The Nexus of Career Bureaucrats and Political Appointees DEC 27, 2020 A wide definition of political appointments would simply imply public appointments made by politicians, but the notion often also implies appointments made for political purposes, based on political affiliations. Political appointments lie at the core of an issue which has long been of interest to political science and public administration, namely the relationship between politics and administration. Early thinkers on the subject (Wilson 1887; Weber 1968) tended to present politics and bureaucracy as two separate worlds which would not blend easily and only at a cost to both. This subject is of great concern to all because it is on this basis that governments prosper and nations grow and develop.