When the cat is away: How institutional autonomy, low salience, and issue complexity shape administrative action

Abstract Political issues sometimes display an intriguing combination of high degrees complexity, low political saliency, and levels administrative autonomy. This article investigates how this type shapes the relationship between politicians public service. More specifically, we advance notion “administrative action space” to describe emergence collaborative governance when directives from level are intermittent or absent. Using illustrative case on administration measures address antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a transnational health issue in Europe, find that senior servants nested epistemic communities play leading role driving agency facilitating complex but low‐salient autonomy is extensive.