of political skills might be seen as illegiti-
mate. However, if they are labeled managers, this implies their
work is messy, unpredictable, and requires judgment because
they are dealing with wicked problems. In this context, politi-
cal skills are a valued capability.
3. Except the U.K. House of Lords, whose members are not
elected. The majority are life peers. Others include 26 arch-
bishops and 92 hereditary peers.
4. Most notably by Sayre (1958), who attributed a simplistic ver-
sion of it to Wilson, which then became the target of critique
(Svara, 1999).
5. A secondary aspect was subordination: the extent to which the
bureaucracy was under the control of the elected government
(Overeem, 2005).
6. In the United Kingdom, the recruitment of respondents
was through the membership of the Chartered Management
Institute, whereas in Australia and New Zealand, the head of
each of the 10 public services agreed to send an invitation to
participate to all their senior management.
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Author Biographies
John Alford, PhD, is a professor of public sector management at
the University of Melbourne and at the Australia and New Zealand
School of Government.
Jean Hartley, PhD, is a professor in public leadership at the Open
University Business School, UK.
Sophie Yates, MAppLing, is a research fellow at the Australia and
New Zealand School of Government.
Owen Hughes, PhD, is a professor and dean of students at RMIT
University, Australia.