Comparative Analysis of Financial Bureaucracies of Europe: The Influence of Policy Sector vs Administrative Tradition on the Attitudes of Finance Officials

The broader goal of the paper is to explore one of the core questions in comparative research on public policy and administration: What is more important in influencing public officials’ attitudes towards policymaking − the distinctive administrative style of the country or the specific features of a policy sector? This article is particularly concerned with the attitudes of the public officials working in the field of finance regarding their policymaking roles. Overall, the results indicate that the national administrative traditions play a stronger role in influencing the policymaking attitudes of officials than their specific sector.