Parsing Patronage: The Politics of Civil Service Reform in Argentina and the US

• In Event: Poster Session: Politics of Post-Communist Countries & Politics and History
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Politics and History

Abstract

Disciplinary boundaries in political science have obscured a common challenge that all American governments faced in the nineteenth century as early republics: how to build a professional civil service in the context of political competition, a context often conducive to rampant patronage. Why were some American governments successful in outlawing patronage while others were not? The study draws on two case studies, the United States and Argentina, to analyze the civil service reform process in the region. These two countries employed very similar public employment systems after independence and ended up with very different ones by the wake of the twentieth century. The paper uses a developmental approach to historical causal inference and process tracing. It argues that political firings in patronage systems primarily drive civil service reform. The study identifies two main varieties of patronage based on the incumbent party’s hiring and firing practices: patronage with rotation-in-office, which features widespread layoffs after party turnover and favors civil service reform, and patronage without rotation-in-office, which features virtually no firings and delays civil service reform. Patronage with rotation-in-office prompts civil service reform by creating a constituency in favor of reform, equipping it with leaders, and providing it with a narrative that galvanizes support. The paper contributes to the literature on political development in the Americas by providing insight into plausible paths not taken in one of the region’s critical periods of institutional change.

Author

• Julieta Casas, Stanford University