Civil servant tactics for realizing transition tasks understanding the microdynamics of transformative government

Abstract

The transition literature argues that governments have an essential role in facilitating societal transitions. The current paper aims to provide a theoretical and empirical understanding of this government role by analyzing the work of entrepreneurial civil servants. These civil servants try to execute transition tasks but are often resisted by their colleagues who invoke dominant traditions in Public Administration. This raises the question of how they deal with this resistance and manage to execute government transition tasks. We introduce a heuristic rounds-model to understand the interplay between contestation and responses. Due to its subsequent rounds, the model shows ongoing tactical work navigating opposition and uncovers the tactics' temporariness and their capacity to backfire. We illustrate the value of the heuristic model by analyzing the clash between opposing rationalities and the change agents' continuous tactical adjustment in our case study on “Mobility as a Service” in the Netherlands.