Parliamentary scrutiny of executive patronage: The relationship between institutional norms, reputation and accountability

Abstract

While executive patronage brings important benefits in terms of governance and control, political influence over the selection of agency staff entails a democratic dilemma: how should the exercise of executive patronage be controlled? This article addresses this critical issue, examining Westminster's system of pre‐appointment scrutiny by analysing an original database that encompasses every pre‐appointment hearing held between 2007 and 2018. The article demonstrates that although the conduct of hearings accords with select committees’ longstanding commitment to cross‐party working, members have not prioritized pre‐appointment scrutiny relative to their other committee activities. By systematically disaggregating the factors which affect how select committees dispatch this account‐holding responsibility, the article deepens previous analyses of pre‐appointment scrutiny, and dovetails with scholarship examining the institutional determinants of select committee power. More broadly, it draws attention to the reputational dynamics of accountability, and how institutional norms can serve as vital reputational resources, enabling account‐holders to demonstrate ‘responsible’ account‐holding.

Enacting Accountability Under Populist Pressures: Theorizing the Relationship Between Anti-Elite Rhetoric and Public Accountability

“…This has been witnessed in Hungary among others, where prevailing patterns of politicization (see Meyer-Sahling, 2008) have intensified under Orbán, with many bureaucrats being demoted or fired (Peters, 2020). Moreover, recognizing the critical distinction between the politicization of personnel decisions and the politicization of personnel processes (see Matthews, 2020), it is anticipated that systems of checks and balances (e.g., legislative committee scrutiny) may be diluted or bypassed-as has been argued in the case of Trump's presidency (Johnson, 2020).…”

“…If a bureaucratic agency communicates clearly how it conforms to such norms (diffuse as they are), it can protect its organizational "turf" against encroachment from other actors, and its reputation will at least be evaluated against predictable standards (Carpenter & Krause, 2012;Christensen & Lodge, 2018). In turn, it is incumbent on relevant account-holders to treat information fairly, because those account-holders are themselves concerned with their reputation as responsible account-holders (Matthews, 2020). Reputational threats are hence likely to be clearly identifiable, with "threatening" events posed in a way agents can reasonably respond (Busuioc & Lodge, 2016).…”

The Politicization Conversation: A Call to Better Define and Measure the Concept

“…Recognizing this need, elected officials manipulate administrative structure and personnel to influence agencies' willingness and capacity to respond to political demands (Bawn 1995(Bawn , 1997Hammond 1986;Hammond and Thomas 1989;Lewis 2003;McCubbins 1985;Selin 2015;Wood and Bohte 2004). This manipulation varies with context, in part because the need for credible commitment does not apply uniformly across all political environments or policy domains (e.g., Dahlström and Niklasson 2013;Di Mascio, Maggetti, and Natalini 2020;Ennser-Jedenastik 2016;Hollibaugh and Rothenberg 2020;Hustedt and Salomonsen 2014;Matthews 2020).…”