Politicians applying general rules as a reaction to local failures has contributed to mushrooming control in the public sector, which has in turn spurred higher transactional costs and motivation crowding among public employees. Drawing on a qualitative case study in a Danish municipality, this article explores the prospects and challenges for politicians of breaking the vicious circle of escalating control by adopting stewardship ideals into their leadership of the public employees. The results show that stewardship offers new opportunities for politicians, enabling better diagnosis of control problems, more robust control solutions, as well as a pronounced mobilization of employee support for those solutions. However, political competition, political discontinuity after elections, scandals in the press, resistance in the administration, and more diffuse decision-making processes pose potential challenges for politicians striving to tackle the problem of escalating control through stewardship.

中文翻译：

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打破控制升级的恶性循环：通过管理连接政客和公职人员

将一般规则作为对地方失败的反应的政客们促成了对公共部门的迅速控制，这反过来又刺激了更高的交易成本和公职人员之间的积极性拥挤。本文利用丹麦城市的定性案例研究，探讨了政治家通过将管理理念纳入其对公职人员的领导，打破控制升级的恶性循环的前景和挑战。结果表明，管理为政治家提供了新的机会，能够更好地诊断控制问题，提供更强大的控制解决方案，以及明显动员员工支持这些解决方案。然而，政治竞争、选举后的政治不连续、新闻界的丑闻、政府的阻力、