Bureaucrats and Politicians in Canada

Abstract

This article examines the characteristics of the “political administration” in Canada and compares these characteristics with those found in other liberal democratic systems. The findings are based on interviews conducted with 82 federal public officials interviewed in 1982 and 1983. The contact patterns of these public officials and their attitudes toward the personnel and institutions of liberal democracy are studied within the structural context of the bureaucracy. Three communications networks are identified: a departmental policy, a policy integration, and a private sector network. The former two networks are shown to intervene in a developmental model between structural location in the bureaucracy and attitudes consistent with a “tolerance for politics.” Conclusions are drawn with respect to relations between bureaucrats and politicians in Canada and the implications of these relations for the autonomy of the democratic state.