Frontiers of Research on Bureaucratic Politics and Management Mini-Conference: Patronage

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Part of Mini-Conference

• Frontiers of Research on Bureaucratic Politics and Management

Session Description

Appointing the right people into the right positions is key for bureaucratic effectiveness, but government hiring and promotion processes are often influenced by political considerations. What is the extent of patronage hiring in public sectors? What political, institutional, and organizational factors drive it? What are its effects? And most importantly, what can be done to limit its potentially negative consequences for public service delivery? This panel features four papers that address these questions from the frontier of research. Gans-Morse and Szakonyi use a unique dataset of judges in Russia to examine the effects of corruption on judicial decisions. Kim shows that patronage hiring into the education sector in Brazil has negative effects on educational outcomes but few electoral consequences, arguing that patronage hiring is best understood as a form of elite capture. Sigman, Harris, Meyer-Sahling, Mikkelsen, and Schuster study Ghanaian bureaucrats’ responsiveness to citizens in the context of an oil revenue shock, finding that membership in patronage networks and perceived fairness considerations influence bureaucrats’ responsiveness. Finally, Oliveros argues that patronage appointees are willing to support their political patrons because their jobs depend on their patrons remaining in office, and finds support using survey and list experiments with Argentinian public servants.

The past several years have witnessed a revival of scholarship on bureaucratic politics. This new work--much of which focuses on the developing world--revisits classic theories employing new methods, often in new settings. While principal-agent theories from political economy inspired insightful scholarship on bureaucratic politics and executive-congressional relations during the 1980s and 1990s, more recently political scientists have begun to draw on a wider set of theoretical traditions to understand the behavior of bureaucracies, as well as how bureaucratic performance and accountability can be improved. Recent work, for example, draws on theoretical approaches from sociology, legal studies, and anthropology, as well as classic theories from political science and economics. It also employs empirical approaches traditionally not used in this field, such as field experiments. This mini-conference provides an opportunity for scholars of political economy working across a range of countries and subfields who are contributing to this innovative research wave to engage with one another’s work. The mini-conference contains panels covering important, emerging research areas, including: (a) the politics of bureaucratic accountability; (b) political patronage and its consequences; (c) bureaucratic politics and service delivery; (d) the politics of bureaucratic decision-making and management; and (e) discretion, incentives, and bureaucratic effectiveness. Please join us for what we hope will be a stimulating, and fun, day.

Sub Unit

• Division 6: Political Economy

Individual Presentations

• Arbitration Awards: Corruption within the Russian Court System - David Szakonyi, Higher School of Economics; Jordan Luc Gans-Morse, Northwestern University

• Natural Resource Revenue, Disgruntled Bureaucrats, and Taxpayer Accountability - Rachel Sigman, Naval Postgraduate School; Adam Harris, University College London; Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling, University of Nottingham; Kim Sass Mikkelsen, Department of Political Science and Government, Aarhus University; Christian Schuster, University College London

• The Executive Dilemma: Bargaining for Education in Decentralized Brazil - Galileu Kim, Princeton University

• Patronage at Work: Public Jobs and Political Services in Argentina - Virginia Oliveros, Tulane University

Chair

• Alison E. Post University of California, Berkeley

Discussants

• Jan Henryk Pierskalla Ohio State University

• Ruth Carlitz Tulane University