Elections and reform: The adoption of civil service systems in the U.S. states
| Author | Shigeo Hirano,Olle Folke,James M Snyder,Michael M Ting |
| Date | 01 July 2013 |
| Published date | 01 July 2013 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0951629812453217 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Elections and reform: The
adoption of civil service
systems in the U.S. states
Journal of Theoretical Politics
25(3) 363–387
©The Author(s) 2012
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DOI:10.1177/0951629812453217
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Michael M Ting
Department of Political Science and SIPA, Columbia University, New York, USA
James M Snyder, Jr
Department of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Shigeo Hirano
Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, USA
Olle Folke
SIPA, Columbia University, New York, USA
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 par-
tisan 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 imple-
mentation 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
Corresponding author:
Michael M Ting, Political Science Department, Columbia University, 420 West 118th Street, New York, NY
10027, USA.
Email: mmt2033@columbia.edu
364 Journal of Theoretical Politics 25(3)
1. Introduction
Across political systems, an essential component of effective governanceis the insulation
of institutions from direct political pressure. Central banks typically enjoy broad latitude
to set monetary policies. Independent commissions and authorities regulate significant
portions of national and state economies. And in countless other bureaucratic settings,
experts have formal or de facto autonomy to formulate or execute policies. In this paper,
we ask how office-minded politicians come to insulate government institutions.
One reasonable conjecture is that when voters desire “good government”, candidates
for office will simply convergein Downsian fashion to the appropriate policies. While cit-
izen preferences are undoubtedly important, their role is limited by an electoral motive. If
government institutions can be used to build electoral support, and incumbent politicians
can benefit disproportionately from these institutions, then they will have an incentive
to withhold insulating reforms. Inefficiently politicized institutions may therefore persist
even in the presence of a constituency for reform.
When might reforms take place? Weargue that two factors might overcome the ability
to appropriate government resources for patronage purposes. First, candidates or parties
must have long time horizons. If candidates cared only about the subsequent election,
then there would be little reason for reform, as politicized institutions would maximize
the immediate probability of victory. But a candidate who cares about future elections
may insulate institutions in order to prevent a hostile future incumbent from harming
future friendly candidates. Consequently, insulation might be desirable to incumbents
who perceive an imminent election loss. Second,reform also requires some for m of insti-
tutional inertia. In particular, the costs of institutional transition constrain newly elected
politicians (at least temporarily) from taking full advantage of their offices. Without this,
new office-holders could easily unwind past policy choices. In combination, both factors
intuitively give a purely election-minded incumbent an incentive to introduce reforms.
We consider these arguments in the specific context of civil service reform. Broadly
speaking, these reforms implemented merit-based selection of public employees and pro-
tection from politically motivated dismissal. Since the 19th century, civil service systems
have largely displaced systems based on political appointments (also known as “patron-
age” or spoils systems) and now cover a majority of public sector employees in most
advanced and developing countries. In addition to their vast scope, civil service reforms
illustrate well the electoral tensions inherent in reforms that insulate or de-politicize gov-
ernment. Recent empirical work suggests that civil service systems improve government
performance (e.g. Rauch, 1995; Rauch and Evans, 2000), but also that spoils systems
were effective at distributing benefits in ways that appear to help the incumbent party
stay in power (Folke et al., 2011).
Our theoretical model attempts to capture the dynamics of election-induced reform.
It is certainly not the first to recognize the constraining potential of present incumbent
choices on future policies. However, it is to the best of the authors’ knowledge the first
to combine patronage and institutional rigidities with electoral competition over a long
time horizon. The model is an infinite horizon game between two parties. Each party is
composed of overlapping generations of members, with one candidate for each election.
If the candidate wins the election, then she holds office for one period. The candidate
cares about the electoral prospects of her two subsequent co-partisans. An incumbent can
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