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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Roderick Rhodes
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This article seeks to answer two questions: What do we know about the work of ministers and permanent secretaries? How do we know what we know about ministers and permanent secretaries? To do so, it describes a research project on life at the top of British government departments and discusses the issues raised by trying to do research and write a political anthropology of the daily life of ministers and civil servants. The article has four sections. First, it surveys briefly the existing literature on ministers and top civil servants. Second, it describes the scope and methods of the project. Third, it reports some early findings. Finally, it reflects on the distinctive contribution of ethnographic research to understanding British government and the problems of elite interviewing, nonparticipant observation, and research on the powerful.
Author(s): Rhodes RAW
Publication type: Review
Publication status: Published
Journal: American Review of Public Administration
Year: 2005
Volume: 35
Issue: 1
Pages: 3-25
ISSN (print): 0275-0740
ISSN (electronic): 1552-3357
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0275074004271716
DOI: 10.1177/0275074004271716
