Institutions as Incentives for Civic Action: Bureaucratic Structures, Civil Society, and Disruptive Protests

Cornell, Agnes; Grimes, Marcia

doi:10.1086/681058

Cited by 28 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Previous studies have found a connection between corruption perceptions and more unconventional means of participation, like protests and demonstration (Cornell and Grimes 2015;Gingerich 2009;McCann and Domínguez 1998). Given their disillusionment with formal political institutions, I propose that citizens with higher education instead are more likely to use non-institutionalized forms of participation to channel their political engagement when corruption is high.…”

Section: Corruption and Education In Democraciesmentioning

confidence: 80%

The Curse of Knowledge? Education, Corruption, and Politics

Agerberg

2018

Polit Behav

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Education has consistently been found to be positively related to political participation, electoral turnout, civic engagement, political knowledge, and democratic attitudes and opinions. Previous research has, however, not sufficiently acknowledged the large existing between-and within-country variations in institutional quality when studying this relationship. This study asks the question: how do highly educated, well-informed, and critical citizens react to a political system with low-quality institutions; a system with high levels of corruption? Researchers have in recent years started to acknowledge corruption as a relevant factor in explaining democratic attitudes and behavior. However, how corruption interacts with individual characteristics in shaping political behavior is largely unexplored in the literature. This paper focuses on the interaction between corruption and education with regard to different political attitudes and democratic behavior. Using both individual-and country-level data from 31 democracies the results show that corruption thwarts many of the positive effects of education with regard to politics: The results indicate that when corruption is high, educated and politically sophisticated citizens are as likely as low-educated citizens to feel resignation with regard to formal political institutions. This, in turn, is likely to affect patterns of political participation among these citizens.

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Section: Corruption and Education In Democraciesmentioning

confidence: 80%

The Curse of Knowledge? Education, Corruption, and Politics

Agerberg

2018

Polit Behav

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“… The COCOPS Executive Survey data set is used, for example, in Fernández‐Gutiérrez and Van de Walle (); George, Van de Walle, and Hammerschmid (); Hammerschmid et al (); Jeannot, Van de Walle, and Hammerschmid (); Lapuente, Suzuki, and Van de Walle (); Suzuki and Hur (); and Van der Voet and Van Walle (). The QoG Expert Survey is used, for example, in Charron, Dahlström, and Lapuente (); Cornell (); Cornell and Grimes (); Dahlström and Lapuente (); Nistotskaya and Cingolani (); Schuster (, ); and Suzuki and Demircioglu ().…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Politicization, Bureaucratic Legalism, and Innovative Attitudes in the Public Sector

Lapuente

Suzuki

2020

Public Administration Review

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Previous studies have identified institutional, organizational, and individual factors that promote innovation in public organizations. Yet they have overlooked how the type of public administration-and the type of administrators-is associated with innovative attitudes. Using two large, unique comparative data sets on public bureaucracies and public managers, this article examines how bureaucratic politicization and legalistic features are associated with senior public managers' attitudes toward innovation in 19 European countries. Results of multilevel analysis indicate that the bureaucratic politicization of an administration and the law background of public managers matter. Public managers working in politicized administrations and those whose education includes a law degree exhibit lower pro-innovation attitudes (i.e., receptiveness to new ideas and creative solutions and change orientation). Evidence for Practice• Senior public managers' attitudes toward innovation vary significantly across countries.• The results of this study indicate that the features of a national bureaucracy and the educational background of public managers matter for pro-innovation attitudes. • Senior managers working in more politicized bureaucracies and those with a legal education background show lower tolerance for new ideas and creative solutions, and they are less willing to take actions that might upset the status quo. • Policy makers should consider personnel systems and the individual educational background of civil servants as significant factors that encourage favorable attitudes toward innovation.

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“…That a separation of executive, legislative, and judicial powers benefits accountability is a well-established precept in state building and constitutional thinking. While insights on the importance of separation between the political and administrative spheres of government also have historical roots (Weber, 1921(Weber, /1978Wilson, 1887), this article contributes to the growing appreciation of the benefits of institutional safeguards that keep politics from excessively infusing state organizations and, in particular, bureaucratic careers (Cornell & Grimes, 2015a, 2015bDahlstr€ om & Lapuente, 2017;Geddes, 1994;Gingerich, 2013;Robinson & Verdier, 2013;Nistotskaya & Cingolani, 2016;Shefter, 1994).…”

Section: Co Ncl Us Io Ns An D I M Plica Tio Nsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The identification of bureaucratic politicization as a key source of biased policy knowledge draws on insights from two separate strands of prior research. First, scholars studying developing states, in particular, have shed light on the extent and mechanisms through which bureaucratic politicization affects the functioning of government, including the prevalence of clientelist electoral strategies, corruption, service delivery failures, and lower democratic stability (see, among many, Cingolani, Thomsson, & de Crombrugghe, 2015;Cornell & Grimes, 2015a, 2015bCornell & Lapuente, 2014;Dahlstr€ om & Lapuente, 2017;Dahlstr€ om et al, 2012). These scholars have, however, yet to explore the implications of political control of the bureaucracy for policy knowledge.…”

Section: Kno Wledg Ementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In doing so, we identify a mechanism previously not discussed in the literature through which one component of the structure of the state-the extent to which politicians have control over civil servants' careers, or bureaucratic politicization-affects governments' propensity to produce reliable policy data. Prior studies have linked the politicization of bureaucracy with a number of interrelated syndromes that ail democracy, including corruption, clientelist electoral competition, the inability to make credible electoral public goods promises, and poor public goods provision (Bersch, Praça, & Taylor, 2017;Cornell & Grimes, 2015a, 2015bDahlstr€ om, Lapuente, & Teorell, 2012;Geddes, 1994;Keefer, 2007;Nistotskaya & Cingolani, 2016;Shefter, 1994;Stokes, Dunning, Nazareno, & Brusco, 2013). We add to this line of investigation by exploring the effect of bureaucratic politicization on policy making and good government through a separate mechanism: the politicization of policy knowledge.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cooking the books: Bureaucratic politicization and policy knowledge

et al. 2017

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Accurate knowledge about societal conditions and public policies is an important public good in any polity, yet governments across the world differ dramatically in the extent to which they collect and publish such knowledge. This article develops and tests the argument that this variation to some extent can be traced to the degree of bureaucratic politicization in a polity. A politicized bureaucracy offers politicians greater opportunities to demand from bureaucrats—and raises incentives for bureaucrats to supply—public policy knowledge that is strategically biased or suppressed in a manner that benefits incumbents reputationally. Due to electoral competition, we suggest that the link between bureaucratic politicization and politicized policy knowledge will be stronger in democracies than in autocracies. A case analysis of Argentina's statistical agency lends credence to the underlying causal mechanism. Time‐series cross‐sectional analyses confirm the broader validity of the expectations and show that the relationship is present only in democracies.

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Institutions as Incentives for Civic Action: Bureaucratic Structures, Civil Society, and Disruptive Protests

Cited by 28 publications

References 34 publications

The Curse of Knowledge? Education, Corruption, and Politics

The Curse of Knowledge? Education, Corruption, and Politics

Politicization, Bureaucratic Legalism, and Innovative Attitudes in the Public Sector

Cooking the books: Bureaucratic politicization and policy knowledge

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