Political time in public bureaucracies: Explaining variation of structural duration in European governments

Abstract

Structural duration conveys stability but also resilience in central government and is therefore a key issue in the debate on the structure and organization of government. This paper discusses three core variants of structural duration to study the explanatory relevance of politics. We compare these durations across ministerial units in four European democracies (Germany, France, The Netherlands, and Norway) from 1980 to 2013, totalling over 17,000 units. Our empirical analyses show that cabinets’ ideological turnover and extremism are the most significant predictors of all variants of duration, whereas polarization in parliament as well as new prime ministers without office experience yield the predicted significant negative effects for most models. We discuss these findings and avenues for future research that acknowledge the definition and measures for structural change as well as temporal aspects of the empirical phenomenon more explicitly.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

It's about time! Temporal dynamics and longitudinal research designs in public administration

“…Additionally, their contribution extends prior work on the determinants of reform by suggesting that factors such as political turnover and legal form can also affect a public organization's likelihood of facing reform. Fleischer et al (2023) are likewise interested in when and how the organizational structure of public sector organizations changes. In a similar vein to Kleizen and MacCarthaigh (2023), their analysis builds on an in-depth mapping of the timelines of ministerial units in four European democracies over the 1980-2013 period.…”

“…This triggered a flurry of longitudinal research into, for instance, the association between political turnover and ministerial portfolio name changes (Yesilkagit et al, 2022), the scale of diversity and innovation within ministries (Bertels & Schulze‐Gabrechten, 2021), or the autonomy of ministers to engage in such re‐shaping (Kuipers et al, 2021). Fleischer et al (2023) in this Symposium contribute to this research stream by looking into the political factors affecting such structural developments.…”

“…Fleischer et al (2023) are likewise interested in when and how the organizational structure of public sector organizations changes. In a similar vein to Kleizen and MacCarthaigh (2023), their analysis builds on an in‐depth mapping of the timelines of ministerial units in four European democracies over the 1980–2013 period.…”