Patrons against clients: Electoral uncertainty and bureaucratic tenure in politicized states

Abstract

Why would incumbents undertake institutional reforms which constrain their discretion over state resources? Many studies point to electoral competition in response. Risking exit from office, incumbents are argued to reform to insure themselves against potentially hostile successors. This paper challenges this line of reasoning, arguing it confounds two potential implications of electoral competitionpotential and certain electoral losseswhich yield contrary reform incentives. Certain exits from office may well incentivize reforms as insurance. Where elections are contested, however, incumbents face incentives to resist reforms that constrain discretion over state resources that provide incumbents with electoral advantage. This argument is developed and assessed with an institutional reform the literature has neglected so far: job stability protections (tenure) in politicized bureaucracies. A case analysis of the Dominican Republic and suggestive cross-country data confirm theoretical predictions: electoral uncertainty dis-incentivizes tenure reform.Electoral competition may thus be a double-edged sword for institutional reform.

The political origins of transparency reform: insights from the Italian case

“…The instability of the party system in the post-1992 period also discouraged incumbents from expecting informational benefits yielded by the introduction of transparency as an 'insurance' mechanism against loss of power. This finding is consistent with the account provided by Schuster (2018), arguing that the exit from office incentivizes reform as insurance only when it is perceived as certain by incumbents. The comparison between the pre-and post-1992 periods confirms this prediction: reform as insurance was introduced by the DC and its allies when they were bound to lose power in the early 1990s; insurance was disregarded by cabinets in the context of electoral volatility that made incumbent turnover uncertain in the post-1992 period.…”

“…In particular, previous studies have highlighted that insurance is activated only when incumbent turnover is certain (Schuster, 2018); intra-elite monitoring is more likely when the leaders of multiparty coalitions have stronger control of the parliamentary agenda (Michener, 2015a); incentives for accessing information via monitoring and insurance are higher when decision makers expect that transparency reforms will be properly implemented by public bureaucracies (Schnell, 2017); reforms intended as 'cheap signals' in countries affected by a capacity gap in implementing transparency can turn into effective disclosure if political attention to transparency keeps a high-agenda status for a long time, leading to consistent pressures for more effective implementation and for strengthening legislation (Schnell, 2017); the posture of key actors (leaders, the media, and advocacy groups) contributes to keep political attention high (Michener, 2017).…”

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

“… 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 ().…”

Divided government, delegation, and civil service reform

“…The argument that these civil service reforms created an "independent" bureaucracy, as defined in our theory, requires some discussion. First, Schuster (2018) shows that the introduction of bureaucratic tenure, one of the principles in the reforms we study in this work, has a strong effect on the principal-agent relation in place between political patrons and appointee-clients. Tenure protections reshape the incentive structure under which bureaucrats act, as legislators lose their power over their career and remuneration (Schuster 2016(Schuster , 2018.…”