Combining Patronage and Merit in Public Sector Recruitment

When do politicians in developing democracies prioritize meritocratic recruitment over patronage hiring for public sector jobs? I distinguish between low- and high-skilled positions and argue that the former are valuable for sustaining party machines, while manipulating the latter can undermine stat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Journal of politics Vol. 83; no. 1; pp. 182 - 197
Main Author Brierley, Sarah
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chicago The University of Chicago Press 01.01.2021
University of Chicago Press
Subjects
Bias
Bureaucracy
Competition
Hiring
Meritocracy
Partisanship
Patronage
Politicians
Public sector
Recruitment
civil service
brokers
patronage
meritocracy
bureaucracy
clientelism
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Summary:When do politicians in developing democracies prioritize meritocratic recruitment over patronage hiring for public sector jobs? I distinguish between low- and high-skilled positions and argue that the former are valuable for sustaining party machines, while manipulating the latter can undermine state performance. Accordingly, politicians will interfere to ensure their copartisans are hired to low-skilled jobs but select bureaucrats for high-skilled positions based on meritocratic criteria. I test my argument using novel bureaucrat-level data from Ghana (n=17,942) and leverage a change in the governing party to investigate hiring patterns. The results suggest that partisan bias is confined to low-ranked jobs. The findings shed light on the mixed effects of electoral competition on patronage identified in prior studies: competition may dissuade politicians from interfering in recruitment to high-ranked positions but encourage them to hire partisans for low-ranked positions.
ISSN:0022-3816
1468-2508
DOI:10.1086/708240