Discovering the Dark Side of Power: The Principal’s Moral Hazard in Political-Bureaucratic Relations

Döhler, Marian

doi:10.1080/01900692.2016.1256893

Cited by 9 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…20. 20. This comes close to what Dohler (2018) has diagnosed as “implicit coalitional drift”—in the context of political‐bureaucratic relations in Germany: “The implicit version (…) occurs if interest groups, the media or other stakeholders pressure a political principal. In this case, the political principal can drift, i.e.…”

supporting

confidence: 69%

Reputation‐SourcedAuthority and the Prospect of Unchecked Bureaucratic Power

Bertelli

Busuioc

2020

Public Administration Review

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We explore the democratic implications of a reputational account of bureaucratic authority. While an influential literature has examined the relevance of reputation—and mutual exchange between principals and agents in public organizations generally—the normative implications of these insights have largely escaped scrutiny. We discuss how reputation‐building impacts both the ability and the motivation of principals to oversee administrative policymaking. We argue that reputation‐sourced authority eschews ex ante incentives through the claims‐making and maneuvering of bureaucrats as they develop reputations with audiences. At the same time, it de‐legitimizes ex post oversight because monitoring and compliance must compete both with reputational authority and with resistance from the audiences that are the very sources of such authority.

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confidence: 69%

Reputation‐SourcedAuthority and the Prospect of Unchecked Bureaucratic Power

Bertelli

Busuioc

2020

Public Administration Review

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“…Such simplicity has generated a large following; however, focusing on a dyadic relationship may serve as an analytical distortion by leading to the perception of “the agent as the culprit and the principal as the sole victim” (Zardkoohi et al., , p. 413). This view is incorrect in political‐bureaucratic relations (Döhler, ) and is also incomplete. Including not only multiple principals (with multiple roles) but also third‐party stakeholders casts a spotlight on a whole array of formerly unnoticed trade‐offs and strategic options, which—if seen from the perspective of those affected—constitute the third inherent PA problem in addition to agents’ and principals’ respective opportunism. Although monitoring costs figure prominently in the conventional PA concept, the costs of specifying contracts are rarely taken into account.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In 2006, rail regulation was transferred to the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur—BNetzA). As opposed to the defensive EBA, which is subordinated to the DB‐friendly Ministry of Transport (Döhler, , pp. 196–8), the BNetzA, often supported by its parent Ministry of Economics, is equipped with a strong enforcement mission that is no longer defined exclusively in the rail policy domain.…”

Section: Governing German Railmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While the PA concept has gained popularity for analyzing interactions in international relations, the European Union, or political‐bureaucratic relations, it has also spawned criticism. The PA concept is often regarded as overly simplistic, biased against the agent (Döhler, ; Zardkoohi, Harrison, & Josefy, ), or based on assumptions too narrow to work in politics (Waterman, Rouse, & Wright, , pp. 19–42).…”

Section: Introduction: Explaining the Reluctant Principalmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Wag the Dog: Governing German Rail from a Principal–Agent Perspective

Döhler¹

2018

European Policy Analysis

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Ever since German Rail, the largest state-owned enterprise in Germany, was converted into a stock company in 1994, the federal government has been criticized for a lack of policy ambitions. From a principal-agent perspective, the federal government gives the impression of being a reluctant principal. The first objective is therefore to explain the strategic interaction between the federal government and German Rail since the 1990s. The second aim is to increase the explanatory power of the principal-agent concept by adopting a strand of literature in which the principal's unilateralism and diverging preferences-standard assumptions in the principal-agent literature-are complemented by strategic cooperation, confluence, and inverted principal-agent interactions. This conceptual redirection, which considers the impact of a broader range of actors involved, not only explains key events in German rail policy but also highlights the advances of an elaborated principal-agent concept.Desde que Ferrocarriles Alemanes, la mayor empresa estatal de Alemania, se convirti o en una sociedad an onima cotizada en la bolsa en 1994, el gobierno federal ha sido criticado por falta de ambiciones pol ıticas. Desde la perspectiva del principal-agente, el gobierno federal da la impresi on de ser un principal renuente. El primer objetivo es entonces explicar la interacci on estrat egica entre el 210

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“…This "dark side" of the bureaucratic power has been analyzed from a principal-agent approach by Döhler (2018). This article concludes that the informative advantages that characterize the moral hazard scenario in which the conventional model of self-interested bureaucracies is developed, not only affect the bureaucrats (the agent of the relationship), but also the political leaders who approve the proposals of those (the principal of the relationship).…”

Section: Self-interested Bureaucracies Might Be Detrimental To Economic Growthmentioning

confidence: 98%

Public sector bureaucracies and economic growth

Fernández

García

Fuentes

2019

REM

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Public sector bureaucracies are key players in advanced economies, as in the case of European Union countries, for the smooth functioning of the roles assigned to the governments (to provide welfare state services and benefits, public infrastructures, and to design the legal and economic institutional framework). From this perspective, a proper functioning of bureaucratic bodies is crucial for potential growth. Thus, cross-country differences in the quality of bureaucracies can explain differences in economic growth among them. Accordingly, the operation of self-interested bureaucracies can lead to inappropriate fiscal policies, regulatory capture, and labor market misallocation, damaging incentives and causing large efficiency costs. The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, we review the extant literature, focusing on the main channels of the bureaucracy-growth relationship. And secondly, we provide an empirical exercise that illustrates the links between bureaucratic/institutional quality and economic growth.

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Discovering the Dark Side of Power: The Principal’s Moral Hazard in Political-Bureaucratic Relations

Cited by 9 publications

References 28 publications

Reputation‐SourcedAuthority and the Prospect of Unchecked Bureaucratic Power

Reputation‐SourcedAuthority and the Prospect of Unchecked Bureaucratic Power

Wag the Dog: Governing German Rail from a Principal–Agent Perspective

Public sector bureaucracies and economic growth

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