POLITICAL RECRUITMENT BEYOND ELECTIONS: AN EXPLORATION OF THE LINKAGE BETWEEN PATRONAGE, DEMOCRACY, AND DIVERSITY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
| Author | MATTHEW FLINDERS,CHRISTINA EASON,FELICITY MATTHEWS |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.2011.01969.x |
| Published date | 01 June 2012 |
| Date | 01 June 2012 |
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9299.2011.01969.x
POLITICAL RECRUITMENT BEYOND ELECTIONS:
AN EXPLORATION OF THE LINKAGE BETWEEN
PATRONAGE, DEMOCRACY, AND DIVERSITY
IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
MATTHEW FLINDERS, FELICITY MATTHEWS AND CHRISTINA EASON
Flowing out of wider debates regarding representative democracy, the diversity of political
institutions has gained salience. Normatively, it is suggested that it is simply unfair for white,
middle-aged males to dominate decision-making structures. Instead it has been argued that
representative diversity can enhance the legitimacy of political institutions and processes, whilst
improving the quality and inclusivity of policy-making. Although most of these arguments have
been applied to elected institutions and their bureaucracies, they are also germane in the context of
appointments to the boards of public bodies, as the work of these bodies and the decisions made by
their board members impacts upon the everyday lives of citizens. Drawing upon original research
conducted in the UK, this article argues that the capacity of political actors to make appointments
to public boards offers an as yet unrealized democratic potential by offering more opportunities for
social engagement and participation in public governance.
INTRODUCTION
Flowing out of wider debates regarding representative democracy, the issue of diversity in
political institutions has gained salience in recent decades (Phillips 1995; Judge 1999). The
‘systematic patterns of under-representation in the decision-making structures of demo-
cratic countries’ has been highlighted (Chaney and Fevre 2002, p. 897); and normatively,
it has been suggested that it is simply unfair and unjust for white, able-bodied, middle-
class, middle-aged males to dominate positions of political power and decision-making
(Phillips 1995; Mansbridge 1999; Dovi 2002). In turn it has been argued that diversity
in representation has the capacity to enhance the legitimacy of political institutions and
the political process (Mansbridge 1999; Sawer 2002); and that the fairer representation
of diverse social groups could improve the quality and inclusivity of policy-making
(Phillips 1995; Elster 1998). Whilst most of these arguments have been applied to elected
institutions in a variety of countries (Dahlerup 1988; Chaney and Fevre 2002; Karam and
Lovenduski 2005), and to the bureaucracies that support them (Subramanian 1967; Meier
and Nigro 1976; Lim 2006), they are also germane for public appointments to the boards
of public bodies, as the work of public bodies and the decisions made by their board
members impact upon the everyday lives of citizens.
Yet despite an established field of comparable research in relation to the boards of
private sector companies (Dalton et al. 1998; Hillman et al. 2002; Grosvold et al. 2007;
Miller and del Carmen Triana, 2009), research on public sector board diversity is at
best ‘still fairly shallow’ (Gazley et al. 2010, p. 610). This reflects a broader academic
trend, as there has been little detailed analysis of how political actors exercise their
patronage powers in making public appointments (for notable exceptions see Flinders
and Matthews 2010; Kopeck´
yet al. 2011); and where scholars have written on this topic
they have frequently failed to address what Ostrom (2000) has described as the ‘dangers of
Professor Matthew Flinders and Dr Christina Eason are at the Department of Politics, University of Sheffield, UK.
Dr Felicity Matthews is at the Department of Politics, University of York, UK.
Public Administration Vol. 90, No. 2, 2012 (511–528)
©2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden,
MA 02148, USA.
512 MATTHEW FLINDERS ET AL.
self-evident truths’ (i.e. the potential pathologies of never challenging convention and ‘the
fact that something is so widely believed does not make it correct’). The ‘self-evident truth’
in relation to public appointments has assumed a direct and almost inevitable relationship
between patronage and corruption, cronyism, and nepotism – patronage was ‘bad’ for
democracy. The aim of this article is to challenge the ‘self-evident truths’ of patronage
studies by making a distinct contribution at the conceptual level, by challenging the
assumption that patronage and democracy are incompatible; and recasting patronage as a
critical tool of governance and representative democracy. To do so, it also makes a distinct
contribution at the empirical level, by providing the results of original research regarding
both social diversity vis-`
a-vis political patronage, and the main factors that appear to
impede or facilitate applications from specific social groups. Specifically, the article
draws upon research undertaken in the UK in association with the Commissioner for
Public Appointments, the Appointments Commission and the Institute for Government
between 2008 and 2011. With an overarching aim to chart changing patterns of patronage,
governance, and democracy within the UK, this research has involved over 150 semi-
structured interviews, a number of practitioner seminars, one focus group and the analysis
of a range of primary documents and datasets. Taken together these strands combine
to create an argument concerning how patronage (recast) might actually offer an as
yet unrealized democratic potential in terms of offering more opportunities for social
engagement and participation in public governance. Thus, if the output of this research is
a body of theoretically informed, policy-relevant research in the British context, then the
outcome is a fresh and distinctive perspective on the potentialities of public appointments
as a tool of democratic re-engagement, with practical and academic relevance across a
wide range of geo-political settings (see, for example, Koppell (2003) and Bearfield (2009)
in the United States, the recent comparative study of Koen Verhoest and Per Laegreid
in Western Europe (Verhoest and Laegreid 2011) and also Busuioc’s (2012) work on
patronage and the governance of the European Union).
RECONCEPTUALIZING PATRONAGE
At its broadest, patronage can be conceptualized as an incentive system denoting an
exchange relationship in which a patron (such as an individual, group, country, or
institution) exerts control over another agent through the provision of certain goods or
services (for example, money, favours, protection, jobs, sex, knowledge). More specifically,
an established literature within the sub-discipline of party politics has viewed patronage
as a critical resource for political parties. Kopeck´
yet al. (2008) define party patronage as
‘the power of a political party to appoint people to positions in public and semi-public
life’. Party patronage is therefore primarily concerned with the ability of the political party
holding office (that is, the executive) to appoint individuals to senior appointments within
the extended state, and considers the ‘reach’ and ‘permeation’ of politicians to act as
patrons (Daalder 1966). Yet, due to the connotations of corruption, sleaze, and nepotism,
party patronage has often been perceived as a ‘bureaupathology’ (a vice, malady, or
sickness of a bureaucracy) (Caiden 1991, p. 490); and has become ‘associated with staffing
policies that result in marginally qualified people, waste and corruption’ (Roback and
Vinzant 1994, p. 501).
However, such normative assumptions have been criticized for hampering systematic
and theoretically informed analysis; and Weingrod (1968 p. 380) made a critical point
when he suggested that the failure to systematically distinguish between ‘patronage’
Public Administration Vol. 90, No. 2, 2012 (511–528)
©2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
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