Dating painted Panel E1 at Nawarla Gabarnmang, central-western Arnhem Land plateau

Abstract

This book looks at how policy bureaucracies work from the point of view of the people who do the overwhelming bulk of policy work within them—middle-ranking officials. One of the abiding cliche ´s about how executive government works is that ‘policy’—the broad strategic direction of government—is set by the top, whether politicians or civil servants, and the detailed elaboration of this policy is, to use a phrase coined in a different context, ‘embellishment and detail’ (Pulzer 1967: 98). The top deals with the broad issues, and the narrow gauge work is done lower down. While we would not seek to contradict this view entirely, there is prima facie evidence to challenge the assumption that a hierarchy in the importance of decisions coincides with organiza- tional hierarchy. Many important strategic policy issues involve settling detail, many strategic policy decisions emerge from the work of those developing detail, and those working at this level have substantial discretion and influence in shaping policy in this sense (see Page 2003).