• List of Table and Figures


• Glossary


• Preface and Acknowledgements


• 1: Observing Government Elites


• Part I: The Setting


• 2: The Governmental Setting


• 3: The Departmental Setting


• Part II: The Actors


• 4: The Minister


• 5: The Permanent Secretary


• Part III: Scenes


• 6: The Departmental Court


• 7: Protocols, Rituals and Languages


• 8: Networks and Governance


• 9: The Resignation


• 10: Willed Ordinariness, Being There, and Myths


• Bibliography


• Index

Rod Rhodes is treasurer of the Australasian Political Studies Association, life Vice-President of the Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in both Australia and Britain, and editor of Public Administration, 1986-2011. He was the Director of the UK Economic and Social Research Council's 'Whitehall Programme' (1994-1999); and of the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University (2007-8). He is the author or editor of some 30 books including: The State as Cultural Practice (joint author, OUP 2010); Comparing Westminster (joint author, OUP 2009); Observing Government Elites (joint editor, 2007); The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions (joint editor, OUP 2006), and Governance Stories (joint author, 2006). He is Professor of Government in the School of Government at the University of Tasmania (Australia) and Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Newcastle (UK).

In his fascinating, new piece of political anthropology, Rod Rhodes uncovers exactly how the British political elite thinks and acts.