Why aren’t politicians and government department leaders ran by the relevant experts?

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I get that it’s because you need to be elected etc, but why isn’t this a common practise for experts to run and be put in these positions? For example the minister of health should be something along the lines of a doctor or many years of experience in the business of the relevant health service

In: Economics

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Anonymous 0 Comments

In most countries there is a professional civil service who “run” the government departments who are experts in the particular field. Their boss is likely to be an elected person who is often appointed by the President / Prime minister etc. sometimes these appointments are made on the interests or specialise knowledge of the elected person, but often not their job isn’t to second guess the civil servants on the technicalities, but to implement the government policy on the issue and the civil servant comes up with a program which meets both the political and practical needs of the department. The elected official is much like a CEO of a company, they don’t need to have worked in the business they are running (though that often helps) they are making more big brush general policy than getting stuck on small details.

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