When the Victor Cannot Claim the Spoils: Institutional Incentives for Professionalizing Patronage States

Abstract

In most of the world's states, bureaucrats are managed based on patronage: political discretion determines recruitment and careers. Corruption, poverty and lower growth often result. Unsurprisingly, patronage reform has taken centre stage in foreign aid.Yet, reforms overwhelmingly fail. Bad government is often good politics. When does good government become good politics in patronage states?To address this conundrum, this dissertation develops and tests a theory of reform of

Legal reform need not come first: Merit‐based civil service management in law and practice

“…By contrast, in Paraguay, no law requiring merit was in force. The 2000 public service law was suspended, and Lugo's minority position in parliament coupled with opposition party antagonism to state reforms precluded the passage of legal reform (Schuster 2015). With the 2000 public service law suspended, the 1970 civil servant statute from the Alfredo Stroessner Dictatorship and-for staff and institutions not governed by the statute-the civil and labour codes, among others, applied (Sosa Arrua 2011).…”

“…This is not to say that reform without legislation was Lugo's first choice. The Lugo administration did seek to reform the 2000 public service law, yet its legislative minority position precluded passage (Schuster 2015). As theorized, the Lugo administration was nonetheless able to advance to merit in practice, and did so from the first month in office.…”

“…While this explains why Lugo advanced merit in practice without legal reform, it leaves unanswered the separate empirical question why Lugo advanced merit at all. As detailed in Schuster (2015), merit legislation had little to do with this. Instead, political incentives loomed large: reform mobilized political support from voters who valued improved public service delivery, while depriving political opponents of patronage access.…”

What Causes Patronage Reform? It Depends on the Type of Civil Service Reform

“…Rather than broad differences in democratic systems, specific institutional designs of patronage states may then matter. Where parliaments rather than executives hold patronage powers and electoral challengers control parliament, executives are argued to face greater reform incentives to deprive challengers of patronage access (Schuster 2016).…”

“…The multiplicity of competing hypotheses for a rare phenomenon -patronage reform -has also yielded a multiplicity of explanations for single cases. To illustrate, scholars have argued that reform in the US was caused by civic reform movements, principal-agent problems in patronage networks, the rise of an outsider president facing congressional control over patronage and incentives to 'blanket in' party appointees, among others (Johnson and Libecap 1994;Ruhil and Camões 2003;Theriault 2003;Schuster 2016). Giving credence to these explanations suggests that a confluence of factors -rather than single causes -are typically required to incentivize reform.…”