‘Special advisers’ have been an accepted feature of Irish government for several decades. Given their proximity to ministers, and the level of trust placed in those appointed, they are not without influence within the inner sanctum of government. This is demonstrated in research undertaken on their policy making roles and contributions to coordination at the centre of government. What has not featured to date is an overview of their careers – the ‘before’ and ‘after’ life of a special adviser. This paper focuses on the employment pathways of Irish advisers. It presents an attempt to systematically explore the qualifications and professional profile of special advisers along with their career course upon exiting the role. The paper pays particular attention to the cadre of ministerial advisers serving between 2011-2016 (Fine Gael-Labour coalition) and 2016-2020 (minority Fine Gael government with Independents).

There has been an increasing interest in the role of political advisors working for governmental organizations in the last two decades, associated to their increasing importance of these tasks and figures in the governance of contemporary. In contrast with other countries, they are still mostly unknown in Spain. This gap in our knowledge about Spanish special advisors is mostly derived from the difficulty of gain access to basic information about who they are and what they do, particularly in the central government, since they are not considered top-level officials, those where personal information on their cv and activities has to be publicly released, according to transparency regulations. Our paper aims to contribute to increase the existing knowledge about special advisors in national government in Spain by seeking two goals. First, we describe the functions of the office, and set its relevance in the contemporary Spanish core executive. Second, we explore their socio-demographic, professional and political backgrounds, as well as the tasks they perform and their role in government. Our theoretical argument test the limitations of party government in Spain, as a consequence of the lack of expertise in political parties. In this context, ministerial advisers set the border between the party and the administrative worlds in the Spanish executive.

This paper is a theoretical and empirical study of the role of political advisers in politicization in 18 different consolidated democracies across the world. It is authored as one of the chapters in the book monograph provisionally titled ‘Political Advisers in Modern Democracies: Dark Masters?’, which will be published by Edward Elgar. Although most scholars and pundits lament the role of advisers in politically controlling the public service, the chapter takes a more nuanced approach. Governments try to balance between the need for neutral, expert advice and democratic accountability. Political advisers are key players in this balancing act. They have a key role to play in managing all different aspects of politicization. Like Janus, they can be thought of having two faces. One face is brighter, it looks at ways to advance democracy, the other is darker it controls experts and bureaucracy. Like Janus, advisers hold a staff in their right hand to guide experts and societal stakeholders to the right direction. In their left hand they hold a key to open gates and control passages to executive power. How do they do it? There are three main ways in which political advisers can challenge the politics-administration dichotomy and crowd out neutral expertise: (a) by being involved in the appointments of public servants (formal politicisation); (b) by causing the functional politicisation of public servants and finally (c) by influencing administrative processes and policy decisions (administrative politicization). By contrast, when they protect against depoliticization and technicalization they do this via three main routes: (a) they take issues, previously thought as better left to the ‘experts’, and turn them into political matters (agenda setting); and (b) they contest and converse with ideas and recommendations stemming from sources nested in complex horizontal policy advisory systems (contestability); c) they protect voters (political accountability).

This paper focuses on ministerial cabinets (MCs), which are the organizational structures where ministerial advisers have been working since the formation of the modern State in Italy. Originating from France and Belgium, where they are known as cabinets ministériels, the term MC refers to a type of advisory offices that are characterized by a large size and a formalized partisan structure, meaning that they are clearly distinct from the administrative bodies and that ministers have full recruitment discretion. MCs are composed of seconded civil servants and individuals who are external to the administration. As for their functions, MCs are responsible for controlling the administration, negotiating on behalf of the minister, providing political and strategic consideration, and representing the minister in the media arena (Meert et al. 2023).