Subverting Public Sector Independence as a Threat to Democracy

• In Event: Political Attitudes of Bureaucrats and Regime Transitions

Abstract

While a body of existing literature suggests that public sector policies reinforce regime type, less attention has been paid to how the (re-)politicization of the public-sector facilitates democratic reversal. This paper argues that the politicization of public employment is an important, if understudied, component of the institutional changes that hamper the power of opposition forces to challenge incumbents in backsliding democracies—it’s also one that touches on both the illiberal political economy that supports backsliding regimes and their capture of key levers of political power. Politicization of the state administration allows incumbents to dole out patronage jobs to supporters and withhold them from opponents; to direct civil servants to apply political loyalty tests as a precondition for accessing basic government services; to press public employees into campaign-related work, from informing and mobilizing the electorate to falsifying the vote; and divert funds from ministries and state enterprises for political purposes. These arguments are supported with evidence primarily from Eastern Europe, lending a better understanding of how governments in countries that once seemed to be the frontrunners of democratization in the region have over the past decade succeeded at concentrating political and economic power.

Author

• Bryn Rosenfeld, Cornell University