Elections and reform: The adoption of civil service systems in the U.S. states

Michael M Ting, James M Snyder, Shigeo Hirano and Olle Folke
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Michael M Ting: Department of Political Science and SIPA, Columbia University, New York, USA
James M Snyder: Department of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Shigeo Hirano: Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, USA

Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2013, vol. 25, issue 3, 363-387

Abstract: Most government bureaucracies in developed countries use civil service systems. What accounts for their adoption? We develop and test a model of bureaucratic reforms under repeated partisan competition. In the model, two political parties composed of overlapping generations of candidates compete for office. Under a spoils system, an incumbent politician can either continue to “politicize†the bureaucracy, which allows her to direct benefits to voters in a way that will increase her electoral prospects, or she can “insulate†the bureaucracy, which prevents all future winners from using the bureaucracy for electoral advantage. Our main result is that politicization persists when incumbents expect to win, and insulation takes place when they expect to lose. We test this hypothesis using data from the adoption of civil service reforms across the U.S. states. The predictions of the model are consistent with the empirical patterns leading up to the implementation of the general civil service reforms. Using both state and city level data, we observe an increase in partisan competition prior to the reforms.

Keywords: Bureaucracy; civil service; elections (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:25:y:2013:i:3:p:363-387

DOI: 10.1177/0951629812453217

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