政務官A
昨天晚上和幾位朋友談到政務官和事務官的區別，有人提出一個判準，我覺得很值得參考。
他說事務官如科股長的本分，就是把自己這個科看好，所以本質上就是傾向於捍衛自己部門利益。思考問題容易從部門角度出發，在官僚組織中這毋寧是相當正常的。
但是政務官的角色，就必須要從整體（內閣或市府）的角度思考，本質上反而就是要打破部門利益，從跨部會或跨局處的角度考慮問題。不斷以說服或者恩威並施的辦法貫徹決策。
如果一個政務官變成只會捍衛自己部門利益，那麼這一個政務官已經事務官化，是一個不及格的政務官。本來是要解決問題的 ，結果自己變成是一個更大的問題。
當然，政務官接下來的問題就是：如何克服個別的本位主義，促成彼此間的相互合作？原先是自私的個體（科股、各局處、跨部會）如何協調合作？用賽局理論的話來說，就是克服囚犯困境。
非政務官B
因為政府部門設計在本質上具有相剋的特性，例如經發單位與環保單位的事務官員可能不容易對盤，或者說財政單位與福利單位可能也會多方較勁，也因此，讓各自本位盤據的結果，就是公文轉來轉去，互不退讓，各自拿著自我法寶，說好聽叫做箝制或制衡、說難聽叫做本位主義。
政治任命者，可能具備專業能力，也可能只具備領導、行政溝通協調能力，如果只偏重專業法系的規範，政治任務及選舉政見的實踐就不易達成，後者往往是政府部門本位主義作祟而引發的政治改革構想。基於此認知，政務官應該是團隊的概念，一個實踐選舉承諾、或者勇於修改選舉承諾的團隊，而非獨立機關首長而已。
至於機要人員? 個人認為，應該是協同政務官的非公務員，因為要同進退，當然要勇於得罪、擾動既有朝臼，才有可能找到機要的春天。
Do career bureaucrats outperform political appointees? You betcha
by Lee Sigelman on December 3, 2008
Shankar Vedantam, in his Washington Post “Department of Human Behavior” column several days ago (November 24, 2008—(here), cited several political scientists on the timely topic of the performance of appointed v. career managers of government programs. Featured prominently was research by political scientist David Lewis of Vanderbilt, the author of the recently published The PolItics of Presidential Appointments: Political Control and Bureaucratic Performance (Princeton University Press).
In an unusual new analysis, another political scientist compared the Bush administration’s own evaluations of more than 600 government programs with the backgrounds of the 242 managers who ran those programs. David E. Lewis, who is now at Vanderbilt University, found that three-quarters of the managers administering the programs were political appointees while a quarter were career civil servants.
The political appointees were better educated, on average, than the civil staff. Many had stellar records in the private sector or on the campaign trail. Side by side, the political appointees just looked like a much smarter bunch than the careerists.
When it came to performance, however, the bureaucrats whipped the politicals: Programs administered by civil servants were significantly more likely to display better strategic planning, program design, financial oversight—and results. These findings, remember, were based on the Bush administration’s own evaluation system—the Program Assessment Rating Tool, administered by the Office of Management and Budget.
The implication? Lewis and others, including Jim Pfiffner of George Mason University, think more government managers should be careerists rather than presidential appointees. Let’s not hold our breath waiting for that to happen.
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