Heath digs deep into the institution of the permanent civil service in The Machinery of Government

The following is an excerpt from Joseph Heath's Donner-nominated book, The Machinery of Government: Public Administration and the Liberal State.

Joseph Heath is author of The Machinery of Government: Public Administration and the Liberal State, published by Oxford University Press. It's one of five books nominated for this year’s Donner Prize for the best public policy book of the year. 'The book deals with the question of how civil servants should think about the public good, and how it should inform their work.'Photograph courtesy of Oxford University Press/Donner Prize

Feature

BY JOSEPH HEATH

May 3, 2021

The institution of the permanent civil service, I have suggested, generates significant benefits for the quality of public policy, delivery of public services, and ultimately, promotion of social welfare. It is also, one might add, an arrangement that seems objectively rather improbable. Clearly, th...

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