Abstract
Civil servants play a key role in upholding the core democratic principles of majority rule and legality in daily government operations. Yet we know little about how civil servants balance these principles in practice—or why. This study asks and answers these questions by qualitatively and quantitatively analyzing Danish civil servants’ responses to survey questions on dilemmas that force them to choose between their duty to be responsive to government and their duty to uphold the law. To explain their choices, the analysis draws on rational and sociological institutional theories of bureaucratic behavior. The results suggest that factors related to both rational self-interest and socialization explain that as many as one in four civil servants choose responsiveness over legality. Formal organizational roles also predict their behavior.
Resumé
Embedsmænd spiller en nøglerolle i håndhævelsen af de demokratiske kerneprincipper flertalsstyre og legalitet i regeringsapparatets daglige drift. Til trods for dette ved vi meget lidt om, hvordan embedsmænd afvejer disse principper i praksis – og hvorfor. Dette studie undersøger disse spørgsmål gennem kvalitativ og kvantitativ analyse af embedsmænds svar på spørgeskemaspørgsmål vedrørende dilemmaer, som tvinger dem til at vælge mellem deres pligt til at adlyde den siddende regering og pligt til at følge loven. Analysen bygger på rationelle og sociologiske institutionelle teorier om bureaukratisk adfærd. Resultaterne indikerer, at rationel egeninteresse såvel som socialisering forklarer, at så mange som hver fjerde embedsmand prioriterer lydighed overfor regeringen over overholdelse af loven. Formelle organisatoriske roller spiller også en rolle for deres adfærd.