Bureaucratic Politicization

GOV 39/4 2026-08-01 Original Senior Bureaucrats, Coalitions and the Quality of Government: Accounting for Effective Governance in Fragmented Settings André Borges, Arnaldo Mauerberg Abstract ABSTRACT Debates over the consequences of party and cabinet fragmentation for government performance remain unsettled. While some scholars argue that coalition governments foster instability and rent‐seeking, others contend that they enhance accountability and inclusion. This article argues that the effects of cabinet fragmentation depend on the rules of recruitment and promotion of the senior civil service. Using data from the Quality of Government Expert Survey covering 89 democracies, we examine how fragmentation interacts with both bureaucratic politicization and bureaucratic career systems. The results show that fragmentation amplifies the negative effects of politicized senior appointments, although we find limited evidence that fragmentation itself reduces the quality of government under high politicization. By contrast, fragmented cabinets are associated with more effective governance in the presence of career‐based structures characterized by internal recruitment of senior bureaucrats and long‐term careers. The findings highlight the importance of bureaucratic career structures for effective governance in multiparty systems.

PAR — 2026-05-28 Original How Democratic Backsliding Shapes the Entry, Non‐Entry, and Waiting of Potential Civil Servants

JOP 88/2 pp. 554-571 2026-04-01 Original The Politicization of Bureaucrats: Evidence from Brazil Anderson Frey, Rogerio Santarrosa Abstract In developing countries, incumbents commonly exercise political influence over bureaucrats through monitoring or patronage hiring. We investigate a new politicization channel: a phenomenon where bureaucrats join political parties while in office. First, with a regression discontinuity design and administrative data on the universe of Brazilian municipal bureaucrats, we identify an incumbency advantage in their politicization. Second, we find larger effects for a special set of bureaucrats: the ones that interviewed households for enrollment into Bolsa Família (BF). Third, we show that these effects are even stronger for interviewers highly exposed to voters and in municipalities where BF was expanded. Our findings suggest a policy-driven logic for this politicization: voter-facing bureaucrats who deliver salient policies accumulate electoral capital, which is converted into rents by joining the incumbent political networks.