ABSTRACT
Public actors have been defined as groups of people running state institutions during a particular period in time. This chapter focuses on the roles, the perceptions and self-perceptions, and the key management activities of these public actors when taking on their supposed responsibility for a broad cluster of policy areas affecting large parts of the lifestyle in their societies. The key point here is that whereas private interest organisations, including political parties, are free to express and pursue their particular-factional-interests, public office comes with responsibilities for a wider range of policies and functions that the public actors have to take on ex officio, whether they wish to or not. Before proceeding to this analysis, however, we have to discuss whether the presumption that state institutions do not hold political interests per se, as outlined by Marks (1996:22), holds true in the two cases under investigation here, Wales and Saxony.
