Steering From Ministers and Departments
- 15 January 2009
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Informa UK Limited in Public Management Review
- Vol. 11 (1), 79-100
- https://doi.org/10.1080/14719030802493569
Abstract
This article aims at contributing to the study of autonomous agencies by focusing on how they cope with steering from ministers and departments. Drawing from the trust literature, we look at how agencies co-operate with ministers and departments, in order to increase autonomy. A model is built to cluster several trust-building mechanisms and to link these to autonomy. We then apply this to a limited set of Flemish agencies. We conclude that agencies develop strategies to increase trust with the trustor. These strategies may be targeted either at the minister as a trustor or at the department as a competing trustee.Keywords
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