دانلود رایگان مقاله مفاهیم نقش کارکنان امور عمومی در هلند

abstract

Public affairs (PA) practitioners play an important role in political decision-making in modern democratic societies. This study gives a first insight in how these practitioners themselves perceive their role. Based on findings from previous empirical studies and normative democratic theories, three ideal type role conceptions are constructed: shared ways in which PA practitioners see and make normative sense oftheir profession. Next,these role conceptions are investigated with an online survey among 100 public affairs practitioners in The Netherlands. Findings confirm that the proposed advocate, expert and mediator roles indeed represent different ways in which PA practitioners conceptualize their jobs. The advocate and expert roles are relatively dominant among the sample, while female practitioners tend to subscribe more to the mediator role. The implications of these findings are discussed.

5. Discussion and conclusion

The aim of the study was giving insights into how PA practitioners see their own role in the democratic decision-making and the political system. The answers of 100 active PA practitioners in The Netherlands to our survey questions provide not a big, but still a sufficiently large sample to investigate the research question through the use of quantitative explorative research techniques.