WHAT CAUSES PATRONAGE REFORM? IT DEPENDS ON THE TYPE OF CIVIL SERVICE REFORM

摘要: Public employment in most developing countries is governed by political patronage. Patronage provides many incumbents with governability and electoral advantage. What causes governments to forsake patronage favour of civil service reform? This article reviews scholarly explanations. It finds that studies usefully identify diverse socioeconomic political-institutional factors which can affect reform incentives. The causal effects these – their weight, mechanisms signs are contested, however. partially resolves this contestation considering explain: different bureaucratic structures develop asynchronously feature determinants. To illustrate, competition argued incentivize ‘blanket in’ party appointees; or do the opposite reducing expectations reap longer-term state capacity benefits. Yet, ‘blanketing necessitates job stability, while requires merit recruitment skilled bureaucrats two poorly correlated reforms. thus depend on type reform.