Organizing Leviathan: Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Making of Good Government

“This is an aggregate measure, and this variable has been used in previous research (Dahlström, Lapuente, and Teorell 2012a; Dahlström and Lapuente 2017).”

“Some of this new theory may in fact help scholars and practitioners alike to understand better the developed countries that they study most frequently (cf. Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2017).”

“From a Weberian perspective, it is the insulation of bureaucrats from politicians that increases bureaucratic effectiveness (Dahlström and Lapuente 2017).”

“Whether having a Weberian bureaucratic organization promotes “good outcomes,” including good governance, are ultimately empirical questions (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017).”

“If civil servants are autonomous from their political superiors, they can speak truth to power, expressing their views based on their professional criteria, instead of trying to please their political bosses (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017).”

“More recently, research has examined the importance of behavioral mechanisms, such as the development and maintenance of a sense of duty (du Gay & Pedersen, 2020), and the role of structural elements such as career systems (Dahlstr € om & Lapuente, 2017).”

“Such checks introduce a relatively efficient control mechanism on politicians (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017; Miller & Whitford, 2016).”

“Despite such recent scholarly interests in and reappraisals of bureaucracy (Dahlstr€om & Lapuente, 2017; Evans & Rauch, 1999; Miller, 2000; Olsen, 2006; Rauch & Evans, 2000; Rothstein & Teorell, 2008; Schuster, 2016; Sundell, 2014), the relationship between administrative characteristics and…”

“…bureaucratic structures and of the role played by bureaucracy in shaping public policies, their implementation, and the related socio-economic outcomes (Dahlström and Lapuente 2017, Evans and Rauch 1999, Fukuyama 2013, Miller 2000, Olsen 2006, 2008, Painter and Peters 2010, Rauch and Evans 2000).”

“…public servants according to merit has been tied to socioeconomic development (Evans & Rauch, 1999), organizational efficiency (Fuenzalida & Riccucci, 2018), expertise (Richardson, 2019), low levels of corruption (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017) and voicing frank and fearless advice (Cooper, 2018a).”

“…and management researchers should pay more attention to how different contexts (e.g. organizational or national) may influence outcomes such as performance or success of reforms (Dahlstr€om and Lapuente, 2017; Meier et al., 2017; O’Toole and Meier, 2015; Roberts, 2018; Suzuki and Hur, 2020).”

“Dahlström and Lapuente (2017) have recently made a strong case for the positive effects on controlling corruption through a meritocratically oriented civil service.”

“Consistent evidence shows that bureaucracies recruiting civil servants on a merit-basis reduce the spread of corruption and other rent-seeking behaviour (Dahlström and Lapuente 2017).”

“While political science has long embraced cross-national comparison, the scholarly analysis of public administration and bureaucracy has a relatively modest history of comparative research (Dahlström, Lapuente, & Teorell, 2012; Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017; Suzuki & Hur, 2019).”

“…is an elusive concept (Bäck and Hadenius 2008), closely related to concepts such as quality of government (e.g. Rothstein and Teorell 2008; Nistotskaya and Cingolani 2016), government effectiveness (e.g. Dahlström and Lapuente 2017; Kaufmann et al. 2011), and bureaucratic quality (PRS Group 2019).”

“The archetypal meritocratic system separates political and administrative careers (Dahlström and Lapuente 2017), with a change of government or minister not resulting in a particularly high level of turnover among top civil servants.”

“In most countries with a professional Weberian bureaucracy, administrative personnel operate in a different realm of governing than politicians and partisan advisors (Dahlström and Lapuente, 2017).”

“Contemporary scholars have offered various explanations for why bureaucratic autonomy is essential for governmental performance (Carpenter, 2001; Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017; Fukuyama, 2013; Huntington, 2006).”

“…around the world have found strong correlations between excessive politicisation and increased corruption, decreased organisational performance, and reduced operational efficiency (Cornell, 2014; Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017; Lapuente & Suzuki, 2020; Lewis, 2011; Nistotskaya & Cingolani, 2016).”

“Replicating the work of Dahlström and Lapuente (2017), Figure 1 uses data from the Quality of Government Expert Survey (Dahlström et al., 2015) to compare the nature of bureaucracy in Australia with several Asia Pacific and Anglo-American countries according to two dimensions: bureaucratic…”

“The fact that we observe robust cross-country correlations between governance outcomes and the separation of bureaucrats and politicians (Dahlström and Lapuente, 2017) does not necessarily imply that imposing such separations where they do not exist will be beneficial.”

“Separating the careers of politicians and bureaucrats is seen as vital in promoting government effectiveness and the prevention of corruption (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017).”

“Bureaucratic quality is the rigorous and impartial service of public officials in policy advice and implementation (see Dahlström and Lapuente 2017).”

“Jobs are therefore widely seen as a durable mechanism of political mobilization, even if their political use undermines state capacity (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017; Geddes, 1994).”

“Appointments by, e.g., family ties are often associated with less competence and professionalism in the public sector (Lewis, 2007; Dahlström and Lapuente, 2017).”

“…mechanisms (checks-and-balances, auditing, transparency), as well as impartiality in public administration ’ s decision-making rule (e.g. Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017; Rothstein, 2021; Rothstein & Stolle, 2008; Rothstein & Teorell, 2008) – surely must matter when gauging the quality of local…”

“Reform of the civil service code, however, remains crucial as without establishing a meritocratic and independent public administration system, the challenge of undermining democratic norms and practices through power abuse and graft remains high (Dahlström and Lapuente 2017).”

“First, most models of governance require a bureaucracy to effectively implement the decisions taken by the legislature (Dählstrom & Lapuente, 2017).”

“…before the rise of populism, as the quality of government largely depends on how well the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats is organized, with systems that balance political control and bureaucratic professionalism leading to better governance outcomes (Dahlström and Lapuente 2017).”

“…which engulfed three mayors (Majadahonda, Boadilla del Monte, and Pozuelo de Alarcón) and three former MPs of the regional parliament (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017), and the Púnica scandal that embroiled six mayors (among others Parla, Valdemoro, and Torrejón de Velasco) just within…”

“On the contrary, it is in their mutual interest to turn a blind eye if they discover a corrupt action (Dahlström & Lapuente 2017).”

“In other words, elected politicians seek to monitor and influence the bureaucracy and hold bureau-cracies accountable (e.g., Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017; Raffler, 2022).”

“…Latin American States because its ‘apolitical and rational nature’ (Seibel 2010), highlighting the cases of Chile, Costa Rica, Argentina or Colombia (Dahlström and Lapuente 2017), because of the greater diversity in their societies this model become a limitation to move toward better recognition…”

“Likewise, the greater use of outside appointments in government (see Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017) was assumed to bring a number of people into the administrative system that were not fully socialized into the traditional value structure of the public sector.”

“The CPV’s monopoly over merit-based policy transfer illustrates that, in contrast to Western democracies, the separation of political and bureaucratic careers (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017) in authoritarian regimes is impossible.”

“Theory of representative bureaucracy: relevant factors for an active representation In Latin American case many states implemented Weberian models of organization and management, like Chile, Costa Rica, Argentina or Colombia (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017; Zuvanic et al., 2010).”

“Focusing on the relation between monetary incentives and employees’ performance, one of the most important theories is Performance Related Pay (PRP) theory, derived from the principles of Weberian bureaucracy, see [55], for further details.”

“For example, writers like Dahlstr€om and Lapuente have challenged the classical assumption that traditional HR features are effective in the fight against corruption, patronage, and nepotism (Dahlstr€om & Lapuente, 2017).”

“However, this lack of full civil service protections is not necessarily inimical to meritocracy and performance, and has arguably moved Chile from a closed Weberian model to a more open, managerial one (Dahlström and Lapuente 2017).”

“These countries can be classified as managerial bureaucracies (Dahlström and Lapuente 2017, 64).”

“Impartiality can be strengthened by insulating bureaucratic functions from direct political influence; for example, maintaining clear distinctions between political and administrative careers improves government outcomes (Dahlström and Lapuente 2017).”

“This is because a primary reason for separating politics and administration is to uphold the public service’s impartiality (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017), and that political activity has been identified in some countries as potentially threatening the public service’s reputed impartiality (Cooper,…”

“…impacts the administrative culture (Jamil and Dangal, 2009), the representation of social interests (Aberbach, Putnam and Rockman, 1981), and performance of administrative organizations, including corruption levels (Dahlström and Lapuente, 2017; Dahlström, Lapuente and Teorell, 2012).”

“…type, modern bureaucratic organizations are composed of a series of distinct characteristics, one of which is a personnel system by which bureaucrats are recruited because of their skills and not of their ancestry or political connections (Sager and Rosser 2009, 1137; Dahlström and Lapuente 2017).”

“Bureaucrats could significantly prevent corruption (Charron et al., 2017; Suzuki & Hur, 2020) improve service delivery (Fernández-Carro & Lapuente-Giné, 2016), and ensure organizational success (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017).”

“One of the core traditional (Weberian) elements is a bureaucracy’s recruitment ethos in the public sector, whether it is based on merit and suitability for the position rather than political pressures (Dahlström and Lapuente 2017).”

“…employment is the most important indicator of bureaucracy and administrative capacity more generally for influencing important outcomes like equal treatment of citizens and possibly economic development (Dahlström and Lapuente, 2017; but see Cornell et al., 2020; Dahlström and Lapuente, 2022).”

“…’ careers (i.e., places where meritocratic recruitment and promotion is applied), the incidence of corruption tends to be lower, since capable personnel is largely shielded from political in fl uence (Bersch et al., 2017; Dahlstr¨om et al., 2012; Dahlstr¨om & Lapuente, 2017; Rauch & Evans, 2000).”

“They argue that politicians and bureaucrats when completely divorced, have incentives to “ monitor each other ’ s behaviour in an embedded system of mutual checks and balances ” (Dahlstr € om & Lapuente, 2017, p. 30).”

“Findings suggest that more regulated, inflexible, and closed systems do not perform as well as more open, post-bureaucratic, and managerial systems (Dahlström and Lapuente 2017, 37, 38).”

“Other studies reveal that compensation, career longevity, and stability (Bersch et al., 2017), and differentiated incentive structures for politicians and public officials (Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017) are associated to reduced corruption.”

“Public administration systems in the region face persistent challenges linked to political patronage and clientelism (Dahlström and Lapuente 2017; Geddes 2023), which can undermine organizational outcomes (Wood and Lewis 2017; Gallo and Lewis 2012), though recent evidence suggests patronage may…”

“When there is a clear career separation due to meritocracy, however, public officials could speak out against politicians (Cooper, 2018; Cornell & Lapuente, 2014; Dahlström et al., 2012; Dahlström & Lapuente, 2017, 2022; Lapuente & Rothstein, 2014).”

“Dahlström & Lapuente (2017) extensive cross-national research on bureaucratic structures offers valuable theoretical grounding for understanding these structural conflicts.”

“…välisen roo lijaon ja painotusten vaihtelua ja institutio naa listen järjestelyjen jatkuvaa muutosta Komp lek sisessa ympäristössä duaalijohtamisen työnja koa koetellaan, ja eri osapuolten roolien ja tehtä vien erottaminen toisistaan on yhä vai keampaa (Dahlström & Lapuente 2017; Aberbach ym.”

“Dahlström and Lapuente (2017) stress the positive impact of meritocratic bureaucracies in leading to low levels of corruption, government effectiveness, and reform orientation.”