Organizing Leviathan: Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Making of Good Government
Abstract
Why are some countries less corrupt and better governed than others? Challenging conventional explanations on the remarkable differences in quality of government worldwide, this book argues that the organization of bureaucracy is an often overlooked but critical factor. Countries where merit-recruited employees occupy public bureaucracies perform better than those where public employees owe their post to political connections. The book provides a coherent theory of why, and ample evidence showing that meritocratic bureaucracies are conducive to lower levels of corruption, higher government effectiveness, and more flexibility to adopt modernizing reforms. Data comes from both a novel dataset on the bureaucratic structures of over 100 countries as well as from narratives of particular countries, with a special focus on the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats in Spain and Sweden. A notable contribution to the literature in comparative politics and public policy on good governance, and to corruption studies more widely.
... This question is critical for developing countries undergoing transitions, such as post-authoritarian regimes, where political actors often compete for control over state institutions, leading to heightened levels of politicization (Meyer-Sahling, 2008). Furthermore, quantitative approaches offer valuable insights by highlighting cross-national variation and allowing researchers to study the effects of different recruitment systems across diverse settings Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017;Kopecký et al., 2016). However, qualitative approaches are equally essential; they provide a deeper understanding of the processes and motivations behind civil service appointments, particularly in the nuanced environments of developing countries (Bertelli et al., 2020). ...
... Clientalism is "an exchange of a citizen's vote in return for direct payments or continuing access to employment, goods and services" (Kitschelt & Wilkinson, 2007, p. 2). However, while electoral patronage may secure votes, it can undermine good governance by favoring political loyalty over competence (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017), particularly in developing countries and lower-level positions (Grindle, 2012). Another important subtype is intra-organizational patronage, which allocates public positions to reinforce party unity and maintain networks of loyal activists. ...
... It fosters the development of professional civil servants recruited for long-term positions, cultivating profound expertise and experience. In such a system, political and administrative careers remain separate, and the bureaucracy stays insulated from changing political masters (Askim et al., 2024;Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017), ensuring continuity in public service. ...
This article examines the complex balancing of political loyalty and meritocratic competence in the appointment of top civil servants—a pivotal aspect of public administration that is particularly relevant in developing contexts. Focusing on the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq, this study aims to unravel how merit and patronage converge in the appointment processes of director generals (DGs). To this end, the article develops an analytical framework that conceptualizes “hybrid appointments” as a process in which merit‐based and patronage considerations are intricately interwoven. The article uses a mixed‐method research design, combining elite interviews with senior politicians and a quantitative analysis of original biographical data on top civil servants. It shows how politicians weigh merit‐based qualifications alongside political considerations in the appointment process, rather than substituting loyalty for competence. This finding challenges the traditional dichotomous understanding of merit versus patronage appointments, advancing our understanding of how top civil service appointments function in developing contexts.
... Different bureaucratic "ecosystems" might differently influence a government's "capacity to deliver." According to Dahlström and Lapuente (2017) there are at least two defining characteristics accounting for variations in bureaucracies worldwide and that differently shape the institutional "ecosystem" whereby public workers conduct their activities: one is the decree of "meritocracy," indicating whether the personnel (bureaucrats) are professional enough to mobilize their "skills" and "process information" toward concrete governmental objectives, and the second defining characteristic refers to the "closedness level," relating to the organisational architecture that a government uses to collect, disseminate, and incorporate new technologies into its activities. This typically involves assessing whether the bureaucratic environment is capable and receptive to innovation, which nowadays includes a robust "e-government architecture" as vital for designing programmes and delivering services (Wu et al., 2018, p. 10). ...
... A critical factor evaluating these organisational capacities is the concept of "bureaucratic professionalism" (PROFI) (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017). This concept assesses the ...
... As Dahlström and Lapuente (2017, p. 39) observe, "closed bureaucracies," which rely on internal recruitment and promotion, might resist innovation due to a focus on conformity rather than expertize from external sectors. This because they tend to hire personnel based on their conformity to the agency's rules and myths, rather than on a desire to gain more expertize and knowledge from outside sectors-which of course in the context of COVID-19 was needed in order to adapt the educational service to the demands and particularities of the pandemic (Clausen et al., 2020;Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017). ...
Policy capacity plays a pivotal role in shaping the extent of global governmental responses to the COVID‐19 pandemic. While scholars have primarily examined this phenomenon through individual case studies, focusing on demographic variables that influence governments' COVID‐19 responses, little understanding exists regarding how existing policy capacities (systemic, organisational, and individual) have either constrained or empowered governments to navigate the pandemic diversely. To address this gap, our study focuses on the worldwide patterns of school closures and re‐openings during COVID‐19. Utilizing configurational analysis on data from 110 countries, we reveal that factors such as less professional organisational capacities, flawed individual leadership capacities, and contextual factors such as heightened political polarization serve as quasi‐sufficient conditions for longer school closures, while their significant presence leads to extended periods of schools remaining open. The research is supported by detailed case studies of the US, Colombia, Israel, and South Korea, elucidating diverse policy trajectories and combinations influencing prolonged closures or swift re‐openings.
... Public administration theory once revolved around concepts of spoils, politicization, and neutral competence to explain advantages of meritocracy for government performance (Kaufman, 1969;van Riper, 1958). These concepts and understandings of meritocracy and performance have been augmented in recent decades by principalagent theory and quality of government theory (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017;Rothstein & Teorell, 2008). ...
... A distinct approach to quality of government is reflected in research by Dahlström and Lapuente (2017). They identify a key mechanism that explains processes that promote impartiality. ...
... Another independent variable studied in 11 of the articles is professionalism. Professionalism is a concept relevant to both quality of government (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017) and principal-agent theory (Miller & Whitford, 2016, pp. 144-152). ...
In October 2020, President Donald Trump sought to convert many US federal civil servants to at‐will employees by executive order. Trump's initiative, referred to as Schedule F, has stimulated a partisan debate about dismantling the merit system in the US federal government. A substantial international body of evidence has developed during the last three decades about the effects of administrative practices associated with meritocracy and the likely consequences of changes to civil service systems, such as those embedded in Schedule F. This article employs guidelines established under the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses (PRISMA) to conduct a systematic review of the evidence to address the question: What does the evidence tell us about merit principles and government performance? This systematic review summarizes what empirical research tells us about effects of civil service practices, such as meritocratic appointments, meritocratic advancement, and tenure protection, for government performance and the quality of government. The findings indicate that factors such as meritocratic appointments/recruitment, tenure protection, impartiality, and professionalism are strongly associated with higher government performance and lower corruption. We conclude by discussing implications of our findings for public policy and management and for future research.
... When it comes to the relationship that political trust has with citizens' public health behaviors, this visibility likely matters, because in contrast to the conventional understanding of the politicsadministration dichotomy, public servants are not merely impartial implementers of government policy. Rather they often have distinct professional incentives and identities that are different from those of elected governments (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017). ...
... While the virtue of democracy is that governments are chosen by the people, the consequence of this is that an ever-present motivation of politicians is their desire to be reelected. A dominant school of thought within political science maintains that because the desire to be reelected tends to weigh so strongly on politicians, they can be prone to pressures that might influence their chance of electoral victory (Bøggild, 2015;Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017). 2 For example, as one partisan advisor recently reminded a Canadian minister, "we can have the best policy in the world but we need to get reelected" (House of Commons, 2019). ...
... In many countries, however, the creation of permanent bureaucracies staffed according to merit was underpinned by a desire to improve the quality of governance by protecting public servants from the realm of electoral politics (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017). Unlike politicians, public servants do not owe their job to being the public's favored candidate, but rather to their professional qualifications. ...
Research shows that citizens' trust in government is associated with lower vaccine hesitancy and an increased willingness to follow public health measures. Thus far, however, the population health literature has largely conceptualized “government” as a unitary actor. This article furthers our understanding of this relationship by examining two important features of modern governance that have largely gone unexamined: (1) that governing involves popularly elected politicians and appointed bureaucrats; and (2), that governing often comprises many levels of government within the same country. Analyzing survey data from Canada with various multivariate regression models, this article finds that the relationship political trust has with vaccine hesitancy and intention to follow for public health measures is more complex than presently recognized. Specifically, a larger change in citizens’ public health behaviors is associated with trust in public health officials than with trust in government, and of particular importance is trust in national public health authorities, despite the fact that public health measures in Canada are largely the jurisdiction of subnational governments. The implications of these findings for population health research and policymakers are discussed.
... Класичні підходи в політичній науці стверджують (напанриклад, Д'Арсі), що існує внутрішній конфлікт між демократією і [24,28]. У тому ж дусі безліч досліджень вказує на те, як посилення політичної конкуренції призводить до посилення клієнтелізму та корупції, особливо в молодих демократіях з менш усталеними бюрократичними структурами [19,20,26]. Проте кілька недавніх досліджень статистично показують, що демократія, яка розуміється як змагальні вибори з загальним виборчим правом, загалом посилює якість бюрократії, яка визначається як ефективність у реалізації та автономія від політичного тиску [29, с.485]. ...
... Однак багато досліджень, які виявляють негативний вплив демократії, визначають демократію в загальних рисах як пов'язану з оскарженням або підзвітністю. Крім того, велика література з клієнтелізму в демократичних країнах [20,23]; ризик оскарження, що призводить до гонки за надання цільових товарів, особливо для найбідніших виборців. Проте, жодне з цих досліджень систематично не пов'язує різні переваги виборців і рівень клієнтелізму з різними правилами виборчого права. ...
Стаття присвячена аналізу бюрократії як феномену політики. З’ясовано, що бюрократія виникла разом із виникненням держави і розподілом суспільства на тих, хто управляє, і тих, ким управляють. Для управління потрібні певні регламентації (закони), котрим повинні підпорядковуватися як управлінські структури у відповідності до ієрархії, так і всі верстви населення, що створює відповідну управлінсько-виконавську систему. Така система і стає головним чинником у формуванні і відтворенні бюрократії. Досліджено, що у різних політичних і економічних системах бюрократія отримує специфічні риси. В першу чергу на сутність бюрократії та її риси впливає ступінь контрольованості з боку суспільства, яка залежить від його політикокультурного рівня. Чимало вчених різних епох і періодів розглядали проблему влади та системи управління.Акцентовано, що цю проблему розглядало конфуціанство, спираючись на вчення китайського вченого Конфуція. На протязі багатьох століть конфуціанство було релігією китайського бюрократичного класу – мандаринів чи освічених людей, адміністративні пости яких замінювались на підставі проведення конкурсних екзаменів із так званих класичних знань.
... Estudos têm apontado para a importância da organização de uma burocracia profissionalizada como um vetor para melhoria dos serviços públicos, com repercussões para o crescimento econômico, para a diminuição da corrupção e para melhoria dos indicadores socioeconômicos (EVANS, RUESCHEMEYER;SKOCPOL, 1985;RAUCH;EVANS, 2000;DAHLSTRÖM;LAPUENTE, 2017;ARRETCHE, 2018). Essas investigações ressaltam como características centrais para o bom desempenho estatal sua autonomia e capacidade de regular mercados, de exercer o poder de polícia, de distribuição da justiça e de provisão de bens públicos em um contexto de controle e fiscalização do poder político (ACEMOGLU; ROBINSON, 2010). ...
... Estudos têm apontado para a importância da organização de uma burocracia profissionalizada como um vetor para melhoria dos serviços públicos, com repercussões para o crescimento econômico, para a diminuição da corrupção e para melhoria dos indicadores socioeconômicos (EVANS, RUESCHEMEYER;SKOCPOL, 1985;RAUCH;EVANS, 2000;DAHLSTRÖM;LAPUENTE, 2017;ARRETCHE, 2018). Essas investigações ressaltam como características centrais para o bom desempenho estatal sua autonomia e capacidade de regular mercados, de exercer o poder de polícia, de distribuição da justiça e de provisão de bens públicos em um contexto de controle e fiscalização do poder político (ACEMOGLU; ROBINSON, 2010). ...
O artigo tem como objetivo caracterizar a disposição e ocupação de funções de confiança e cargos em comissão no governo federal brasileiro. A utilização de funções e cargos em comissão é recorrente nas organizações públicas para assessoramento e estruturação da cadeia de comando dos níveis estratégico e tático com o técnico-operacional. A partir da base de dados do Sistema Integrado de Administração de Pessoal (SIAPE), foram traçadas comparações do quantitativo, do padrão de remuneração e do perfil de ocupação desses postos de comando por tipo de organizações públicas no governo federal. Conclui-se que há muitas similaridades entre funções e cargos, com destaque para elevada escolaridade e o predomínio dos servidores públicos entre os ocupantes. A estratégia de disposição das funções e cargos difere, no entanto, quanto à remuneração e aos níveis de responsabilidade, o que pode resultar em assimetrias e distorções na gestão pública das organizações federais brasileiras.
... While the tension between the democracy and bureaucracy is universally found among democratic countries, we expect that administrative traditions vary in their participationimpartiality equilibrium in a manner that mirrors their administration and politics dimension. This is because a primary reason for separating politics and administration is to uphold the public service's impartiality (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017), and that political activity has been identified in some countries as potentially threatening the public service's reputed impartiality (Cooper, 200, 2022(Cooper, 200, , 2024. ...
In the face of a global rise of populism and democratic backsliding, several scholars have argued that public servants can play an important role in safeguarding the integrity of our democracies. But are public servants equally likely to be politically active in all countries? While a large body of scholarship has found that public sector employees participate in a variety of political activities more than private sector employees, most studies use data from a single, often Western, country. Drawing upon literature studying administrative traditions, this article theoretically considers differences in traditions' participation-impartiality equilibrium-the balance struck between the democratic value of political participation and the bureaucratic value of impartiality-and hypothesizes that the nature of the relationship public sector employment has with political activity varies across countries belonging to different traditions. Using data from the World Values Survey and the European Values Study, this article empirically investigates whether the nature of the relationship public sector employment has with political activity varies across the Anglo-American, Nordic, Germanic, Napoleonic, Confucian and Latin American administrative traditions in ways that are consistent with differences in their participation-impartiality equilibrium. The results from various multivariate regression models show that administrative traditions do matter. Consistent with our theoretical expectations, public sector employment's positive relationship with political activity is less pronounced in the Anglo-American, Nordic and Confucian administrative traditions than in the Germanic, Napoleonic and Latin American traditions. The findings suggest that public sector employees' role in protecting democratic principles, at least as far as participating in the political realm as private citizens, will likely vary across countries belonging to different administrative traditions.
... No obstante, este conjunto de valores, unidos a los de economía, eficiencia, descentralización o austeridad, son los que se priorizan en un segundo momento histórico, cuando el paradigma weberiano entra en crisis y aparece el new public management (NPM) como paradigma dominante vinculado al modelo de sociedad neoliberal. Los excesos del modelo NPM, tanto en términos de falta de equidad como en los numerosos casos de corrupción, trajeron la llegada de los valores propios de la buena gobernanza (Kaufmann et al., 2004) y al neoweberianismo (Dahlström y Lapuente, 2017), que incluyeron la transparencia, la rendición de cuentas o la participación, así como el reforzamiento de la profesionalidad e imparcialidad como valores que resaltar. Finalmente, el desarrollo del feminismo, el medioambientalismo, los ODS y el respeto a la diversidad, en un entorno complejo y disruptivo, unidos a la llegada de las nuevas tecnologías, la digitalización y la inteligencia artificial, dieron lugar a una nueva oleada de valores y principios que ponen en lugar preferente la innovación, la adaptación, la equidad de Villoria, Manuel Conflictos de valores, límites cognitivos y malas prácticas organizativas como riesgos para la utilidad de los códigos éticos en... género, la ecología, la discriminación positiva o la equidad digital 8 . ...
Objetivos: en un momento en el que miles de códigos éticos empiezan a aprobarse en las Administraciones públicas españolas, este artículo trata de aportar luz sobre sus posibilidades y limitaciones, considerando, especialmente, los retos cognitivos que representan y su inserción en entornos organizativos que, en ocasiones, socializan en malas prácticas a sus empleados. Metodología: se trata de un texto teórico y de reflexión, basado en teoría moral aplicada, centrado en la denominada ética administrativa, al que se aporta investigación reciente sobre ciencia cognitiva. Resultados: el texto resalta el destacado papel de la motivación moral y la construcción del carácter para el éxito de los códigos, pero también nos permite comprender los problemas que se derivan de los conflictos de valores en el servicio público y cómo afrontarlos. Se demuestra el papel de las emociones, sentimientos e intuiciones en la conformación de las decisiones éticas, así como el riesgo de los sesgos cognitivos en la toma de decisiones frente a problemas morales. Finalmente, se trata el problema de los riesgos de socialización y normalización de prácticas corruptas en las organizaciones. Conclusiones: derivadas de los resultados, se aportan recomendaciones para las personas y organizaciones públicas a la hora de desarrollar y utilizar los códigos.
... Hence, Weberian bureaucracy is a description of how state administrations are organized and should be distinguished from outcome-centered concepts such as "state capacity" or "quality of government". Whether having a Weberian bureaucratic organization promotes "good outcomes," including good governance, are ultimately empirical questions (Dahlström and Lapuente, 2017). Moreover, the effect of Weberian bureaucracy on economic development may depend on the time period under study. ...
Background: The background and objectives of the research revolve around bureaucracy as a classic form of the modern division of labor, with Max Weber acknowledging its inevitability. However, the objective implications of the bureaucracy’s iron cage are evident in governance and management experiences. The mayors of Tehran’s districts exemplify how Iranian culture interacts with bureaucracy. This research seeks to establish principles and governance for district governors using an alternative bureaucracy, parallel to conventional bureaucracy. Methods: The methods employed include twenty strategically selected interviews, considering age, municipal area, and work experience for maximum variance. Grounded theory methodology, specifically the approach by Anselm Strauss and Barney Glaser, guides the research, employing open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. MaxQDA 2020 software enhances the qualitative data analysis, facilitating organization, coding, and collaboration within the research team. Results: Findings indicate “inevitable violations” as a common starting point for interviewees, leading to three axes: “preconditions,” “objectives,” and “strategies and mechanisms” of alternative bureaucracy. In conclusion, breaking through bureaucracy becomes necessary for governors to act. Alternative bureaucracy, rooted in experience yet considering the bureaucratic field, requires transcendent goals. Hybridity and ethical principles are crucial when transitioning from conventional bureaucracy to the alternative in urban governance.
... One significant way to make cross-national comparisons of public bureaucracy is focusing on personnel systems (Cooper 2022;Dahlström and Lapuente 2017;Evans and Rauch 1999). In particular, previous studies often examine the degree to which recruitment and promotion systems of public officials are meritocratic or politicized. ...
This chapter aims to provide a brief overview of Japan’s local government system, including an examination of the significant challenges they face. The local government system operates on a two-tiered structure, with prefectures serving as regional governments and municipalities serving as local governments. This chapter focuses primarily on the municipal level of government. First, a brief historical background of Japan’s modern local government system is provided. Second, the author reviews the fundamental institutional characteristics of Japanese local governments, including size, responsibilities, and public finance. Third, the focus shifts to leadership selection in Japanese local governments and their different challenges. Fourth, characteristics of local civil servants are explained, focusing on their personnel system. The fifth section delves into the latest nationwide municipal merger reform and discusses results of empirical studies on its effects. The sixth section refers to demographic challenges many local governments have been facing. Finally, the last part of the chapter concludes with suggestions for future research avenues.
... In other words, emanating from meritocratic recruitment and tenure protection, the higher epistemic quality of Weberian bureaucracy makes it a better implementational tool for the political decisions set forth by political leaders. The higher competence of public bureaucracy contributes to higher state capacity (D'Arcy & Nistotskaya, 2021). ...
... Some of the aspects of honest, effective and proactive government are shared among all Nordic countries. Most notably, the careers of bureaucrats and politicians seldom cross paths in any of the Nordic countries, which is argued to be one of the key ingredients of efficient, reform-oriented and non-corrupt government (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017). In these circumstances, bureaucrats are able to 'speak truth to power' and politicians can discipline bureaucrats to the proper extent without the fear of the difficulties this might cause in later moving over to the other side of the politics-administration divide. ...
This chapter summarises and concludes with the main changes to and challenges faced by Finnish public administration in the context of Nordic welfare state reforms. The chapter builds on a simple analytical approach by analysing the politico-administrative system from the perspectives of input, throughput and output. The chapter provides a concise description of the main aspects of government, the economy and civil society. Furthermore, the chapter discusses the changes to and future prospects of the citizenry and democratic processes related to public administration, the trends and reforms of public administration and management, and public service delivery.KeywordsPublic AdministrationFinlandNordicReforms
... Max Weber saw modern bureaucracy as "the most rational and thus inevitable technical instrument for the organization of government" Rosser 2009, 1137). As an ideal type, modern bureaucratic organizations are composed of a series of distinct characteristics, one of which is a personnel system by which bureaucrats are recruited because of their skills and not of their ancestry or political connections Rosser 2009, 1137;Dahlström and Lapuente 2017). Bureaucrats have completely separate careers from their political masters. ...
... The need for bureaucrats to have some administrative discretion without interference for politicians has been an old theme of administration theory, growing into another version of (Frederickson 2012: 15). The autonomy of the bureaucrat allegedly prevents the abuse of power from the politician, while the bureaucrat himself is subjected to accountability by his peers, the argument runs (Dahlström and Lapuente 2017). In times of great political corruption and politicization of the civil service, for instance, Woodrow Wilson (1887) argued in his seminal essay on modern public administration that politics should not meddle in administration and administration should not meddle in politics. ...
Following the ambiguous performance of Washington consensus economic reforms, the Bretton Woods institutions rediscovered the importance of the state as a factor in driving economic growth. Evans and Rauch produced evidence that the variation in the government effectiveness ('quality') of nation-states, notably the presence of a Weberian like bureaucracy, selected and promoted on merit alone, and largely autonomous towards private interest was indeed strongly associated with growth. Their work revived the use of Weberian theory and went on to being adopted by the World Bank as an alternative growth theory, disseminated via the influential World Development Report (WDR 1997). Two decades of unprecedented investment in governance, institutions and anticorruption followed with the understanding that this new approach to state modernization would lay the profound foundations for economic modernization and development. This article revisits briefly both the argument and the impact of development policies powered by it. It argues that public administration is the product of the same complex of societal factors that generate a certain quality of government, being therefore endogenous and not a cause of the quality of government. It further argues that the misunderstanding of this point has led to an industry of aid trying to improve quality of governance which has not managed over the past thirty years to break the vicious circle of asymmetric power and patrimonial government.
Zusammenfassung
Die These, dass Verfassungsgerichte, Experten und unabhängige Instanzen die Gesellschaft zunehmend regieren, ist umstritten. Ziel dieses Beitrags ist es nicht, die mögliche empirische Untermauerung dieser Annahme weiter zu prüfen, sondern zunächst zu untersuchen, was diese unabhängigen Instanzen sind und wohin sie im staatlichen Makrogefüge gehören. Eine umfassende Einbettung dieser Instanzen in das Staatsgefüge hat bisher gefehlt. Durch ihre Bündelung wird ein Subsystem erkennbar, das als ataraxischer Staat bezeichnet wird. Zur Untermauerung dieses Befunds stützt sich der Artikel auf die klassische Theorie der Gewaltenteilung und auf das Konzept der horizontal accountability . Auf der Basis dieser begrifflichen Bündelung will der Artikel eine Neuinterpretation des in Vergessenheit geratenen Konzepts der Mischverfassung anregen. Die hier angebotene konzeptionelle Arbeit kommt zu dem Schluss, dass all diese unabhängigen Instanzen ein Subsystem im Staat bilden, das strukturell sowohl der Demokratie als auch der Politik entgegengesetzt ist und somit zu einem langfristigen und spezifischen Gleichgewicht des Gemeinwesens beitragen kann.
In the face of a global rise of populism and democratic backsliding, several scholars have argued that public servants can play an important role in safeguarding the integrity of our democracies. But are public servants equally likely to be politically active in all countries? While a large body of scholarship has found that public sector employees participate in a variety of political activities more than private sector employees, most studies use data from a single, often Western, country. Drawing upon literature studying administrative traditions, this article theoretically considers differences in traditions’ participation-impartiality equilibrium—the balance struck between the democratic value of political participation and the bureaucratic value of impartiality—and hypothesizes that the nature of the relationship public sector employment has with political activity varies across countries belonging to different traditions. Using data from the World Values Survey and the European Values Study, this article empirically investigates whether the nature of the relationship public sector employment has with political activity varies across the Anglo-American, Nordic, Germanic, Napoleonic, Confucian, and Latin American administrative traditions in ways that are consistent with differences in their participation-impartiality equilibrium. The results from various multivariate regression models show that administrative traditions do matter. Consistent with our theoretical expectations, public sector employment’s positive relationship with political activity is less pronounced in the Anglo-American, Nordic and Confucian administrative traditions than in the Germanic, Napoleonic and Latin American traditions. The findings suggest that public sector employees’ role in protecting democratic principles, at least as far as participating in the political realm as private citizens, will likely vary across countries belonging to different administrative traditions.
How do the professional backgrounds of senior bureaucrats affect their competence and political responsiveness? This article fills a gap by examining these questions in a meritocratic context that accommodates nuanced but potentially consequential variations in the recruitment of senior bureaucrats. Using a paired survey experiment with citizens, representatives, and administrators in Norway, the article demonstrates that agency heads are perceived as less competent and—to a lesser extent—more politically responsive if their profile deviates from the meritocratic ideal of the career civil servant with mission-specific expertise. The article also compares perceptions between groups of stakeholders, filling another gap in the literature. Treatment effects go in the same direction across groups, but the results reveal a mismatch between popular and insider perceptions of bureaucracy: whereas citizens are practically indifferent, administrators are deeply concerned about the competence of an agency head who is a former politician rather than a career bureaucrat. Perceptions of substantive expertise are more aligned: all stakeholder groups view agency heads with mission-specific expertise as more competent and less politically responsive than generalists. Overall, the results demonstrate that variations in who is recruited to senior bureaucrat positions may either strengthen or undermine stakeholders’ views on good governance.
Appointing bureaucrats based on merit and protecting them from excessive political interference have become bedrocks of modern bureaucracy. Populist leaders throughout the world, however, are looking to undermine merit systems and politicize bureaucracies. This study analyzes the impact of merit‐based appointments and bureaucratic autonomy on service delivery effectiveness, using longitudinal data from a panel of African countries. Throughout Africa, social, economic, and political conditions have made it difficult for meritocratic and autonomous bureaucracies to take root and flourish as they have elsewhere. Despite these challenges, the study's main finding is that the practice of appointing bureaucrats based on merit has a positive effect on the provision of public services like transportation infrastructure, standardized education, drinking water, sanitation, and waste disposal. Political leaders undercutting meritocratic civil services and expanding patronage appointments do so at their own peril due to the adverse consequences of their actions on governmental performance. Little evidence is found of a relationship between bureaucratic autonomy and service delivery effectiveness.
Public servants have a significant impact on peoples’ lives, but we don’t have many reliable estimates of how many employees engage in prosocial rule-breaking (PSRB), a form of constructive deviance. We collected original survey data (N = 497) among a representative sample of Greek public servants and implemented a list experiment to gauge how pervasive PSRB is in Greece’s public sector. Greece is a particularly useful setting in which to study PSRB as the euro crisis created strong reform pressure. We find that public servants who were hired via merit competitions are not less likely to break rules, but this is conditional on their beliefs about career prospects and the fairness of the promotion system. They perceive the professional reward system as biased towards those with political connections and compensate for lack of efficiency by doing favours. This finding raises concerns about the quality of EU reform assessments.
¿Cuál es la relación entre los Estados (gobiernos y administraciones) y la pandemia de la COVID-19? En esta ponencia se analizan las dos relaciones de causalidad potenciales. Por un lado, ¿cómo ha afectado y está afectando el coronavirus a las estructuras gubernamentales y administrativas?, ¿peligran los sistemas democráticos y las reformas administrativas modernizadoras? Por otro lado, ¿qué efecto tienen estas estructuras de gobierno y administración sobre la mejor o peor gestión de la pandemia?
Zusammenfassung
Die makroskopische Fiskalsoziologie plagt ein Kategorienproblem: Sie lässt offen, ob es sich bei der Einheit ihres Vergleichs um Welten, Familien, Systeme, Regime oder Strukturen von Besteuerung handelt. Diese kategoriale Unbestimmtheit verweist auf theoretische Probleme. Denn indem die Literatur ihr Erkenntnisobjekt – Steuern – primär als Ausdruck von Ideen, Mentalitäten, innenpolitischen Konflikten oder ökonomischen Faktoren begreift, übergeht sie ihre soziologische Qualität als fiskalische Beziehung. Fasst man diese dagegen ins Auge, lassen sich steuerliche Gebilde nicht nur adäquater beschreiben. Vielmehr sorgt dies auch dafür, dass Steuern selbst eine erklärende Rolle zukommt: Welche fiskalischen Beziehungen wie gestiftet werden, zeitigt in dieser Perspektive je unterschiedliche politische und soziale Effekte. Um dies einzuholen schlägt der Beitrag vor, die Kategorie des Steuerstaats zu revitalisieren. In Abgrenzung zu überlieferten Ansätzen wird darunter das Zentrum eines Netzes fiskalischer Beziehungen verstanden, in denen die Geltung und der Inhalt von Steuerordnungen verhandelt werden und deren Wandel sich in vier Prozessbegriffen – Professionalisierung, Durchstaatlichung, Politisierung, Geofiskalisierung – abbilden lässt. Die Vorteile des Begriffs werden anhand eines kurzen Vergleichs des italienischen und deutschen Steuerstaats demonstriert, bevor abschließend für eine komparative Steuerstaatsforschung plädiert wird.
La presencia de burócratas dentro de cualquier sistema político no garantiza, per se, que este sea un sistema organizado racionalmente en el sentido de una dominación legal. Por ejemplo, la cúspide del poder político franquista estuvo mayormente copada de personas que, además de la lealtad a la ideología del nuevo Régimen, se caracterizaban por pertenecer al cuerpo mismo del Estado. Sería erróneo, sin embargo, atribuirle las características de una administración racional y moderna: el sentido de este tipo de burocracia es muy diferente al uso estrictamente político del mismo. Para determinar la esencia política que opera en los mandos del franquismo es conveniente especificar antes el proceso de la toma de decisiones: en quién recae ese poder y bajo qué presupuestos se ejecuta.Algunas comparaciones con las teorías sustentadoras de este procedimiento con las teorías sobre la dominación y la legitimidad ofrecerán la clave real de la finalidad reformadora de algunos agentes del Régimen, concretada en las reformas político-administrativas de los años 50 y 60. Tras estas reformas, la legitimidad adquirida estará posicionada en la racionalidad burocrática y las leyes procedimentales, sin que de ello se suceda necesariamente la instauración de un Estado de Derecho ni premisas democráticas.
Democracy promises accountability via elections; bureaucracy promises coordination via hierarchy. Many scholars believe these properties conflict. We prove, however, that accountability is precisely what unifies democracy and meritocratic (Weberian) bureaucracy. Central to the concept of meritocracy are performance reviews. We prove that a review system where all individuals and groups are accountable must also be democratic. Thus, meritocratic hierarchy, accountability, and democracy are intertwined. But accountability in modern political systems confronts a significant issue. Such systems include many knowledge-intensive specialties, and since specializations are limited to some but not all members of an institution, the full accountability of democracies entails review of specialists by amateurs. We prove that modern political systems necessarily exhibit this tension. It is a hallmark of modern institutions rather than a problem to be solved.
The US bureaucracy routinely issues major public policy decisions that affect Americans’ lives. Government agency leaders make those decisions based on a subjective understanding of their agency’s available policy discretion. Over time, discretion has become a prominent theoretical construct in the bureaucratic politics and public administration literature, but it is rarely measured directly. In this article, we create a new measure of agency policy discretion. We draw on research suggesting that discretion is derived from the bureaucracy’s key political principals: the elected executive, legislators, and interest groups. We use data from the American State Administrators Project and trigonometry to calculate the discretion area scores for 8,955 state agencies between 1978 and 2018. We then evaluate the measure through a series of construct validation assessments. The article offers an innovative and generalizable way to operationalize discretion that will advance future scholarship in organizational behavior, public administration, and bureaucratic decision-making.
While a growing body of work suggests that women representatives are less likely to be involved in corruption scandals, we know less about if changes in representation patterns also have implications for citizens’ first-hand experiences with corruption in public service delivery. This study suggests that women elected representatives reduce street level bribery, in particular when the share of women increases in contexts where relatively few women are elected or when the absolute increase in women’s representation is relatively large. Using newly collected data on the share of women in 128 regional level parliaments in 10 European countries and four rounds of the European Quality of Government Index (EQI) survey (2010–2021), our two-way fixed effects models show that on average, the proportion of women in regional parliaments is strongly associated with citizens’ self-reported experiences of bribery across all countries and years. Furthermore, our difference-in-difference design shows that the level of bribery in public service provision dropped more sharply in regions that experienced a greater absolute or greater marginal increase in women’s representation. Our results may be understood in light of women candidates placing priority on well-functioning and low corrupt public service provision and the important signals of inclusiveness, non-discrimination and decreased tolerance towards corruption that women’s representation conveys to civil servants.
The interactions between bureaucratic agencies and political actors shape governance outcomes, yet scholars disagree about how bureaucratic autonomy relates to government quality. Some claim that enhancing autonomy improves quality, whereas others maintain the opposite. An influential article by Fukuyama (2013) in Governance suggests a curvilinear relationship, moderated by capacity. This article evaluates the theory empirically, focusing on within‐country variation and two dimensions of autonomy: independence and discretion. Drawing on an original survey of over 3200 public sector workers in Brazil and administrative data on 325,000 public servants, we find evidence suggesting that the relationship between perceived autonomy and quality depends on the type of perceived autonomy and level of capacity. Public servants' perceptions of independence from political actors are associated with increased perceptions about governance quality in a linear fashion. For perceived discretion, we find initial evidence of a Goldilocks relationship: too little reduces perceptions of government quality but so does too much, especially in low‐capacity areas. Our findings offer initial evidence that may qualify claims that limiting bureaucratic discretion while increasing political oversight improves governance; instead, context may be crucial.
Policy‐making is a complex business. While scholars have studied the politics of policy‐making for decades, we know surprisingly little about the role of individual ministries . We argue that and why individual ministries crucially shape policies' content, particularly their distributive profiles. We explain that it matters whether for example, a Ministry of Labor, of Finance, or of Home Affairs designs a policy. First, we systematically review existing literature on the factors that influence preferences of ministries and their power in policy‐making. Second, we develop a theory explaining that and why ministries have substantive policy impact and introducing a typology of three different ministerial ideal‐types: ministries follow a “social logic”, an “efficiency logic”, or a “law‐and‐order logic”. Third, we offer systematic empirical evidence: Using the least likely case of Germany, we introduce a novel content‐coded dataset on all social policies in the Bundestag since 1969, showing that ministries shape policies' distributive profiles, even when controlling for rival explanations, such as the partisan affiliation of ministers, the policy field, or cabinet type. We conclude by developing a research agenda on ministerial politics and highlight important implications for representation and responsiveness.
This article examines bureaucracies using a novel dataset of Chilean central government employees from 2006 to 2020. Unlike perception-based sources, this dataset provides objective, disaggregated, and longitudinal insights into bureaucrats' characteristics and careers. The authors validate it against official employment statistics and conduct an exploratory and descriptive analysis, presenting six descriptive findings about the Chilean bureaucracy that cannot be discovered using available aggregate data. The analysis reveals significant degrees of personnel stability and professionalization in the civil service, but with considerable rigidity in careers and substantial interagency heterogeneity in turnover, wages, and exposure to political cycles. These findings suggest that the Chilean national bureaucracy is mostly well developed along Weberian lines, though not uniformly so. These measurements also serve as a benchmark for comparing other Latin American bureaucracies in the future.
This article analyses how high‐level bureaucrats evaluate the leadership of technocrat and partisan cabinet ministers in different roles of policymaking. The argument is that bureaucrats perceive ministers with policy expertise to have a central role in policymaking, especially in policy‐directing tasks. Despite their essential contribution to coalition formation, ministers with political experience are negatively evaluated in all policymaking roles. The article presents evidence based on an endorsement experiment conducted with the high‐level bureaucracy in Brazil. The results show that ministers with policy experience receive positive evaluations from the bureaucracy in policy formulation and implementation roles but not to carry out political coordination activities with the presidency or the legislature. Ministers with a partisan profile receive negative evaluations in all tasks of the policy process. Exploring the mechanism, we show that the negative assessment of ministers with a partisan profile is maintained even when the profile of the bureaucrat is considered. These results show the negative attitudes of high‐level bureaucrats towards partisan ministers in contexts of substantial patronage and corruption and contribute to the debate on ministerial appointments and their implications for policymaking.
How does bureaucratic structure shape presidential strategy in managing top executive posts? The comparative literature on cabinet formation focuses heavily on presidential legislative strategy, largely overlooking the administrative dimension of cabinet management. This article fills this gap by examining how bureaucratic professionalization shapes the president's strategy in distributing and managing cabinet posts. We argue that as bureaucracies become more autonomous via professionalization, ministers from the bureaucracy are more likely to be central players in presidential cabinet management. Our analysis of original data on 1,538 ministers’ cabinet careers from 26 presidential administrations in four Asian democracies shows that bureaucrats are more likely to receive and retain cabinet posts in key policy areas as bureaucratic professionalization increases, whereas they are less likely to do so with decreasing bureaucratic professionalization. This finding suggests that presidential cabinet management follows a different set of rules according to the level of bureaucratic professionalization.
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Political patronage is defined as political actors appointing individuals at their discretion to key positions in the public sector. The book examines this practice in the bureaucracies of 11 Asian countries through the use of a typological framework of patronage types. The framework is based on two key criteria: basis of trust and the major role of political appointees. Several countries with well-developed civil service systems showed minimal levels of patronage (Japan, Singapore and South Korea). Two countries with a weak civil service showed very high levels of patronage appointments (Bangladesh and India). Sandwiched between those extremes are countries with formal civil service systems that are heavily influenced by political parties and by social ties to society (Vietnam, Kazakhstan, and China). The book concludes that not all patronage is the same and what is important is the tasks being performed by appointees and the nature of the trust relationship.
Bureaucrats are a fundamental part of the functioning of the modern state and democracies. However, there is still much disagreement about the ideal profile of bureaucrats to deliver quality and responsive policies. Bureaucrats can be meritocratically recruited or politically appointed, creating the dilemma between autonomy and accountability. This article explores this dilemma, identifying the profile of bureaucrats perceived as having the best performance in the different policymaking dimensions. The study explored the form of recruitment, the level of experience, and the bureaucrat’s gender as characteristics of interest. Using data from an original survey with high-ranking bureaucrats in Brazil, we implement conjoint analysis to identify the most valued profile. The results indicate that the bureaucrat recruited through the merit system is more valued in the dimensions of “transparency,” “evidence,” “political coordination,” and “general preference of respondents.” This result is independent of the bureaucrat’s experience, so the effect is related to the recruitment form. However, the politically appointed bureaucrat is more valued in the dimension of “effort.” Gender did not generate significant effects. The article brings experimental evidence to increase understanding of how bureaucratic autonomy and accountability connect to deliver better government performance.
Previous studies have identified individual and organizational factors that influence the turnover intentions of bureaucrats. However, they have overlooked how the type of national bureaucracy influences turnover intention. Combining data sets on macro‐level bureaucratic structures and individual civil servants, we examine how bureaucratic politicization and closedness are associated with the turnover intentions of bureaucrats in 36 countries. Our analysis indicates that there is large cross‐national variation in turnover intention, and that bureaucratic structures matter as one of the predictors of turnover intention. Public servants working in more closed and regulated bureaucracies exhibit lower turnover intention. We also find that public servants working in more politicized bureaucracies (in which personnel decisions are made via political connections) have lower turnover intention than those working in more merit‐based systems. Such low turnover intention in politicized bureaucracies may be explained by the characteristics of patronage appointments in which public jobs are distributed based on personal or political loyalty.
The research on the relationship between meritocracy and corruption has been widely studied and has shown that higher levels of meritocracy is associated with lower levels of corruption (Rauch & Evans, 2000; Dahlström et.al, 2012; Charron et.al, 2017). What this thesis aims to do is to see if this corruption curbing effect is prevalent in every setting. More specifically, it tries to investigate if administrative traditions moderates the association between meritocracy and corruption. Administrative traditions captures inherited values and structures from the past (Peters, 2021a), where the component of focus is the historical relationship between politics and administration. This historical relationship can either be separate with clear boundaries and separation between the two entities or fused with vague boundaries and with little to no separation. The main argument deployed is that civil servants within the separate tradition have better conditions to counteract political interference and face a smaller risk of reprisals. This thesis uses OLS regressions analysis at the country and regional level, where the administrative traditions function as an interaction term. To complement the statistical analysis two informant interviews were conducted with high-ranking civil servants in Spain and Sweden. The main result is that it is only the fused tradition that moderates the relationship between meritocracy and corruption. The separate tradition does not have a significant moderating effect. The findings run opposite of what was theoretically argued and the thesis concludes by paving the way for a new theoretical framework.
Why was the route to democracy in Scandinavia extraordinarily stable? This paper answers this question by studying Scandinavia’s eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century peaceful agrarian reforms, which contributed to auspicious state–society relations that made democracy progress relatively smoothly. Based on comparisons with contemporary France and Prussia and process-tracing evidence, the paper shows that Scandinavia achieved relatively extensive and peaceful agrarian reforms because of relatively high levels of meritocratic recruitment to the central administration and state control over local administration, which ensured impartial policymaking and implementation. These findings challenge prevailing theories of democratization, demonstrating that the Scandinavian countries represent an alternative, amicable path to democracy led by civil servants who attempt to transform their country socioeconomically. Thus, strong state-cum-weak society countries likely have better odds of achieving stable democracy than weak state-cum-weak society countries. However, building bureaucratic state administrations alongside autonomous political societies is probably a safer road to democracy.
Previous studies suggest that reforms of public personnel administration, especially implemented under the initiatives of New Public Management (NPM), increase government efficiency, while bureaucratic politicization is negatively associated with organizational performance and expertise. Yet, few studies provide empirical evidence about the interaction effect between NPM reforms and bureaucratic politicization on government performance. This study focuses on performance-related pay (PRP) reforms in public personnel administration and examines how the relationship between PRP and quality of government changes depending on political appointment. Using cross-country data analysis, findings show that the adoption of PRP is associated with higher quality of government, but the effect is negatively conditioned on the level of political appointment. Where political appointment is low, countries with PRP reforms are more likely to be impartial, efficient, and responsive to changes, but PRP reforms may not be effective for quality of government, where political appointment is pervasive in the civil service.
Les organismes publics sont depuis longtemps encouragés à devenir plus innovants et à renforcer leur esprit d’entreprise. Cette évolution s’est accompagnée d’un glissement des structures bureaucratiques traditionnelles vers des réseaux de gestion publique, tant dans la théorie que dans la pratique. Nous utilisons l’exemple de la fonction publique australienne et de l’accent qu’elle met sur le développement du réseautage pour examiner si l’accroissement des comportements en matière de réseautage est associé à des comportements au travail plus innovants. Dans l’élaboration de notre modèle théorique, nous émettons l’hypothèse que les activités de réseautage sont positivement liées aux comportements de travail novateurs, mais que le fait d’avoir trop peu ou trop d’acteurs en réseau est négativement associé aux comportements de travail innovateurs. Notre analyse révèle que les pratiques de réseautage sont effectivement associées à des niveaux plus élevés de comportements professionnels innovants, mais qu’elles diffèrent selon le type d’acteurs avec lesquels les gestionnaires publics interagissent. En outre, nous ne trouvons que des preuves limitées d’une relation curviligne entre ces deux constructions. L’article se termine par les implications pour la recherche et la pratique. Remarques à l’intention des praticiens Les organismes publics du monde entier sont soumis à des pressions pour devenir plus innovants et collaboratifs. C’est notamment le cas dans la fonction publique australienne. Une façon de parvenir à l’innovation est d’encourager les comportements professionnels innovants. Nous constatons qu’un réseautage accru du côté des gestionnaires publics est associé à des niveaux plus élevés de comportements professionnels innovants. Contrairement à nos hypothèses, nous n’avons pas vraiment observé de relation curviligne entre le réseautage et les comportements de travail innovateurs, c’est-à-dire que trop ou trop peu de réseautage n’était pas associé à une réduction des comportements de travail innovateurs.
The political appointment of bureaucrats is typically seen as jeopardizing development by selecting worse types into the bureaucracy or by depressing bureaucratic effort. I argue that political appointments also affect outcomes through a third, less studied channel, namely, by changing how bureaucrats work. Patronage provides connections between bureaucrats and politicians, and thereby grants access to material and nonmaterial resources, enhances monitoring, facilitates the application of sanctions and rewards, aligns priorities and incentives, and increases mutual trust. Political appointments can thus enhance bureaucrats’ accountability and effectiveness, not just for rent‐seeking purposes but also, in certain conditions, for public service delivery. I test this theory using data on Brazilian municipal governments, leveraging two quasi‐experiments, two original surveys of bureaucrats and politicians, and in‐depth interviews. The findings highlight the countervailing effects of connections on bureaucratic governance in the developing world.
Public administration in Sweden has been the chief vehicle for the rapid postwar development toward an extensive welfare state. However, during the 1980s, as a result of increasing criticism about inertia and bureaucratization, several major reforms were initiated to "renew" the public sector. These reforms included a wide range of different measures, including deregulation, privatization, and "liberalization" experiments at the local level.
This paper argues that these reforms, along with increased overall efficiency of the public sector, fulfilled a number of political and admin istrative functions. They were aimed at enhancing the overall legitimacy of the public administration and also at displacing conflicts triggered by fiscal problems to the local political level. As a result, the 1980s witnessed local governments becoming increasingly important suppliers of public services. At the same time, state public administration agencies adopted a more subtle and observant role than they had previously played.