Decentralized Networks and Bureaucratic Careers in Autocracies

• In Event: Bureaucracy, Institutions, and Authoritarian Rule

Abstract

How do personal networks shape bureaucratic careers in autocracies? Previous research demonstrates that factional ties play an important role in determining high-level political and administrative promotions in autocracies. In order to maximize loyalty, ruling elites hand-pick top-level cadres from among their personal networks based on hometown, school or work ties. However, similar personal networks also exist among the hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats on lower levels of the administrative hierarchy: mid-level cadres may advance the promotion of members of their own individual networks, generating important career dynamics that largely escape the direct control of the autocratic elite. However, we still know very little on how such “decentralized networks” shape the bureaucracy of autocratic states. We present the results of the first empirical analysis of these networks, focusing on a least-likely case: the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). The regime’s highly formalized socialist cadre policy should have left little room for a strong role of informal ties in bureaucratic careers. We draw on detailed biographical data on over 370,000 cadres to investigate if decentralized networks nonetheless shaped promotion practices in the GDR’s bureaucratic apparatus. We reconstruct the composition of local work collectives – a center of personal commitment, friendship, and mutual help in the GDR. We demonstrate a substantive role of decentralized career networks in the cadres’ career trajectories and thereby highlight a so-far underappreciated element of personalized networks in autocracies.

Authors

• Alexander De Juan, Osnabrück University

• Felix Haass, University of Oslo

• Jan Henryk Pierskalla, Ohio State University