Book Review: Comparative: Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies
| DOI | 10.1111/1478-9302.12053_71 |
| Author | Kim Sass Mikkelsen |
| Published date | 01 May 2014 |
| Date | 01 May 2014 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
studies (across the United States, Germany, Britain and
Canada) to test his theory. In each, Jacobs examines
the conditions under which governments designed,
implemented and eventually reformed pension systems.
This approach allows for clear parallels to emerge (both
between countries and over time) in how governments
systematically imposed short-term costs to ensure
adequate retirement incomes and fiscal sustainability
over the long term.
Jacobs’ treatment of each case is comprehensive and
convincing. However, one gets the sense that the theory
may have been more inductively grounded had it been
substantiated against other fields of reform, such as
financial regulation or environmental policy. This,
however, speaks to the book’s theoretical value in that it
lends itself so logically to analytical generalisation across
policy fields. In light of Jacobs’ empirically innovative
treatment of this important topic, this book is certain to
be of interest to specialists in comparative politics, stu-
dents of public policy and general readers alike.
Overall, Jacobs’ contribution here has been to iden-
tify the processes through which governments manage
the vagaries of democratic politics when engaging in
long-term policy trade-offs. In doing so, he discredits
the analytically convenient conception of governments
as short-term vote maximisers. True enough, democ-
racies bear myriad social and political structures
designed to obviate considerations of intergenerational
equity. However, a theory of the conditions under
which governments are able to work around and
within these structures is a valuable contribution to our
understanding of how our political leaders will con-
tinue to govern for the long term.
Note
This review does not represent the views of, and is not
associated with, the Australian government.
Nicholas J. McMeniman
(Australian Commonwealth Government, Canberra)
Party Patronage and Party Government in
European Democracies by Petr Kopecký,Peter
Mair and Maria Spirova (eds). Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2012. 415pp., £60.00, ISBN 978 0
19 959937 0
This volume explores patronage appointments and the
role of politics in public administration in contempo-
rary Europe. In their introductory chapters, the
editors distinguish between ‘patronage as an electoral
resource’ (clientelism) and ‘patronage as an organisa-
tional resource’, and hypothesise that changing condi-
tions facing parties and politicians have changed their
strategies from the former to the latter. They detail the
methodological approach: comparable case studies
written by specialists on 15 European countries relying
on a large number of expert interviews. These case
studies form the bulk of the volume and all address the
same issues: the extent of patronage differentiated
across sectors and institutions, the motives behind
political appointments, the role of parties in these
appointments and the sharing of patronage between
parties. Thus, the volume has an ambitious, principally
descriptive aim based on a hypothesis that political
appointments today, where they exist, are different
from the clientelism of the past. Succinctly put: As
politics and administration change, the intersection
between them changes too since parties and politicians
take on new roles in the executive.
The volume fulfils its ambition well. The methodo-
logical approach is sound, though one might question
the representativeness of the case selection in the
examination of local governments. The 15 cases them-
selves, though perhaps not representative either, are
wisely chosen with diversity in mind to include
Western, Northern, Southern and East Central
Europe. And the individual chapters analyse the data in
the context of the respective political systems, to their
credit. A few interesting themes reappear in several
chapters, including administrative tradition, political
competition, and formal institutions and the creativity
of political actors attempting to circumvent them. In
their concluding chapter, the editors find support for
their hypothesis on the increasing importance of pat-
ronage as an organisational resource. Examinations of
the extent of patronage, the role of political parties and
the extent to which these share appointments show
more diversity between countries.
Aside from the volume’s own contribution, then,
analysis of the emerging patterns and their conse-
quences leaves an interesting research agenda going
forward. Why does the extent of patronage diverge
across or within countries? How does political compe-
tition matter for the sharing of appointments between
government and opposition? What are the conse-
quences of ministers, rather than parties, choosing
292 COMPARATIVE
© 2014 The Authors. Political Studies Review © 2014 Political Studies Association
Political Studies Review: 2014, 12(2)
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