Politics, Competence, and Performance: Evidence from the US State Budget Agencies

Abstract

The relationship between administrative competence and political responsiveness is central to public administration theories. This study examines the conditional effects of competence on performance as moderated by politics. Synthesizing the theories of neutral competence and responsive competence, we propose a model of contingent competence. We argue that the impact of competence on performance is conditional on both the preferences of political principals and the degree of political control as indicated by agency politicization. With multiple indicators of state fiscal performance, the empirical test uses data on US state budget agencies between 1986 and 2008. The results support the proposition. When budget agencies are highly politicized, competence of budget agencies influences state fiscal performance in accordance with the preferences of Democratic and Republican elected officials when one or the other party controls state governments. The findings enhance the understanding of how institutional designs shape bureaucratic politics and agency performance.

Epistemic decolonization of public policy pedagogy and scholarship

“…The answer to this question rests on the implicit or explicit assumptions the disciplinary sources bring to bear on the relationship between policy and administration. Although early public administration scholarship subscribed to the policy‐administration dichotomy and valorized ideals like neutral competence, public administration scholarship has for a long time made a persuasive case for the inter‐relatedness of policy/politics and administration (Gaus, 1950; Long, 1949; Svara, 1998; Wei et al, 2022; Yu & Jennings Jr, 2021). A clear implication of this position is that an understanding of policy, sans administration, is erroneous and invalid.…”

Critical Factors for Women’s Representation in Top Management Leadership Positions in Local Government

“…In the end, public administrators with a broad political network capacity will more often interact with their political principals. Thus it will make him more easily develop a trust-based emotional relationship with the political official, which is the key in attaining managerial leadership ranks (Schillemans, 2013;Yu & Jennings, 2021).…”

“…In order to comprehensively investigate the critical factors behind the representation of women in top leadership positions, this study will focus on three dimensions, as shown in Figure 1. First is the socio-political dimension, which is related to a particular area's social and political factors, such as the characteristics of the political environment and intersections of social and political phenomena (Meier, 2019;Yu & Jennings, 2021). Second, the intra-organizational dimension refers to critical determinants of women's career progress at the institutional level, such as organizational culture and leadership perceptions (Chigudu, 2021;Hentschel et al, 2019).…”

Dollars and Sense: Tax, Spend, and Satisfice

“…Yu and Jennings (2021) shed new light on state budget agency performance. They examine the conditional effects of competence on performance as moderated by politics by synthesizing theories of neutral competence and responsive competence, to arrive at a model of contingent competence.…”