How the Permanent Senior Professional Staff Can Enable Policy Capacity in the Face of Political Instability: Insights from the Israeli Experience

Abstract

The literature emphasizes the importance of establishing institutional mechanisms for enabling policy capacity. Yet, room remains for understanding how these institutions—usually run by senior professional administrative staff—function in the face of political instability. To explore this issue, we focus on the role of Deputy Directors-General for Strategy (DDS) and their forum, a new institution intentionally established by the Israeli cabinet in order to strengthen policy capacity and collaboration in strategic planning processes across ministries. We argue that political instability, defined as the frequent turnover of politicians and politically appointed high-level bureaucrats who head governmental ministries, implies that the permanent senior professional staff plays a larger role in terms of strategic planning and policy capacity. Using textual analysis and 19 in-depth interviews with Deputy Directors-General for Strategy and other senior officials, we analyze how they deal with political instability with regard to the government’s ability to function, as well as the strategies they use to do so.