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Public Servants and Policy, Problems and Possibilities: An Introduction

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The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant

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Abstract

Senior public servants (“the elite”) play an important role in public policy making. Despite many commonalities in role and function, there are important contextual variations in who they are and the spaces within which they operate. The New Public Management and globalization made new demands on “the elite” by unsettling established institutions and increasing the number of actors involved in policy making. Different skills were required as leadership became more expansive and complex at all levels of governance. Navigating future challenges will likewise require a new approach to policy making and to leadership.

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Helen Sullivan

Authors
  1. Helen Sullivan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Helen Sullivan .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Helen Sullivan

  2. Public Service Research Group, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Helen Dickinson

  3. Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia

    Hayley Henderson

Section Editor information

  1. EAESP/Department of Public Management, Fundacao Getulio Vargas (FGV), Sao Paulo, Brazil

    E. Berman

  2. Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Yijia Jing

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© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

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Sullivan, H. (2021). Public Servants and Policy, Problems and Possibilities: An Introduction. In: Sullivan, H., Dickinson, H., Henderson, H. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29980-4_106

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