Political Patronage in Asian Bureaucracies 9781009208062, 1009208063

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Political Patronage in Asian Bureaucracies

Political patronage is defined as political actors appointing individuals at their discretion to key positions in the public sector. The book examines this practice in the bureaucracies of 11 Asian countries through the use of a typological framework of patronage types. The framework is based on two key criteria: the basis of trust and the major role of political appointees. Several countries with well-developed civil service systems showed minimal levels of patronage (Japan, Singapore, and South Korea). Two countries with weak civil service showed very high levels of patronage appointments (Bangladesh and India). Sandwiched between those extremes are countries with formal civil service systems that are heavily influenced by political parties and by social ties to society (Vietnam, Kazakhstan, and China). The book concludes that not all patronage is the same and what is important is the tasks being performed by appointees and the nature of the trust relationship. B. Guy Peters is Maurice Falk Professor of American Government at the University of Pittsburgh and Editor of the International Review of Public Policy. He was the founding president of the International Public Policy Association. His most recent books include Administrative Traditions: Understanding the Roots of Contemporary Administrative Behavior (2021) and Democratic Backsliding and Public Policy (2021). Colin Knox is Professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan, and an emeritus professor at Ulster University (UK). His most recent books are The Economics of Schooling in a Divided Society: The Case for Shared Education (2015) (with Vani Borooah); and Public Policy, Philanthropy and Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland (2016) (with Padraic Quirk). Byong-Seob Kim  is Emeritus Professor at the Graduate School of Public Administration, Seoul National University. He was the president of the Korean Association for Public Administration. His most recent book is A Discussion on Leadership > ( {Íÿ?; ³Ýõß: ½÷ïÇ ùÝö) (2018).

Political Patronage in Asian Bureaucracies Edited by

B. Guy Peters University of Pittsburgh

Colin Knox Nazarbayev University

Byong-Seob Kim Seoul National University

Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8EA, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 103 Penang Road, #05–06/07, Visioncrest Commercial, Singapore 238467 Cambridge University Press is part of Cambridge University Press & Assessment, a department of the University of Cambridge. We share the University’s mission to contribute to society through the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781009208062 DOI: 10.1017/9781009208055 © Cambridge University Press & Assessment 2023 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press & Assessment. First published 2023 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Peters, B. Guy, editor. | Knox, Colin, 1953– editor. | Kim, Byong-Seob, 1953– editor. Title: Political patronage in Asian bureaucracies / edited by B. Guy Peters, Colin Knox, Byong-Seob Kim. Description: Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022055192 (print) | LCCN 2022055193 (ebook) | ISBN 9781009208062 (hardback) | ISBN 9781009208055 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Patronage, Political – Asia – Case studies. | Bureaucracy – Asia – Case studies. Classification: LCC JQ32 .P65 2023 (print) | LCC JQ32 (ebook) | DDC 324.2/04–dc23/eng/20230106 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022055192 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022055193 ISBN 978-1-009-20806-2 Hardback Cambridge University Press & Assessment has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Contents

List of Figures

page vii

List of Tables

ix

List of Contributors

xi

List of Abbreviations

xv

1

Patronage in Asian Political Systems: A Framework for Research B. Guy Peters

1

Part I One-Party Dominated Systems 2

3

4

Governing the Global City’s Mandarinate: Politically Motivated Appointments in Singapore’s Public Sector Assel Mussagulova and George Wong

25

Patronage and Politicisation in the Indian Administrative Service Naresh Chandra Saxena

49

Political Patronage, Civil Service Politicization, and the Ordeals of Career Civil Servants: Insights from Bangladesh Mohammad Mizanur Rahman

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Part II Two-Party/Multi-Party Systems 5

6

Patronage Appointment in Japanese Politics: Political Representation in a Large Bureaucracy Masao Kikuchi Patronage in Mongolia Oyunsuren Damdinsuren, Julian Dierkes, and Byambakhand Luguusharav

99 121

v

Contents

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7

Loyalty or Expertise? The Practice of Political Patronage in Taiwan Tong-yi Huang and Zong-xian Huang

154

8

Political Appointments in South Korea Hyejin Kang, Min Han Kim, and Byong-Seob Kim

183

9

Patronage Appointments in the Philippine Public Service Maria Fe Villamejor-Mendoza

199

Part III Autocracies 10 Varieties of Patronage in a Single-Party State: Ministers in China Jiangnan Zhu, Siqin Kang, and Yaowensong Song

231

11 Party Patronage in Kazakhstan Colin Knox and Saltanat Janenova

260

12 Political Patronage in Vietnam Minh-Quang Le, Chi-Kien Phung, and Quang-Minh Le

288

13 Political Patronage in Asian Bureaucracies Colin Knox and B. Guy Peters

311

Index

330

Figures

5.1 Dynamics of policymaking power balance before and after World War II in Japan page 104 6.1 Types of organizations that young work-seekers want to work in 131 6.2 The extent of the spread of corruption in public service 136 7.1 Structure of the central government in Taiwan 163 8.1 Ministers by the nature of appointments 193 8.2 Historical changes in the number of ministers (by trust and roles) 193 8.3 Ministers (by trust and roles) across ministries 194 8.4 Prior job experience of programmatic technocrats 194 9.1 Composition of occupied CES positions, 2011–2020 214 9.2 Gender distribution among occupants of CES positions, 2011–2020 215 9.3 Author’s conceptual typology of the emerging roles/ relationships in patronage appointment in the Philippine public sector 222 10.1 Where the ministries and ministers stay in China’s Party–state hierarchy 237 10.2 Number of ministers from the minority groups across years 242 10.3 Distribution of expertise across ministries 248 10.4 Basis of trust: loyalty to the Party and social groups, and personal connections 251 10.5 Distribution of personal connections across ministries 252 10.6 Distribution of personal connections by patrons across ministries 253 10.7 Distribution of loyalty to social groups across ministries 254 10.8 Varieties of patronage of Chinese ministers 254 11.1 Who exercises patronage in Kazakhstan? 270

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11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 12.1 12.2 12.3

List of Figures

Government effectiveness Access to state jobs by political group Rigorous and impartial public administration Criteria for appointment decisions in the state administration Neopatrimonial Index The context of formation of the traditional Vietnamese culture and society Vietnamese political government system in relation to appointing power and political influences Typology of Patronage Appointees divided by characteristics and levels in the Vietnamese political system: a meta-analysis

275 276 277 279 280 292 300

305

Tables

1.1 3.1 5.1 5.2 5.3 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 7.1 7.2 7.3 8.1 8.2 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 9.7 9.8 9.9

Typology of types of patronage page 9 Wage as a multiple of per capita GDP 52 Size and type of civil service in Japan 107 Breakdown of special civil service in National Civil Service 107 Typology of patronage in Japan 114 Mongolia’s civil service classification and category 130 Ambassadors appointed by President Ts. Elbegdorj 144 Ambassadors appointed by President Battulga 147 Ambassadors appointed by President U. Khurelsukh 149 Typology of patronage 160 Taiwanese central government civil service (2011–2018) 166 Background of ministers (2000–2020) 170 Socio-demographic attributes of ministers 191 Ministers’ prior job experience 192 Number of civil service personnel by major subdivision by year, 1964–2020 206 Number of government personnel, by classification of position, 2004–2020 207 The Philippine civil service by branch, 2004, 2020 209 Distribution of career civil servants by level, 2008 and 2017 210 Career executive service officer rank, salary grade, and equivalent CES positions 211 Occupancy of CES positions, 2011–2017 213 Composition of occupied CES positions by gender, 2011–2020 214 Status of eligibility of third-tier appointments in the civil service from Aquino to Duterte 215 Profile of the career executives 216

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10.1 10.2 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 12.1

Number of ministries across years Proportion of policy and political appointment Range and depth of party patronage scoring Index of party patronage by policy area Scope of patronage by level Motivations in making political appointments Technical and political priorities Typology of types of patronage Brief comparisons of the status of the nobility and the methods of mandarin recruitment among some major feudal dynasties in Vietnam 12.2 Typology of types of patronage 13.1 Factors explaining political patronage 13.2 Asian patronage patterns

List of Tables

238 246 264 264 266 271 272 281

298 302 321 327

Contributors

oyunsuren damdinsuren  is Senior Lecturer at the School of International Relations and Public Administration, National University of Mongolia. Her research focuses on diplomacy, foreign policy, international organizations, nuclear non-proliferation, peace, and development studies. julian dierkes  is Associate Professor and Keidanren Chair in Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs. His research has focused on democratization and mining governance in Mongolia since 2005. He is one of the principal authors of the Mongolia Focus blog. tong-yi huang  is Professor in the Department of Public Administration at National Chengchi University, Taiwan. He received his Ph.D. in the Department of Government from the University of Texas at Austin. His areas of specialization include comparative politics, deliberative democracy, digital governance, and public management. zong-xian huang  is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University at Albany’s Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy. His research interests include digital governance, information technology management, and public management. saltanat janenova  is Lecturer in Public Policy in the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, UK, and Professor at the Public Administration Academy under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Her research interests include public sector reforms in the Eurasia region, open government, corruption, and innovations in public services.

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List of Contributors

hyejin kang  is Assistant Professor of Public Administration at the Department of Public Administration within the College of Social Sciences at Dong-A University. She is a political scientist and public administration scholar by training. Her research interests include political appointment, policy and political leadership of government ministers, and trust in government. siqin kang received his Ph.D. in political science from the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong. His research interest includes Chinese politics and transnationalism. His research has appeared in Political Research Quarterly, Journal of Contemporary China, and book chapters. masao kikuchi is Professor of Public Policy and Management in the Department of Public Management, School of Business Administration, at Meiji University in Tokyo, Japan. His research interests include comparative local governance and crisis management in the Asian region. Dr. Kikuchi received his Ph.D. in political science from Meiji University. byong-seob kim  is Professor Emeritus of Public Administration at Seoul National University (SNU), former Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Government Innovation and Decentralization, former President of the Korean Association for Public Administration, and former Dean of the Graduate School of Public Administration at SNU. His research interests include public interest, citizen happiness, and national leadership. min han kim is Visiting Scholar at Global Development Institute at Seoul National University. His research and academic interests include civil service, intergovernmental relations, regionalism, and agendasetting in the policy process. colin knox  is Professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan, and an emeritus professor at Ulster University (UK). minh-quang le  is Lecturer at the University of Economics and Business, VNU, Viet Nam. He received his Ph.D. in Public Policy and Management at the University of Palermo, Italy, and for the past 7 years (2015–2022) has been a visiting scholar in different universities in Norway, Poland, and the Netherlands. His research focuses on political institutions, local governance, and immigration issues.

List of Contributors

xiii

quang-minh le is Lecturer in the Department of Leadership Studies and Public Policy, Academy of Politics – Region I in Hanoi, Vietnam. He received his Ph.D. in public policy at the University of Palermo, Italy. His studies focus on public management, especially on public governance and state-owned enterprises. byambakhand luguusharav  is a Researcher at the Institute of International Studies, Academy of Sciences of Mongolia. Her research focuses on U.S. foreign policy, Mongolia-U.S. relations, and MongoliaNATO relations. assel mussagulova is Research Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew Centre for Innovative Cities. Her research interests include public management, human resources, and organizational behavior. Her current research project focuses on the career transitions of Singaporean workers and policies needed to support the workforce in precarious employment conditions. b. guy peters  is Maurice Falk Professor of Government at the University of Pittsburgh, and Editor of the International Review of Public Policy. He was the founding president of the International Public Policy Association. His most recent books include Administrative Traditions: The Roots of Contemporary Administrative Behavior, and Democratic Backsliding and Public Policy. chi-kien phung  (Ph.D.) is Lecturer and Researcher at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University (VNU-USSH). His studies mainly focus on international political relations, world political institutions, and foreign policy of Vietnam. mohammad mizanur rahman is Associate Researcher at the Institute of Development Policy, University of Antwerp, has practiced civil service for over two-and-a-half decades. He holds a Ph.D. in political science and has published articles and book chapters. He authored the book Development Agenda and Donor Influence in South Asia: Bangladesh’s Experiences in the PRSP Regime (Routledge, 2018). naresh chandra saxena  was a career civil servant and retired as Secretary, Planning Commission, Government of India, in 2002. Dr. Saxena did his doctorate in forestry from the University of Oxford in 1992. He was awarded an honorary Ph.D. from the University of East Anglia (UK) in 2006.

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List of Contributors

yaowensong song  is an M.Phil. student in the Department of Government and Public Administration at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is interested in comparative politics and political methodology, with a focus on contemporary China. maria fe villamejor-mendoza  is Professor of Public Administration and Public Policy and former Dean of the National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG), University of the Philippines. Her areas of expertise are regulatory governance, public sector reform, combating corruption, climate change adaptation, collaborative governance, and quality of government services. george wong is currently at the Singapore Management University. He obtained his Ph.D. in sociology from the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research sits at the intersections of urban politics and governance, and community development in Asian cities. Beyond academia, he is a community organizer and town councilor. jiangnan zhu  is Associate Pofessor at the University of Hong Kong. She studies Chinese politics, especially corruption and anticorruption, information politics, and elite politics. Her work has appeared in Comparative Political Studies, Governance, Public Administration Review, The International Journal of Press/Politics, China Journal, and Journal of Contemporary China.

Abbreviations

AL BERC BJP BNP BPSC BSC BSEC CA CCP CD CDSA CEO CEP CEPA CESB CESO COS COVID-19 CPIB CPV CS CSC CSE DCD DM DP DPJ DPP EM

Awami League Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission Bharatiya Janata Party Bangladesh Nationalist Party Bangladesh Public Service Commission Bureau of Civil Service Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission Commission on Appointments Chinese Communist Party Constituency director Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act Chief Executive Officer currently estimated potential Committee of Experts on Public Administration Career Executive Service Board Career Executive Service Officer contract of service Coronavirus-19 Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (Singapore) Communist Party of Vietnam Civil Service Civil Service Commission Career Executive Service deputy constituency director District Magistrate Democratic Party (Mongolia) Democratic Party of Japan Democratic Progressive Party executive meeting

xv

xvi

GA GDP GOI GOOC HCSE IAS ICS IPP IPS JBC JO JSP KHUN KIIS KMT LDP LGU LWD MARA MC MCA MCCY MCT MDGS ME MEE MEM MF MFA MHRSS MHURD MIIT MJ MLAS MND MNR MNT MOHA MP

List of Abbreviations

Grassroots Adviser gross domestic product Government of India Government-owned and controlled corporation higher civil servant examination Indian Administrative Service Indian Civil Service Index of Party Patronage Indian Police Service Judicial and Bar Council Job order Japan Socialist Party National Labor Party (Mongolia) Key information interviews? Kuomintang Liberal Democratic Party local government unit local water district Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Ministry of Commerce Ministry of Civil Affairs Ministry of Community, Culture, and Youth Ministry of Culture and Tourism Millennium Development Goals Ministry of Education (China) Ministry of Ecology and Environment Ministry of Emergency Management Ministry of Finance Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Ministry of Justice Members of the State-Level Legislative Assemblies Ministry of National Defense (China) Ministry of Natural Resources Mongolian Tughrik Ministry of Internal/Home Affairs Member of Parliament

List of Abbreviations

MPP MPRP MPS MSS MST MT MVA MWR NAO NDRC NEAC NGA NGO NHC NPC NPM NPPCC OECD

xvii

Mongolian Peoples’ Party Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party Ministry of Public Security Ministry of State Security Ministry of Science and Technology Ministry of Transport Ministry of Veterans Affairs Ministry of Water Resources National Audit Office National Development and Reform Commission National Ethnic Affairs Commission National government agency non-governmental organization National Health Commission National People’s Congress New Public Management National People’s Political Consultative Conference Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development PA People’s Association PA-CSM People’s Association constituency staff member PAP People’s Action Party PARC Policy Affairs Research Commission PASC patronage as corruption PASG patronage as governance PBOC People’s Bank of China PCA Prevention of Corruption Act PM Prime Minister PRC People’s Republic of China PSC Politburo Standing Committee or Public Service Commission (Singapore) PSU Public sector undertaking QUANGO quasi-nongovernmental organization ROC Republic of China SDGS Sustainable Development Goals SG salary grade SIRPA School of International Relations and Public Administration (National University of Mongolia) SNTV/MMD single non-transferable vote in multimember district

xviii

SUC UNDP UP UPSC WDR

List of Abbreviations

State universities and college United Nations Development Programme Uttar Pradesh Union Public Service Commission World Development Report

1

Patronage in Asian Political Systems A Framework for Research B. Guy Peters

Most scholars thinking and writing about employment in the public sector begin with a normative model based on a career, nonpartisan civil service (Dahlström and Lapuente, 2017). The same bias toward civil service is shared by international organizations, and their commitment is perhaps even stronger as they make grants contingent on administrative reforms. This notion of the career civil servant is a very old one, going back to the mandarins in China, but despite its antiquity, it remains the model for the public bureaucracy today, even though the degree to which countries have achieved this ideal varies markedly (Kopecký et al., 2016). The model of the career civil service is justified by the assumption that a career civil service will serve any government with loyalty and expertise. A good civil servant is expected to be able to serve any political “master” and to be loyal to the government of the day, as well as to the State. Likewise, civil servants are hired for their abilities, as demonstrated by formal testing and qualifications, and expected to be knowledgeable in specific policy domains, as well as in the processes of governing more generally. Being a civil servant is a career, and over time in that career, the individual civil servant gains experience and greater knowledge, and a greater capacity to assist political leaders in governing. The above is the textbook justification for the existence of a career in civil service, and in many cases, this idealized vision of the civil servant is a reasonably accurate depiction of practice. But many politicians in industrialized democracies do not consider the civil service in quite such positive terms (see Bauer and Becker, 2020). These politicians see the civil service as an entrenched elite that has its own views on policy and attempts to thwart the policy initiatives of the elected government. For contemporary populist politicians, such as Donald Trump, the civil service is the “Deep State” that prevents them from governing as they would like (Moynihan, 2021; Swan, 2022). 1

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In other types of political systems that fundamental assumption about the civil service may not have been valid for some time, if ever. In many countries, the civil service, even if selected by merit system, may not be the “best and brightest” that are assumed to be recruited to positions in the civil service system. When civil service salaries are low and not competitive with comparable positions in the private sector, then the government is unlikely to be able to recruit the type of talent required for effective governance (Brans and Peters, 2012; Hood, Peters and Lee, 2003). That the absence of adequate rewards for public office is also likely to de-motivate members of the civil service so that they are not the active, committed workers envisioned by the advocates of the civil service. Given the concerns that politicians may have about the quality and loyalty of civil servants, whether those concerns are justified or not, all governments make political appointments in the public bureaucracy. Even those countries with well-functioning civil services do ­ esirable to permit political executives to make some appointfind it d ments in the bureaucracy. There are marked differences in the number of appointments that are made. For example, in the United States, the president and his colleagues in government can make over 4,000 appointments in the executive branch, while the prime minister in Canada has only several hundred positions at his or her disposal. Many governments in less-developed countries will have thousands of patronage positions available to the political leaders, and even if there is a civil service, its impact on public policy and governance may be minimal (see Brierly, 2020; Panizza et al., 2023). By patronage appointments we mean the power of political actors to appoint individuals, using their own discretion, to nonelective positions in the public sector, irrespective of the legality of the decision (Kopecký et al., 2012; Panizza et al., 2019). This definition does not make assumptions about the motivations for the appointments, the roles played by appointees, their professional capabilities, the legality of their appointments, or about the impact of patronage appointments on the quality of public administration. Those characteristics of appointments differ across countries, or even among different appointments within the same country, and will be the ­subject of our comparative analysis. We are interested first in the number of appointments that are made and then concerned about their characteristics.

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3

We are not, however, using patronage to mean political leaders using their powers to distribute benefits to voters or local brokers in order to win elections (see Kenny, 2017). This form of linkage is better described as clientelism (Stokes et al., 2013), or more generally “distributive politics” (Golden and Min, 2013). In this study, we are more concerned with the recruitment of individuals into posts within the government, many of which may be directly involved with making public policy. This book is about patronage appointments in the bureaucracy in Asian countries. In the sample of countries included in the book, there are several countries with very well-developed civil service systems, with minimal levels of patronage (Japan, Singapore, and South Korea). There are also some countries that have a career civil service system but use patronage to assign employees to more or less desirable positions within the bureaucracy (Bangladesh and India). And in between those extremes are several countries with formal civil service systems that are heavily influenced by political parties and by social ties to society (Vietnam, Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia). Thus, within these countries, we have a wide range of cases, and we can use these cases to understand better the causes and consequences of patronage in the public sector. And in addition, patronage in these Asian countries can be compared with that found in other areas of the world.

1.1  The Nature of Contemporary Patronage Before discussing the cases of patronage in Asian bureaucracies more specifically, we will make several more general comparative and theoretical points about patronage in contemporary governments. Asian governments reflect most of these characteristics but also have their own distinctive features that will be discussed later in this chapter. As is true for any study of comparative public administration and governance, we need to be concerned about both similarities and differences among the cases. The first point to make here is the relationship between the concepts of patronage and politicization of the public service. As already noted, patronage refers specifically to the appointment of public officials by political leaders. Politicization is a more encompassing concept, referring to all attempts to impose political control over the public bureaucracy (Cooper, 2020; Peters and Pierre, 2004). Patronage is

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clearly one such method for gaining control, but it is not the only one. For example, political leaders may employ methods such as moving perceived opponents out of key positions within agencies, or demotions of perceived enemies, to impose more control. And for countries such as China and Vietnam with a hegemonic political party, the link between politics and the bureaucracy is very direct and pervasive so that the bureaucracy is almost inherently politicized. We should also differentiate patronage from clientelism, although the two terms are often used interchangeably. Like politicization, clientelism is a general concept concerning the relationship between political leaders – the patron – and his or her followers – the clients (Müller, 2017). In a clientelistic relationship, the patron exchanges favors, which could be jobs, for votes. But the favors distributed by the patron also may be more collective than personal, for example, public infrastructure.1 Also, clientelism is generally not concerned with hiring people for upper-level jobs in government in order to improve governance, while patronage tends to focus on these managerial and advisory positions (but see Grindle, 2012). To the extent that clientelism is associated with patronage employment, it is generally for lower-level jobs in local governments. The third point of reference for this research is that the level of patronage, and politicization, has been increasing in governments (Kopecký et al., 2012, 2016). The increases may be most noticeable in consolidated democracies where levels of patronage have been lower (Japan), but there has been some increase in many other countries as well. This increase has occurred despite attempts by some governments (see Dussauge-Laguna, 2022) to limit the amount of patronage, and the continuing pressures of international donor organizations that stress the importance of a career in civil service for effective governance and the rule of law. Governing is always political, but the process is more political and less expert in the early 2020s than it has been for some time. Increasing levels of patronage have been driven by several factors. One has been the reaction to New Public Management (NPM), and 1

Ruhil and Camones (2003) argued that political machines that distributed public jobs in the United States died out when the politicians understood that it was less expensive and easier to distribute “pork barrel” projects than to distribute the jobs.

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the sense among some political leaders that the public bureaucracy was becoming too autonomous from political control (Bach et al., 2018). The “presidentialization” of politics, with prime ministers consolidating their powers vis-à-vis cabinet and parliament (Poguntke and Webb, 2007), has been associated with those prime ministers building larger personal staffs through patronage appointments. Likewise, the increased partisanship of governments has led to attempts on the part of political parties to ensure their control over policy while in office, and with that the appointment of larger staffs. And finally, populism (Peters and Pierre, 2019) has been associated with distrust in the existing employees of government and a desire to replace them with more loyal representatives of “the people.” These causes for increased patronage may not be as powerful in Asia as they have been in other parts of the world. For example, although NPM did spread to Asia it was not taken up with the intensity or success as in many other countries (Kim and Han, 2015). Also, populism has not been an important political force in most of Asia, with the exception of India, the Philippines, and Indonesia (Kenny, 2017). And having strong political leaders is not particularly new in many Asian countries, although in some cases there has been an increasing centralization of power. Still, patronage is important in Asian governments and we will need to examine what factors differentiate Asian systems from other countries.

1.2  Why Do Governments Make Patronage Appointments? The first question we need to answer is why do governments want to make patronage appointments? We have already implied the answer to that question, noting that political elites may question both the loyalty and the competence of the career civil service and will want to have their own people occupy key positions in government. That is the basic answer, but we need to consider more carefully the reasons that governments choose to go outside the civil service in order to fill positions in the public sector. And again the answers may vary across political systems, across policy domains, and across time. The first reason for political leaders to want to make patronage appointments is that they want to be able to influence public policy and to ensure that the policies being adopted and implemented by the government correspond to their preferences. If those political leaders

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do not believe that the career civil service is willing to take policy direction, or that the civil servants may have a policy agenda of their own, then making patronage appointments may be perceived as crucial for controlling policy. In addition to controlling the direction of policy, patronage may be important for the quality of policymaking, especially in domains such as economic policy. Governments with low rates of compensation for the civil service, and especially those at the top of the civil service,2 may not be able to hire the talented individuals they require to make good policies. However, individuals who would not accept a career in government may be willing to accept short-term positions, especially when they agree with the policy preferences of the incumbent leadership. Thus, patronage becomes a means of improving the quality of governance. The second major reason for using patronage is political, or personal, loyalty. Most if not all political leaders want to be surrounded by staff who agree with their policies and politics. Patronage is the way to ensure that loyalty, as opposed to the willingness of career civil servants to serve any political master. In the eyes of politicians that willingness to serve may come with an absence of enthusiasm and at times even a tendency to shirk or sabotage the actions of a government (Brehm and Gates, 1999; Guedes-Neto and Peters, 2021). Therefore, a more committed employee is better for the politician. Further, that appointed individual may be able to do things that a member of a career public service cannot do legally.

1.3  A Typology of Patronage Those two reasons for patronage appointments themselves have dimensions. First, the choice of a public servant for policy reasons may be matched by the selection of non-civil servants to perform other tasks. Those tasks may in some instances be illegal for a career public servant to perform, given their partisan political nature. These nonpolicy jobs still require skills, and they may be skills that are not found 2

In most civil service systems, compensation at the bottom of the system is better relative to that in the private market than it is in the top-level positions. It therefore may be more difficult to recruit good senior officials for a long career, although many such employees remain in office because of “Public Service Motivation” (Vandenabeele et al., 2014).

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in great abundance in the career of public service. Thus, politicians are seeking different skill sets at times, but they are still seeking skills that they cannot readily acquire within the career bureaucracy. Within the loyalty justification of making patronage appointments, there are three subsets of reasons for making appointments. One subset reflects the loyalty that a public employee may have to a political party. A good deal of patronage within government involves giving jobs to individuals because they are members of the political party in office. In coalition governments, this will mean distributing positions among members of all the parties in the coalition. These people may have substantive policy skills or they may have more political skills, but the reason they have a job is their membership in, or at least loyalty to, a party. In one-party states, this partisan reason for appointments is crucial, and at times may make distinguishing merit and patronage appointments difficult (Jiang, 2018). Another variety of loyalty that may be involved in patronage appointments is personal loyalty to a politician. A political leader may want his or her “cronies” in an office with him or her. Some political systems facilitate the use of personal loyalty by permitting ministers to appoint cabinets of advisors paid for by public funds (EymeriDouzans and Bioy, 2015). These appointees may be members of the political party but many will be personally committed to the political leader. Or the appointment of the friends of the political leader may be less systematized, with appointment opportunities created more on an ad hoc basis. The third foundation for loyalty is to a social group. In societies where familial groupings, such as clans, tribes, ethnic groups, or even just extended families, are important in society and in politics then individuals may be appointed to government on the basis of that affiliation (Berenschot, 2018; Wedel, 2003). Still, in other cases, socioeconomic groups such as labor unions may be important in making appointments. When ethnicity or family is the foundation for an appointment, this may be done to reinforce the dominance of one group in government, or it could also be done to attempt to make the government more representative of the society as a whole.3 In either case, the individuals appointed to office will be expected to defend 3

In post-conflict societies, the elite pacts used to terminate the conflict often involve this type of representativeness in government.

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the interests of their group, and also ensure that the public policies adopted also respect those interests. There are also two subsets within the types of tasks being performed by patronage appointees in government. As mentioned earlier, we have emphasized the policy-making role of appointees, and those functions are certainly important. But some patronage appointments may be in public office to perform more political roles, whether for the political party or for the individual leader. When there are strong, programmatic political parties, patronage appointments can be made to ensure that the government is implementing the policy preferences of the party. And appointees who are loyal to the individual leader may be there to provide direction to other employees in government (especially career civil servants). Having these two dimensions and their subsets in mind, we can construct a typology of patronage positions (see Panizza et al., 2019 for the original version of this typology). One dimension of this 2 × 3 typology is the role played by the appointee – policy or political. The other dimension is the basis of the loyalty of the appointee – personal, partisan, or group. Each of these six cells then contains particular types of public employees. Not every country with a patronage system of a certain variety will necessarily have all of these types of appointees, but these do provide some idea of the range of patronage officials that can be operating in those governments. Cell A of our typology contains patronage appointees who have been put into office because of their policy skills and their loyalty to a political party. We can refer to those appointees as “party professionals.” They not only have strong professional skills but also are committed to a political party, and will only use those skills in government when their party is in power. They are thus similar to the participants in the “government of strangers” in the United States described by Hugh Heclo (1977). When their party is out of office they typically will work in the private sector, in universities, or in think tanks, and may come in and out of government several times during their career. When working in one-party dominant political systems their time in office may be linked to a faction of the party, and they may be in more lucrative jobs in the private sector for most of their career.

9

Patronage in Asian Political Systems Table 1.1  Typology of types of patronage Major role of appointees

Party Basis of Trust

Personal Group

Policy

Politics

A Party professionals C Programmatic technocrats E Group experts

B Apparatchiks D Political agents F Social liaisons

Based on Panizza et al. (2019).

In Cell B of our typology, we find “apparatchiks.” There are individuals appointed because of their loyalty to the party, and who are responsible for political tasks within the public sector. There are various subtypes of this group mentioned in Cell B, but there are two basic functions that they perform. One of these functions is to enforce control by the party over the lower echelons of government, and in some cases (especially one-party states) even over ministers. Their other job, especially in coalition governments, is to make political deals with other ministries and other parties. These deals may be done to produce better, more coordinated governance but they may also be just about maintaining political power. Rather than being loyal to a political party, patronage appointees in Cells C and D are loyal to, and trusted by, individuals within the government, usually a minister or the chief executive. Some of these, the “programmatic technocrats” found in Cell C, are experts in a policy domain who are willing to join the government to assist their friends in making better policies. Given their level of expertise and their opportunities in the private sector, they tend to remain in government for relatively short periods of time, but also may come and go many times depending upon changes in government., The “political agents” occupying Cell D provide political support to the political leader in a variety of ways, as mentioned in Table 1.1 (see the case of occupants of positions such as ministerial cabinets (Eymeri-Douzans et al., 2015), it may be difficult to distinguish the political from the professional roles of these appointees.

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The occupants of Cells E and F are somewhat more difficult to specify than those found in the other four cells. They are all related to social actors in some ways, but those linkages and their role in shaping appointments may vary substantially. Our research in Latin America (Panizza et al., 2019, 2023) has identified relatively few patronage appointments of this type, but they do appear to be more prevalent in some Asian countries, especially in Central Asia. If these positions within government are granted by virtue of membership in social groups such as ethnic groups, families, or clans, then this version of patronage can be seen as enhancing the representative nature of bureaucracy. In Cell E, we may find experts in policy domains, such as labor market policy who have been appointed at the suggestion of unions. There might also be individuals in these positions working to protect the rights and interests of traditional segments of society, or as means of co-opting members of ethnic groups into supporting the existing government.4 These officials may, for example, be employed in cultural or educational organizations to foster minority group cultures In other cases these appointments may not be so technocratic, but rather lower-level professional jobs,5 or even menial jobs, given to members because of their membership in a group, whether an organization or a segment of society. Cell F may be occupied by individuals whose appointments might be more similar to clientelism than the type of patronage discussed in the remainder of this paper. They too will be representing the interests of their group, and be somewhat like the appointees in Cell D who are providing political services to the leaders, albeit for social rather than partisan reasons. In political systems in which group membership is defining attribute, the opportunity, or virtual necessity, for a leader to employ members of his or her group will explain the importance of employment in Cell F. Hutchcroft (2014) refers to these relationships 4

5

This Cell E comes close to being an analog of “representative bureaucracy,” in which individuals are selected for government positions on the basis of gender or ethnicity, In the active conception of representative bureaucracy those individuals are expected to use their position to advance the interest of the group being represented (Selden, 1997). One example of this type of employment in our research in Latin America was the control of employment as teachers by the teachers union in Mexico (see Dussauge-Laguna, forthcoming).

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as “micro-particularistic,” and discusses them in relationship to more traditional forms of clientelism. In summary, this typology provides a set of categories for understanding how patronage can be used in different political systems. The categories developed for Cells A–D have been found to exist in Latin American administrative systems (Panizza et al., 2023), and although not identified with the same labels some also appeared in both ­eastern and western European systems (Kopecký et al., 2012, 2016). The categories in Cells E and F have been added to take into account the characteristics of administrative systems in some Asian countries, but they would also be applicable in other parts of the world (see Eriksen, 2017). The types of patronage identified in the typology appear in the Asian countries studied in this book, but the variations in political systems and in social systems tend to concentrate on one or a limited number of the types in a country. Some countries do have a variety of types of patronage, and there are changes over time. The authors of the country chapters contained in this volume have pointed to the utility of the patronage typology, and the presence of employment of the types contained within it, in their countries.

1.4  Explaining the Types of Patronage As already noted by the discussion of the types of patronage, different countries will have different patterns of patronage. This was clearly demonstrated in our earlier study of patronage in Latin America (Panizza et al., 2023). For example, Uruguay had patronage that was based primarily on political parties, while Peru and Ecuador, as “non-party systems” have patronage that is based mostly on loyalty to individual leaders. Likewise, most patronage appointments in Uruguay are based on professional skills, while those in Peru and Ecuador are primarily using a political skill set. Mexico’s patronage is primarily personal but has both sets of roles being played by the appointees. We expect the same sorts of variations in Asian countries, but need to consider what factors may explain the differences in the level of patronage, but more importantly in the types of patronage. These factors have been demonstrated to have some effect on patronage, and on public personnel systems more generally, in a number of

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countries. Many of these factors will be structural or institutional but will need also to consider more individual factors such as the nature of political leaders.

1.5  Social Factors One important determinant of styles of patronage is the nature of society. While all societies have some internal differences, some are more fragmented than are others. And further societies vary in the extent to which those social differences are politicized. It may not matter whether the source of difference within society is ethnicity, religion, language, or clan, these differences matter and can impact the ways in which individuals are hired within the public sector. In our “sample” of countries in Asia, there is clear variation between relatively homogenous societies such as Korea, Japan, China, and Taiwan, and more diverse societies such as Singapore and especially India (see Fearon, 2003). While the absolute level of division within the society is important, the extent to which those differences are politicized and the extent to which there is a sense of a nation-state are also important. Another way of saying this is, what is the object of the primary loyalty of individuals within the society? Is the state, or is the family, or the clan, or the ethnic group? In countries such as Afghanistan and other countries in Central Asia the family and the clan constitute crucial building blocks for the society and therefore for governance, so that conventional ways of thinking about the public service may not be viable (Murtazashvili, 2016; see also Müller, 2016). Public employment, whether through patronage or through a merit system, can be used to ameliorate divisions within societies, but can also reinforce those divisions. If the administrative system is perceived to be open to all groups and there is something approaching a representative bureaucracy, then the divisions within a society may be softened. On the other hand, if one or a few groups dominate public employment, the public sector will tend to solidify the differences. Patronage appointments may be used to produce either result. For groups who have been historically disadvantaged patronage can be used to create opportunities that a merit system might not (see Arriola, 2009; Peters, 2015). On the other hand, patronage can, especially in non-statist societies, reinforce the dominance of one or another group having a disproportionate share of the positions in government.

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1.6  Party Systems The second factor to consider when attempting to explain patronage is the nature of the party system. As already mentioned there may be some political systems, even functioning democracies, that do not have political parties in the usual sense of the term. In these cases what may be called political parties are loose, and temporary, electoral organizations often concerned only with electing the chief executive.6 They are not able, therefore, to function as a source of talent to fill positions in the public bureaucracy. Thus, in these cases, almost all recruitment of patronage employees has to be done personally by the chief executive, by individual ministers, or perhaps even by lower-level officials. In addition to the existence of parties, we should also consider the institutionalization of the party system (Mainwaring and Torcal, 2006). Some party systems come and go very quickly, for example in central and eastern Europe (Tavits, 2013) and every election may have a different group of parties. Those parties may be rather like the temporary coalitions in the “no-party” states, albeit having some representation in the legislature also.7 Other party systems are stable and will run candidates in election after election – the Democrats and Republicans have been the major parties in the United States since 1856. More institutionalized parties may be expected to be more effective in organizing patronage on a partisan basis. They have clearly defined systems of recruitment, so that taking a patronage position may be a stepping stone to a seat in the legislature, and then perhaps to higher executive positions. These parties have a pool of talent and can mobilize it to attempt to control the government. On the other hand, less institutionalized parties may be extremely interested in using patronage for party-building (Shefter, 1994). The ability of a party in government to hand out government jobs can be used as a way to reward their adherents and to demonstrate that it is worthwhile to be a s­ upporter of the party. The classic distinction between majoritarian and consensus political systems may also be related to the use of patronage (Lijphart, 2012). 6 7

Members of the legislature may be elected by local coalitions of activists, again without any continuity or level of organization. Several of the CEE countries are semi-presidential so having a party functioning in the parliament may be important in electing and supporting a prime minister, and for governing.

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In a majoritarian, winner takes all system there may be more incentive to utilize patronage appointments in government. A chief executive in such a system will be assessed on what s/he accomplishes in a relatively brief period and needs to control government as thoroughly as possible to push a program through. In consensus systems, on the other hand, the need to control government may be less immediate given that the variation in policy may be expected to be less pronounced. Parties may still want to reward their supporters, but control of government is less problematic. In the Asian countries considered here, we can identify a variety of party systems. There are several cases, for example, China and Vietnam, with one-party systems, or a single dominant party as in Bangladesh. Japan and South Korea have institutionalized systems with a limited number of parties. The Philippines, Mongolia, and India have multi-party systems that have some institutionalized parties, as well as some movement in and out. The party systems, especially in the one-party states do appear to influence patterns of patronage. We also need to consider political culture, and more general social culture, and the extent to which corruption and nepotism are accepted, or even expected, when filling positions whether in government or the private sector (O’Dwyer, 2006; Robertson-Snape, 1996). If it is considered at least moderately acceptable, and perhaps even desirable, to allocate positions in government to party members, or family members, then rather naturally the rate of patronage should be expected to be higher. This link between attitudes toward corruption and patronage should, however, be studied in a more nuanced manner.

1.7  Political Regime Types Although the nature of the party system discussed above may reflect a good deal about regime type, we should also consider other aspects of political regimes as well. Some countries included in this sample are consolidated democracies, others have varying degrees of democracy, and still, others are autocratic. As implied above, consolidated ­democracies tend to have strong merit systems, although there are notable cases that also have high levels of patronage, for example, Italy, Greece, and to some extent the United States. However, with the increasing populism in democratic politics, there appears to be some erosion of the

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commitment to professional public service, and more interest in political appointments and control (Bauer et al., 2021). The level of personalism in the political system may be especially important for explaining the type of patronage found in these systems (see Rhodes-Purdy and Madrid, 2020). If the political system is controlled by a single leader or by a small clique of leaders then we would expect personal trust to be the dominant factor in the selection of individuals to fill government jobs. This reliance on personal trust will be true even if there is a party structure that is used to support the individual leader(s). The distinction between personalistic and nonpersonalistic systems is not, however, clear and simple. Powerful leaders within otherwise democratic systems may play, or attempt to play, the personalistic controller of political appointments. Finally, we should be concerned with the ambitions of the political system. Hiring individuals with strong policy skills (Cells A, C, and E) is important if the political system is seeking to make major policy interventions in society. If, however, the government is interested primarily in maintaining its hold on office and minimizing political opposition, it will be more interested in hiring individuals with political skills and strong political commitments to the regime. The policy aspirations of government may differ across policy areas as well, with great concern for hiring technocrats for some areas (often economic policy) but less concern about others. The organization of the country chapters that follow will be based on political regime types. Many of these are clear, but several may require some justification. We have placed India as a one-party dominant system. While the country does have open elections one party has tended to be dominant over much of its history, first Congress and now the BJP. Also, we have placed the Philippines in the multi-party democratic group. Although there have been periods of autocratic rule, and the recent President Duarte had authoritarian tendencies, there is a functioning party system and relatively free elections.

1.8  Strength of the Civil Service It appears almost tautological to say that patronage should be expected to be strong when the civil service is weak, but that is not necessarily the case. In some instances, the two personnel systems co-exist and do so relatively comfortably. For example, the United States government

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has substantially more patronage appointments than those of other consolidated democracies, but beneath the roughly 4,500 political appointments there is a strong and professional civil service. Some political leaders (Bur, 2020) attempt to politicize the civil service, but so far that has been unsuccessful. In Asia, Hutchcroft (2014) argues that Thailand has been characterized by a strong bureaucracy combined with significant patronage. The above said, however, political systems with weak bureaucracies, especially when weak in major technocratic areas such as economic policy, will tend to rely more on patronage appointments–especially those falling into Cells A, C, and E. In order to be able to govern with inadequate levels of expertise available from permanent officials, governments will have to use trusted experts, whether that trust is based on party, personal or social ties. In some cases, a strong and highly professionalized bureaucracy may actually encourage the recruitment of political appointments such as those found in Cells B, D, and F. The politicians may want the personal “minders” or party apparatchiks that can help with tasks that professional public servants may be ­forbidden from doing, or unwilling, to do.

1.9  Summary and Conclusions This chapter is intended to be a framework for the analysis of patronage in Asia, although it could also be used in a variety of other settings. Indeed, much of the typology used here was originally based on the experience of Latin American countries. The chapter argues that not all patronage is the same and that what is important for classifying types of patronage is the tasks being performed by the appointees, and the nature of the trust relationship that brought them their position. The six classifications of patronage appointments used here may have internal variations, but they are useful for understanding what roles are being played by patronage appointees in governments. The differences we observe among countries may be the product of a number of factors. The party system is often a crucial element in shaping patronage, with the level of institutionalization of the party system and the strength of individual parties playing a significant role. And the extent to which the political system is dominated by one or a few leaders influences the style of patronage, as does the fragmentation of society and the strength of groups within the society. And

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finally, the presence of a strong and professional civil service may be a major deterrent to the use of patronage appointments, especially for policymaking purposes. The nature of patronage systems appears to reflect the reality of contemporary governments, but in Asian cases remains conjectural. Likewise, the causes of differences in patronage systems that have been discussed here are in essence hypotheses. We will be examining those hypotheses through the case studies of a number of countries in Asia. That research will be able to refine the hypotheses presented here, as well as provide the detail needed for a more complete understanding of the ways in which governments choose who will be working for them. Given the wide variety of political systems, reflected in the availability of data and access, the individual country chapters are structured somewhat differently and depend upon different types of information. Given the sensitivity of the topic in particular countries, some authors in the edited collection rely almost entirely on secondary data sources while others have been able to collect primary data. Some also focus on particular forms of patronage that are prevalent within that system, although they do note the existence of other forms. Patronage has also been explored at different levels of government. In China, for example, the authors focus on patronage appointments in the selection of ministers and vice ministers, whereas in Singapore because of the formal meritocratic appointments process, the chapter focus is at the level of urban governance. While the lack of symmetry in the national chapters might be considered problematic, it does demonstrate the many ways in which governments approach the task of finding people to fill important public positions. The cases further demonstrate that the typology upon which the study is based does work and does help to identify the fundamental task of managing public personnel.

References Arriola, L. R. (2009) Patronage and Political Stability in Africa, Comparative Political Studies 42, 1339–1362. Bach, T., G. Hammerschmid, and L. Löffler (2018) More Delegation, More Political Control: Politicization of Senior-Level Appointments in 18 ­European Countries, Public Policy and Administration 35, 3–23. Bauer, M. and S. Becker (2020) Democratic Backsliding, Populism, and ­Public Administration, Perspectives on Public Management and G ­ overnance 3, 19–31.

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Bauer, M., B. G. Peters, J. Pierre, K. Yesilkagit, and S. Becker (2021) Democratic Backsliding and Public Administration: How Populists in Government Transform State Bureaucracies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Berenschot, W. (2018) The Political Economy of Clientelism: A Comparative Study of Indonesia’s Patronage Democracy, Comparative Political Studies 51, 1563–1593. Brans, M. and B. G. Peters (2012) Rewards for High Public Office in Europe and North America (London: Routledge). Brehm, J. O. and S. Gates (1999) Working, Shirking, and Sabotage: Bureaucratic Response to a Democratic Public (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press). Brehm, J. and S. Gates (2002) Rules, Trust and the Allocation of Time. In Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL, April (Vol. 25, p. 28). Brierly, S. (2020) Combining Patronage and Merit in Public Sector, Journal of Politics 83:1, 182–197. Bur, J. (2020) 40 Senators Introduce Bill to Block Trump’s Civil Service Reorg., Federal Times, November 18. www.federaltimes.com/federaloversight/congress/2020/11/18/40-senators-introduce-bill-to-blocktrumps-civil-service-reorg/ Connaughton, B. (2010) ‘Glorified Gofers, Policy Experts or Good Generalists’: A Classification of the Roles of the Irish Ministerial Adviser, Irish Political Studies 25:3, 347–369. Connaughton, B. (2015) Navigating the Borderlines of Politics and Administration: Reflections on the Role of Ministerial Advisers, International Journal of Public Administration 38:1, 37–45. Cooper, C. A. (2020) Politicization of the Bureaucracy across and within Administrative Traditions, International Journal of Public Administration 44:7, 564–577. Dahlström, C. and Lapuente, V. (2017) Organizing Leviathan: Politicians, Bureaucrats, and the Making of Good Government (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press). Dussauge-Laguna, M. I. (2022) The Promises and Perils of Populism for Democratic Policymaking: The Case of Mexico. Policy Sciences 55:4, 777–803. Dussauge-Laguna, M. I. and A. Casas (Forthcoming) Patronage in the ­Mexican Public Sector, in F. E. Panizza, B. G. Peters, and C. Ramos, eds., The Politics of Patronage in Latin America Central Administrations. Pitt Latin American Series (University of Pittsburgh Press), Under Review. Eriksen, S. S. (2017) State Effects and the Effects of State-Building: Institution Building and the Formation of State-Centered Societies, Third World Quarterly 38, 771–786.

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Eymeri-Douzans, J. M., X. Boiy, and S. Mouton (2015) Le règne des entourages: Cabinets et conseillers de l’executif (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po). Fearon, J. D. (2003) Ethnic and Cultural Diversity by Country, Journal of Economic Growth 8, 185–222. Golden, M. and D. Min (2013) Distributive Politics around the World, Annual Review of Political Science 16, 73–99. Grindle, Merilee S. (2012) Jobs for the Boys: Patronage and the State in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Guedes-Neto, J. and B. G. Peters (2021) Working, Shirking or Sabotage in Times of Democratic Backsliding: An Experimental Study in Brazil, in M. W. Bauer, B. G. Peters, J. Pierre, K. Yesilkagit, and S. Becker, eds., Democratic Backsliding and Public Administration (Cambridge: C ­ ambridge University Press), pp. 221–245. Heclo, H. (1977) A Government of Strangers: Executive Politics in ­Washington (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution). Hood, C., B. G. Peters, and G. O. M. Lee (2003) Rewards for High Public Office: Asian and Pacific Rim States (London: Routledge). Hutchcroft, P. D. (2014) Linking Capitol and Countryside: Patronage and Clientelism in Japan, Thailand and the Philippines, in D. Abente Brun and L. Diamond, eds., Clientelism, Social Policy and the Quality of Democracy (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press), pp. 174–203. Jiang, J. (2018) Making Bureaucracy Work: Patronage Networks, Performance Incentives and Economic Development in China, American Journal of Political Science 62, 982–999. Kenny, P. D. (2017) Populism and Patronage: Why Populists Win Elections in India, Asia and Beyond (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Kim, S. and C. Han (2015) Administrative Reform in South Korea: New Public Management and the Bureaucracy, International Review of Administrative Sciences 81, 694–712. Kopecký, P., P. Mair, and M. Spirova (2012) Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Kopecký, P., J. Meyer-Sahling, F. Panizza, G. Scherlis, C. Schuster, and M. Spirova (2016) Party Patronage in Contemporary Democracies: Results from an Expert Survey in 22 Countries from Five Regions, ­European Journal of Political Research 55, 416–431. Lijphart, A. (2012) Patterns of Democracy: Government Form and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press). Mainwaring, S. and M. Torcal (2006) Party System Institutionalization and Party System Theory after the Third Wave of Democratization, in R. S. Katz and W. J. Crotty, eds., Handbook of Party Politics (London: SAGE Publications), pp. 204–227.

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Moynihan, D. T. (2021) Populism and the Deep State: The Attack on Public Service Under Trump, in M. Bauer, B. G. Peters, J. Pierre, K. Yesilkagit, and S. Becker, eds., Democratic Backsliding and Public Administration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 151–177. Müller, J. W. (2016) What Is Populism? (London: Penguin). Müller, J. W. (2017) What Is Populism? (London: Penguin). Murtazashvili, J. B. (2016) Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). O’Dwyer, C. (2006) Runaway State-Building: Patronage Politics and ­Democratic Development (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press). Panizza, F., B. G. Peters, and C. Ramos Larraburu (2019) Roles, Trusts and Skills: A Typology of Patronage Appointments, Public Administration 97, 147–161. Panizza, F., B. G. Peters, and C. Ramos Larraburu (2023) The Politics of Patronage in Latin America Central Administrations (United States: ­University of Pittsburgh Press). Peters, B. G. (2015) Political Patronage, Machine Politics and Ethnic Representativeness, in E. Schröter Peters and P. Von Maravić, eds., Politics of Representative Bureaucracy: Power, Legitimacy and Performance (­Cheltenham: Edward Elgar), pp. 113–121. Peters, B. G., and Pierre, J. (2004) Politicization of the Civil Service in ­Comparative Perspective. The Quest for Control (London: Routledge). Peters, B. G., and Pierre, J. (2019) Populism and Public Administration: Confronting the Administrative State. Administration & Society, 51(10), 1521–1545 Poguntke, T., and Webb, P. (Eds.). (2007) The Presidentialization of ­Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press on Demand). Rhodes-Purdy, M. and R. L. Madrid (2020) The Perils of Personalism, Democratization 27, 321–339. Robertson-Snape, F. (1996) Corruption, Collusion and Nepotism in ­Indonesia, Third World Quarterly 20, 589–602. Ruhil, A. V. S. and P. J. Camones (2003) What Lies Beneath: The Political Roots of State Merit Systems, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 13, 27–42. Selden, S. C. (1997) The Promise of Representative Bureaucracy: Diversity and Responsiveness in a Government Agency (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe). Shefter, M. (1994) Political Parties and the State: The American Historical Experience (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).

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Stokes, S., T. Dunning, M. Nazare, and V. Brusco (2013) Brokers, ­Voters, and Clientelism: The Puzzle of Distributive Politics (Cambridge: C ­ ambridge University Press). Swan, J. (2022) Trump’s Revenge, AXIOS, July 23. www.axios.com/2022/ 07/23/donald-trump-news-schedule-f-executive-order Tavits, M. (2013) Post Communist Democracies and Party Organization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). Vandenabeele, W., G. A. Brewer, and A. Ritz (2014) Past, Present and Future of Public Service Motivation Research, Public Administration 92, 779–789. Wedel, J. R. (2003) Clans, Cliques and Captured States: Rethinking ­Transition in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (­Helsinki: Wider).

Pa rt I

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Governing the Global City’s Mandarinate Politically Motivated Appointments in Singapore’s Public Sector Assel Mussagulova and George Wong

2.1  Introduction: The Singapore Public Service Public service has been instrumental in the development of Singapore since its independence in the 1960s. Having inherited a post-colonial bureaucracy after independence, the Singapore government introduced reforms aimed at transforming the public service as the political leadership sought to make the public service a vital governance strategy in delivering electoral promises and ensuring the city-state’s survival (Ho 2003). Through the years, the Singapore Public Service helped implement a sustained policy of pragmatism aimed first at economic survival, followed by a comprehensive strategy of growth which propelled the country to become one of the undeniable regional leaders in terms of development. Among both academics and practitioners, the Singapore Public Service has become somewhat of a hallmark of an effective system based on the meritocratic system capable of recruiting top talent, efficiently implementing government policies, and providing quality public services to citizens. The country has consistently topped global rankings in government effectiveness, transparency, and competitiveness (Transparency International 2020; World Bank 2020; World Economic Forum 2020). Three key elements set the Singapore Public Service apart from those in other countries, both in the region and globally. First, the notion of merit permeates the government approach to staffing and promotion. Emphasis is placed on recruiting top talent early on – potential candidates are spotted as early as in high school and are offered opportunities to compete for the government scholarships to top universities around the world, such as the Ivy League institutions, Oxbridge, and so forth. As the recruitment 25

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system relies heavily on the technical definition of merit – academic achievements matter. Second, the Singapore Public Service prides itself on being vigilant and tough on corruption. Singapore’s effort in combating corruption is a world-famous success story and one of Singapore’s knowledge exports – civil servants from other governments conduct frequent exchanges to learn about the Singapore experience of tackling corruption head-on “without fear of favour” (Quah 2021). The effectiveness of the Singapore Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) is attributed to its operational autonomy, robust approach to enforcement regardless of the scale of the crime, and commitment toward recruiting and training the best talent (Van der Wal 2021). These enforcement processes complement the tough stance on public corruption via a rigorous legal framework using the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) and the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act (CDSA). These elements of the Singapore Public Service are inextricably linked to the practice of paying public servants salaries commensurate with the jobs requiring similar credentials and experience in the private sector. Public Service salaries are therefore often closely linked to the private sector’s rates. For instance, ministers’ salaries are pegged at two-thirds the average income of the top eight earners in six professional fields (Singapore Prime Minister’s Office 1994). This is justified on two grounds: combating corruption and talent retention. This measure is especially relevant considering Singapore’s international reputation as a major financial hub and home to multiple multinational companies, making the competition for top talent fierce. Finally, one of the most notable features of the Singapore Public Service is its managerial efficiency. Public service has been at the forefront of the country’s economic transformation, which started in the 1960s and has successfully implemented a number of crucial public policies, including public housing, urban planning, public health, attraction of foreign direct investment, transport, education, and many others. Singapore also managed to escape the trap of New Public Management (NPM) which gripped most of the Western countries in the late 1980s, and all the associated negative consequences of skewed incentives, accountability problems, and the backsliding of public interest, among others. Instead, Singapore embarked on a trajectory of administrative reforms based on internal incentives to

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refine the role of the Public Service (Cheung 2003). These successive efforts have ensured that the Singapore government has maintained a relatively small number of public employees and enjoyed a budget surplus for a long time. More recently, the government has shifted its focus to “the calling for public service” rhetoric, emphasizing its role in overcoming the COVID-19 crisis and having “the heart” for public service. These characteristics of the Singapore Public Service make it a distinctive case among its Asian counterparts. On the surface, the observable features of the Singapore Public Service make the framework of patronage appointments by Peters from Chapter 1 of this book somewhat difficult to relate to Singapore’s case due to the prevailing logic of merit, integrity, and managerial efficiency underpinning it. Furthermore, the current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong described Public Service as needing to find a balance between “being neutral and non-political, and being politically sensitive and responsive” (Lee Hsien Loong 2016), and essentially able to maintain that balance which signals the government’s commitment to keeping the public service free of political influence. The Public Service is therefore portrayed by the government as politically impartial and required to serve the government of the day regardless of their political views. This is in line with the prevailing logic that meritocracy is a remedy to the flaws of the politicized system of recruitment, selection, and promotion in the Public Service (S’liwa & Johansson 2014; So 2015; Van-Biesen 2006). However, in practice, politicization is a common phenomenon that can be found in most administrative systems (Eichbaum & Shaw 2007; Peters & Pierre 2004). Politicization remains a choice for many governments and exists side by side with the merit-based system to augment political and policy competencies in governance. This is justifiable on the grounds of efficiency of policy implementation and political responsiveness (Bell 2015). For example, in the European context, Kopecký and Scherlis (2008, p. 355) argue that party patronage is used “as a critical organizational and governmental resource employed by political parties to enhance their standing as semi-state agencies of government.” Politicized appointment systems “… are thus thought … to contain certain benefits with respect to improving bureaucratic competence” (Krause et al. 2006, p. 771). Further, such complementary and cooperative relationships

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between political appointees and career bureaucrats can facilitate the implementation of policies and the achievement of the common goals (Lewis 2007, p. 1086). In Singapore’s context, the calibrated deployment of meritocracy and politically motivated appointments have been used to instil political responsiveness (Bell 2015), enabling it to mitigate the limits of either approach in picking those with the right brains and hearts. For example, commentators note that the line between bureaucracy and politics in Singapore is not as clear as it is often portrayed. Scholars observe that Singapore’s competent bureaucracy is subservient to the state’s political leaders (Ho 2000, 2003; Painter 2004; Vallance 1999). Despite the government’s insistence that the bureaucracy is politically impartial, it is expected to be ideologically aligned with the political executive and is, to a large extent, a politicized entity with a heightened sensitivity to the process of policy-making (Ho 2003). It is often argued that, while there is no explicit expectation to identify with the party in power, there is an unspoken need for confidence and loyalty to ensure that the implementation of policies is smooth and efficient (Ho 2003). In this chapter, we are particularly interested in exploring the extent to which this politicization of the bureaucracy may sometimes inform appointments to the public service posts. Our inquiry is guided by a question: What are the elements of politically motivated appointments that occur in the Singapore Public Service? We argue that certain aspects of Singapore Public Service still bear the institutional and cultural vestiges of politically motivated appointments, defined here as the process of appointing individuals into nonelected posts in the public sector by political actors on the basis of political considerations rather than merit alone. In this chapter, we examine two contemporary aspects of public service in Singapore which illustrate our argument. Firstly, we analyze the institutional process of selecting top public service positions in Singapore, showing how political considerations are factored into these appointments. Secondly, using the case of the People’s Association, we explore the major politically motivated appointments in para-political institutions and demonstrate how they affect local urban governance. Drawing on these examples, we trace the institutional and cultural dimensions of Singapore’s patronage appointments in public service to their roots in governing post-colonial and developmental state realities, as well

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as political exigencies. By experimenting with, institutionalizing, and condoning politically motivated appointment processes within the public sector, Singapore’s case offers us insights on how these processes persist in spite of the progress in public governance, as well as on the role of elite networks and political regime-making in shaping public sector opportunities.

2.2  Political Considerations in Top Public Service Positions Finding a published account of the level of politicization of public service appointments in Singapore is a difficult undertaking. Whatever has been written so far will almost universally feature “merit” as the key characteristic of the Singapore Public Service, leaving no room for other considerations which may take place in the decision-making process about appointments to non-elected public service positions. However, there are several issues that deserve further discussion when it comes to merit-based appointments in the Singapore Public Service. The recruitment and selection process in the Singapore Public Service is merit-based and emphasizes domain knowledge and expertise. In 1995, the government devolved most human resource management practices from the Public Service Commission (PSC) to a system of personnel boards (Chinn et al. 2015). Thus, recruitment to most positions is conducted by dedicated personnel boards in individual ministries and agencies that have the freedom to decide which skills are required for their respective jobs. At the same time, the PSC remains charged with the task of selecting and appointing individuals to the Administrative Service posts. The Singapore Administrative Service is a core of leadership-level civil service positions that are expected to work across different sectors of the Public Service to accumulate whole-of-government expertise and perspectives on the complexities of government in order to take up key leadership positions in the future (Public Service Division 2018). Among the positions pertaining to the Administrative Service are permanent secretaries who essentially exercise control and supervision of the ministry under the general guidance of the minister. We select the position of a permanent secretary due to its special status whereby the appointment process is determined in the Constitution while the overall job carries significant managerial responsibilities,

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and is almost a fail-proof stepping stone on the way to top management posts in the government of Singapore. It is, therefore, not surprising that the selection process for the position of a permanent secretary differs significantly from other Administrative Service posts. The appointment process to a permanent secretary’s job is stipulated in the Constitution of Singapore, according to which: “Appointments to the office of Permanent Secretary shall be made by the President, acting in accordance with the advice of the Prime Minister, from a list of names submitted by the Public Service Commission.” (Constitution of the Republic of Singapore 2021) while “The responsibility for the allocation of each Permanent Secretary to a Ministry shall be vested in the Prime Minister.” (Constitution of the Republic of Singapore 2021). This process already bears some vestiges of politicization – the appointment is not made by individual ministries but by the President, on the advice of the Prime Minister. Further, the position of the permanent secretary is the most senior in the hierarchy of the Administrative Service. The level of seniority translates into a certain degree of politicization – what Mayntz and Derlien (1989) call “functional politicization” – which refers to the sensitivity of senior public servants to political considerations without being directly involved with, and expressing a vocal preference for a political party (Derlien 1986, p. 123). This ability to anticipate political developments by public servants has been commonly described and is often considered a prerequisite for high-level public service positions, for example, in Europe and the US (Aberbach, Putnam & Rockman 1981; Goetz 2007). The requirements for political acumen, however, are not widely publicized, and for the purpose of the overall rhetoric, the vocal emphasis in Singapore is on the technical definition of merit. What gives the whole process legitimacy on the grounds of still being largely merit based is the involvement of the PSC which compiles a list of names following a selection procedure. At the same time, a closer look at the educational profiles of the current permanent secretaries may hold some insights for the type of personnel selected for this position. There are fifteen ministries in Singapore that have the position of a permanent secretary. This post is also found in the Prime Minister’s Office. Ten out of the fifteen ministries, as well as the Prime Minister’s Office, have two permanent secretaries. Out of the twenty-one permanent secretaries (four permanent secretaries hold positions concurrently

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in two ministries), at least eleven are alumni of one of Singapore’s prestigious scholarship programs – PSC scholarship, Overseas Merit Scholarship, Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) scholarship, Singapore Police Overseas Scholarship, or Government Local Merit Scholarship, while nineteen have at least one university degree from overseas. The eleven permanent secretaries are the ones we could find publicly available information on, so the actual number may be even higher. In Singapore’s case, various government scholarship programs are the manifestations of its talent management policy. These scholarships are used to ensure that academically apt individuals return to Singapore after their studies through a system of contractual bonds that scholars have to serve upon completion of their studies. For example, the PSC scholarship is specifically aimed at grooming future public servants who, upon completing their studies, return to Singapore and join one of three career paths: Public Administration, Professional Service, or Uniformed Services. Due to the unspoken association of these scholarships with the highest echelons of power in Singapore, many young Singaporeans apply because of the prestige and career prospects that these awards fetch (Lu 2021). The streamlined process of tests and interviews ensures that the candidates are of a certain thinking and character (Tan 2008) which will subsequently be rewarded with lucrative careers in the most prestigious corps of the public service – the elite Administrative Service that works at the juncture between politicians and the non-executive civil servants – with some commentators noting that the majority of the Administrative Service officers are scholarship recipients (Poocharoen & Lee 2013). Lim (2008) takes the argument even further by arguing that selection into Singapore’s top strata, including future political elites, is marked early by the award of a major university scholarship. The salience of being a scholar in order to acquire an important public service position, such as that of a permanent secretary, for example, feeds into a larger debate on merit. Tan (2008) argues that: “… the good society (and therefore its idea of merit) is in fact defined by meritocracy’s winners and their organic intellectuals, who must actively promote their definition in order to gain widespread consensus and support. Control of this definition is vital to the control of future prospects for winning and staying in power.” (Tan 2008: 9). Thus, while not a fail-proof indicator of the ideological and political alignment with the government, the status of a scholarship recipient

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in itself can be seen as a token of recognition as well as a long-term consent to be aligned with the government’s expectations in order to be able to climb up the civil service ladder. This is especially the case if the scholarship bond stipulates explicitly the obligation to return to Singapore and work in the civil service specifically. The room for dissent and political deviations from the established course in this case becomes very narrow. It could be argued that being a government scholarship holder in the context of the Singapore Public Service is a form of signaling intent. For example, Spence (1973) demonstrated how individuals with leadership intentions distinguish themselves from the rest of the candidates via the signal of higher-quality educational qualifications (Connelly et al. 2011, p. 40), in what Stiglitz (2000) conceptualized as ability signaling. Another form of signaling is intention (Stiglitz 2000). This is done with an aim to reduce uncertainties about future behavior and intentions. Combined, these two forms of signaling are aimed at informing the political leaders that public servants (who are also potentially future political leaders) are both technocrats and are politically compatible. Veit and Scholz (2016), for example, argue, using the example of Germany, that candidates for future top positions signal their intention or political alignment with the leadership by moving to positions close to party politics. Similarly in Singapore, as civil service candidates compete among their counterparts for top appointments with similar prestigious qualifications and currently estimated potentials (CEPs), the few viable distinctions they are able to make are through signaling their fealty and ideological alignments with the governing elite. Thus, in the context of Singapore, occupying the position of a permanent secretary, or even the entry to the Administrative Service, could be construed as an intention signal in itself, through which individuals demonstrate their alignment with the political leadership, while being a scholarship recipient is used as an ability signal (Stiglitz 2000). The combination of both seems to reinforce the government’s preference for a highly educated public service workforce with an equally high degree of political and ideological alignment with the political leadership of Singapore. Formally, in Singapore’s merit-based recruitment strategies, political credentials are not required. However, beneath this meritocratic veneer, ideological alignment with the government

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remains a prerequisite for selection, as reflected in the large number of scholarship recipients who climb up the Administrative Service ladder. This unspoken requirement for ideological alignment seems to be working in the Singapore context. While politicization may inevitably spill over into problems such as corruption, poor performance, and low capacity elsewhere in Asia, the fact that politicized appointments in the Singapore Public Service have accounted for some levels of policy success cannot be overlooked. Politically motivated appointments to important public service positions in Singapore may be practiced in order to perpetuate the political dominance of the existing system and make sure that ideological divergence of the bureaucrats does not get in the way of effective policy implementation. At the same time, the emphasis on academic excellence and outstanding performance remains the official stance which is reflected in the personnel makeup of the public service, and acts as a way to keep the negative consequences of politically motivated appointments at bay. Thus, stronger political leadership, better responsive competency, and the commitment to reaching common goals are achieved without the associated personal interdependencies between politicians and public servants which may lead to nepotism and corruption. Further still, public service in Singapore is known to be a recruitment ground for future political leaders (Tan 2008) who, in turn, will perpetuate the definition of “merit” as an explicit set of technocratic qualities based on academic credentials and an implicit ideological understanding of the political system, in order to ensure that the government operates like clockwork. This tacit understanding of the rules of the game ensures responsiveness while signaling the overall commitment to merit that has made the Singapore Public Service so prominently effective. We propose that it is this unique combination of harnessing meritocracy and politically motivated considerations that contributes to Singapore’s governance.

2.3  Politically Motivated Appointments and Parapolitics in State-sponsored Community Organizations: A Case Study of the People’s Association Politically motivated appointments in public service are not just exclusive to the top. Part of the prevalence also lies in local-level appointments of individuals into public service positions in public agencies

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with an expectation to serve the political incumbent through the blurring of lines between public and political interests, effectively achieving both. This is particularly so for public agencies which have functioned as para-political institutions, or ostensibly apolitical or nonpartisan institutions which are mobilized for political purposes (Seah 1985; Singh 2017). Here, we focus on the People’s Association (PA) to examine the two ways in which it engages in politically motivated appointments in mediating urban governance through state and partisan considerations. One remarkable aspect of the PA lies in its multifaceted institutional role in disseminating government policies, managing community relations, and implementing local-level service delivery (Haque 1996). As a statutory board under the Ministry of Community, Culture and Youth (MCCY), the PA operates under its public mission to “… build and bridge communities” (People’s Association 2021). It intervenes into community life in what Read (2012) characterized as administrative grassroots engagements. The PA does so through some 110 community clubs that manage community engagement at the constituency level, and are supported by 646 Resident Committees/Networks and 217 Neighborhood Committees that penetrate into Singapore’s public and private estate neighborhoods respectively. The administrative state’s presence and authority emerge through these state-sponsored ultra-local organizations whose sole aim is to embed themselves into the thick of communities to enact governance through local ties and grounded interactions. These institutional roots tie local communities to the state as it enacts urban governance and policing through these organizations. The political reach and potential of PA are not lost on the PAP government. While it has cultivated the PA as an integral institution of national development, the statutory board has also institutionalized para-political roles in concurrently preserving PAP’s incumbency advantages (Chan 1976; Seah 1985; Tan 2003). It does so by maintaining strict control over PA’s strategic directions under a board of management made up of political office holders in the PAP government appointed by the Prime Minister, including the Prime Minister himself, three full-Ministers, as well as its political allies in the trade union and civic community organizations (Mauzy & Milne 2002). To maintain local oversight of PA’s initiatives, the statutory board further appoints PAP local representatives into the role of Grassroots Advisers (GAs) under 9(c) of the People’s

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Association Act.1 Each constituency would consist of a GA who acts as the de-facto government-backed representative to lead PA’s organs in a designated local constituency. Despite its titular “adviser” status in the Citizen Consultative Committees – the apex grassroots committee in Singapore’s local neighborhoods – in reality, the GA wields immense authority in directing state-sponsored grassroots organizations within its constituency. While appointing elected political representatives to lead state-sponsored community organizations is not atypical, this policy is only applied to PAP-MPs. In opposition-run constituencies, the losing PAP candidate in the preceding General Elections is typically appointed as the local GA instead (Haque 1996). PA’s approach to GA appointments has been ostensibly justified as a political consideration in reproducing the interests of the ruling PAP government. For instance, in publicly clarifying PA’s stance in 2018, then-Deputy Chairperson of PA and Minister in the Prime Minister Office, Minister Chan Chun Sing explained that non-elected PAP leaders in opposition wards were appointed as GAs under the assumption that opposition MPs would not be able or willing to act in the interests of the PAP government (Yuen 2018). Similar remarks were made earlier in 1996 by then-Minister for Home Affairs, Minister Wong Kan Seng, that the decision to exclude Opposition MPs from GA positions was due to the fact that the PAP government could not entrust them to serve the interests of the government of the day to enact public policies (Hansard, Singapore 1996). In both instances, the underlying political consideration is in the assumption that GAs are local custodians of public resources who ensure that policy communication and implementation through the PA do not come into conflict with partisan politics. While these considerations addressed the concerns surrounding the appointment of opposition MPs, it did little to justify PA’s choice of PAP-unelected candidates in opposition wards as GAs, leading to longstanding chagrin expressed by opposition MPs in being excluded from accessing public resources to carry out their municipal duties (Daud 2019; Mauzy & Milne 2002). 1

Section 9(c) of the PA Act indicates the following: In order to achieve the objects set out in section 8, the Board may – appoint such officers and employees as it thinks fit for the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of this Act, and regulate the conduct and dismissal of those officers and employees. To this effect, GAs are recognized as “officers” as they do not receive a salary, but represent the statutory board as a public officer.

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A second way political considerations emerged from public service appointments in PA is through para-political expectations faced by street bureaucrats in their line of work in local constituencies. As the public service face of the institution, PA constituency staff members (PA-CSMs) often had to cope with juggling the expectations of PA’s overlapping objectives by their superiors. Despite reporting directly to their constituency director, PA-CSMs also support GRLs and GRAs by working closely with them to lead community initiatives. Some ex-PA-CSMs we spoke to shared their experiences of working under these conditions: “We report to the CD (constituency director) or DCDs (deputy constituency directors), but you cannot ignore the Advisers (GA) too because our boss also take instructions from them … Basically it’s like two bosses … if they got different plans, then have to play along as best we can lor (laughs)” (Ms Xu, ex PA-CSM of 5 years) “There is definitely a line to how much you can support in terms of nongrassroots activities … but this is more like a personal thing. You can support the PAP just like any other people … (but) you cannot let it influence your work. But easier said than done … last time I have seen colleagues help out with PAP branch work … when they use their professional roles or information, then it’s not right la. But how to refuse when the MP is also the Adviser?” (Mrs Oh, ex PA-CSM of 7 years)

As the above excerpts indicate, PA-CSMs deal with para-political interactions in their line of work when their everyday instances are tied up with interfacing requests from GAs and their constituency superiors. PA-CSMs recognize that their work in the grassroots sector overlaps with MP’s political objectives, but are unlikely to refuse due to direct pressures from their respective GAs. Other PA-CSMs are also sometimes influenced to serve their Gas, not due to partisan interests, but due to the personal relations and good rapport developed with their GAs. These two different instances show that the connections are far more linked to the GA’s direct interactions with PA-CSMs, than the latter’s ties with the PAP, if any. Respondents we spoke to shared examples such as community information collected by PA being shared to PAP-linked senior community volunteers or the GA, or being involved in meetings which involved PAP-related discussions. Other PA-CSMs also shared that GAs often expected and utilized them to coordinate the latter’s municipal commitments, such planning and engaging in house visits with residents and meetings with local

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political stakeholders. While they acknowledged that these commitments are part of their job scope, some PA-CSMs also admitted that working in PA as a constituency-level staff requires them to constantly negotiate with everyday encounters of para-politics in the neighborhood. Despite adhering to formal separation between party and state institutions, the local PA constituency organs remained embedded to local politics through the PAP-MP or non-elected PA lead to promote local initiatives spearheaded by these individuals. The ramifications of political considerations to urban governance through GA appointments and PA-CSMs’ work expectations in PA are twofold. Firstly, by channeling funding to sponsor municipal and community developments through the PA, these grassroots resources have remained only accessible to PAP political leaders through their roles as GAs. On the other hand, opposition-MPs have to rely on acquiring their own resources in order to engage in similar initiatives of their own. The uneven access to resources for municipal and community development plays a role in shaping local electoral performances when these developments funded by PA’s resources are linked to PAP candidates as their political contributions and competency during elections (Weiss 2020, 2017). Secondly, these political considerations typically have also extended to influence street bureaucrats’ day-to-day community engagements on the ground, such as avoiding associations with opposition-linked community volunteers. These reveal the inverse implications of local para-politics, where opposition members are often disadvantaged in their access to community participation or resources through the PA, owing to their oppositional political affiliations to the PAP. Similarly, local residents and opposition supporters often perceive the PA as the community front of PAP’s interests in local neighborhoods, which undermines the capabilities and autonomy of PA in its contributions to local public interests and engagements in the community. The case of PA serves to illustrate the institutional mechanisms of politically motivated appointments in public agencies as parapolitical institutions. But as others have pointed out, this is neither unique nor inexplicable to Singapore’s political landscape (Mauzy & Milne, 2002; Seah, 1985; Singh, 2017). For instance, civil servants were given opportunities to become observers at sessions conducted by Meet-the-People, a partisan institution, in order to understand the ground sentiments of those affected by public policies as part

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of their professional development. Part of the prevalence of these arrangements lies in idiosyncratic political beliefs shaped by PAP’s own experiences in its rise and preservation of political dominance in Singapore’s politics. The deep mistrust of opposition MPs to perform the roles of custodians of public resources by the PAP government have systematically been used as a justification to keep them out of public appointments, and limited the scope for what elected opposition party members can serve at the local level as public representatives. Meanwhile, local-level bureaucrats are continuously tethered to serving local PAP candidates when the latter pursue local community initiatives in their roles as GAs, and frame them as part of their political contributions to constituents.

2.4  Roots of Political Motivations: Elite Cohesion, Bureaucratic Absorption of Politics, and Calibrating Governance to Economic Globalization In tracing the reasons for these politically motivated appointments and why these political arrangements work to the interests of the ruling establishment, we draw on three different but non-mutually exclusive explanations in the existing scholarship. The first examines the strategies in maintaining elite cohesion by the PAP ruling elites (Barr 2014; Chen, 1975; Hill & Lian 2013). The origins of these strategies stemmed from early reliance on the part of the PAP government to maintain its political legitimacy through statist means. This move was primarily motivated by PAP’s split in 1961, between the left-wing PAP leaders, who later formed the Barisan Sosialis, and the moderate-wing leaders (Chan 1989). Despite holding on to the seat of government, the party split left the PAP’s fragmented elite exposed. However by the late 1960s, owing to the decline of the Barisan Sosialis through a series of crackdowns and internal strife, the PAP found itself in political dominance. To prevent a substantial challenge to its power, the PAP sought to identify, co-opt, or control elites in the other spheres of society by formally and informally linking them to the PAP ruling elite (Chen 1975), effectively forming a political establishment capable of defending its interest against external interventions. Meanwhile, learning from its formative experience with internal party rifes, the PAP invested deeply into establishing social controls through institutional means in order to

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not only maintain elite cohesion, but in some cases, reproduce PAP elites through these channels. As we have pointed out earlier, the use of ideological alignment as a political consideration of candidates in the selection of top-tier civil service administrative positions is crucial in ensuring that the civil service remains politically beholden, if not ideologically aligned with the ruling PAP elites. Furthermore, as the PAP draws on the very same civil service administration pool to select and groom PAP’s future political leadership, this all the more justifies its emphasis to pick candidates not only with the right “brains,” but also with the right “heart.” In doing so, the ruling elite is able to appeal to meritocracy as a necessary but insufficient criterion of public leadership, while at the same time legitimizing its use of political motivations to pick candidates while aligned into its elite cohesion strategies. Meanwhile, others have looked to the paths taken in Singapore’s political development in accounting for the institutional practice of politically motivated appointments by the ruling PAP government (Mauzy and Mine 2002; Rodan 2008). One such development was in what Chan (1976) described as “administrative state politics” starting in the 1970s, which was largely characterized by the bureaucratic absorption of politics in order to serve PAP’s developmentalist state pursuits. Political organs which were typically managed by political parties in newly industrializing nations came under the purview of state institutions in Singapore instead, managed by bureaucrats who were appointed to navigate local politics in the public’s interests. In doing so, the Singapore state has consistently played a major role in arbitrating over local politics through the strong-state model, with public servants interfacing political engagements both at the national level as well as in day-to-day interactions. Control over these state institutions enabled the PAP government to steer mass political demands into policy expectations without negotiating with intermediaries to influence the policymaking process. At the same time, the transfer of certain political functions from PAP party organs to state institutions also reduced the cost of maintaining them through party resources and keeping the party relatively compact. To keep the massive influence state institutions have over politics in check, the PAP government relied extensively on the executive branch to rein over the bureaucracy by having significant control over key public service appointments in the bureaucracy as well as actively direct state

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institutions agendas. The political system is thus designed to retain executive decisions to the ruling PAP government, while public servants were given a wide berth within their designated institutional scope to carry out their functions. More contemporarily, the control over state institutions also allowed the PAP government to quickly enact bureaucratic reforms to respond to new public expectations or political realities without having to be held hostage to bureaucratic inertia, as seen in other developmentalist counterparts (Kim & Han 2015; Tsuneki 2012). A growing literature surrounding the increasing complexities of governance in the light of New Public Management (NPM) reforms to economic globalization also partly explains the political linkages of public service appointments in Singapore. Scholars point to the expansion of governing elites to include public-, private-, and peoplesector leaders in leveraging state and non-state capital to address new policy realities in the areas of sustainability, policy communications, and the political economy (Francesch-Huidobro 2008; Hamilton-Hart 2002; Lee & Lee 2019; Woo 2016). Singapore’s NPM reforms complemented its choice of tapping into non-state resources and markets through its state-owned enterprises to develop new economic opportunities, following its developmentalist state antecedents of a statedriven economic approach and strong fiscal discipline (Lee & Haque 2006). In light of these transformations, politically motivated appointments made in public service could also be framed as part of the larger political coordination to groom members of the administrative service to gain private-sector exposure and move them back into top civil service positions in response to the restructuring done to address changes in economic globalization. One peculiar trend worth pointing out to the external observer is that these politically motivated appointments are not applied in unison across the civil service sector. Instead, politically motivated considerations surfaced in public service positions where ideological alignment is critical to policy coherence and efficacy. This can be seen in permanent secretaries’ and grassroots advisers’ selections, as well as in aligning PA-CSMs’ work expectations to the government of the day. For the most part of Singapore’s civil service, while it is difficult to assume that appointments are wholly free of any political considerations, they do not seem to feature as prominently as our two examples suggest. The implications here are twofold. Firstly,

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it means that these considerations are calibrated and applied only when the incumbent government recognizes the political and policy needs in featuring politically motivated considerations into appointments. Secondly, it might also suggest that as the public sector innovates in response to demands from public-, private-, and peoplesector expectations, political considerations might be further incorporated as a strategy to deploy professionals outside of conventional public service expertise pools. Such considerations may also serve as an alternative to the government outsourcing model (Freeman & Minow 2009). Instead of relying on contracts and private sector incentivization, governments can also utilize political incentivization and ideological alignments as a feature of choosing the right people for the job.

2.5  Figures of Politically Motivated Appointments: Singapore’s Case We are pointedly using the term “politically motivated appointments” to describe the extent to which the deliberative processes of public service appointments in Singapore are framed through political considerations. While the theme of this volume is the manifestations of political patronage in Asia, the use of the term “patronage” has come under intense scrutiny in Singapore for its close associations with corruption. In a country with a reputation for disavowing and combating corruption, such repudiation is understandable. Likewise, as we have pointed out earlier, it is grossly inaccurate to say that public service appointments are made by political actors by directly disregarding existing merit-based procedures. Instead, we argue both merit and political considerations complemented with identifying the necessary “brains” and “hearts” desired by the political executives to fulfill the ethos of public service. This applies to the positions of the permanent secretaries too – even though the appointments to this position are made by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister, the list is still compiled by the PSC using clear merit criteria. Similarly, the political considerations embedded in Grassroots Adviser appointments and job expectations of PA staff members produce para-politics that reflect Singapore’s approach of state institutions mediating local politics while not shying away from the fact that governance is always a political task. These political

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considerations are therefore made to produce both the capacity as well as the control to govern. At the same time, some parallels with the patronage framework by Peters can and should be drawn because they provide a ­context-sensitive framework of assessing the extent and the function of politicization of bureaucracies by means of appointments. The typology of appointments proposed in this first chapter of this book fits the context of politically motivated appointments in Singapore on at least three accounts: party professionals, apparatchiks, and programmatic technocrats. All three require an expression of fealty to the political party in power that candidates display for, but for different policy and political contexts. In our example with toplevel public service appointments, they most closely resembled the figure of party professionals, whose appointments are based on their ability and commitment to serve the governing elites in the incumbent PAP government. Despite strict restrictions imposed on civil servants which prevent them from joining political parties, the political longevity and dominance of the PAP’s rule make displays of commitment or fealty to the PAP government a viable strategy by civil servants seeking to rise in the administrative service. The appointment of PAP-MPs and PAP-linked leaders into GA positions however appeal to apparatchik-based characteristics, where party loyalties are tied to ideological alignments in managing public service delivery and municipal developments. PA-CSMs, on the other hand, best resemble programmatic technocrats. Their willingness to engage in para-politics is dependent on their relationship with their GAs, with those sharing high levels of personal rapport, seeing no difference between their job’s objectives and those of the GA’s interests, while others with less rapport simply obey out of pressures from authority.

2.6 Conclusion Singapore’s case offers us insights to how political undercurrents in public service appointments and processes persist in spite of topping global public governance indicators. Such persistence, however, needs to be observed not simply as governance lapses or political flaws. Instead, it needs to be analyzed in terms of how these considerations have continued working for the PAP government in achieving its

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political and governance objectives. At the same time, it also underscores the continued significance of the governing elite in shaping public sector opportunities in spite of a robust meritocratic system of choosing the country’s best for its public service appointments. The existing arrangement of factoring political considerations along with its meritocracy framework highlights the PAP government’s emphasis on viewing governing competencies not just through the right “brains,” but also the right “heart.” It further demonstrates how the merit system in Singapore props up the need to find the best and brightest to serve the ruling party and be part of the elite class (Poocharoen & Brillantes 2013). This is informed by the existing party system, the nature of the political regime, as well as a number of social factors, such as the reinforcement of the elitist nature of merit in Singapore (Tan 2008). On the other hand, the political appointment of GAs as public custodians of municipal resources and development and the para-political interactions of PA staff members underscore the dynamics of ideological alignments in local politics. Furthermore, we explained how politically motivated considerations are not a replacement to meritocracy and merit-based hiring, but that they go handin-hand in achieving ideological alignments in civil service positions that require both the right brains and the heart in developing policies that are broadly in agreement with the incumbent government’s political vision for the country. Applied together, these factors address the question of why the marriage between merit and political considerations has worked for Singapore despite mixed or disappointing results in Asian countries elsewhere. These processes are however made against a backdrop of PAP’s regime resilience in dominating Singapore’s politics since its independence. It cannot be ignored that these political considerations are possible precisely due to the political hegemony, relative elite cohesion, and the legitimacy premium afforded to PAP leaders in making authoritative decisions. The system works precisely because it has delivered for the most part, and promises to continue doing so. These promises have come under scrutiny in the midst of global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic as well as demographic and economic viability of Singapore’s future. Will these processes survive in a post-dominant-PAP regime? Or will they morph to reflect the new institutional or political pressures, just like many other cases before Singapore’s? Only time will tell.

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References Aberbach, J.D., Putnam, R.D. and Rockman, B.A. (1981). 5. The Compass of Elite Ideology. In Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (pp. 115–169). Harvard: Harvard University Press. Barr, M.D. (2014). The Ruling Elite of Singapore: Networks of Power and Influence. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Bell, D.A. (2015). The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chan. H.C. (1976). The Dynamics of One Party Dominance: The PAP at the Grass-roots. Singapore: Singapore University Press. Chan, H.C. (1989). 3. The PAP and the Structuring of the Political System (pp. 70–89). Singapore: ISEAS Publishing. Chen, P.S. (1975). Elites and National Development in Singapore. Asian Journal of Social Science, 3(1), pp. 17–25. Cheung, B.L.A. (2003). Public Service Reform in Singapore: Reinventing Government in a Global Age. In Cheung, Anthony and Scott, Ian (Eds.), Governance and Public Sector Reform in Asia: Paradigm Shifts or Business as Usual? (pp. 138–162). Routledge: Curzon. Chinn, D., Dimson, J., Goodman, A. and Gleeson, I. (2015). World-Class Government Transforming the UK Public Sector in an Era of Austerity: Five Lessons from around the World. Connelly, B.L., Ketchen, D.J. and Slater, S.F. (2011). Toward a “Theoretical Toolbox” for Sustainability Research in Marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 39(1), pp. 86–100. Constitution of the Republic of Singapore. (2021). Available at: https:// sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/CONS1963 (accessed on 6 May 2021). Daud, S. (2019). Residents’ Ramp Took 7 Years to Build due to PAP’s “Divisive Approach to Politics”: Workers’ Party Pritam Singh, Mothership, October 16, 2019. Accessed from: https://mothership.sg/2019/10/pritamsingh-ramp-pa/ Derlien, H.‐U. (1986). Soziale Herkunft und Parteibindung der Beamtenschaft. In Ellwein, T. and Wehling, H.‐G. (Eds.), Verwaltung und Politik in der Bundesrepublik (pp. 115–132). Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Eichbaum, C. and Shaw, R. (2007). Ministerial Advisers and the Politics of Policy‐making: Bureaucratic Permanence and Popular Control. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 66(4), pp. 453–467. Francesch-Huidobro, M. (2008). Governance, Politics and the Environment: A Singapore Study (Vol. 349). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Freeman, J. and Minow, M. (Eds.). (2009). Government by Contract: Outsourcing and American Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Goetz, K. (2007). German Officials and the Federal Policy Process: The Decline of Sectional Leadership. In Page, E. C. and Wright, V. (Eds.), From the Active to the Enabling State (pp. 164–188). London: Palgrave. Hamilton-Hart, N. (2002). Asian States, Asian Bankers: Central Banking in Southeast Asia. New York: Cornell University Press. Hansard, Singapore. (1996). “People’s Association (Amendment) Bill” Parliament No. 8, Session no. 2, Vol. no: 66, Sitting no: 8, 10 October, 1996. Accessed from: http://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/topichtmlfilename=013_ 19961010_S0003_T0006 Haque, S.M. (1996). A Grassroots Approach to Decentralization in Singapore. Asian Journal of Political Science, 4(1), pp. 64–84. Hill, M., and Lian, K.F. (2013). The Politics of Nation Building and Citizenship in Singapore. London: Routledge. Ho, K.C. (2000). Competing to Be Regional Centres: A Multi-agency, Multi-locational Perspective. Urban Studies, 37(12), pp. 2337–2356. Ho, K.L. (2003). Shared Responsibilities, Unshared Power: The Politics of Policy-making in Singapore. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International. Kim, S. and Han, C. (2015). Administrative Reform in South Korea: New Public Management and the Bureaucracy. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 81(4), pp. 694–712. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852314558034 Kopecký, P. and Scherlis, G. (2008). Party Patronage in Contemporary Europe. European Review, 16(3), p. 355. Krause, G.A., Lewis, D.E. and Douglas, J.W. (2006). Political Appointments, Civil Service Systems, and Bureaucratic Competence: Organizational Balancing and Executive Branch Revenue Forecasts in the American States. American Journal of Political Science, 50(3), pp. 770–787. Lee Hsien Loong. (2016). Civil Service Not Independent of Government But Politically Impartial, The Straits Times. Available at: www.straitstimes .com/politics/civil-service-not-independent-of-government-but-politicallyimpartial-pm-lee (accessed on 1 May 2021). Lee, E.W. and Haque, M.S. (2006). The New Public Management Reform and Governance in Asian NICs: A Comparison of Hong Kong and Singapore 1. Governance, 19(4), pp. 605–626. Lee, H. and Lee, T. (2019). From Contempt of Court to Fake News: Public Legitimisation and Governance in Mediated Singapore. Media International Australia, 173(1), pp. 81–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1329878X19853074 Lewis, D.E. (2007). Testing Pendleton’s Premise: Do Political Appointees make Worse Bureaucrats? The Journal of Politics, 69(4), pp. 1073–1088. Lim, L. (2008). How Just Our Meritocracy? – Singapore Needs to Find a Better Balance So That Social Inequality Does Not Become Entrenched, Straits Times, 30 August, Newsbank, Access World News, p. 1.

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Lu, L. (2021). Applying a ‘Glonacal’ Framework: The Education Choices of Academically Elite Students in Singapore in Relation to State Scholarships. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 20(3), pp. 1–13. Mauzy D. and Milne, R.S. (2002). Singapore Politics under the People’s Action Party. New York: Routledge. Mayntz, R. and Derlien, H.U. (1989). Party Patronage and Politicization of the West German Administrative Elite 1970–1987: Toward Hybridization? Governance, 2(4), pp. 384–404. Painter, M. (2004). The Politics of Administrative Reform in East and Southeast Asia: From Gridlock to Continuous Self-Improvement? Governance, 17, pp. 361–386. Peters, B.G. and Pierre, J. (Eds.) (2004). The Politicization of the Civil Service in Comparative Perspective: A Quest for Control (Vol. 7). London: Routledge. People’s Association. (2021). About Us. Accessed from: www.pa.gov.sg/ about-us Poocharoen, O.O. and Brillantes, A. (2013). Meritocracy in Asia Pacific: Status, Issues, and Challenges. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 33(2), pp. 140–163. Poocharoen, O.O. and Lee, C. (2013). Talent Management in the Public Sector: A Comparative Study of Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. Public Management Review, 15(8), pp. 1185–1207. Public Service Division. (2018). Administrative Service. Available at: www.psd .gov.sg/what-we-do/developing-leadership-in-the-service/administrativeservice (accessed on 20 April 2021). Quah, J.S. (2021). Best Practices for Combating Corruption: Learning from Singapore and Hong Kong. In Corruption in the Public Sector: An International Perspective. Bingley: Emerald Publishing. Read, B. (2012) Roots of the State: Neighbourhood Organisation and Social Networks in Beijing and Taipei. California: Stanford University Press. Rodan, G. (2008). Singapore ‘Exceptionalism’? Authoritarian Rule and State Transformation’ In Wong, J., and Friedman, E. (Eds.), Political Transitions in Dominant Party Systems: Learning to Lose (pp. 247–267). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203893111 Seah, C.M. (1985). Parapolitical Institutions. In Quah, J.S.T., Chan, H.C. and Seah, C.M. (Eds.), Government and Politics of Singapore (pp. 173–94). Singapore: Oxford University Press. Singapore Prime Minister’s Office. (1994). White Paper on Competitive Salaries for Competent & Honest Government: Benchmarks for Ministers & Senior Public Officers. Available at: www.nas.gov.sg/archivesonline/ government_records/record-details/a0bef428-730e-11e7-83df-0050568939 ad (accessed on 1 May 2021).

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Singh, B. (2017). Understanding Singapore Politics. Singapore: World Scientific Press. Śliwa, M. and Johansson, M. (2014). The Discourse of Meritocracy Contested/Reproduced: Foreign Women Academics in UK Business Schools. Organization, 21(6), pp. 821–843. So, B.W.Y. (2015). Exam‐centred Meritocracy in Taiwan: Hiring by Merit or Examination? Australian Journal of Public Administration, 74(3), pp. 312–323. Spence, M. (1973). Job Market Signaling. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 87(3), pp. 355–374. Stiglitz, J.E. (2000). The Contributions of the Economics of Information to Twentieth Century Economics. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115(4), pp. 1441–1478. Tan, K.P. (2003). Democracy and the Grassroots Sector in Singapore. Space & Polity, 7(1): pp. 3–20. Tan, K.P. (2008). Meritocracy and Elitism in a Global City: Ideological Shifts in Singapore. International Political Science Review, 29(1), pp. 7–27. Transparency International. (2020). 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index. Available at: www.transparency.org/en/press/2020-corruption-perceptionsindex-reveals-widespread-corruption-is-weakening-covid-19-responsethreatening-global-recovery (accessed on 1 May 2021). Tsuneki, A. (2012). Japanese Bureaucracy, Japanese Economy, 39(3), pp. 49–68. Vallance, S. (1999). Performance Appraisal in Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines: A Cultural Perspective. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 58(4), pp. 78–95. Van-Biesen, G. (2006). Overview of Civil Service Selection Procedures in EU Context. In Belgium Seminar on “Civil Service Recruitment Procedures”, Vilnius (pp. 21–22). Van der Wal, Z. (2021). Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigations Bureau: Guardian of Public Integrity. In Guardians of Public Value (pp. 63–86). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Veit, S. and Scholz, S. (2016). Linking Administrative Career Patterns and Politicization: Signalling Effects in the Careers of Top Civil Servants in Germany. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 82(3), pp. 516–535. Weiss, M.L. (2017). Going to the Ground (or AstroTurf): A Grassroots View of Regime Resilience. Democratization, 24(2), pp. 265–282. Weiss, M.L. (2020). The Roots of Resilience: Party Machines and Grassroots Politics in Southeast Asia. Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press. Woo, J.J. (2016). Singapore as an International Finance Centre. London: Palgrave.

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World Bank. (2020). Worldwide Governance Indicators. Available at: https://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/Home/Reports (accessed on 15 April 2021). World Economic Forum. (2020). Global Competitiveness Report 2020. Available at: www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-competitiveness-report2020 (accessed on 13 April 2021). Yuen, S. (2018). Parliament: Grassroots Advisers Appointed to Fulfil Mission of Government of the Day, Says Chan Chun Sing, The Straits Times, Mar 8, 2018. Accessed from: www.straitstimes.com/politics/grassrootsadvisors-are-appointed-to-fulfil-mission-of-government-of-the-day-chanchun-sing

3

Patronage and Politicisation in the Indian Administrative Service Naresh Chandra Saxena

3.1  Merit-Based Recruitment Co-existing with Patronage-Based Management At the bureaucratic level, India’s administration and policymaking are largely headed and controlled by members of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). Almost all Secretaries (equivalent to Permanent Secretaries in UK), both at the Central and State Governments, belong to the IAS. Despite their recruitment being merit based and hence attracting the best talent in the country, their performance leaves much to be desired. It is primarily because management of the service, including transfers and postings, is in the hands of the politicians and is exploited by them to pressurise the IAS officers to meet their personal goals. This paper discusses how, after Independence in 1947, political pressures in India started eroding administrative autonomy, and the control over administration passed on from the civil servants to their political bosses. This trend has received a further boost after the present government headed by Mr Modi came to power in 2014. The IAS is the direct descendant of the Indian Civil Service (ICS), considered “the ‘steel frame’ of the British Empire” before independence. Their initial recruitment through a written examination followed by interviews by an independent Commission of high repute, called Union Public Service Commission (UPSC), is on merit1 and considered fair, and therefore the best brains in the country join the Service at a young age. Consisting of about 5,200 officers in 2020, they staff the most important positions in district2 administration, state and central 1

2

In 2019, the present BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) government wanted to dilute meritorious recruitment, but the proposal was put on hold due to adverse criticism in the media. This is discussed towards the end of this paper. India has 28 states, 718 districts, and about 650,000 villages. States are responsible for health, education, water, police, etc., and are headed by a chief minister, who may be from a different political party than the one ruling the Centre. In 2021, the BJP controlled 17 Indian states.

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government secretariats, and state-owned enterprises. Two-thirds of their career they serve in a particular state, and the rest on deputation to the Centre. A particularly important position manned by them is that of a district officer, called the District Magistrate (DM), who is responsible for ensuring law and order, organising relief and rehabilitation in cases of natural disasters, implementing development policies, and overseeing all aspects of administration in a specific district. Thus it is a position of considerable significance. IAS officers are career civil servants, and political neutrality is a requirement of their position. While in service, they cannot join political parties or be involved in any political events. Politicians are not involved in the initial hiring process of IAS officers (Kapur 2020). Almost all IAS officers enjoy time-bound promotion and career stability till they retire at the age of 60 years. It would appear from the above that the top bureaucracy in India meets most of the conditions of a Weberian bureaucracy, as opposed to some other countries where political and personal criteria largely determine bureaucratic recruitment on patronage basis (Rauch and Evans 2000; Dahlström et al 2012). Yet its performance has been wanting, and IAS officers have not been able to improve development outcomes for common citizens. This is largely due to the fact that the political culture in India, especially at the states’ level (and now at the Centre too since the BJP came to power in 2014) prioritises personal benefits, and politicians control the civil service to buttress their private gains or ideological goals. Immediate political pressures for distribution of personal favours are so intense that there is no time or inclination for the ministers and bureaucrats to think conceptually, to design good programmes, weed out those that are not functioning well, monitor the programmes with a view to improve the effectiveness of delivery, or undertake systemic reforms. Thus, recruitment to the IAS is not through patronage, which refers specifically to the appointment of public officials by political leaders. Politicisation is a more encompassing concept, referring to all attempts to impose political control over the public bureaucracy (Peters and Pierre 2004; Cooper 2021). Patronage is clearly one such method for gaining control, but it is not the only one. In India, political leaders employ tactics such as moving perceived opponents out of key positions, and posting their favoured ones so as to use them to buttress their personal gains. This is formally done by Ministers who have been vested with the powers to order transfers and postings, but often at the

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behest of their supporters, who could be politicians of their own party or influential men from their constituencies. At the Government of India (GOI) level, it is now being done by the PM himself, or his close advisers, as the GOI administration has become quite centralised under Mr Modi. India has seen, since 2014, the “presidentialisation” of politics, with the PM consolidating his powers vis-a-vis cabinet and parliament (Poguntke and Webb 2005) and building large personal staff through patronage appointments, who are mostly pliable IAS officers. Not only for the IAS, recruitment of public servants at most levels (though not for contractual employees) is merit based (Kapur 2020). We describe in the following section the basic features of government servants in India, and how they are recruited.

3.2  Government Servants in India India’s government employment is quite low by international standards (World Bank 2003). As against the global average of more than 3% of population, the total number of government staff in India, including central and state governments, PSUs (public sector undertakings), and local bodies, is about 1.4% of the population, which is only one-tenth of that in Norway, only 15% of that in Brazil, and much less than a third of that in China.3 On a per capita basis, India’s total civilian employment is less than half the average for Asia and less than one-sixth the average for OECD countries. In addition to overall shortage, there are too many government servants in the support positions – such as clerks, orderlies, and drivers – who are now not needed in this era of advanced technology, and too few people in the frontline positions – such as teachers, nurses, judges, and policemen – who are meant to deliver public services. Key public services – education, healthcare, police, and judiciary – are starved of regular employees, whereas many wings are overstaffed with lowerlevel support staff that has become mostly irrelevant in view of computerisation and changing techniques of information management. However, salaries of regular government staff as a multiple of per capita income in India are highest when compared with those of other countries, as shown in Table 3.1. 3

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Table 3.1  Wage as a multiple of per capita GDP Region

Multiple

Africa Asia Eastern Europe and central Asia Latin American countries Middle East and North Africa OECDa India

5.7 3.0 1.3 2.5 3.4 1.6 7.2

Overall

3.0

a   Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; 34 richest countries are members of this group. Source: World Bank (2003).

Pay increases in India are not intended to serve as a reward for increased productivity, but are given instead to gain support from the labour unions and to eliminate the threat of labour unrest. Moreover, government servants manage election booths, and no political party can afford their collective anger. With limited revenues, it is just not possible to increase government employees on a regular basis, and therefore states have resorted to hiring contractual staff at lower salaries, between one-fifth and half of the salary of a comparable regular employee. They mostly work at the grassroots level as teachers and health workers. Their number is not readily available, though it could be almost a quarter of the number of regular staff. In addition to grassroots workers, there are other opportunities too for ad hoc appointments, purely on personal choice. For instance, Ministers, both at the Centre and the states, are allowed to appoint a personal secretary of their choice – paid for by public funds – but their role in policy formulation is marginal. They mostly look after the Minister’s personal matters, especially relating to the Minister’s constituency.

3.3  Patronage in Recruitment In theory, recruitment at most levels, at least for regular staff, is to be made by governments on merit based on a written examination.

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However, the power to appoint grassroots workers, especially the contractual staff, has been delegated to the district-level authorities or committees, who often yield to pressures from the local politicians of the states such as members of the legislative assembly4 (MLAs) and accommodate their recommendations. I quote below from a study (Deshpande 2019) done for Maharashtra, a rich state in western India: …in actual practice anganwadi worker5 recruitment became the domain of the local MLA. The chairperson of the selection committee as well as the panchayat samiti6 member were typically his nominees and would manipulate the interview scores to favour a pre-determined set of candidates based on patronage as well as informal payments.

However, the question arises, why do the IAS district authorities, who control such appointments and enjoy continuity of their service and time-bound promotion, succumb to political pressures? We analyse this issue in detail in the following sections. Often recruitment involves both a written as well as an oral test, such as for police constables (which is the lowest police rank in India), or for teachers. Favouritism and political pressures cannot be ruled out in such appointments. Sometimes corruption involved in recruiting staff has resulted in conviction of even senior ministers. In January 2013, former chief minister of Haryana (a rich state in Northwest India) and his son were given 10 years of jail by a special court for illegally recruiting over 3,000 teachers in the year 1999–2000. The probe agency concluded that each recruited candidate had paid Rs three to four lakhs7 illegally to the accused. Though IAS officers retire at the age of 60, a few of them are given extensions or contractual appointments after their retirement, purely on a patronage basis. This trend has become quite common after Mr Modi took over as Prime Minister in 2014, and even appointments to Constitutional positions, such as Election Commissioners, are now 4 5

6

7

Akin to Parliament at the Centre. She works at the village level to reduce child malnutrition. Although a contractual employee on a meagre salary, her job gives her ample opportunity to make illicit money from the budget allocated for feeding children. The total number of anganwadi workers in India would be more than a million. Panchayat samiti is a committee at the sub-district (block) level consisting of elected members. It functions like a municipality to provide development services. 1 lakh = 100,000.

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made on political considerations, in order to lure the serving officers with temptations so that they “fall in line” while in service and succumb to Ministers’ desires. The “spoils” system has thus been given a boost by Mr Modi for short-term postings, including appointments of chairmen of various public sector boards and advisory committees. For instance, both the Chairman and the Member-Secretary of the policy think tank called NITI AYOG (the successor of the Planning Commission) are patronage appointments, and it helps the Modi government in formulation of policies that are ideologically tuned to the BJP political philosophy.

3.4  Political Compulsions and Bureaucracy There is a growing belief widely shared among the political class in India that the state is an arena where public office is to be used for private ends (Gupta 2016). The state resources are the most valued prize for both politicians and their constituencies, which leads to a client– patron relationship between the holders of state power and those seeking favours. The political system in many states is accountable not to the people but to those who are behind the individual Members of the state-level Legislative Assemblies (MLAs); these are often contractors, mafia, criminals, corrupt bureaucrats, and manipulators who have made money through the political system, and are therefore interested in the continuation of chaos and patronage-based administration. The fact that half of the politicians in some states are either criminals or have strong criminal links and thus have no faith in the rule of law further compounds the problem. Bardhan (2016) observes that the average wealth of Indian politicians keeps rising at a fast rate due to unrecorded corporate donations with some reciprocal quid pro quo. As the official judicial system is dysfunctional, criminals often sort out local disputes fast, which adds to their popularity with the masses, and hence are preferred as electoral candidates by the political parties. Politicians would feel constrained if “better quality” officers are posted in their area as it would interfere with control by criminals of their area (Das and Sabharwal 2017), and hence prefer pliable and complicit officers. Although some chief ministers are keen to improve governance, unfortunately, only a few have been able to translate this into concrete action. This would necessarily involve keeping the MLAs and

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ministers under check, which is difficult when the state is under a coalition regime, or the ruling party is constrained by a thin margin in the Assembly or is divided into factions. The reformist chief minister is often at odds with his own party members who hate getting sidelined in the process of establishing rule-based policy procedures. In many other states, even chief ministers seem to be averse to professionalising administration. They think that benefits from such reforms are delayed, whereas costs are immediate. Thus, the state’s capacity to deliver results is weak – not necessarily because of a dearth of capable people but because of a systemic impasse. Patronage is controlled by individuals, not by established institutions bound to follow set procedures. Where power is highly personalised and weakly institutionalised, the decision-making process is replaced by arbitrary and behind-the-scene transactions. In such an environment, the exercise of power for its clients demands fudging of rules, dependence upon corrupt civil servants, plundering of the public treasury and decay of governance. When the fence starts eating the field, there is little chance of development reaching the poor. India’s own Second Administrative Reforms Commission admitted (2008), Criminalization of politics continues unchecked, with money and muscle power playing a large role in elections. In general there is a high degree of volatility in society on account of unfulfilled expectations and poor delivery. Abuse of authority at all levels in all organs of state has become the bane of our democracy.

3.5  Patronage at the Central Government In sharp contrast to several states, the central government was always considered to be more professional. It selected serving IAS officers from the states on merit, and believed in giving to them a long tenure of several years on the same post (Banik 2001). However, the BJP government, since 2014, has further promoted patronage-based administrative culture by giving powerful posts to those officers who are close to the Prime Minister or are willing to submit to the Hindutva8 ideology. IAS and Police officers from the Gujarat cadre – where the Prime Minister 8

A form of rightwing Hindu Nationalism which believes Islam to be its greatest enemy. India has about 15% Muslim population.

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Modi served as Chief Minister during 2000–14 – have been more than rewarded – often bypassing equally or more competent officers (Sircar 2021). In prioritising ideological malleability over merit and experience, the BJP government has institutionalised a culture of mediocrity. While all governments are universally motivated by their ideologies (a hallmark of democracy, which is the playground on which different ideologies compete with each other), there has to be an impregnable firewall between civil servants and the political class. Breaching that leads to undesirable outcomes – in policy design and programme implementation as well as in the neutrality of public institutions which do not remain impartial adjudicators between competing interests. According to the Service Rules, public servants/bureaucrats should be politically neutral and follow the core principles of anonymity while dealing with the media. With the BJP government in power in India since 2014, there has been a rise in cases where many IAS officers have publicly, through social media, expressed their willingness, likes, and dislikes, taken positions, and defended ideological positions of government quite openly, which is contrary to the Civil Service (Conduct) Rules, 1968. After coming to power, the BJP has openly promoted hatred against Muslims (Rogenhofer & Panievsky 2020), because for the BJP, Muslims are non-voters and hence their concerns can not only be ignored, but deliberately hitting at their interests occasionally (Article 370,9 CAA,10 anti-conversion laws11) is considered electorally rewarding. Recently, and to the great dismay of an overwhelming majority of civil servants, an IPS12 officer used his social media handle to air brazenly communal opinions. Similarly, a Rajasthan IAS officer has repeatedly used his twitter handle to express partisan opinions. Even if one disregards the Civil Service Rules (which no upright civil servant working in the national interest would do), officials in any post have a 9

10

11

12

Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, the only state with Muslim majority, was withdrawn in 2019 and the state was converted into a Union Territory to be directly controlled by the Centre. The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, which was passed in 2019, allows only non-Muslims from neighbouring Muslim-majority countries to get Citizenship rights in India. Although the Constitution of India allows citizens a right to practice and promote their religion, many BJP-ruled states have passed laws to prevent people from converting to Islam and Christianity. Indian Police Service, an all-India service akin to the IAS.

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special responsibility to hold themselves to a higher standard. This is because they also serve as role models. It is therefore unconscionable for public officials to be involved in anything that smacks of partisanship or unconstitutionality. It is the GoI’s duty to set straight any errant officials that flout the Civil Service Rules. But if the government itself engineers partisanship and unconstitutional statements by bureaucrats, it is difficult to implement rules and protocols. This is borne out by how the GoI has conducted itself on two separate instances. At the Centre’s request, the Jammu and Kashmir government initiated a departmental inquiry in 2018 against a Muslim IAS officer for a tweet expressing his anguish at incidents of violence against women. He had tweeted, “Population + Patriarchy + Illiteracy + Alcohol + Porn + Technology + Anarchy = Rapistan.” While it is clear that his tweet did not violate any Conduct Rule, the Modi government’s action against him is in stark contrast to its silence over a Hindu officer’s social media postings which appear to more directly violate Service Rules as these are filled with communal undertones.13 The main guiding force of Civil Servants must be his/her commitment to the Constitution of India rather than the political party in power. This is where the norms of Neutrality and Anonymity are being flouted since 2014 (Bhat et al. 2020). The BJP is also against civil society, those who wish to promote human rights and liberal values. This is reflected in its suspension of overseas funding for a large number of domestic civil society groups on the grounds that they oppose the national interest. For example, the Delhi-based Lawyers Collective was barred from receiving foreign grants after representing some Modi critics, including a prominent campaigner for justice in the Gujarat riots. After the BJP’s 2014 general election victory, the number of non-governmental organisations authorised to receive overseas funding fell by some 16,000, from more than 40,000 (McDonnell and Cabrera 2019). The rise of Hindu fundamentalism absolves the rulers from their responsibility of providing clean, equitous and humane administration. Further, this government has placed all kinds of restrictions on civil liberties. Intellectuals, artists, students, and NGOs are its favourite targets. Modi’s enhanced mandate in 2019 has led to a further weakening of liberties. The temptation to view the electoral verdict as 13

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allowing greater curtailments of freedom is considerable. It has led to concentration of power in the PM Office and a small inside circle of advisors.14 The current trends show that India has become a majoritarian15 and illiberal democracy (Ruparelia 2015; Varshney 2019).

3.6  Political Control over Bureaucracy In India, the control of politicians over government servants is not so much through recruitment but through its management. Thus, patronage-based management of the civil service and a merit-based system of recruitment for the civil service are made to work in the same country. Politicians informally control postings and transfers of grassroots and district level staff, such as teachers, doctors and policemen. A class II government officer such as a police inspector or an engineer may prefer a particular post as it may have better opportunities for collecting bribes, or may be closer to his native place or may offer better schools for his children’s education. Robert Wade16 has argued (1985) that the Indian state is not better at promoting development because of the corruption-induced transfer mechanism and its effects on bureaucratic initiatives. He observes: The transfer is the politicians’ basic weapon of control over the bureaucracy, and thus the lever for surplus-extraction from the clients of bureaucracy. With the transfer weapon not only can the politicians raise money by direct sale; they can also remove someone who is not being responsive enough to their monetary demands or to their request for favours to those from whom they get money and electoral support – in particular, the contractors. One is thus led to visualize a special circuit of transactions, in which the bureaucracy acquires the control of funds … then passes a portion to MLAs and especially ministers, who in turn use the funds for distributing short-term material inducements in exchange for electoral support.

Controlling government servants through transfers and postings has become part of the political culture in India. For lower-level staff, 14

15 16

www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/ideas-and-plans-come-from-small-setof-personalities-around-pm-raghuram-rajan/story-lFGiAc3hmp31L04n TDZN9M.html https://thewire.in/video/karan-thapar-pratap-bhanu-mehta-interview Wade documents that the cost of getting transferred to a desired post in the cadre of Superintendent Engineer in the Irrigation Department in Odisha, an eastern backward state, was 40 times the average monthly salary for the position.

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such as school teachers and policemen, control is exercised by the district level politicians, whereas for higher-level staff, discretion lies with state-level Ministers. For instance, although in theory teachers can apply for a transfer, no state in India has a transparent transfer policy for teachers, let alone the ability to enforce such a policy. In the absence of strictly enforced transfer policies, teaching reassignments are often available for purchase or given as rewards to politically helpful teachers. Adverse reassignments are used as threats against politically uncooperative teachers. In short, an internal market in transfers exists, where being connected to powerful politicians and bureaucrats is important (Beteille 2015). Another study by a World Bank official (Chand 2010) of Bihar, the most backward state of north India, found that transfers and postings provide opportunities for rent-seeking, and posts where corruption abounds can be bought and sold. Even for IAS officers, personal loyalty to a minister based on caste might carry the day by being selected for a coveted post, resulting in the politicisation of the civil service. Although many IAS officers are not corrupt, they still like to be in positions considered to be more glamorous or wielding more power. An informal hierarchy of jobs does exist in the Service. The Secretary Industries, as also everyone else, thinks that he is holding a more important job than the Secretary Social Welfare, although they may draw the same salary. A DM of a large district would feel humiliated if he were transferred as Director of a training institute. The structure of reward and punishment is decidedly and squarely in the hands of the politicians, who therefore cannot be displeased. Political control over the IAS has been strengthened in the last three decades because of two developments. Creation of redundant posts – First, due to the control that the IAS lobby exerts on the system, a large number of redundant posts in the super-fast pace and on a large scale have been created to ensure them quick promotions. For instance, in UP, the largest state in India, against the post of one Chief Secretary, there are 18 officers now in equivalent but far less important posts drawing the same salary.17 This inverted pyramid (too many people at the top and too few in the middle & lower rungs) has apparently been created to avoid demoralisation due to stagnation, but the net result has been just the opposite. It leads to 17

https://easy.nic.in/civilListIAS/YrCurr/FinalCL.asp

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cut- throat competition within the service to grab the important slots. The old camaraderie has vanished. Instances are not lacking when IAS officers wanting plum jobs have gone to the politicians denigrating their competitors. This no-holds-barred competition is then exploited by politicians in playing one-up against the other, leading to officers becoming more pliable. The lure of after-retirement sinecures further increases the number of those who would be willing to crawl when asked to bend. Defunct legislatures – Second, the Indian Constitution created State legislatures so that MLAs may hold bureaucracy to account for results through informed debates in the Assemblies. Unfortunately, in practice they rarely meet. The Haryana Legislative Assembly, for example, held only 10 sessions from 2009 till March 2014, meeting for a total of 54 days – an average of 11 days per year. The Assemblies for UP, Gujarat, Punjab, and Uttarakhand sat for an average of 22, 31, 19, and 19 days, respectively, each year.18 In the 12th Gujarat Assembly (2007–2012), over 90% of all bills were passed on the same day that they were introduced. In the Budget Session of 2011, 31 bills were passed of which 21 were introduced and passed within three sitting days. Judging from the manner state assemblies function, one could conclude that India is not at all a “deliberative democracy.” In practice, legislators only rubber-stamp executive decisions. Most legislators at the state level are not interested in their legislative responsibilities, but rather seek a share in the executive pie. Many use their back-door access to influence decisions relating to contracts and licenses, as well as transfers and posting of officials. Such backseat driving affords legislators informal control over the bureaucracy, which promotes irresponsible decision-making and encourages corruption. The constitutional separation between the executive and the legislature has disappeared in India. This has also resulted in erosion of internal discipline and control over lower government functionaries by their seniors. The system does not perform well, though people at the top are world class. US academic Lant Pritchett (2009) has an interesting explanation for why things go so shockingly awry in India. He calls this the flailing state syndrome a nation-state in which the head, that is elite institutions at the national (and in some states) level, remains sound and functional but that this head is no 18

www.prsindia.org/theprsblog/legislative-performance-state-assemblies

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longer reliably connected via nerves and sinews to its own limbs. As a result, nothing works, because field level agents of the state, from health workers to teachers and engineers, are increasingly beyond the control of the government at state and national levels. In police, tax collection, education, health, water supply – in nearly every routine service – there is rampant absenteeism, indifference, incompetence, and corruption.

3.7  Systemic Reforms Ignored In almost all states, people see the bureaucracy as wooden, disinterested in public welfare and corrupt. Bright men and women join the IAS, but adverse work environment, constant political interference, frequent and often meaningless transfers and corruption below and above them all lead to the death of idealism, and encourage them too to misuse their authority. Disillusionment and greed, and not need, are the driving forces behind graft amongst civil servants. Over the years, whatever little virtues the IAS possessed – integrity, political neutrality, courage, and high morale – are showing signs of decay. Many civil servants are deeply involved in partisan politics: they are preoccupied with it, penetrated by it, and now participate individually and collectively in it. This is understandable, though unfortunate, because between the expression of the will of the State (represented by politicians) and the execution of that will (through the administrators) there cannot be any long-term dichotomy. In other words, a model in which politicians would be casteist, communal, corrupt, and will harbour criminals, whereas civil servants will continue to be efficient, secular, responsive to public needs, and change-agents cannot be sustained indefinitely. In the long run, administrative and political values have to coincide. Political control has thus weakened accountability rather than tackling underlying problems (Chatterjee 2020). This has led to total neglect of systemic reforms that are urgently needed to improve service delivery.

3.8  Insecurity of Tenure One of the main reasons why systemic reforms have not been taken up earnestly is the lack of stable tenure for IAS officials. Appointments and transfers are two well-known areas where the evolution of firm criteria can easily be circumvented in the name of administrative efficacy. Even if the fiscal climate does not allow fresh recruitment on a large scale, a game of musical chairs through transfers can always

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bring in huge rentals to corrupt officials and politicians. As tenures shorten, both efficiency and accountability suffer (Das and Sabharwal 2017; Kapur 2020). Over the period 1980 to 2004, the probability that an officer experienced a transfer in a given year was as high as 53% (Iyer and Mani 2012). In UP, the average tenure of an IAS officer as DM in the last 20 years is said to be as low as six months.19 In the Police it is even lower, leading to a wisecrack that “if we are posted for weeks all we can do is to collect our weekly bribes” (Saxena 2019). Transfers have been used as instruments of reward and punishment, as tools for controlling and taming the bureaucracy. As already mentioned, many transfers are initiated at the request of the officers themselves, as they like to be in positions of power. Rapid changes erode the mandate of the Department or Organisation. The incumbent himself is not sure of how long he will stay. This affects his attention to detail, and his capacity to master the situation and begin thinking, even incrementally, about how to change things and improve them. Since he is not too sure of what has to be done, the preference is to avoid radical reforms and opt for whatever was tried out in the past and seemed to have sufficed. While presiding over a meeting of the Planning Commission in 2001, Prime Minister Vajpayee lamented that the problem with poor states was that they did not have any industry. I made a cheeky remark, “Sir, these states have a flourishing transfer and posting industry.” He looked angrily at me for making fun of his tribe.

3.9  PM’s Recent Tirade against the IAS As already stated, rather than focus on systemic reforms listed above, the BJP government, since 2014, has further promoted patronagebased administrative culture. Conformism and pliability are the preferred values today in place of freedom of expression and impartiality. The obsessive insistence on only yes-men and on listening to their parroting of what PM wants to hear means that professional advice is neither required nor safe to offer. This neurosis has already led to disasters like demonetisation, and even the infliction of unprecedented misery on migrant labourers 19

High Court of UP noted that “all governments in the last decade had been responsible for making transfers and postings a lucrative industry and that government servant were being treated like shuttle-cocks to be banged and battered around frequently on political, caste, monetary and other extraneous considerations” (Gupta 2016).

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during the Covid pandemic. But bigger disasters await as yes-men take charge of key constitutional watchdogs. The administration of this vast, complex country requires real professional skills and not just agreeability or the carrying out of commands. The problem is that the PM insists on the complete subjugation of the bureaucracy (Sircar 2020).

Prime Minister Mr Modi recently in February 2021 took a swipe at the IAS “babus”20 in the Parliament, apparently in a spontaneous expression of frustration with the delays in the decision-making process. “Babus will do everything? Because they became IAS (officers), they’ll run fertiliser factories, because they are IAS, they will run chemical factories … even fly planes … What is this big power we have created?”21 PM Modi asked, questioning the traditional wisdom of vesting all power in the hands of the bureaucracy. The Prime Minister’s emphatic public denouncement of the IAS has surprised and shocked many in equal measure. Surprised, because the Modi model of governance has involved heavy reliance on IAS officers,22 both earlier when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat and now as Prime Minister, often even at the expense of his ministers. In July 2021, the Union Cabinet had five retired civil servants, three from the IAS and two from the Indian Foreign Service.23 Shocked, because while politicians have in the past derided bureaucrats individually, a collective assault of this nature and that too on the floor of the Parliament, is nothing less than groundbreaking.24 Prime Minister Modi questioned the slow decision-making process and pointed to 10-year delays in implementation of railway and highway projects. He said that he was not concerned by the cost overruns alone but the opportunity lost in terms of economic growth, jobs and the future of people due to these delays. Unfortunately, none of the bureaucrats present in the meeting had the guts to point out that the 20 21 22

23 24

A derogatory term used for higher bureaucracy. www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/behind-pm-modi-s-stinging-critique-ofbureaucracy-a-jan-meeting-holds-the-clue-101613466487000.html Mr Modi replaced the Reserve Bank Governor with an IAS officer, the Competition Commission of India is headed by an IAS officer, as is the chairman of the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission. Interestingly he also appointed an IAS officer to head the committee for the construction of the controversial Ram Temple at Ayodhya. The Uttar Pradesh BJP unit in June 2021 appointed a former IAS officer AK Sharma as its state vice president. www.moneycontrol.com/news/politics/under-modi-govt-indian-bureaucracyis-facing-biggest-shakeup-in-seven-decades-6703321.html

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blame lay not with the individuals but with the central legislation. A study (Worsdell and Shrivastava 2020) shows that 2.1 million ha of land is locked in these land conflicts, affecting the lives and livelihoods of 6.5 million people. Rs 13.7 trillion of committed, earmarked, and potential investments were found embroiled, and in 104 cases, the dispute has been going on for at least two decades, while in another 149 conflicts, the case has remained unresolved for at least a decade. The GOI law on land acquisition enacted in 2013 has some good features, such as a high compensation and consent clause, but it has many negative clauses. A close examination of the new Act would reveal that acquisition of even one acre of land would take at least three to four years and the proposal will have to pass through about a hundred hands. The delay is caused mainly because the Act establishes several committees adorned by activists and “experts.” To begin with, for all cases of acquisition a Social Impact Assessment would be done by an Independent body, and its report would be vetted by another Expert Group. In addition, there would be an R&R Committee, a State-Level Committee, and a National Monitoring Committee to pontificate over the reports generated by the junior committees. Delay in completion of formalities would also delay payment of compensation, thus harming farmers and causing uncertainty in their rehabilitation. The new Act can best be described as “anti-farmer and anti-growth, but certainly pro-civil society and pro-bureaucracy” (Saxena 2018). A simpler solution would have been to delegate powers to the DM to acquire up to 100 acres of land without Committees and without any reference to the state governments. The Collector would obtain landowners’ consent and fix compensation through negotiations without any upper limit, and thus make land available to the project in a few months’ time. Rather than blame individual IAS officers for delay in land acquisition, the PM should have looked at the design of the new Central Land Acquisition Law which is dilatory and has forced some states to enact their own state-specific laws which are not very sympathetic to the poor.

3.10  Loyal Civil Service? Some years back, in 2019, the PM Office asked all the Ministries to examine if service allocation/cadre allocation to trainees selected on the basis of the civil services examination be made after Foundation Course

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at the training Academies. Examine the feasibility of giving due weightage to the performance in the Foundation Course and making service allocation as well as cadre allocation to All India Services Officers, based on the combined score obtained in the civil services examination and the Foundation course.25

This proposal raised a lot of criticism and alarm, as everyone familiar with the training Academies feared that rather than turning out officers with moral courage, integrity, and protectors of ordinary peoples’ rights, the Academies will degenerate into producing self-serving buffoons who would “lick up and kick below” if powers to allocate service and cadre were given to the Academies. The main purpose behind getting many services together at the Foundation course is to develop inter-service and intra-batch camaraderie, and to encourage free and frank discussion so as to look at governance issues critically. If their service or cadre is determined on the sweet will of the faculty, the training environment would degenerate into servility and fear. Over the decades, the UPSC has acquired a reputation for integrity, transparency, independence, and credibility. Many retired civil servants and intellectuals rightly showed concern about the proposed move to belittle the merit-based system evolved by the UPSC, and substitute it by subjective assessment by government-appointed directors of various training Academies. This proposal would not have got so much publicity if it was not seen as a continuation of present government’s efforts to dilute and politicise all independent institutions of high credibility, such as the Election Commission and the Supreme Court, and now the UPSC and the Academies. Clever bureaucrats know the advantages of being on the right side of power and that any “extra” help rendered will never go unrewarded. Unfortunately, this perception demotivates the honest and hard-working ones who still constitute a sizeable number in the higher bureaucracy. Therefore, except for very few Constitutional posts like the CAG’s, most of the quasi-judicial posts should be offered to officers well before their retirement, discouraging service beyond their normal age of superannuation. Such a step, that no political dispensation is likely to agree to, would go a long way in eliminating the widely prevalent practice of sycophancy and favour-seeking. 25

https://theprint.in/india/governance/ias-ips-ifs-cadres-to-be-allotted-on-basisof-foundation-course-along-with-upsc-marks/267624/

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The administration of this vast, complex country requires real professional skills and not just agreeability or the carrying out of commands. The problem is that the prime minister insists on the complete subjugation of the bureaucracy (Sircar 2020).

3.11 Finally, A good civil service is necessary but not sufficient for good governance; a bad civil service is sufficient but not necessary for bad governance. Thus, a dilapidated civil service has been a key factor in Africa’s economic decline. Conversely, a strong civil service is one of several reasons why several East Asian economies, especially Japan, Singapore and South Korea, have seen excellent economic performance. Greater responsiveness and openness can legitimately be demanded of public administrations in many East Asian countries. Clearly, civil service systems in most East Asian countries cannot be considered a problem; they are, rather, an important part of the solution to these countries’ other problems. Unfortunately, in India today, politics has become majoritarian and authoritarian. A few people at the top put pressure on the system with a view to achieve their sectarian goals. Governance reforms are intractable under such illiberalism that by definition is uninterested in transparency and accountability. A pliable and unskilled civil service is actually desirable from its point of view – public employees dependent on the regime’s discretionary largesse are forced to follow the Ruler, cannot quit their jobs, and reluctantly become the regime’s accomplices. One would like to end by quoting from the hero of this government, Sardar Patel;26 he said about the IAS, “Today my Secretary can write a note opposed to my views. I have given that freedom to all my Secretaries. I have told them, ‘If you do not give your honest opinion for fear that it will displease your Minister, please then you had better go’. I will never be displeased over a frank expression of opinion.”27 Sad that we have forgotten Patel. 26

27

An eminent leader during the freedom struggle along with Gandhi and Nehru. He was the first Home Minister of India. He belonged to Gujarat, the state of Mr Modi. https://scroll.in/article/880497/pmos-proposed-changes-in-civil-servicesallocation-strikes-at-the-steel-frame-of-india

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References Administrative Reforms Commission. (2008). ‘Public Order.’ Fifth Report of the Second Administrative Reforms Commission. New Delhi: Government of India. Banik, Dan. (2001). The Transfer Raj: Indian Civil Servants on the Move. European Journal of Development Research, June, 13(1), 106–134. Bardhan, Pranab. (2016). Democratic Development in India: Reflections on Problems and Prospects. In Törnquist, O. and Harriss, J. (Eds.), Reinventing Social Democratic Development: Insights from Indian and Scandinavian Comparisons. Copenhagen: Nias Press. Béteille, Tara. (2015). Fixers in India’s Teacher Labour Markets: Behind the Scenes. Asian Survey, 55(5), 942–968. Bhat, Naseer Ahmad, Bazila Shameem and Nisha Yadav. (2020). Downward Spiral in Civil Service Anonymity and Neutrality: An Analysis of Indian Bureaucracy during Rise of Chauvinism and Right-Wing Nationalism. Palarch’s Journal of Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptology, 17(7), 5158–5168. Chand, Vikram K. (2010). Public Service Delivery in India: Understanding the Reform Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chatterjee, E. (2020). New Developmentalism and Its Discontents: State Activism in Modi’s Gujarat and India. Development and Change. Cooper, C.A. (2021). Politicization of the Bureaucracy across and within Administrative Traditions. International Journal of Public Administration, 44(7), 564–577. Dahlström, Carl, Victor Lapuente and Jan Teorell. (2012). The Merit of Meritocratization: Politics, Bureaucracy, and the Institutional Deterrents of Corruption. Political Research Quarterly, 65(3), 656–668. Das, Sabyasachi and Gaurav Sabharwal. (2017). “Whom Are You Doing a Favor to? Political Alignment and Allocation of Public Servants.” at https://ashoka.edu.in/static/doc_uploads/file_1537331284.pdf Deshpande, S. (2019). Governing Nutrition, Performing State: Workers of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Programme, India (Doctoral dissertation, University of Sussex). Gupta, Vishal. (2016). Indian Administrative Service and Crony Capitalism. In Crony Capitalism in India (pp. 177–205). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Iyer, Lakshmi and Anandi Mani. (2012). Traveling Agents: Political Change and Bureaucratic Turnover in India. Review of Economics and Statistics, 94(3), 723–39. Kapur, Devesh. (2020). Why Does the Indian State both Fail and Succeed? The Journal of Economic Perspectives (Winter) 34(1), 31–54.

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McDonnell, D. and Cabrera, L. (2019). The Right-wing Populism of India’s Bharatiya Janata Party (and Why Comparativists should Care). Democratization, 26(3), 484–501. Peters, B.G. and Pierre, J. (Eds.). (2004). Politicization of the Civil Service in Comparative Perspective. New York: Routledge. Poguntke, T. and Webb, P. (2005). The Presidentialization of Politics in Democratic Societies: A Framework for Analysis. The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies, 1, 1–25. Pritchett, Lant. (2009). Is India a Flailing State?: Detours on the Four Lane Highway to Modernization. HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP09-013, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Rauch, James E. and Peter B. Evans. (2000). Bureaucratic Structure and Bureaucratic Performance, in Less Developed Countries. Journal of Public Economics, 75(1), 49–71. Rogenhofer, J.M. and Panievsky, A. (2020). Antidemocratic Populism in Power: Comparing Erdoğan’s Turkey with Modi’s India and Netanyahu’s Israel. Democratization, 27(8), 1394–1412. Ruparelia, Sanjay (2015). ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’: The Restructuring of Power in Modi’s India. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 38(4), 755–775. Saxena, N.C. (2018). Land Acquisition Law in India. Journal of Resources, Energy and Development, 15(1–2), 1–11. Saxena, N.C. (2019). What Ails the IAS & Why It Fails to Deliver? An Insider’s View. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Sircar, Jawhar. (2020). Picking, Kicking and Wrecking: Subjugation of the Bureaucracy in the Modi Regime, The Wire, 7 SEP. Sircar, Jawhar. (2021). IAS and Bureaucracy: All the Prime Minister’s Men, The New Indian Express, 17th March. Varshney, Ashutosh. (2019). Modi Consolidates Power: Electoral Vibrancy, Mounting Liberal Deficits. Journal of Democracy, 30(4), October, 63–77. Wade, Robert. (1985). The Market for Public Office: Why the Indian State Is Not Better at Development. World Development, 13(4), 467–497. World Bank. (2003). Government employment and pay in global perspective: a selective synthesis of international facts, policies and experience, by Salvatore Schiavo-Campo, Giulio de Tommaso, and Amitabha Mukherjee. Worsdell, T. and Shrivastava, K. (2020). Locating the Breach: Mapping the Nature of Land Conflicts in India. New Delhi: Land Conflict Watch.

4

Political Patronage, Civil Service Politicization, and the Ordeals of Career Civil Servants Insights from Bangladesh Mohammad Mizanur Rahman

4.1 Introduction A new surge in governance and public administration scholarships is evidently aiming to analyze political patronage in public sector employment, primarily non-elected positions (Kopecký, 2011; Kopecky et al., 2016; Larraburu et al., 2018; Panizza et al., 2018; Quaresima, 2019; Staronova & Rybář, 2020; Huber & Ting, 2021). Nevertheless, some scholars use political patronage and politicization interchangeably while discussing public sector employment. Civil service politicization is an overarching issue. Alongside political patronage, a vast body of literature examined civil service politicization and its effects on professionalism and effectiveness (McCourt, 2000; Peters and Pierre, 2004; Meyer- Shaling, 2006; McCourt, 2007; Matheson et al., 2007; Peters, 2013; Rouban, 2015; Mueller, 2015; Kopecký, 2016; Appiah and Abdulai., 2017; Bersch, 2017; Xu, 2017; Lee, 2018; Meyer-Sahling et al., 2018; Quaresima, 2019; Cooper, 2020). On the other hand, much of the critical research identified that one of the hallmarks for rapid growth in the Northeast and Southeast developmental states was the bureaucracy’s political insulation and meritocracy (Johnson, 1982; World Bank, 1993; Evans, 1995; World Bank, 2008; UNDP, 2013). Kim, Jung, & Kim (2021) pointed out “overall politicization is negatively associated with job satisfaction and organizational commitment.” Taking Bangladesh, a developing country in the South Asia region, as a case in point, the chapter primarily serves a dual purpose. First, it illustrates political patronage in public sector employment, often not considered elected positions. Second, it aims to unpack civil service politicization. Additionally, it also seeks to illustrate civil servants’ ordeals that result from a bureaucratic system that seems overly 69

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politicized (Meyer-Shaling et al., 2019). The second purpose instead occupies a more detailed analysis in the chapter. Albeit patronage refers to the discretionary power of the ruling elites in public sector employment, at the heart of it is the mindset of politicization. Therefore, often, it is hard to make the distinction between patronage and politicization in the discussions. As a country case study, this chapter examines a few public sector organizations and agencies to explore the influence of political patronage in employment and the reasons behind such patronage. The organizations and agencies include the Bangladesh Public Service Commission (BPSC), Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC), Information Commission, and Bangladesh Security and Exchange Commission (BSEC). These are among the critical institutions that have a high role in the governance and development of the country. Our analysis would prove how the politicization of the public service essentially contributes to patronage in other public sector employment. Therefore, arguably, it is essential to focus more on bureaucratic politicization. Bangladesh’s case would argue that political patronage and bureaucratic politicization are highly intertwined. We argue that the account of professional civil servants’ ordeal stemming from this study can play a vital role in informing the global and national academics and policymakers to advocate for civil servants’ better professional environment to pursue international development schemes such as the SDGs. It is worthy to point out that the professional predicaments of civil servants have not gained much attention in public administration scholarships. The OECD (2020) underlined the need for a merit-based, fair, and inclusive civil service system to realize sustainable development goals. In the same token, UNDP GCPSE (2015) argued that to implement SDGs, we would need a new public passion, and to realize that passion, we need merit-based and valuesladen civil service. Merit and professional values such as transparency, accountability, and inclusivity are contrary to a politicized civil service that causes main challenges for professionalism. The study follows qualitative methods for garnering evidence. The analytical framework builds on the literature review. However, it employs the “Framework for Research,” the opening chapter of this volume, prepared by Professor B. Guy Peters to explain political patronage (Peters, 2023). Lengthy expert interviews were used for extracting empirical data, and for this, 37 career civil servants, both serving and retired, and ten governance experts, mainly academics and researchers,

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were interviewed. For the civil servants Key Informant Interviewees (KIIs), the author considered civil servants recruited in different batches to make the interviews representative and the study more reliable. The minimum work experience of the key informants from the civil service pool is 24 years, and the maximum is 35 years. Out of 47 KIIs,1 33 are male and 14 female. Among the KIIs, 20 hold Ph.D. degrees, 22 have international master’s degrees from internationally reputed universities, and five have master’s degrees from local universities. Among the civil servants, KIIs have work experience both at ministries and in field administration (district level). Ten governance experts are full university professors with rich academic and research profiles. All of them have more than 20 years of teaching and research experience. Additionally, the author had a long discussion with a former Cabinet Secretary to cross-check the observations. It is mentionable that the Cabinet Secretary is the head of the civil service and the chair of the promotion board, known as Superior Selection Board (SSB). The author conducted the interviews in February–April, and August 2021. The organization of this chapter is as follows: the first section deals with the introduction, explaining the objectives of the research to set the scene and the methodology. Section 4.2 has two parts: the first part (Section 4.2.1) provides the framework for political patronage, while the second part (Section 4.2.2) presents the analytical framework for civil service politicization. Section 4.3 discusses Bangladesh’s political and governance context, and Section 4.4 offers the discussion and analysis. Section 4.4.1 analyzes political patronage, while Section 4.4.2 discusses civil service politicization and the ordeals of professional civil servants. Section 4.5 makes the concluding remarks.

4.2  An Analytical Framework for Analyzing Political Patronage and Civil Service Politicization 4.2.1  The Framework for Understanding Political Patronage Professor B. Guy Peters, one of the three editors of this book and the globally acclaimed authority on the discipline of public administration, sets a framework for patronage research in the first chapter of this book 1

In terms of designation, the distribution of civil servant KIIs is as follows: Senior Assistant Secretary: 8; Deputy Secretary: 9; Joint Secretary: 7; Additional Secretary: 8; Secretary: 5.

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(Peters, 2023). He opines that patronage appointments are political discretions of the ruling elites. These do not require significant considerations regarding professional qualifications, roles, and motivations of appointees. However, he clarifies that patronage does not mean any benefits to the voters by the political elites; it is instead the appointment in non-elected positions. Nonetheless, patronage and politicization are very close in terms of meaning and practical implications. He considers politicization more comprehensive as it aims to establish control over different aspects of bureaucracy. According to him, the reasons for patronage vary across political regimes, policy domains, and time. However, he has identified some general reasons for patronage: the first point is that the government wants to influence public policies. Sometimes, civil servants may not fully endorse the government’s policy and may propose different policies. The government appoints people of its choice through patronage to establish a vital stake in the policy regime. However, it is always not harmful to select people based on patronage. Sometimes, civil servants may suffer from critical policy capacity constraints; political elites appoint highly skilled professionals to overcome this. The second point is about ensuring political loyalty. It applies more to the context of weak democracies. In such contexts, political leaders want people who would always support them. He argued that patronage could be of different types. The first dimension is loyalty based. Political commitment is a form of loyalty; it mainly looks at political objectives within the policy context. Sometimes, professional civil servants may avoid critical political aspects in policies and development; politically committed appointees can help political leadership out in such situations. In contrast, the other form is personal dedication-centric that the loyalty relates to a politician. Social context acts as a premise of another type of patronage. In some situations, due to the unique nature of the society, political patronage seeks to gain loyalty from different professional, ethnic, and minority groups to demonstrate more inclusivity in the political sphere. The other dimension is the policy capacity dimension. Many governments exhibit strong policy commitment and require professionals to complement or steer the civil service to realize the ruling regime’s policy goals. The nature and quality of the political regime have implications for patronage in any country. It is more likely that it will have more space in a majoritarian-based political system than a consensus-based one. Similarly, strong political leaders tend to exploit the patronage

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system. It is generally observed that patronage gets broader space when there is poor bureaucracy. However, it may not be the case always. Sometimes, both can co-exist. Professional bureaucracy may even sometimes appreciate patronage to fill up the capacity gap in the civil service. However, all these depend on the environment within which bureaucracy and political regimes work.

4.2.2  Theorizing Civil Service Politicization 4.2.2.1  Sketching the Boundary and the Evolving Features While politicization of the bureaucracy is an often discussed topic in modern public administration, it is essential to draw a boundary to advance the discussion in this chapter. Rouban (2015) emphatically argued that though civil service politicization has been a debated issue for two centuries, it is still hard to find an easy answer. The reasons and features and, more importantly, the implications of civil service politicization vary from country to country and even within a country over time. Social evolution, political culture, and history of a particular country are the critical points for consideration while analyzing and discussing civil service politicization. Broadly, the implications of civil service politicization between the developed democracies and the developing countries stand distinct. Given that civil service politicization can potentially harm national interests in developing countries, the best approach to address this challenge is creating a professional civil service, Rouban asserted. We need an easily understandable definition of politicization for this chapter, relying on Peters and Pierre (2004). They discussed different aspects of bureaucratic politicization: the meaning, why it occurs, and the consequences. Nevertheless, they provided a simple explanation of politicization, yet it captured the essence of the matter. Bureaucratic politicization is, according to them, “the substitution of political criteria for merit-based criteria in the selection, retention, promotion, rewards, and disciplining of members of the public service (2004: 2).” Some said that breaching impersonality is the politicization of bureaucracy (Appiah and Abdulai, 2017). While impersonality is the core facet of the Weberian bureaucracy, its decay reduces the bureaucracy’s trust as an institution. Boräng (2017) employed the same criteria to explain politicized bureaucracy, while Peters and Pierre (2004) argued that politicization refers to overwhelming political influence over the

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civil servants’ career. Thus, justifiably, a politicized bureaucracy is opposed to meritocracy and professional skills. According to Peters and Pierre (2004), the approach and style of politicization would vary between advanced and developing countries. In developed countries, politicians try to control more the policy than the recruitment process or human resources issues; thus, politicians need bureaucrats to support their policy agenda. In developing countries, ensuring the recruitment of political activists and supporters in the public sector is a significant focus of politicization. In these countries, employment always remains a top political agenda to win the elections. However, overall, bureaucratic politicization seeks to develop a bunch of officials across the bureaucratic ladder who would not challenge and counter the expectations of the ruling elite. This purpose of politicization, more or less, applies to both developed and developing countries. Arguing that a politicized bureaucracy is contrary to the one which is neutral, autonomous, and insulated from the influences of political executives, Almendares (2011) identified two types of politicization: institutional and behavioral. Institutional politicization occurs through establishing control over human resources and budgets by the political elites. However, behavioral politicization is the result of the former type of politicization. More significant in behavioral politicization is that bureaucracy behaves more responsive to political leadership than national interests and priorities. In such a case, politicians can divert national resources for purely political gain by mediating and influencing the bureaucracy. While it is also evident that there is a strong trend in democratic backsliding (Bermeo, 20162), some regimes in fragile democracies want to control the whole electoral process to ensure their win without bagging people’s honest verdict. The target to manipulate the electoral system now appears to be a principal reason for civil service politicization in weak democracies. In fledgling and struggling democracies, election agencies are neither neutral nor independent. In most cases, they are highly dependent on the executive branch of the state regarding budget and ensuring safety and security during the electioneering period. Civil servants, particularly the administrative and security officials (plus the police) of the bureaucracy, play crucial roles in election management and potentially influence the electoral process (Hassan, 2

www.sum.uio.no/english/sdg/blog/ingrid-hoegh/democracy-backsliding-a-lookat-v-dem%E2%80%99s-democracy-.html

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2013). Therefore, if there is connivance between the ruling party and civil servants, it becomes easier to control the polling system to win the elections. Riaz and Parvaz (2021), Riaz (2019, 2020), Moniruzzaman (2019); Maitrot and Jackman (2020), Mostafa and Subedi (2020), and Bertelsmann Stiftung (2020) provided strong evidence about blatant election rigging where the bureaucracy and security officials were complicit. Harvey and Mukherjee (2018) identified administrative fraud as one of the principal means of electoral rigging. And without establishing control over the bureaucracy, it may not be easy to ensure administrative fraud, and here comes the point of bureaucratic politicization, particularly in fragile democracies. Until now, bureaucratic politicization for electoral manipulation has not been a much-discussed issue in the literature. We would argue that there should be new light on this aspect of bureaucratic politicization to generate more empirical evidence. Using bureaucracy for electoral fraud now seems a new trend of politicization. 4.2.2.2  Why Do We Need to Care about Civil Service Politicization? Notwithstanding, there have been multiple perspectives on civil service politicization, as the preceding sub-section has presented. It is still vital to discuss the implications of politicization, particularly in developing countries. The significance of having such a discussion for developing countries is that democratic and accountability institutions are weak, and governance is more or less neo-patrimonial, unlike the advanced democracies and economies. While in developed countries like the US and Germany, some sections of senior civil servants may be political, they are at the same time professional; however, this may not be the case in many developing countries. Instead, civil service politicization occurs at the cost of overall professionalism and meritocracy. In addition to that, civil service has a profound role in economic development in any country. We discuss these points below. The World Development Report (WDR), 1997, the State in a Changing World, contributed significantly to explaining the state’s role in the development and asserted that the previous approach, the state’s minimalist role, did not deliver as expected during the structural adjustment programme (SAP). Therefore, the WDR, 1997 pointed out the need to reinvigorate the state’s role in development. In discussing the effectiveness of the state, it underlined that the civil service is the lifeblood for the public sector and passionately argued for a merit-based civil service as it is essential for effective policymaking, delivering services, and administering contracts.

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Meritocracy helps bring in high-quality staff, confers prestige in civil service positions, and strengthens motivation for good performance. Bureaucracy with inadequate capacity, mainly because of patronagebased career management, results in development and policy failures and amplifies the influences of donor agencies and their consultants in policymaking in many developing countries. In the same vein, we find a tremendous empirical work, the first of its kind using cross-country evidence, conducted by Evans and Rauch (1999). Having studied 35 countries, they concluded that merit-based and politically insulated bureaucracy was crucial in economic development. Earlier, Johnson (1982) evidenced that an economic bureaucracy with Weberian attributes contributed to rapid economic growth in Japan. Indeed, Johnson’s work was the pioneering contribution to illustrating bureaucracy’s role in economic development. We see the continuity of arguments regarding the need for a politically insulated and merit-based civil service system in the World Bank’s The Growth Report, 2008 that studied the reasons for sustained economic growth in 13 countries. Hyden et al. (2003), while crediting the bureaucracy for the rapid economic development in East Asia, underlined that poor civil service could be a reason for unsatisfactory development progress in many countries in the African continent. The UNDP Human Development Report 2013 emphasized the importance of effective civil service that can better plan by enjoying an autonomous professional environment for rapid growth in the Global South (UNDP, 2013). Nistotskaya and Cingolani (2016), using cross-country panel data, established that meritocratic bureaucracy could improve the business environment and quality of regulation. McKinsey Global Institute (2018) studied the growth performance of 71 countries and found that eighteen outperformed the other peer countries. According to the analysis, the merit-based Weberian type of bureaucracy was one of the primary reasons for such progress in the outperforming economies. Therefore, it seems that the strong correlation between meritocratic bureaucracy and economic progress is well established in different research studies. Meyer-Sahling et al. (2018a) empirically found the negative implications of civil service politicization. The fundamental impact is the change in the role identity. While civil servants’ primary objective is to serve the people, for overwhelming politicization in career control, civil servants consider becoming more responsive to political demands for career growth, avoiding the impartial obligation for service

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delivery to the public. In other words, civil servants tend to become “political servants” as they argued, and this shift essentially undermines the impartiality of civil service values. Peters (2013) highlighted a core point while discussing bureaucratic politicization. He argued that civil servants are permanent functionaries of the public sector; therefore, political impartiality is the principal source of legitimacy of the civil service. Cingolani (2015) underscored a strong relationship between bureaucratic autonomy and state capacity to realize development goals. Zafarullah and Rahman (2008), referring to Bangladesh’s case, pointed out that bureaucratic politicization could undermine state capacity. Rahman and Quadir (2018) empirically substantiated observations of Cingolani (2015) and Zafarullah and Rahman (2008). Therefore, the negative association between weak policy capacity and politicized civil service is very high. Now we can turn to Agenda 2030. Both Clark (2015) and Baimenov (2015) strongly opined that meritocracy and professional ethics are critical for civil service effectiveness to achieve the SDGs. The UN Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA), in its 16th session, stressed the need for developing new approaches to fighting corruption and ensuring merit-based civil service.3 UN CEPA (2019) identified 11 principles for effective governance for sustainable development, and the first three principles – competence, sound policymaking, and collaboration – relate to effectiveness. Overall, the 11 principles require higher professional competence of the civil servants that can come only through a merit-based civil service system. 4.2.2.3  Why Do We Need to Document the Ordeals of Professional Civil Servants? In a politicized civil service system, politically blessed officials regularly get promotions and smoothly achieve placements in influential and lucrative official positions, regardless of their integrity and capabilities. On the contrary, professional officials usually do not get legitimate promotions, rather they are superseded and often ignored for better or more meaningful postings despite adequate qualifications. These officials, beyond professional sufferings, sometimes even experience social prejudices. Understandably, most people of society are not adequately aware of the internal dynamics of the bureaucratic system in a 3

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politicized context; sometimes, the professional civil servants become misunderstood by even the larger society. Many consider that these officials do not get proper career growth for personal reasons, which means their failure. Thus, in some cases, these professional officials are undermined and undervalued within the social context. Public servants constitute the essential component of public governance with direct bearing on the quality of democratic processes and the capacity of the government to realize its goals and objective and protecting citizens’ well-being, ensuring sustained and inclusive economic growth (OECD, 2019). Thus, it is highly desirable to navigate the challenges and crises that civil servants encounter during their professional careers to generate an empirical basis for advocating for better professionalism for the civil service to serve the people better. In such a context, it is vital to document the ordeals of professional civil servants to contribute to developing a new dimension in the literature of civil service politicization. This documentation is necessary to create empirical evidence for understanding the larger perspective of bureaucratic politicization involving the sufferings and deprivations of individual professional bureaucrats that often go ignored in the current literature. In a civil service system, the individual bureaucrats are the main protagonists. Therefore, ignoring the pains and deprivations of professional civil servants would not help us capture the bigger picture of politicization and eventually of the institution. Many worthy and top-ranking civil servants often see an extreme setback in their careers due to politicization. They fail to understand their career setback as the system does not clarify why they have not been promoted or posted in places they deserve. This country’s case study would provide an analysis of the challenges that civil servants face in developing countries. While Goal-16 of the SDGs strongly argues for effective institutions (UNDP GCPSE, 2018), the question may arise whether the civil service as a significant public sector institution can deliver its best in a politicized system and contribute to realizing inclusive development and fair governance.

4.3  Bangladesh: Country Political and Governance Context and Its Implications on Patronage and the Civil Service Politicization Through a bloody war of independence, Bangladesh emerged as an independent state in 1971 by breaking away from Pakistan, which

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came into existence in 1947 after the end of the British colonial rule in the Indian sub-continent. After the independence, the country faced enormous uncertainties on multiple fronts, political, economic, governance, and international partnerships (Islam, 2003). The political chaos after liberation eventually reached its culmination, and the country experienced the first coup d’etat in 1975 that killed its founding leader, including many of his family members. This tragic incident had severe political consequences for Bangladesh’s governance and politics in the subsequent decades until today. Blair (2020) gave a vivid account of Bangladesh’s political landscape, entailing several turning points. He described that with the coup d’etat in 1975, the country fell into the grip of the military and quasi-military regimes, and that continued until 1990 when a popular upsurge could topple the military ruler. From 1991–2006, there was competitive electoral democracy leading to the rise of an apparent two-party system, mainly led by the Bangladesh Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). In this competitive phase, we could see an alteration of power between these two parties. However, this phase was deeply fractured when a military-backed government took control of the country in January 2007 on the pretext of a potentially flawed and partisan national election that the then ruling party could hold. The military-backed government functioned for about two years, 2007–2008. It administered a general election in December 2008, and since then, the current government under the leadership of AL has been in power. With the fall of the military rule in 1990, during the 1991–2006 phase, three general elections were held under a caretaker government system, and the elections were highly competitive and credible. However, after the 2008 elections, the caretaker government system was abolished through a constitutional amendment, collapsing the prospect of a reliable electoral system. The elections in 2014 and 2018 suffered from a critical legitimacy crisis due to the lack of a neutral electoral system. Riaz wrote extensively on Bangladesh’s political changes (2020; Riaz and Parvaz, 2021). He termed the country’s first two decades (1972– 1990) as civilian and military authoritarianism. Apart from killing the country’s founding leader, General Ziaur Rahman, another president was also assassinated in 1981 during this phase. Khan (2017) characterized the 1991–2006 period as competitive political clientelism. Although democratic institutions could not become strong yet because of the competitive nature of elections under a neutral caretaker government

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system, political institutions of democracy were in equilibrium, creating possible opportunities for the competing political parties to come to power and get access to rent. Given the worsening nature of political institutions during the competitive clientelism period (1991–2006), the military-backed government came to power in 2007. Still, they could not offer any viable solutions to the governance and political challenges. Consequently, the past political settlement (1991–2006), although fragile, did not manage to maintain equilibrium and collapsed (Riaz, 2020). Since the absence of credible electoral systems after the 2008 general elections, the political trajectory seemed to be creeping authoritarianism, as the recent literature argued (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2020; Blair, 2020; Hossain, 2020; Mahmud, 2020; Mostafa and Subedi, 2020; Riaz, 2020; Hasan & Eversten, 2021; Riaz and Parvaz, 2021). Hassan and Raihan (2017) viewed the current political trajectory that emerged after the flawed elections of 2014 as a ‘dominant party settlement’ with two significant features: maintaining political stability through authoritarian rule and crony capitalism. The trajectory helped the ruling elite establish its monopoly over the renting process. Looking at the bureaucracy, one would point out, understandably, Bangladesh inherited the British colonial legacy of bureaucracy. However, after independence, the journey of developing a vernacular bureaucracy was not easy. The Bangladesh civil service experienced several professional hiccups that triggered bureaucratic vulnerabilities in a newly independent state. Under Presidential Order No. 9, 1972, job security, the apolitical image, and morale of the civil service came under extreme threats. After independence, many professional and efficient officers in the civil service lost their jobs without being heard. The pretext for such a job cut was either not participating in the liberation war or collaborating with the Pakistan government. Bureaucratic elitism that existed during the British and Pakistan regimes became blurred then. The bureaucracy’s meritocracy and professionalism encountered a significant blow with the induction of quotas for recruitment and the adoption of substandard recruitment exams in 1973. With such a volatile political environment, Bangladesh’s civil service started its journey in Bangladesh (Khan, 2013). Indeed, the civil service vulnerabilities gradually thickened in Bangladesh over the decades, making things from bad to worse (Osman, 2010; Khan, 2015). Anyone interested in the analysis of political patronage and civil service in Bangladesh should consider this context.

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The overview of the literature suggests that democratic institutions have not become consolidated in Bangladesh, and the society has been profoundly polarized and contentious (Islam, 2013; Hossain, 2020). In such a polarized environment, patronage and politicization became the principal means for political monopoly and regime consolidation (Hassan & Raihan, 2017; Mahmud, 2020). Civil service became the primary victim of such polarization and politicization (Osman, 2020). Shams (2011) thus argued that the critical question of why a civil service exists had not been answered in Bangladesh. Upon analysis, it may appear that the civil service in Bangladesh still experiences the ambivalent approach by the political leadership. There is no solid political desire to transform the civil service within an apolitical and professional posture. Considering the current state of the political regime, Quibria (2019: 18) pictured the situation as, “(A)s expected, this has created a predatory political culture that thrives on economic rents extracted through discriminatory expropriation of state resources – or even flat-out thievery of state belongings. This pursuit of rent-seeking prevails at all levels from the top to the bottom of the political hierarchy … Nor the bureaucracy insulated from it. Recent years have seen increasing politicization of the bureaucracy with party loyalists rewarded with accelerated promotions, lucrative postings, and important positions after retirement…. This unleashed fierce competition in the civil service for proving party loyalty rather than demonstrating merit; it also fractured the esprit de corps of the bureaucracy and introduced new elements of rent-seeking hitherto largely unknown to the system.” Looking at the overall condition, Sarker and Zafaruallh (2019) appeared highly disappointed with the political environment. They commented, “(T)he kind of political settlement currently in place provides no hope for holistic reform meant for enhancing managerial competence of the public bureaucracy in Bangladesh.” It would be highly pertinent to quote the observations of a former Cabinet Secretary of Bangladesh who wrote an influential book with 47 years of research, as he claimed and that “(T)he politicization of bureaucracy had farreaching effects on Bangladesh polity. This has destroyed the aura of neutrality of civil servants. They are not trusted as fair umpires to hold elections. The politicization of bureaucracy has widened the scope of corruption. The morale of the civil servants has been shattered beyond repair. The bureaucracy is no longer effective in providing the best services to the public (Khan, 2015: 282–283).”

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4.4  Discussions and Analysis In this section, we discuss and analyze political patronage and civil service politicization separately; however, in the context of Bangladesh. The first part of the discussion and analysis deals with political patronage, and the second part with the civil service politicization and the resultant effect that we call the ordeals.

4.4.1  Explaining Political Patronage We consider three key issues regarding political patronage: the typical pattern of it, why it takes place, and any changes over time. We examined the appointments of some key constitutional and critical government agencies. We asked the KIIs to give their opinion centering on the research questions and to share their overall observations. The organizations we scrutinized were the Bangladesh Public Service Commission (BPSC), Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC), Information Commission, and Bangladesh Security and Exchange Commission (BSEC). The Bangladesh Public Service Commission (BPSC)4 is a constitutional body, and its primary role is to recruit civil servants. A Chairman and several members lead the Commission. The Chairman and the members need to take oath for assuming office. Up to 1991, it gave us the impression that the Chairmen and members were selected based on professional competence, and it is hard to imagine that patronage played any significant role. Although, after 1975, Bangladesh experienced the military and quasi-military regimes, they did not try to influence the BPSC and its recruitment process. However, after 1991, with the return of electoral democracy, it is evident that political patronage was the main factor for selecting the Chairmen and members of the Commission. From 1991–2007, four professors of Dhaka University were the Chairmen. All of these professors were active and leaders in partisan politics at Dhaka University. As the 1991–2006 political phase is competitive clientelism, the party in power took the opportunity to field its apparatchiks. With the military-backed government in power in 2007, a retired Cabinet Secretary became the Chairman of the BPSC. He was considered highly professional and honest. However, his appointment was to upgrade the image of the BPSC 4

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as previously it was considered highly political, making most of the recruitments politically biased. However, after the end of his tenure and the military-backed government of 2007–2008, again, politically inclined people became Chairmen and members of BPSC. One distinct feature is that after 2007, University Professors could not become the Chairmen; retired bureaucrats, generally perceived as partisan and politically biased, occupied the positions. Nonetheless, the same observations apply to the case of the members of BPSC; some members come from different professional groups, beyond bureaucracy, but with distinct political identities. Except for the 2007 Commission, all members since 1991 were politically colored. Currently (during the time of writing the chapter in 2021), out of the Commission’s 15 members (including the Chairman), 12 are retired bureaucrats and 3 are from different professional services. Almost 100% of the KIIs opined that as the BPSC is the gateway for civil service recruitment, successive governments wanted to regulate the recruitment according to their will. The easiest way to influence recruitment is to establish control over the viva-voce exam. The viva-voce carries 200 marks, and BPSC members can take advantage of this situation as the Chairman and members preside over the viva board. The Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC)5 came into being in 2003 to develop a sustainable energy sector and protect consumers’ rights. A Chairman and four members steer the BERC. Records suggest that the first Chairman was a professional engineer who got the appointment in 2005, two years after establishment of the BERC. However, after the end of the first Chairman’s tenure, the position has been occupied by several retired bureaucrats. Members usually come from different professional groups, mainly with engineering backgrounds. Like the BPSC, one can easily guess seeing BERC’s leadership that members are chosen based on political leanings. Since BERC requires technical capacity, the selection of members reflects that apart from political patronage, professional skills and knowledge also play a role in the appointment. With the enactment of the Right to Information Act in 2009, Bangladesh established the Information Commission,6 and it has one Chief Information Commissioner and two Commissioners. The primary purpose of the Commission is to ensure the free flow of information. Since the beginning, the Commission has been a platform for 5

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retired bureaucrats. The current Chairman is a retired secretary at the Ministry of Information. The two members are former secretaries to the government and have had the opportunity to work at the Prime Minister’s Office. One of the two members worked as the secretary at the Ministry of Information. Beyond the bureaucracy, two female university professors could become commissioners; however, they were also active supporters of the political party that appointed them. Established in 1993, the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC)7 regulates the country’s capital market. In the past, after its inception, mainly retired bureaucrats used to be the Chairman. However, since 2008, the commerce professors of the universities have mostly occupied the leadership positions of the Commission. The reason for such predominance of commerce professors is the nature of the institution, in that it requires some professional and technical knowledge to perform and lead the organization. However, retired bureaucrats also share some positions. Currently, the Chairman and two members of the Commission are commerce professors of Dhaka University, while another member was a former senior bureaucrat. Overall, political consideration was the principal reason for their appointment. All KIIs agreed that appointments in different Commissions and agencies with particular roles, not as part of regular administrative organizations, are done based on political considerations. In most cases, politically influential bureaucrats occupy the positions after retirement from their regular jobs. In some cases, politically spotted university professors can become part of the leadership of these institutions. The bureaucrats consider these employments post-retirement employment with higher ranks. A retired secretary commented that “this potential opportunity seriously affects the moral posture of the serving bureaucrats; most senior bureaucrats tend to expose their political alignment with the government in power to get ­post-retirement employment. So, political patronage has very negative implications for civil service professionalism.” On the other hand, because of this potential opportunity, university professors also prefer to expose their partisan color to draw the attention of the political elites, and some indeed become successful in getting such positions. The majority of the KIIs opined that political patronage is historically a predominant feature of the country’s political culture. They 7

www.sec.gov.bd/

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opined that practically this started soon after the independence. Due to the fragile nature and performance of democratic institutions and the unique nature of the political settlement where the ruling elite enjoys a monopoly over rents, the ruling elite tries to maintain its cartel with political patronage to stay strong and continue its regime. Patronage helps the political authority increase its support base within different professional groups and entities. In most cases, the recipients of patronage offer free support to the government. They do not criticize any of its policies and actions, contributing to managing the government’s popularity and credibility. Referring to patronage and politicization, Mahmud (2020) observed “a widespread culture of patronage politics in which spoils and privileges are parcelled out to different clientele groups as an essential tool of political management (p, 9).” Therefore, political patronage is a means of political management, and all KIIs agreed with this observation. Since the nature of governance in Bangladesh is patriarchal, the government aims to establish control over state institutions, including the bureaucracy (Hassan, 2013). Political patronage works well in achieving this objective. If we examine the nature of the agencies and institutions that experience patronage recruitment in their leadership, they are all regulatory institutions. Apart from the argument of using political patronage for regime consolidation and political management, as many researchers and the KIIs have argued, regulation capture seems another reason for such patronage recruitment (Hassan and Raihan, 2017). In other words, regulation capture means forging partnerships between political loyalists, either from the regulatory agency or the political domain or business elites, to regulate policies and regulations for political gains. Bertelsmann Stiftung (2020: 32) aptly mentioned, “The institutions that could form the backbone of democracy are highly politicized, establishing a governance structure that functions on the basis of patronage, benefiting party loyalists.” Hassan et al. (2020) gave a detailed account of how the banking sector became victims of political patronage, which results from a deal environment, as Raihan and Bourguignon (2020) have argued. To sum up, patronage seems a significant trend in Bangladesh political culture since independence; nonetheless, over time, there was a change in political elites that distributed patronage, but it has continued as a system of political favor. The other finding is that bureaucrats tend to enjoy more benefits from political patronage, and thus,

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bureaucratic politicization is deeply intertwined with the patronage system. Finally, in some cases, professional competence seems a reason for patronage-based employment, but in most cases, political rapport and consideration are crucial issues for such jobs.

4.4.2  Explaining Civil Service Politicization and the Resultant Ordeals The governance situation of the country has fittingly established that the bureaucracy in Bangladesh suffers from many ills, politicization being the number one. At the same time, the quality of political governance, arguably patrimonial, also points to the fact that politicized bureaucrats are more preferred than professional ones by the ruling regimes. In other words, there is a deliberate attempt to politicize the civil service. When this is the situation, professional civil servants face the first challenge: it becomes harder for them to uphold the fundamental values of professionalism in the civil service – transparency, integrity, objectivity, and impartiality. One key observation from our discussions with the participants (KIIs) is that civil servants generally suffer from low confidence in a politicized environment and become hesitant in decision-making and implementation. One participant narrated the situation as “I know I should give my honest opinion when sought, but I also know that my boss will not like it if I give my opinion objectively. And it will not end here; my boss will chase me until he gets me transferred from the position. As the boss is a senior executive, he has access to my career-controlling ministry. He can eventually influence the ministry to spoil my career.” The reason why the boss is so much vindictive is, as he replied, “the boss does not want to hamper his career and wants to be in the good book of the political master. Therefore, he wants the feedback from me that the political leadership likes to hear and not the objective ones.” He further explained that “in the politicized system, everyone is vulnerable including the seniors, like my boss. Therefore, there are always tensions throughout the bureaucracy.” In reply to how the bureaucratic hesitation impacts the overall governance, a senior-level participant (30 years experience) currently working in a ministry that deals with education mentioned that the implications are very high. He said, “While we all know that politically considered vice-chancellors (VCs) are the root causes of the failures of the universities in Bangladesh, yet the ministry could not

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formulate any prudent policy for recruitment of VCs from among the best academics. The reasons are simple that political elites want politically inclined VCs. The ministry’s senior management always tries to understand the pulse of the political leadership and accordingly propose policy measures. You cannot expect any objective position in this situation.” Zafarullah and Rahman (2008), pointing to the overwhelming politicization of the civil service, argued that Bangladesh’s policy capacity is increasingly eroding. Some participants indicated that because of political control over civil servants’ careers, different actors such as business elites and donor consultants are becoming active actors in the governance and development of the country. Recent literature (Hassan and Raihan, 2017; Rahman, 2018; Rahman & Quadir, 2018; Quibria, 2019) corroborates this observation. Business elites are increasingly influencing the formal institutions of politics, like the parliament and political parties. Bangladesh RMG sector business leaders enjoy high clout over political leadership. Some of the RMG leaders became MPs, ministers, and office-bearers of the ruling party. Politically influential people currently lead almost all professional and business networks. They enjoy easy access to the policy circle and have an overwhelming influence over the bureaucracy due to their political connections. Since the political criterion has been the principal consideration for promotion and good posting, some of the long-standing traditions of bureaucracy, such as the seniority principle, are brazenly undermined. The critical fallout of such compromise is weakening the group and peer relationship within the civil service, often called esprit de corps. An additional secretary, a participant in this study, said, “my secretary is several years junior to me in the civil service, and I don’t feel comfortable working with him. I never visit him voluntarily unless I am forced to do so.” He went on further and said: “why should I work under his command? What’s my fault? Nobody told me why I did not become a secretary?” The statements are clear and forceful. Our discussions with the participants reveal some appalling insights stemming from their work experiences on the ground. Many of the participants (60%) of this study joined the civil service after 1990. With the fall of the military dictator and restoration of democracy, 1990 was Bangladesh’s turning point. Many people thought that a new dawn would appear. However, practically that did not happen; instead, we witnessed contentious politics between two major political parties, BNP

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and AL (Blair, 2020). Then in the 1990s, many graduates joined the civil service with high hopes of state-building, but now many consider that their hopes stand entirely dashed given the subsequent political development. In this context, a participant’s experience may be highly relevant for those interested in studying the civil service’s politicization and the individual predicaments. “I joined the civil service in 1993; I thought this would be the best means to serve my country. Accordingly, I tried to prepare myself for my roles in the civil service. I had a Master’s degree with first class. I did another Master’s in a European university, and I also achieved a Ph.D. from one of the best universities in the world.” He explained, “finally what happened that I did not get any promotion and a good position to contribute. The reason is nothing but politicization. The seniors think that I am very much professional and cannot be easily bent. Now I am paying the price for my professionalism and integrity.” He lamented by saying that “my batchmates would soon be secretaries (in fact, many of them already have been). However, I am still a senior assistant secretary, just one rank above the entry-level position with close to three decades of experience to my credit. My frustration is not that I did not get adequate promotion but that I did not get the opportunity to serve my country for which I joined the civil service.” Meyer-Sahling et al. (2018) mentioned that professional civil servants could not be easily tamed as they think they do not need to be obligated to the politicians for their recruitment. In this case, the participant’s experience further strengthened the findings of Mayer-Sahling et al. On a vital question of why politicization takes place in the civil service, we found several responses. In our assessment, all these responses are valid and significant. The first point is that the importance of having a professional civil service was thwarted right after the country’s independence. Then, from 1975 to 1990, the country was under complete or quasi-military rule, and these regimes deliberately ignored and undermined civil service professionalism and its importance. After, 1990 we witnessed confrontational politics that also tried to capture the civil service in the political interests of ruling elites. Since 2008, Bangladesh has been experiencing a new type of governance under the dominant party settlement where the whole electoral system has been fully exploited and captured, ruining the neutrality and credibility of the election system. During 1991–2006, there was a pattern of bipolar competition between the two major parties, and for such competition, there was some chance of improvement in institutions, policies, and governance.

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However, under a dominant party settlement type of governance, this chance seemed to have been lost. Now, bureaucrats are being used to influence the electoral process, ensuring the ruling party’s win. This shift represents strikingly a fatal feature of bureaucratic politicization. All participants in the interviews agreed that if any civil servant is not candidly politically loyal, they can’t be promoted and cannot have a good posting. It means you have to be openly and fully partisan. Security agencies dig out information regarding the political background of civil servants; if anyone appears loyal to the ruling elite, it’s okay. Political loyalty is becoming the most critical issue because the political regime wants to ensure the electoral win by having connivance with a partisan bureaucracy. The current perspective of civil service politicization is a new development and is unlikely to end very soon. Politicization does not only take a toll on civil servants’ professional careers, it has profound implications for personal and societal levels that we like to call ordeals. A total of 80% of the respondents said their families went through traumas for such sufferings; they lost peace and tranquility. On the societal front, many civil servants who suffered from politicization could not justify their professional failures, and consequently, they faced humiliations. Some of the participants said, “How can we tell people that we are victims of politicization? More importantly, how can they understand our plights as they are not the insiders?” One respondent said, “Some of our batchmates (6 in number) live in the same residential campus of the government. While 2 of us got promoted in due time, others (4 in number) did not get, impacting our family relations. Our spouses and children don’t want to visit one another’s home now; children feel shy to play together, whereas previously they were good friends. The children think their parents are no longer the friends and peers.” Regarding the fallout of politicization, 98% of the respondents emphasized that corruption is deepening as politically inclined bureaucrats tend to forge partnerships with political leaders, politically motivated business persons to evade accountability and amass wealth through corrupt practices. In Bangladesh, a common perception is that many politicians and bureaucrats siphon off money to build second homes in developed countries like Canada, Malaysia, etc. (Wasif, 20208). A euphemism of such perception regarding the second home 8

www.thefinancialexpress.com.bd/views/spotlight-on-begum-para-1606411315

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is the “begum para”9 in Canada. The other crucial negative effect of bureaucratic politicization is that the pride, prestige, and trust of the civil service as an institution and civil servants as individuals are drastically receding. Meyer-Sahling et al. (2018) identified a correlation between meritocratic civil service and a low incidence of corruption. In other words, merit-based civil service can support improving governance quality. They explained that because of meritocracy, bureaucrats remain connected and can withstand illegal political pressures. However, in an overly politicized system, bureaucrats remain fragmented. A participant stated that “due to political connections and influences, some civil servants tend to monopolize the opportunities, undermining peer relationship. What happens then is that all interest groups try to exploit this fragmented condition by collaborating with the politically motivated coterie.” A former Cabinet Secretary was requested to comment on the observations that emerged from the discussions with the participants. He seemed to have agreed with all statements. He said that overarching politicization could not bring excellence in the civil service and improve professionalism. However, he pointed out that it would be challenging to end the current form of politicization, given the country’s political culture. In his own words, “every organization has become politicized, and the politicization process is creating dividends and rents for the influentials. Then how does one expect it would end soon? I do not foresee any improvement in the situation shortly.” He further said that “if this trend continues, civil service will lose its relevance in the eyes of the people, and this will be a significant loss, particularly in terms of ethical standing.” The above analysis presents both an exasperating and a frustrating situation. The ordeals that professional civil servants face are indeed highly worrying and upsetting. Not only do the civil servant’s careers and lives bear the brunt of it, but they also have significant fallouts for the governance and development of the country. In the context of SDGs, politicized civil service seems to be a big challenge. It cannot realize the goal of inclusivity that no one is left behind. Due to its inherent partisan behavior, partisan civil servants would work more for the political interests of the ruling regimes, ignoring the interests of the general people. 9

A luxurious area of Toronto in Canada where the families, particularly wives of the corrupt officials and politicians live. Begum is a Benglai word that means the wife of an affluent person, while para, a Benglai word too, means the area.

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4.5 Conclusions The discussions and analysis of the Bangladesh case postulate that both patronage and politicization are deep-rooted in the governance and political trajectory of the country. The challenges that emerged in the discussions should not be considered the challenges and constraints of the civil service only; instead, they represent the larger part of the governance and political failures. Broadly, this paper identifies that the challenges are perennial. The most perturbing issue is that the current governance trajectory seeks to continually benefit from this politicized bureaucracy by establishing a monopoly over it. Therefore, it does not seem that the situation would change soon. Most key actors, including the politicians, bureaucracy, and business elites, are the beneficiaries of this politicized and patronage system. Therefore, it isn’t very likely that these actors would be interested in reforming the situation to ensure better governance and meritocracy in the civil service system. They don’t have any incentive to undertake reform measures. This author is thoroughly skeptical about any reforms, as Sarker and Zafarullah (2019) are. However, as we know, nothing can stay static; therefore, the silver line may emerge from the dialogues from different stakeholders who want to see improvement in governance and professionalism in the bureaucracy. When professional civil servants are deliberately disdained, it becomes a national loss. Therefore, collective actions for a gradual strengthening of democratic institutions and the improvement in accountability in governance are essential to change the current state of affairs. The author of this paper looks to the conscientious politicians, public opinion builders, and professional civil servants to break this vicious cycle. The media has a significant role in creating public opinion favoring merit-based and professional recruitment in the public sector and civil service to advance the national interest. Since Bangladesh is committed to realizing the SDGs, the country must focus on the strengthening of institutions.

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Matheson, A. et al. (2007). Study on the political involvement in senior staffing and on the delineation of responsibilities between ministers and senior civil servants. OECD Working Papers on Public Governance, 2007/6, OECD Publishing. doi:10.1787/136274825752 McCourt, W. (2000). Public appointments: From patronage to merit. Working Paper No. 9. Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester. McCourt, W. (2007). The merit system and integrity in the public service. Paper No. 20. IDPM, University of Manchester. McKinsey Global Institute. (2018). Outperformers: High-growth Emerging Economies and the Companies That Propel Them. McKinsey Global Institute. Meyer-Sahling, J.-H. et al. (2018). Civil service management and corruption: What we know and what we don’t: 1–10. doi:10.1111/padm.12404 Meyer-Sahling, J.-H. et al. (2018a). Civil Service Management in Developing Countries: What Works? Evidence from a Survey with 23,000 Civil Servants in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America, Report Prepared for the UK Department for International Development. The University of Nottingham. Meyer-Sahling, J.-H. et al. (2019). Civil Service Management in Bangladesh: Evidence from a Survey of more than 1,000 Civil Servants- Report Prepared Under British Academy – UK Department for International Development Anti-Corruption Evidence Programme. The University of Nottingham. http://christianschuster.net/2019.03.10.%20Bangladesh% 20FOR%20PUBLICATION.pdf Moniruzzaman, Md. (2019). Electoral Degitimacy Preventive Representation and Regularization of Authoritarian Democracy in Bangladesh. In Ryan, R.M. (Ed.), Elections: A Global Perspective. IntechOpen Limited, UK. Available at: www.intechopen.com/books/elections-a-global-perspective Mostofa, S.M.D & Subedi, D.B. (2020). Rise of competitive authoritarianism in Bangladesh. Politics and Religion: 1–29. doi:10.1017/ S1755048320000401 Mueller, H. (2015). Insulation or Patronage: Political Institutions and Bureaucratic Efficiency. BE Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy, 15(3): 961–996. Nistotskaya, M. & Cingolani, L. (2016). Bureaucratic Structure, Regulatory Quality and Entrepreneurship in a Comparative Perspective: Crosssectional and Panel Data Evidence. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 26(3): 519–534. OECD. (2019). OECD recommendation on public service leadership and capability. OECD. OECD. (2020). Civil service capacities in the SDG era. OECD. Available at: www.oecd.org/gov/pcsd/civil-service-capacities-in-the-sdg-era.pdf

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Osman, F.A. (2010). Bangladesh Politics: Confrontation, Monopoly and Crisis in Governance. Asian Journal of Political Science, 18(3): 310–333. Panizza, F., Conrado Ricardo Ramos Larraburu, C. R. R. & Scherlis, G. (2018). Unpacking Patronage: The Politics of Patronage Appointments in Argentina’s and Uruguay’s Central Public Administrations. Journal of Politics in Latin America, 10(3): 59–98. Peters, B.G. (2023). Patronage in Asian political Systems: A Framework for Research. In Peters, B.G. Kim, B., & Knox, C. (Eds). Political Patronage in Asian Public Administration. Cambridge University Press. Peters, B.G. & Pierre, J. (2004). Politicization of the Civil Service in Comparative Perspective: The Quest for Control. Routledge. Peters, B.G. (2013). Politicisation: What Is It and Why Should We Care? In Neuhold, C. et al. (Eds). Civil Servants and Politics: A Delicate Balance (pp. 12–24). Palgrave Macmillan. Quaresima, F. (2019). Patronage appointments between politics and public governance: A review. MPRA Paper No. 94650. Available at: https:// mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/94650/ Quibria, M.G. (2019). Bangladesh’s Road to Long-term Economic Prosperity: Risks and Challenges. Palgrave Macmillan. Rahman, M.M. (2018.) Development Agenda and Donor Influence in South Asia: Bangladesh’s Experiences in the PRSP Regime. Routledge. Rahman, M.M. & Quadir, F. (2018). The Civil Service’s “Fast Food Approach” to Development Policymaking in Bangladesh: Critique and Agenda for Reform. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, 40(3): 159–174. Raihan & Bourguignon. (2020). An institutional diagnostic of Bangladesh: Introduction. Bangladesh Institutional Diagnostic Working Paper 20/BDID (01). Economic Development & Institutions, Oxford Policy Management. Riaz, A. (2019). Voting in a Hybrid Regime: Explaining the 2018 Bangladeshi Election. Palgrave Macmillan. Riaz, A. (2020): The pathway of democratic backsliding in Bangladesh. Democratization. doi:10.1080/13510347.2020.1818069 Riaz, A. & Parvez, S. (2021). Anatomy of a rigged election in a hybrid regime: The lessons from Bangladesh. Democratization. doi:10.1080/135 10347.2020.1867110 Rouban, L. (2015). Political-administrative Relations: Evolving Models of Politicization. In Meer, F.M. van der et al. (Eds). Comparative Civil Service Systems in the Twenty-first Century (pp. 317–333). Palgrave Macmillan. Sarker, A.E. & Zafarullah, H. (2019). Political Settlements and Bureaucratic Reforms: An Exploratory Analysis Focusing on Bangladesh. Journal of Asian and African Studies: 1–19. doi:10.1177/0021909619871584

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Patronage Appointment in Japanese Politics Political Representation in a Large Bureaucracy Masao Kikuchi

5.1 Introduction Political patronage is one of the ways to ensure democratic control of bureaucracy while ensuring government competence in an increasingly complicated society. In some countries, political patronage is used to ensure the loyalty of bureaucrats to the policies of the government and the ruling party. Other countries may try to limit patronage positions in order to protect the neutral policy expertise of the bureaucracy. As the COVID-19 pandemic creates even more instability and the Japanese government seeks to tackle new issues not only in public health, but also in economic and other social policies, it is worth revisiting both the merits and demerits of political control of government through patronage. Following the Great East Japan Earthquake and the nuclear crisis of 2011, nuclear scientists were recruited as “special advisors” to the Prime Minister based on their stance and distance to the nuclear industry as well as their proximity to the ruling DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan), and personal ties with the Prime Minister. Although it was not realized at the time, the DPJ tried to install party staff in many senior positions in the government to ensure the loyalty of the giant bureaucracy (Neary 2019). In the Central Government Reform of 2001, along with the streamlining of a number of ministries, politically appointed positions in both the Cabinet and the ministries were increased in order to strengthen political control. These examples illustrate that while patronage is not completely pervasive, it is still one of the ways to ensure the loyalty and competence of the government. Drawing on these examples and based on the recognition that political patronage has certain impacts on both the loyalty and competence 99

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of government workers, this chapter tries to investigate political patronage in the Japanese political system. For years, Japanese politics has been explained through the lens of clientelism and particularism. However, particular attention has not been paid to patronage appointments, or the recruitment of individuals into posts within the government that are directly involved with making public policy, from a historical and institutional perspective (Shefter 1994). Political patronage itself has been well discussed in political science academics (Driscoll 2018; Kenny 2015; Shefter 1994). Kopecky and others have elaborated on these concepts to ask broader questions on these practices from a comparative perspective (Kopecky et al. 2016). Building on this existing patronage research, literature reviews, and informal interviews with informants, including former politicians and senior bureaucrats, this chapter investigates the state and the implications of patronage appointment in the Japanese political system.

5.2  Patronage Appointment Concept and Practice from a Comparative Perspective Political patronage is often studied along with other similar concepts. In Japan in particular, patronage is often associated with concepts such as clientelism, patron–client relationships and others interchangeably in the political economy literature (Hutchcroft 2014; Reed 2021). Johnson (1982) argued in his well-known book “MITI and the Japanese Miracle” that the government–business relationship was behind the rapid restoration of Japan despite a lack of natural resources. Gibney (1988) tries to explain the strong and fervent support for the emperor, while others have pointed out the state– society relationship built on reciprocity that was later called “Japan Inc.” (Samuels 1987). Certainly, clientelism is one of the most useful concepts in explaining the Japanese features of political power relations among party, business, and bureaucrats. Clientelism is often described as the exchange of economic and/or social benefits by the party and/or politicians for political support. Clientelism plays a central role in the Japanese political system and has received a great deal of attention from scholars (Scheiner 2007). The favors or benefits provided by the patron can be a position in government, meaning that patronage can be encompassed by the concept of clientelism as a more general concept to describe the patron–client relationship in the

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political realm. However, in many cases, clientelism is defined more generally in economic terms, rather than specifically being concerned with hiring people in the government. In a large-scale comparative study, Kopecky and others broadly define patronage as “the ability to appoint individuals to non-elective positions in the public and semipublic sector, including posts in core civil service, foreign embassies, state-owned companies, quangos, ore regulatory agencies, and the practical exercise of this ability” (Kopecky et al. 2016: 418). This definition is practically useful for a comparative research project for two reasons. The first is that patronage is particularly concerned with  the ability to control the allocation of public positions, while clientelism, which has received a large amount of scholarly attention in the context of Japanese politics, generally refers to the patron– client relationship and its mechanisms in politics. The second reason is that, as in the previous comparative study on patronage or studies on the politicization of civil service have discovered, there are diversified patterns of practice in patronage across nations, and sometimes even across ministries or agencies within a government (Berenschot & Aspinall 2020; Peters & Pierre 2004). This definition is particularly useful for capturing both commonalities and differences in patronage among Asian countries.

5.2.1  Prewar History of Japanese Patronage Politics and Government In the prewar period in Japan, there was a patronage politics in which higher bureaucrats would leave office with the change of government (Ramseyer & Rosenbluth 1993; Shimizu 2019). At the same time, there was an effort to “rationalize” the politics of government with more career bureaucrats in higher positions in the government (Akizuki 2010). Typical “loyalty versus meritocracy” battles of the institutionalization in the government are observed in the prewar period in Japan (Silberman 1993). The Japanese political system has employed a parliamentary system of government based on the separation of powers since the formation of the modern government in the 1868 Meiji Restoration. As Japan was a “late modernizer,” its national goal was to catch up to the Western countries. Prior to the enactment of the Meiji Imperial Constitution, a national civil servant system based on a merit-based appointment was introduced.

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After the Meiji Restoration, the appointment of government officials began with the Satsuma and other clan factions freely appointing their close associates (Koh 1989; Spaulding 1967). However, in 1885, prior to the replacement of the Grand Council of State with the cabinet system after the promulgation of the Imperial Constitution, a government official system based on the German constitutional monarchy of the time was used. In this system, officials were positioned as “servants of the emperor,” and distinctions were made between imperial appointees depending on their status and distance from the emperor. At the same time, the policy of appointing officials by examination was announced. Based on this policy, in 1887, the appointment of officials other than imperial appointees (ministers, vice-ministers, bureau chiefs, etc., called as “Chyokuninkan”) was made by examination in principle, and the first open competitive examination was held the following year. The basic reason for the shift from a free appointment to a merit-based system with examinations was that the then cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Hirobumi Ito, believed it necessary to fend off criticism of clan politics. It was also necessary to secure the absoluteness and superiority of the administration over the parliament by obtaining high-quality government officials in preparation for the opening of the Imperial Parliament in 1890 (Spaulding 1967). In 1898, the first political party-based cabinet was formed under the government of Prime Minister Shigenobu Okuma. The Okuma cabinet aimed to expand the power and influence of political parties in the government and expanded the scope of the free appointment system based on party membership to the vice-ministers, bureau chiefs, and local district commissioners in various ministries. In contrast with the party patronage expansion, the second Yamagata Cabinet, which was formed the following year, tried to slow the expansion of political party influence in the government by limiting the qualifications of imperial appointees (excluding ministerial level) to those who had either passed a high-level civil servant exam or who had served in the imperial service for at least one year. At the same time, “when necessary for the convenience of government affairs” was added as one of the reasons for officials to take leave. This system, which allowed the political parties in power to order a leave of absence at their own discretion, was used to remove officials from office, as they were supposed to retire after the expiration of the leave period. This practice continued until 1932, when it became necessary to consult with

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the independent Civil Service Commission before taking a leave of absence (Koh 1989). In 1918, the Hara Cabinet expanded the scope of party patronage appointment of government officials in order to increase the influence of their party. This expansion of scope was mainly for the posts of Secretary General of the Cabinet, Director General of the Legislative Bureau, Vice-Ministers of various ministries, Director General of the Security Bureau of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Inspector General of Police, and Secretary General. In 1924, the posts of vice-ministers of the ministries were reverted to merit-based appointment for those who passed the high-level civil service examination, but the posts of Director General of the Security Bureau of the Ministry of the Interior and the Inspector General of the police, who were in charge of public security, continued to be political party appointees. In addition, local government officials under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior, including governors and police chiefs, were also appointed based on political patronage. Later, as the nation gradually entered a war footing, the party cabinet collapsed, and the scope of party appointments was limited, with the practice continuing until the end of the war.

5.3  Patronage in Contemporary Politics in Japan With the new constitution of Japan in 1946, a parliamentary cabinet system, modeled after that of the UK with limited appointing positions, was introduced. Under the new constitution, the position of civil servants was drastically changed from “officials of the Emperor” to “servants of the people as a whole,” and under the newly enacted National Public Service Act, the professional civil service system based on the merit system of appointment using examinations and other demonstrations of ability was continued. From 1945 to 1952, the country was occupied by the Allied Powers. Allied forces attempted to demilitarize and democratize the political structure and its public policy process, and the imperial army and navy were disbanded. In addition, the war industries and the zaibatsu, a type of large Japanese business conglomerate, were dismantled and converted into civilian industries. The vast majority of members of the imperial parliament and politicians who served as ministers during the war were purged from government and the Allied forces governed

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Military

Military

Dissolved

Purged

Parliament

Bureaucrats

Parliament

Bureaucrats

Figure 5.1  Dynamics of policymaking power balance before and after World War II in Japan Source: Kikuchi (2010).

via indirect rule. To fully liberalize the old Japanese regime, the Allied forces retained the bureaucracy and used it as their agent of reform. This allowed the old system to survive through the democratization and liberalization process after the war. Since then, the bureaucracy has dominated the policy process with its policymaking capacities (Tsuji 1984). In general, the bureaucracy maintained substantial influence over the national policymaking process in the early postwar era, with the power structure of Japanese public policy process dragging down the adverse legacy of the prewar imperial period (Gibney 1998; Kikuchi 2010) (Figure 5.1). Most members of the Japanese parliament were expelled by the Allied forces after the surrender of Japan in World War II. The bureaucracy was thus the only remaining policymaking agent capable of implementing democratizing and liberalizing reforms, giving it tremendous influence over policymaking through budget control and other means. After Japan regained its independence upon signing the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952, the previously purged politicians were granted amnesty and some began to occupy parliament seats. In 1955, conservative politicians established the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) while socialists who were previously split into conservative and liberal factions joined forces to establish the Japan Socialist Party (JSP). Under this so-called “1955 regime,” the LDP and JSP were the ruling opposition parties, respectively. This de facto twoparty system continued during the Cold War era, reflecting the bipolar ideology seen in politics worldwide. The stability brought by this arrangement allowed the bureaucracy to oversee the rapid economic growth of the postwar period. Although bureaucracy-led economic growth policies thrived, members of parliament accrued

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policy expertise in certain areas (e.g., transportation infrastructure planning) and prioritized industrial polices (Curtis 1999). Starting in the 1960s, members of parliament who worked on behalf of special interests and benefited from the support thereof came to be known as “zoku” (i.e., a political clan based on reciprocal political and economic interests) politicians and began to exert influence over the national policymaking process (Fukui 1970). Zoku politicians with common interests and benefits created small factions representing business sectors allied with the government ministries. The zoku politicians, the related business association, and the government ministries became interconnected. The zoku politicians benefited from the financial and electoral support of the business sector and received special treatment from the ministry that was favorable to their policy initiatives. The business sector benefited from the ability to exert strong influence over the government ministries and policies through zoku politicians. There are many accounts of this type of political pork barrel practice. For example, there were the Policy Affairs Research Councils (PARCs), which were inner formal organizations within the LDP. LDP members of parliament belonged to one or more PARCs that represented their major areas of interest. The bills put forth by the Cabinet and the bureaucracy must be reviewed by PARC before being sent to the Cabinet. That is, the ministerial bureaucracy must obtain the consent of PARC members for bills and policies. Moreover, senior PARC members were often more knowledgeable about their policies of interest than were members of the bureaucracy. This was because bureaucrats usually changed positions every two to three years. By scrutinizing the policies of the ruling party, zoku politicians in the PARCs were able to engage in political bargaining with the ministerial bureaucracy. Given the influence of zoku politics over the national policymaking process, Fukui (1970) and Muramatsu and Krauss (1984) argued that the Japanese public policy process was not centralized much by the bureaucracy, but rather, was more pluralized and decentralized. The zoku politicians in the ruling party accrued substantial influence over policymaking, and local governments mobilized locally elected members of parliament to exert its political power, thereby bypassing the administrative hierarchy within the central government. Thus, elected members of parliament and local governments acquired substantial

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influence over both agenda-setting and policy implementation in their arguments. The interactions among zoku politicians, the bureaucracy, and business interests reached a peak in the 1960s and the mid-1970s. However, after the oil shock in the late 1970s, the nature of Japanese policymaking changed. In 1974, gross domestic product (GDP) growth dropped below zero for the first time in the postwar period and the national pie (pork) started to shrink. Zoku politicians collaborated with the bureaucracy and business interest groups in a bid to prevent their vested interests from being taken away by the Ministry of Finance. As a result, they were decried as the main reason for ineffective Japanese economic policies. Zoku politics is one of the defining features of Japanese politics. However, it is not connected with patronage but rather with other economic terms in politics. As a result, compared with other democracies, the Japanese administrative system employs fewer political appointment positions and the recruitment process of central bureaucrats is highly meritocratic and typically staffed by highly talented individuals (Pempel 1974; Peters & Pierre 2004). More recently, the LDP administration tried to exert executive control over the high-level career bureaucrats with the creation of the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs in 2014. The Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs, headed by the Chief Cabinet Secretary, uniformly manages the appointment process of high-level career civil servants at the national level. The bureau now conducts the qualification review for nominations to high-level civil service positions in order to promote the policy advice function based on the ability of policy specialists. The bureau was expected to fill a central strategic function of the management of personnel affairs of high-level civil servants in the Basic Law on Reform of National Civil Service Systems in 2008. However, following a series of political scandals under the Abe administration involving controversial sales of state-owned land in 2016 and 2017, much of the political commentary criticized the root cause of the scandal as executive control over high-level civil servants, noting that their decision-making was distorted by political pressure.

5.4  Scope of Political Patronage Institutionally, there are two types of civil service systems in Japan: the National Civil Service and the Local Civil Service. Both the national and

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Patronage Appointment in Japanese Politics Table 5.1  Size and type of civil service in Japan

National Civil Service Local Civil Service

Regular service

Special service

288,000

298,000 2,739,000

Source: National Personnel Authority (2020).

Table 5.2  Breakdown of special civil service in National Civil Service Subcategory

Number

Self-Defense Force Employees Judges and other Court Staff Diet (legislature) Staff Board directors of the Independent Administrative Agencies, which are engaged in administrative execution Ministers, Senior-Vice Minister, Parliamentary Secretaries, Ambassadors, and others

268,000 26,000 4,000 30 About 500

Source: National Personnel Authority (2020).

local civil service systems are further divided into regular and special services. Although the majority of civil servants are local, this chapter discusses patronage in the national civil service (see Table 5.1). This is because the scope of political patronage is even more limited in local government compared with the central government. Most of the special service positions in the local civil service are elected, such as those of the mayor/governor or assembly members, or appointive independent administrative committee members such as educational boards. Political appointee positions are classified into the “special civil service” in national government. However, it does not necessarily mean that all special civil service positions are political patronage positions. Special civil service appointments are governed by political or other factors and there are no competitive examinations such as those used for recruiting the regular civil service positions. The special civil service category includes cabinet ministers, heads of independent agencies, members of the Self-Defense Forces, Diet officials, and ambassadors (see Table 5.2). The majority of the special service

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positions (268,000) are Self-Defense personnel, who are employees of the Ministry of Defense and thus not political appointment positions. The second-largest portion (26,000) consists of judges and other court staff positions. The Supreme Court justices are appointed by the Cabinet, with the Chief Justice selected by the emperor upon designation of the Cabinet. The judicial branch is constitutionally independent from the other branches, so these are not regarded as political appointment positions. Other non-political appointment positions within the special civil service are staff of the legislative branch or the Diet, the national assembly (4,000), and board directors of the Independent Administrative Agencies, which are engaged in administrative execution (30). Other positions (about 500) within the special service are likely political appointment positions. This accounts for a mere 0.17% of all special service positions in the National Civil Service, or 0.09% of all national civil service positions, including the regular civil service. In more detailed positions of political appointment within the special civil service, Article 2 of the National Public Service Act further lists the positions below. Among these positions, the underlined positions such as that of prime minister, ministers of state and senior vice ministers of state, or parliamentary secretaries within each ministry and agency are political appointment positions, but this category is basically for legislators. The term political patronage has a connotation of the appointment of non-elected people to government positions, but the appointment of legislators of the ruling party to ministerial positions is simply common practice in parliamentary democracies (Kenny 2015; Reed 2021). In a parliamentary democracy, the majority of individuals for such positions are appointed by the Prime Minister and tend to be members of the legislature in his or her party. The Japanese constitution requires that a majority of the ministers appointed by the prime minister be members of the Diet (national assembly). In many cases, most if not all of the ministerial positions such as those of the vice minister and parliamentary secretary are filled by legislators. Occasionally, non-parliamentary members are appointed in one or two ministerial positions. In many cases, the appointees are female or business leaders chosen by the administration to try to show diversity or for other political reasons. Other political appointee positions are listed under “Officials

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who hold positions whose assumption requires an election, or the resolution or consent of one or both Houses of the Diet” category, but these positions are for members of the administrative commissions such as the Transport Safety Board, Environmental Dispute Coordination Commission, Central Labour Relations Commissions, and advisory councils such as the Consumer Commission, Food Safety Commission, and Heath Sciences Council, which require highly specialized skills and knowledge. Political appointment positions shown with a wavy underline below are filled mainly by career bureaucrats. These positions are the senior positions in the Imperial Household Agency, ambassadors, and other organizations independent from the cabinet such as the National Personnel Authority and the Board of Audit of Japan. As with ministerial positions, occasionally, ambassadors are appointed not from the career foreign service, but from among career bureaucrats in other ministries, or from business or academics. For example, the director general of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau provides legal counsel and reviews government bills, orders, and treaties. This position has been given to former or current career bureaucrats with the necessary legal qualifications. However, more recently, it has been argued that appointment to this position has become “political” because it is a legal advisor position to the Cabinet, and thus he or she assumes the role of replying on behalf of the Cabinet to legal questions raised by Diet members. The mission of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau also applies similarly to constitutional review (Yamamoto 2017). Other positions, shown below without underlines, are appointed from among both the legislators and career bureaucrats. The three deputy chief cabinet secretary positions are filled by one career bureaucrat and one legislator from each house (the House of Representatives and the House of Councilors). There are five seats for the Special Advisor to the Prime Minister positions. With a few exceptions, most positions are filled by members of both houses. Currently, there are eight Executive Secretaries to the Prime Minister positions. Two of these are filled by the prime minister’s aides, based on personal and political connections, and the remaining six are filled by senior bureaucrats from leading ministries such as the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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National Public Service Act Article 2 (3) The special service shall be comprised of the official ­positions listed below:

(i) The Prime Minister; (ii) Ministers of State; (iii) Commissioners of the National Personnel Authority and Commissioners of the Board of Audit; (iv) Director-General of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau; (v) Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary; (v–ii) Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary for Crisis Management; (v–iii) Assistant Chief Cabinet Secretary, Cabinet Public Relations Secretary and Director of Cabinet Intelligence; (vi) Special Advisor to the Prime Minister; (vii) Senior Vice-Ministers and Senior Vice-Ministers of agencies whose heads shall be appointed from among the Ministers of State, as provided for by law; (vii–ii) Parliamentary Secretary; (viii) Executive Secretaries to the Prime Minister and other ­Executive Secretaries to Ministers of State, or Executive ­Secretaries to heads of agencies included in the special ­service who are ­designated by rules of the National Personnel Authority; (ix) Officials who hold positions whose assumption requires an election, or the resolution or consent of one or both Houses of the Diet; (x) Grand Steward, Grand Chamberlain, Grand Master of the Crown Prince’s Household, Grand Master of Ceremonies and Deputy Grand Chamberlain of the Imperial Household Agency, and other officials of the Imperial Household Agency designated by law or by rules of the National Personnel Authority; (xi) Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary, Ambassadors on Special Mission, Representatives of the Government, ­Plenipotentiaries; Acting Representatives of the Government or Alternates of Plenipotentiaries; and Advisors and Members of the Suite of Ambassadors on Special Mission, Representatives of the Government or Plenipotentiaries; (xv) Secretary to Members of the Diet. Note: Item numbers not applicable to the political appointment positions are excluded from this list.

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5.5  Loyalty, Trust, and Expertise The public policy process in Japan is dominated by bureaucratic decision-making, mainly because of its history and administrative ­ culture (Campbell 1989; Johnson 1982). After the formation of the modern nation state during the Meiji Restoration in 1868, a strongly centralized modern national government was established to integrate the former feudal and decentralized system. Most government officials in the Meiji period were recruited from among the samurai class, and this led to the continuation of old notions of social status based on rigid feudalistic hierarchy (Silberman 1993). As a result, a strong sense of kanson minpi (reverence for public officials) developed. The samurai class originally consisted of warriors who worked for the shogun and local lords. Before the Meiji era, there was a 250-year period of peace after the unification of the Japanese islands under the Tokugawa shogunate. During this time, the samurai class became de facto “government officials” and their ability to govern each feudal state was recognized. Based on the recognition of a strong persistent bureaucratic culture, with “primacy” over the policymaking process, the Central Government Reform of 2001 strengthened the executive leadership of the prime minister in the cabinet and established overall coordination authorities. Along with this reform, the number of politically appointed staff in senior executive positions such as deputy chief cabinet secretary increased. In addition, the number of political appointment positions in each ministry was increased with the establishment of vice minister and parliamentary minister positions, replacing the parliamentary vice minister positions. These reform measures were aimed at increasing executive leadership of the government in power, rather than the bureaucratic kingdom of each ministry. When the DPJ came to power in 2009, it tried to place more than one hundred elected politicians into government posts (Neary 2019). Although its plan was not fully realized, the DPJ sent 25 party staff members to the cabinet as “experts.” These efforts were designed to strengthen the connections between the political party in power and the government in order to oversee the bureaucratic machine filled by career bureaucrats. Existing literature on patronage in Japanese politics argues for the existence of patronage in Japan, both historically and today (Hutchcroft 2014; Reed 2021; Scheiner 2007). However, most of the literature uses a much broader definition of the term “patronage” or

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mixes it with clientelism, particularism, or other concepts. Hutchcroft (2014) tries to illustrate patronage in terms of the relationship between the central bureaucracy and local governments. Similarly, Reed (2021) points out party–organization patronage between the LDP and special interest groups with the sponsorship of candidates in the election process. The causes and determinants of patronage politics in Japan in wider terms are often explained by the electoral system and party structure (Kingston 2019; Krauss & Pekkanen 2011; Maclachlan 2014; Pempel 1990). However, Scheiner (2007) argues that the electoral system explanation is limited, although the long-used single nontransferable vote in multimember district (SNTV/MMD) electoral systems played an important role in reinforcing clientelist linkages. However, Hutchcroft (2014), Reed (2021), and Scheiner (2007) do not directly discuss appointment power and the practices of party politics in the government positions, which is the focus of this book.

5.6  Professional Expertise and Political Skill In special service positions other than those of the Japanese SelfDefense Force, posts are filled mainly by incumbent and ex central bureaucrats. The dominant capacity of the Japanese central bureaucracy in the policymaking process derives from its elitist orientation and competitive national civil service examination. In Japan, the civil service examinations for the central government are administered by the independent National Personnel Authority, which provides screenings that are impartial, competitive, and open. For general service, there are three types of examinations: Class One or Comprehensive Service for elite professionals; Class Two or General Service for the University Graduate level for those on the non-career track; and Class Three or General Service for the High School Graduate level, for clerical non-professional personnel. For the 2019 Class One Comprehensive Service exam, out of more than 20,000 applicants, only 9.7% passed the initial screenings, with only 37% being appointed and recruited to a ministry (National Personnel Authority 2020). This low acceptance rate (3.6%) indicates a certain degree of professionalism and policy competence in the Japanese bureaucracy. However, for political appointment in the positions listed in the special civil service, in addition to the professional knowledge required for each policy field, the political skill to compromise and integrate

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different interests among players, including different ministries, is an absolute necessity. In this regard, both bureaucrats and experienced elected party members can exercise professional skills in appointed positions. In the LDP, the Policy Affairs Research Councils (PARCs), or interior formal organizations, played a certain role in the policymaking process along with the ministerial organizations (Hayao 1993). Senior members of parliament in the LDP belonged to the PARC for decades, and as a result, they sometimes had more policy knowledge and capabilities in their policies of interest (although often within a very narrow policy field) compared with the bureaucracy. Most of the patronage positions in the government are filled by elected party members who have experience and political training in the respective PARC activity in the LDP.

5.7  Applying the Framework of Patronage Appointments in Japan Political patronage has long been discussed for two main reasons (Bearfiled 2009; Kenny 2015; Sorauf 1960). To ensure the political support of the party and its supporters, patronage appointments are used as symbols of political response. The other reason is to bring political responsibility to the government and to mobilize the organizational capacity of the government bureaucracy toward policy orientations that are pledged in the election campaign (Aberbach & Rockman 2009; Resh 2015). In actual political practice, these are demonstrated simultaneously and coexist, and one aspect may be emphasized more by one party than another. It is also highly connected with the electoral system and other political and governmental institutional settings. Beyond its complexity in practice, Peters’ chapter demonstrates the typology of patronage based on Panizza, Peters, and others’ seminal works to identify the different patterns of patronage in Latin America based on the trust of patronage, and the expected type of skill set for the appointees (Panizza et al. 2019). Table 5.3 illustrates the patronage system in Japan along with the typology framework contributed by Peters. In looking at Table 5.3, it should be noted that real practices may not necessarily fit into the theorized category, so there should be variation even within the practices classified in the category, and some real practices stretch over more than two categories. Some patronage practices, such as those

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Table 5.3  Typology of patronage in Japan Major role of appointees Policy

Politics

A: Party Professionals “Researchers” in Cabinet Secretariat in DPJ Government

B: Apparatchiks Minister, Vice Minister, Parliamentary Secretary Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary

Personal

C: Programmatic Technocrats Executive Secretary to the Prime Minister Special Advisor to the Prime Minister

D: Political Agents Executive Secretary to the Prime Minister and Ministers Special Advisor to the Prime Minister F: Social Liaisons Feudal clan nepotism in prewar period

Group

F: Group Experts Positions filled mostly by career bureaucrats and occasionally by business leaders or academics (Ambassadors, Commissioners, and others)

Party

Basis of Trust

categorized under Party Professionals or Social Liaisons, existed in the past but are not used currently. Historically, the social-liaison type with former feudal clan nepotism in senior government positions was observed during the early stages of state building in the prewar period. Zoku politics, based on reciprocal relations with certain business sectors, could also be categorized in this type. However, zoku politics usually does not involve the appointment of persons to government positions. The positions of Minister, Vice Minister, Parliamentary Secretary, and Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary are classified in the Apparatchiks types. These positions are filled by elected party members from both houses. However, it is common practice in a parliamentary democracy that ministerial positions are given by the prime minister to elected members of the

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ruling or coalition party; so this is not a unique feature of patronage politics in Japan. The Executive Secretary to the Prime Minister and Ministers and the Special Advisor to the Prime Minister are classified as Political Agents, given that most of the positions are based on personal relations and the positions are filled mainly by elected party members. Additionally, these positions are stretched to the Programmatic Technocrats type because the quota of the Executive Secretary to the Prime Minister is eight, and it is divided into two positions for the prime minister’s political aides based on personal ties and six for senior career bureaucrats. Other positions, such as Ambassadors and Commissioners, are filled mainly by career bureaucrats, with a few exceptions from among business leaders or academics. In the DPJ administration between 2009 and 2012, the party tried to mobilize its own party staff into the cabinet secretariat with the “researcher” position, with the aim of exerting control over the giant bureaucratic organization (Neary 2019). This practice was not continued after the LDP retook power in 2012. In the current Japanese political climate, a mixed mode of apparatchiks, political agents, ­programmatic technocrats, and group experts generally prevails. With these diversified patterns of patronage practice in contemporary Japanese politics, some explanatory variables may explain the pattern of patronage. In Japan, social factors may have the potential to influence patronage practices. Although Japanese society is relatively homogeneous, women, the disabled, and other minority groups are sometimes appointed as a means of trying to improve diversity, but patronage generally works to reinforce the existing homogeneity of the society at large. Patronage may mitigate the impacts of political representation and socioeconomic discrepancy between urban and rural areas, as the divide widens due to the aging of society and depopulation (Kingston 2019). In many cases, however, the rural– urban divide is mitigated through other political processes, primarily the electoral system (Abe 1990; Curtis 1999; Pempel 1992). The party system, together with the state and the intensity of party competition is also an important predictor of the pattern of patronage (Berenschot & Aspinall 2020; Shefter 1994). Reed (2021) argued that the dominance of the LDP induced party–organization patronage in Japan. There was also an appointment practice of party staff in the government during the DPJ administration. Clientelism in Japanese politics is often used to explain the political power relations

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among political parties, business, and the government, but not with the patronage appointment (Hutchcroft 2014; Scheiner 2007). Patronage as party professionals or apparatchiks is not particularly common, besides appointment to ministerial positions for elected party members, which is a common practice among parliamentary democracies. Probably the most influential variable is the rigid civil service system. With its historical root as “agents of Emperor” over political representation in the prewar period, and through the indirect rule by the allied powers between 1945 and 1952, using bureaucracy as the agent of reform and democratization of the old regime, the bureaucracy has dominated the policy process with its policymaking capacities (Nakamura & Kikuchi 2011; Painter 2010; Tsuji 1984). One of the reform objectives of the Central Government Reform of 2001 was to strengthen the executive control over this strong influential bureaucracy. Both the number of posts in the Cabinet responsible for coordinating inter-ministerial matters and the number of posts in each ministry from the national assembly were increased. More recently, the LDP administration has tried to further exert executive control over the appointment process of higher-level career bureaucrats, with the creation of the Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs in 2014. This can be understood as part of the politicization of the bureaucracy through the establishment of a centralized control mechanism for posts and appointments of the senior civil service. This would gradually change the politics–administration power relationship, but it does not ­necessarily mean an increase in patronage positions in the government.

5.8 Conclusion As the second largest advanced democracy after the United States, the history of government modernization in the prewar period and contemporary politics in Japan has included efforts to strike a balance between democratic control and ensuring competency in the government. In the early prewar modernization period, party patronage was used to control the entrenched elite bureaucracy. Patronage was used to anchor democratic representation in the national government officials who were given their own legitimacy. In the Taisho era (1912–1926), with the rise of party politics, party members were appointed to some senior positions, but later, under the wartime regime, patronage practices

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gradually disappeared (Takenaka 2014). After Japan was defeated in World War II, its institutions were fully liberalized and democratized. However, the reform of the old political regime was implemented through the bureaucracy. This demonstrates that the bureaucracy maintained substantial influence over the national policymaking process in the post-War period (Tsuji 1984). As LDP members accumulated policymaking capacities in certain economic fields, clientelism and particularism became one of the key features of Japanese politics (Curtis 1999; Fukui 1970). However, this did not always involve patronage appointment. It was rather connected with other “pork,” including economic benefits to the electoral constituency. As a result, from a comparative perspective, patronage practices in Japanese politics may be rather limited in their scope and depth compared with other democracies in Asia. There was an effort to expand political representation and control over the government with the expansion of political appointment positions. In the Central Government Reform of 2001, political appointment positions in both the cabinet and in ministries were established to ensure executive control and coordination of inter-ministerial matters, as well as within each ministry’s jurisdiction. Nonetheless, these positions were filled mainly by elected party members, not by party staff or party-affiliated professionals. With the exception of the DPJ government sending party staff to the cabinet, party-involved patronage involving party professionals or apparatchiks has hardly been observed. The LDP tried to exert control over the personnel policy of senior bureaucrats with the establishment of the Cabinet Personnel Bureau in 2014. This politicization of the civil service can be understood as an effort to influence political voices in the government, rather than an expansion of patronage.

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6

Patronage in Mongolia Oyunsuren Damdinsuren, Julian Dierkes, and Byambakhand Luguusharav

In the context of the typology proposed by Peters in this volume, we describe Mongolia as being an example of patronage appointments as political agents. Even though widespread clientelist practices and rampant corruption on a smaller and grand scale make it difficult to identify the purposes for which appointments might be made, we generally see the roots of patronage appointments in the pursuit of shoring up the political power of the president, prime minister, party officials, or party faction leaders. As we describe below, the Mongolian party system is characterized by an absence of policy differences or ideological bases for the definition of political parties. Appointments are thus rarely focused on specific policy agendas and instead draw on personal networks of support and loyalty. We use a case study of the Mongolian diplomatic service to illustrate our conclusion. Mongolia is a particularly interesting case for research on political patronage. The contemporary public service has been built on a decadeslong tradition and heritage of a state–socialist governance system, one that mixed class origins and party membership of candidates with a strict meritocratic selection system to rule a planned economy from the center. Since 1990 and the twin establishment of a market economy and of democratic governance structures, some of the remnants of this meritocratic selection remain and some have even been enhanced through recent legislation, but a system that mixes political patronage with clientelism and grand corruption leaves Mongolia with the situation of non-elected appointments serving those elected to power, to enhance their power by appointing party allies to such positions.

6.1  Previous Research in Mongolia Political patronage is not a well-studied topic in Mongolia, compared to the literature on clientelism. In her doctoral dissertation on sociocultural and institutional environment of the public sector organizations 121

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of Mongolia that have strong influence on current public administration reform results, Kherlen Badarch (2013) included political influence on public management. She concluded that political influences and high turnover after political elections undermine the culture of public organizations. Yet, this dissertation does not give specific attention to political patronage in the civil service as distinct from clientilism. In a similar vein, Radchenko and Jargalsaikhan (2017) emphasize the personnel turnover that occurs following Mongolian elections, but do not go further in distinguishing clientelism from patronage and placing patronage as it occurs in some kind of typology. Through her master’s thesis focused on the political impact on the civil service system in Mongolia, Shurentsetseg Zumberellkham has found that partisan politics influence all level of civil service positions, especially involving appointments to higher-level positions. According to her research, this practice is repeated after each political election (Zumberellkham 2012). However, her research has examined the Mongolian civil service as a whole, while her conclusions are not well established, as she reached her conclusions only on the basis of statistical data provided by the Civil Service Council of Mongolia. In this thesis, political patronage has been briefly defined as a “spoils system” without specifying the exact nature of appointments, while paying more attention to providing practical recommendations to the government for correcting malpractices in the civil system. Although there is almost no academic literature on political patronage in the Mongolian language, it does not mean that there are no practices of political actors appointing individuals by discretion to non-elective positions in the public sector, irrespective of the legality of the decision (Kopecký, Mair, and Spirova 2012), as defined in the framework chapter of this book. In fact, most examples and cases proving that political appointments are widespread – from the top to the lowest level of civil service of Mongolia – have been found in the pages of newspapers or websites.

6.1.1  Political Regime Type: A Hybrid Presidential–Parliamentary System The 1990 Democratic Revolution in Mongolia followed on nearly 70  years of firmly entrenched one-party rule with the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) serving as the governing party.

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It replicated many of the structures of other states in the Soviet Bloc, including mass organizations that were aligned with party structures. The MPRP simply ceded control in the 1990 revolution and agreed to elections in the summer of 1990 and a new constitutional process. This process led to a new constitution for Mongolia that was adopted in early 1992 and came into force almost immediately. It has been amended three times (in 1999, 2000, and 2019), with the most recent amendments having potentially the most significant impact on the political regime type. The constitution of 1992 has created a hybrid presidential and parliamentary system, or semi-presidential system. The President was initially elected for a maximum of two four-year terms (changed to a single six-year term with the 2019 amendments). The President is the head of state and represents Mongolia internationally. The greatest power attached to the office is that of the commander in chief of the armed forces, although that power has, fortunately, remained entirely theoretical as Mongolia has no border conflicts with its two contiguous neighbors, Russia and the People’s Republic of China. In addition, the President has the right to introduce legislation and to appoint various officials, particularly ambassadors and many positions in the judiciary, though this latter power has been curtailed by recent constitutional amendments and is now vested in the National Security Council, a body that includes the President, but also the Prime Minister and speaker of parliament. Mongolia has had six presidents, including President U. Khurelsukh, elected in June 2021. Two of them have represented the Democratic Party, while the four others were nominated by the Mongolian People’s (Revolutionary) Party. Parliament is unicameral and its seventy-six members are elected every four years. There have been almost as many electoral systems as there have been elections, with shifts back-and-forth between different forms of majoritarian and proportional representation and mixes of the two. The Prime Minister is the head of government and thus heads all executive bodies of the government, such as ministries and agencies, obviously in collaboration with the members of cabinet. From the initial parliamentary election in 1990 and the first presidential and parliamentary election held under the new constitution in 1992 to the most recent elections in 2020 (parliamentary) and 2021 (presidential), Mongolia has established electoral democratic structures firmly. By all common tests applied to electoral democracies,

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Mongolia is a democracy. Elections have been generally free, fair, and accessible to all citizens. Power has been turned over peacefully following electoral results multiple times. Thirty years of these electoral structures have put Mongolia on a firm structural footing. Accordingly, Mongolia is included among the world’s democracies in all attempts at assessing democratic status comparatively. Freedom House has ranked Mongolia as “free” in many iterations of its annual report, most recently scoring 84 out of 100 in an assessment of political rights and civil liberties (Freedom House 2021). Similar rankings hold for many similar efforts at assessing regime types. For example, the Bertelsmann Transformation Index has assessed Mongolia’s political transformation at 7.3 (out of 10, measuring transformation), a value roughly on par with countries like South Africa (7.45), Brazil (7.4), or India (7.25) (Bertelsmann Foundation 2020). In the subcategories, Mongolia’s score for stateness is particularly high (9), while its score for rule of law (6.3) and political and social integration (6.5) are significantly below the overall score. Furthermore, in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, Mongolia’s ranking dropped from 87 in 2016 to 116 in 2022. Mongolia’s democratic status remains somewhat of an anomaly in its region and among post-state socialist Asian countries. The 1990 democratic revolution in Mongolia was partly inspired by changes in the Soviet Bloc associated with Mikhail Gorbachev but was a genuinely local revolution without any discernable foreign influence. It is also somewhat of an anomaly in that the state-socialist ruling party, the MP(R)P not only continues to exist, but actually continues to dominate Mongolian politics. Jargalsaikhan (2019) has emphasized this party continuity in his examination of Mongolian democracy, particularly in comparison to Kyrgyzstan, the Central Asian country that has seen the most progress (but also frequent retrenchment) toward democracy.

6.1.2  Party System: Two-Party Dominance without Policy Competition Following some changes in how the opposition organized itself, Mongolia saw the establishment of a seemingly stable two-party system by the 2000s. This has recently come into question, but for now, politics remains dominated by the Mongolian People’s (Revolutionary) Party and the Democratic Party. There have been, and continue to be,

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other parties, including parties that have had representatives elected at the local, provincial, and national levels, but at the national level, the MP(R)P and DP have remained dominant. As mentioned above, the MPRP emerged from its one-party dominance from 1921 to 1990 to continue to play a prominent role in democratic Mongolia. It reformed itself in the early 1990s by replacing its leaders and giving up ties to mass organizations and other elements of its one-party rule. Despite its state-socialist origins, it, like the DP, does not have a particular ideological or policy orientation even though it is a member in the Socialist International and occasionally portrays itself as a social-democratic party. The MPP continues to be well-organized with a structure that reaches into all localities across Mongolia and has over 161,300 members (out of a total 2020 population of 3,357,542) who continue to provide a strong financial base through membership dues. Given its intertwining with state structures, there are some areas where it may be advantaged by assets that it was able to privatize in the early 1990s, under its control. While there are active factions at the national level, the party is characterized by strong party discipline. The party is also characterized by a relatively rigid succession system that loosely groups politicians by their birth-decade. The current Prime Minister L. Oyun-Erdene is the first prime minister representing the generation born in the 1980s that has ascended to power within the party with the support of the 1960s cohort and will be succeeded by the 1990s’ politicians supported by those born in the 1970s. The Democratic Party is the merger of a number of different parties that emerged in opposition to the MPRP in the 1990s. Some of these original parties live on within the DP as factions that have been the source of personal rivalries between prominent politicians. Its founding raison d’être remains its political orientation, namely anti-MPP and pro-democracy. Given its roots in many different democratic movements, the party is also well represented across the country, albeit with a slightly less solid organizational structure in the countryside. Its 150,000 members also provide it with some financial basis through membership dues. The DP continues to be dominated by the “golden swallows,” i.e. some of the leaders of the democratic revolution of 1990, and to some observers, this has prevented a generational renewal (Dierkes 2016). The DP has some areas of regional strength across the country, but also remains particularly strong in the capital of Ulaanbaatar.

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Third parties have played and continue to play a minor role in Mongolian politics. There have been spin-offs from both major parties, like the 2010 party that re-embraced the original name of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party after the MPP had dropped the word Revolutionary from its name. That refounded MPRP has once again joined forces (i.e. re-merged) with the MPP ahead of the 2021 presidential election. The Civil Will party (later merged with the Green Party) played a role in the late 2000s. In the most recent elections, the National Labor Party (generally known by its Mongolian acronym as KhUN) is making a name for itself. It won a seat in the 2020 parliamentary election and its presidential candidate easily beat the DP candidate in 2021 by garnering 21.6 percent of the vote. The party is primarily represented by foreigneducated professionals in Ulaanbaatar, but received some support in rural areas in 2021 as well. It remains to be seen whether it might replace the DP as a dominant second party or if the DP and KhUN emerge as lesser alternatives to the MPP. Despite the solidity of Mongolia’s electoral structures, the party system remains marred by its lack of policy competition. Electoral plat­ on-ideological forms are by and large hard to distinguish and espouse a n pragmatism that gives voters little of a sense of the decisions that representatives of either party might make. No major political cleavage has emerged around which political parties have defined themselves, neither rural versus urban, pro-mining or anti-mining, nor any other major divide. Given the threat of climate change but also the focus on natural resources as a basis for economic growth, it also seems noticeable that there is no significant environmental movement or party in an open political system. Appeals to voters are largely of a personalistic nature tied to the prominence or credentials of a candidate. Or they emphasize the clientelist benefits that might accrue to supporters of a specific candidate in the form of lower-level public service appointments. For many party members, political careers are seen as earnings opportunities rather than being rooted in a commitment to improve the lot of fellow citizens based on some ideological convictions. Party finance has been recognized as an obstacle to further political development, and a draft party finance law that would provide more public funding to parties for election campaigns is currently under discussion.

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6.2  The Historical Development of the Mongolian Civil Service Mongolia’s history of statehood provides the background for today’s civil service. The emergence of the state can be traced back to the Hunnu Empire, known as Xiongnu, which rose to great power in the first millennium BC and disintegrated sometime during the second or third century AD (Schmidt 2012). The state structure of Hunnu resembled a military structure. Much later, after the unification of the warring Mongol tribes in 1206, Temujin was proclaimed Chinggis Khaan of the Great Mongol Empire and governed through the “Ikh Khuraldai” (Great Assembly). The Khuraldai declared a new law for the Empire named Ikh Zasag (Great Yasa) to maintain peace and order, and bring structure and discipline to the empire’s daily functions. The Great Yasa established a merit-based system that did not discriminate on the basis of religion or ethnic background or rank or tribe, meaning that everyone should be given the same opportunities. Any appointments to positions of influence and power were made on the basis of ability. After the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty founded by Chinggis Khaan’s grandson Khublai in China, Mongolia disintegrated into several separate domains. With the fall of the Qing Dynasty, Outer Mongolia, under the leadership of the eighth Bogd Lama born in Tibet, who was the spiritual and political leader of the country, declared its independence from Beijing in 1911. Mongolia introduced five ministries, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) in 1911. Under pressure from both China and Russia, Mongolia signed the Kyakhta agreement of 1915 which was purported to force Mongolia to curtail its independent status declared in 1911, and to recognize China’s suzerainty. With the assistance of the Russian Red Army, Mongolia regained its independence in 1921, becoming the second communist country in the world after the Soviet Union. The closest political ally of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Mongolia, the Mongolian People’s Party (renamed as Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party in 1924) formed a new government led by the Bogd Khaan as the head of government. On November 26, 1924, the first constitution was passed by the First Great Khural proclaiming the establishment of the Mongolian People’s Republic. In socialist Mongolia, the highest decision-making body was the unicameral People’s Great Khural

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consisting of deputies elected by universal election every four years. The highest executive and administrative agency of state administration was the Council of Ministers, which was responsible for coordinating and directing ministries, for supervising national economic planning and implementing the national plan, and to direct and to guide the work of administrative units: aimags (provinces) and soums (counties) (Kherlen Badarch 2013). As the MPRP was the ruling political party since 1921, party organizations played a decisive role in the selection and assignment of civil servants. Those who were loyal to the MPRP were often assigned to important state positions, but honesty, political consciousness, knowledge of relevant tasks, and organizational abilities also mattered in the selection of civil servants. Class background also played an ­important role in appointing civil servants, meaning that the most important tasks must be fulfilled by those from the working class, consisting of herders and workers (Kherlen Badarch 2013).

6.2.1  The Contemporary Civil Service Inspired by democratic revolutions in central and eastern Europe, Mongolia saw a peaceful democratic revolution in 1990 leading to the introduction of a multiparty system and market economy (Batbayar 2016). Since then, the public sector has undergone fundamental reforms trying to adopt the practices of developed and developing countries. Enabled by the democratic constitution adopted in 1992 and the specialized law of civil service adopted in 1994 (Mongolian Law on the Civil Service), the current structure and system of the ­public service has undergone three reform phases. The first phase, from 1992 to 1996, was aimed at introducing a traditional career-based system of public service, based on the example of Germany and Japan. This period was more about maintaining the existing system than reforming it. In the second phase, from 1997 to 2011, the New Public Management (NPM) concept, particularly the New Zealand model, was introduced. As a result, performance management, contract management, and the delegation of power to line managers were implemented. The third phase, starting from 2012, shifted the reform focus toward making public services more citizen-oriented and holding public organizations accountable for their actions to the public as well as to other institutional stakeholders (Kherlen Badarch 2013).

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Under the Law on the Civil Service approved by the Parliament of Mongolia in 2017, a total of 205,011 public servants can be classified into four categories (Kherlen Badarch 2013; Parliament of Mongolia 2017) as shown in Table 6.1. According to the National Statistical Office, Mongolia has a population of about 3.3 million and a work force of 1,054,900 (National Statistical Office 2021). At the end of 2020, the total number of civil servants was 205,011 working in 4,147 government organizations financed from the state budget, which is an increase of 6,548 bureaucrats or 3.3 percent compared to 2019 (Civil Service Council 2020). This increase was likely due to the Law on Prevention, Combat, and Reduction of Social and Economic Impacts of COVID-19, which was passed in April, 2020 by Parliament, and is effective until the end of 2021, allowing public organizations to appoint civil servants without a selection procedure. Looking at each category, the number of civil servants belonging to special services has increased the most (an increase of 17.9  percent), compared to civil servants of other categories. It indicates that the number of those working in the uniformed services has increased greatly in recent years. According to the Law on the Civil Service, special services are further classified as the “core civil service” along with public administrative positions, and enjoy particular rights and protections (World Bank 2009). Special service servants are considered well-paid within the civil service. According to the latest figures by the Judicial General Council, judges in Mongolia receive from 2.7 million MNT to 3.3 million MNT per month (MONTSAME 2021), which is as much as twice or three times an average salary (1.2 million MNT in 2020) in the country. On the other hand, the number of civil servants working in public service institutions, such as education, science, health, culture, arts, and sports services, financed from the state budget and in state-owned enterprises, declined by 1.3 percent. Due to the increasing number of civil servants, the government is the largest employer in Mongolia. As of 2020, civil servants accounted for 6.3 percent of the total population. However, it has been estimated that the number goes up to around 240,000, if employees of stateowned enterprises are added. As a result, public employees constitute around 10 percent of the total workforce. Surprisingly, the civil service does not struggle to attract and retain young job seekers, as public employment careers appeal to

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President, Prime Minister, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, Governors and their deputies, advisors and assistants to these political posts

Decision-making and executive officials at central and local administrations and at government agencies

Judges and public prosecutors of courts of all levels, military and police officers, intelligence service, border security, diplomatic officers, as well as managing and executive positions of the anti-corruption commission and the audit organizations

Civil servants working in mass media and information agencies, training and research institutions, education, science, health, culture, art institutions and state-owned enterprises

Political service

Public administration

Special state service

Public support services

Source: Civil Service Council of Mongolia, 2020.

Types of post

Classification

Table 6.1  Mongolia’s civil service classification and category

(+) 17.9 (+) 7.7

(−) 1.3

10.0

66.0

(+) 1.56

1.8

22.2

Change% (compared to 2019)

Percentage of total civil servants

Core civil service

Category

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Government organizations Self-employment

International organizations Foreign invested entities Do not know

19%

30% 8%

5%

Locally owned enterprises NGOs

29%

27%

Private companies

7%

13% 3% 3% 3% 2% 3%1% 3% 3%

0%

10%

20% Male

30%

40%

50%

60%

Female

Figure 6.1  Types of organizations that young work-seekers want to work in

younger generations. A 2017 survey report by the Research Institute of Labour and Social Protection under the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection informs that young generations look at government as a sector of career interest, as 56 percent of 720 survey respondents between the ages of 15 and 34 prefer working in government and public service (Figure 6.1) (Research Institute of Labour and Social Protection of Mongolia 2017). When the survey respondents were asked why they are willing to take up jobs in the civil service, they cited job security (43 percent), competitive salaries (43 percent), rapid career progression and learning opportunities (28 percent), consistency in work schedules (23 percent), and salary payment on time (13 percent). Many young people who worked in private organizations noted that they would work in public service, because the government is more likely to pay social insurance benefits for public employees (Research Institute of Labour and Social Protection of Mongolia 2017). Due to the increasing interest in the civil service, the number of people who want to take the civil servants’ general examination is likely to increase in the upcoming years. For example, in 2020, 16,218 citizens registered for the general examination, an increase of 54.8 percent from 2019 (Civil Service Council 2020). In short, more and more people want to be employed in the civil service, but most public jobs are poorly paid.

6.3  Political Patronage Practices in Mongolia As Peters explains in the framework chapter, reasons for patronage appointment have two dimensions. The first is the major role of the

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appointees, largely based on their functions, which is divided into policy versus non-policy (or politics) appointments, while the second dimension is loyalty, which can be further divided into three types: loyalty to a political party, personal loyalty to politicians, and loyalty to a social group. Democratically elected governments generally make appointments in the bureaucracy. Similarly, in line with the Civil Service Law, the winning party (or coalition) is permitted to make political appointments. According to the World Bank’s recommendations, the optimal number of political positions should not exceed 5  percent to avoid the politicization of civil service (Zumberellkham 2012). As of 2020, less than 2 percent of civil servants are political appointees, such as the advisors and assistants to the President, Prime Minister, Ministers and Deputy Ministers, Governors, and their deputies. Yet, there are more political appointments in the Mongolian civil service than there should be. For example, driven by election results, 5 percent of civil servants lost their jobs in 2007, which increased to 13 percent in 2014 and 14  percent in 2016 (World Bank 2016), meaning that at least 14 percent of public servants were replaced by politically motivated appointees in 2016. In making political appointments, loyalty to a political party matters, but political factions or groups play a decisive role in distributing civil service positions within the party. A party victory does not necessarily imply that the party members or supporters will be rewarded with permanent jobs in civil service. As mentioned in the previous sections, there are two major parties in Mongolia, namely, the Mongolian Peoples’ Party (MPP) and the Democratic Party (DP). Although there is no formal evidence for the existence of factions, their activities are regularly revealed by investigative journalists. For example, “Altan Gadas” (Polar Star) was one of the most powerful factions within the DP grouping former members of the Mongolian Social Democratic Party, including prominent political figures such as N. Altankhuyag1 (Prime Minister in 2012–14), Ch. Saikhanbileg (Prime Minister in 2014–16), and former ministers S. Bayartsogt (Radchenko and Jargalsaikhan 2017). As a further example from the opposite side 1

Mongolians generally use a single given name and a patronymic. We have followed Mongolian convention in abbreviating the patronymic to an initial, followed by the given name.

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of the political aisle, when M. Enkhbold was party leader of the MPP, the “Hotyin” (City) faction dominated his party. The “Hotyn” faction was formed when for the first time in Ulaanbaatar’s history, representatives of the party’s city council dismissed the mayor of the capital city in 2007. The Mayor who lost his position was Ts. Batbayar, succeeding M. Enkhbold in 2005 (Batzaya 2019). Since then, most positions in the civil service have been given to individuals associated with this faction. However, the faction has started losing its power as its leader M. Enkhbold was expelled from his position as the Speaker of Parliament after thousands of people demanded his dismissal. As for personal loyalty to politicians, Mongolian politicians perceive their immediate family members or relatives as the most loyal to them. For example, an investigative article on “Family Trees in the Civil Service” revealed how prominent politicians and those in power put their immediate family members or relatives in civil service positions (24Barimt 2018). Member of Parliament M. Oyunchimeg’s sibling works at the Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi JS, a state-owned enterprise, while her younger sister is Director of the Authority for Family, Child and Youth Development in Ulaanbaatar’s Chingeltei district where her constituency is located. Moreover, M. Oyunchimeg has become the subject of a political scandal, as her son was illegally appointed as the Director of the Procurement Department of the General Authority of Health Insurance, a position that requires a minimum of 12 years of civil service experience according to the Civil Service Law (Social Medee 2021). In the case of MP M. Oyunchimeg, except for the s­ ibling working at Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi which is considered as public support service, those civil service positions held by her immediate family members are classified as core civil servants who should be appointed based on merit only. As for loyalty to a social group, local communities and membership in interest groups may be important in making political appointments. Mongolia consists of 21 aimags (provinces). One of the strong factions based on local community is “Uvs” (a western Mongolian province). The Uvs faction is considered a cross-party faction, meaning that members of both MPP and DP who were born in the Uvs province may belong to this faction. Former MP (1992– 2020) and Minister of Justice Ts. Nyamdorj, who is considered one of the leaders of the “Uvs” faction, made a lot of efforts to appoint S. Amarsaikhan as the Chairman of the Citizens’ Representative

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Meeting of Ulaanbaatar, which is the legislative body for Ulaanbaatar city in 2019 (Anews 2019). S. Amarsaikhan, whose parents are from Uvs province, is now Deputy Prime Minister of Mongolia, while Ts. Nyamdorj has become the Chief Cabinet Secretary, after his defeat in the 2020 ­parliamentary election. These appointments made by the Uvs faction did not violate the Civil Service Law, as the chairman and vice chairman of the Secretariat of the Government/Cabinet are political appointees. However, it is one of the notable examples of how civil servants are appointed in Mongolia, which is not limited to politically appointed public positions, including advisors, assistants, and spokespersons supporting politically appointed public officials during his/her term of office. The Mongolian Association of Horse Sport and Trainers may be the most powerful NGO in Mongolia which is able to place their affiliates in public service. Formerly led by M. Enkhbold, the Association has a branch in each province. When M. Enkhbold turned down the prime ministership even though his party won the parliamentary election in 2016, P. Sergelen, who previously worked as General Secretary of Association of Horse Sport and Trainers became Minister of Food and Agriculture. Former Minister of Food and Agriculture T. Badamjunai also belonged to the Association. Civil service positions are often used as currency in political transactions. In particular, large business groups and companies nominate and fund their own “politicians” for elections. Big companies seek to influence state affairs by enabling their own “people” to work in the civil service using their own “parliamentarians” (Bat-Ulzii 2020). As stated in the 1992 Constitution, the President appoints the judges of the Supreme Court upon their presentation to parliament by the Judicial General Council and appoints judges of other courts on the proposal of the Judicial General Council. According to the Law on Courts of Mongolia (Art. 31.4), a Mongolian citizen who has worked as a judge, prosecutor, or lawyer for at least 10 years or who has least 10 years of teaching experience at an accredited law school, shall be appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court. President Kh. Battulga nominated S. Batkhuleg in 2020, who had no previous experience. Appointing someone who has been a chief lawyer for Golomt Bank as a Judge of the Supreme Court to the Parliament (Nyamulzii 2020) created a lot of anger among people, as D. Bayasgalan, the owner of Golomt Bank (one of the top five banks in Mongolia) is one of the closest business allies of President Battulga, and was awarded the contract to build a 270 km railway from Tavantolgoi, the largest

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coking coal mine in Mongolia, to Gashuunsukhait, border port at the Mongolia-China border (Munkhtamir 2021). In September 17, 2021, Ya. Sodbaatar, the Chief of Staff to the President, reported President U. Khurelsukh’s intention to relinquish his power to appoint judges and head of Mongolian Independent Authority against Corruption. As a result of the deliberate act to place political agents in the public service, it is not easy for job seekers who have a passion for public service to take up government jobs. Under the civil service reform based on the merit principle, there are a number of efforts to introduce fair and transparent personal selection procedures (Zumberellkham 2012). However, these efforts have not resulted in the desired outcomes. Job seekers often continue to face high levels of job requirements which are included in job descriptions which are approved by the Civil Service Council, but developed by authorized officials recruiting civil servants, as stated in Article 23.4 of the Civil Service Law,2 meaning that those authorized officials can misuse their powers by setting high levels of job requirements in order to disguise their intent of privileging political or party connections or seeking bribes from job applicants, which are strictly prohibited by the law. There are legal or institutional attempts to limit political involvement in the civil service. Specific provisions were amended in May 2008 at the initiative of the then-president N. Enkhbayar, which were aimed at guaranteeing political neutrality of civil servants in the Law on the Civil Service (Art. 7.1.3, Art. 37.1.4, and Art. 39.1). Based on the amendments to the law, the Civil Service Council of Mongolia issued an explanation of neutrality of civil servants in 2008 by recommending that “civil servants shall not wait for any election of a political party or movement, participate in any meeting, deliberation or assembly organized by a political party or movement, pay party membership fees or donations, be obliged to perform any duties on behalf of a party or movement” (Civil Service Council, 2009). However, legal provisions aimed at ensuring that any civil service interactions are free from undue political influence have not been effectively enforced in the past years.

2

Article 23.4 of the Civil Service Law states that job description(s) of public administration positions shall be developed in accordance with the procedure stated in Article 23.3 of this law, and approved by the authorized official based on endorsement of the central civil service authority, for each job position separately.

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Political appointment

4.56

Public procurement, tender selection

4.36

Special fund activities

4.49

4.42

3.91

License issuance, renewal, revocation

4.23

Budget spending

4.66

4.34

4.2

3.96 4.1 4.02

Implementing projects and programs 3.4

3.6 2019

3.8

4

4.2

4.4

4.6

4.8

2018

Figure 6.2  The extent of the spread of corruption in public service

There is a broad consensus that poorly paid civil servants are more prone to corruption. Due to perceptions of unfair payment, the lower compensation level in the public sector as compared to the private sector is reckoned as a key factor in the spread of corruption (Mahmood 2005). Political appointment-related corruption was the most widespread in the public service, as evidenced in the 2019 survey entitled “Perceptions of Corruption in Politics and Law Enforcement Bodies” commissioned by the Mongolian Independent Authority against Corruption. This type of corruption increased in 2019 compared to the previous year (Figure 6.2) (Maxima Consulting 2019). While appointments often combine patronage, clientelist, and corruption goals, we have tried to offer examples of the power of political factions in driving civil service appointments to support the case that Mongolia is an example of the “political agent” patronage as described elsewhere in this volume. In the following section, we examine political regime type and the party system in its interconnections with these systems of patronage appointments before turning to the diplomatic service as a case study of patronage.

6.4  Patronage Practices in the Mongolian Diplomatic Service We have decided to analyze patronage practices in the Mongolian diplomatic service as a case study for several reasons. First, Mongolians attach great importance to their diplomatic service, considering it as one of the most important guarantees of the country’s sovereignty and

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independence. Second, the diplomatic service is defined as “a special civil service” under Article 3.2 of the Law on the Diplomatic Service, implying higher requirements for the diplomats than the employees of general civil service. With only 450 employees, the diplomatic service is considered to be the most prestigious and the most competitive branch of the Mongolian civil service. Appointments of ambassadors attract wide public attention, because one of their main functions is to protect the rights and legitimate interests of Mongolian citizens and legal entities abroad. In addition, ambassadors represent the Mongolian state abroad and are the face of the country; thus, only the best and the brightest must be appointed to this important position. However, in recent years, there has been an increase in the number of “backdoor” people, and there are concerns that their actions or inactions could adversely affect the country’s interests. Another reason is that information about ambassadorial appointments is easier to obtain, as they are publicly discussed by the parliament. Due to the scarcity of research literature on patronage practices in the Mongolian diplomatic service, we have conducted structured interviews with ten individuals, including former and current diplomats, researchers, and faculty from the School of International Relations and Public Administration (SIRPA), National University of Mongolia. The main purpose of the interviews was to explore and better understand general characterstics and particularities of patronage practices in the Mongolian diplomatic service. Our interviewees provided us interesting insights and observations about patronage appointments in the MFA of Mongolia and most respondents agreed that patronage practice is very common within the ministry. The majority of the respondents stated that patronage appointments have been in practice for a long time, while some emphasized that the practice has especially flourished since the 2000s. Furthermore, the interviewees also underlined that patronage appointments damage international reputation and national interests of the country due to the appointee’s inexperience and incompetence.

6.4.1  The Diplomatic Service of Bogd Khanate Period The modern Mongolian diplomatic service was founded on December 29, 1911 as one of the five ministries established by the Bogd Khaan, following the country’s declaration of independence from the Qing

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Dynasty. As the head of state, Bogd Khaan gave great significance to the MFA and directly guided the country’s foreign policy. He appointed Chin Van M. Khanddorj, one of the leaders of the National Freedom Movement, as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Other ministry officials were nominated by the Foreign Minister and appointed by royal decree. Foreign Minister M. Khanddorj defined the role and structure of his ministry. Within the MFA, Khanddorj established three units: the Southern, Northern, and Central divisions. The Southern Division was primarily responsible for relations with China and Tibet and their nationals residing in Mongolia. The Northern Division was in charge of relations with Russia and foreign nationals from Russia and Europe. The Central Division was responsible for maintaining important documents, such as agreements with foreign countries, and liaising with other ministries to coordinate foreign affairs. The ministry had a staff of forty-two, including six officers in charge of drafting Foreign Ministry documents, ten scribes, one translator-officer of Russian, and one translator-officer of Russian and Chinese (Tsolmon et al. 2009). Due to the lack of Russian speakers, a Russian language school was established under the ministry. Among those who attended the school were Ts. Dambadorj, N. Jadamba, and Kh.  Choibalsan, who later became leaders of the People’s Revolution of 1921 and the MPRP government.

6.4.2  The Diplomatic Service of the People’s Government On July 10, 1921, the People’s government of limited monarchy3 was established and its structure and organization were similar to that of the Bogd Khanate’s government, with its five ministries in charge of foreign, domestic, military, finance, and judicial affairs. The fact that the Prime Minister D. Bodoo also assumed the office of Foreign Minister was an indication of the special importance attached to relations with foreign countries. The organization of the MFA was essentially the same as that of the Bogd Khanate, with three departments in addition to the ministry leadership. These were the Northern Division for Russia, the Southern Division for China and Tuva, and 3

Mongolia’s first constitution was adopted in 1924. Thus, we cannot use the term “constitutional monarchy.”

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the General Division for Inspection, Secretariat, Administration, and Finance. The initial staff of the Ministry was twenty-nine people, including Duke B. Tserendorj, A. Amar, Count N. Jigmiddorj, and Khatanbaatar S. Magsarjav, a military leader who had earlier served under the Bogd Khan’s government. By the Agreement on the Establishment of Friendly Relations between the People’s Government of Mongolia and the Government of Soviet Russia, signed on November 5, 1921 in Moscow, the two governments agreed to open their respective diplomatic missions in Ulaanbaatar and Moscow. The Mongolian Government initially decided to appoint former Prime Minister Bodoo as the Plenipotentiary Representative to Soviet Russia, but he declined, citing his illness. Following this, the government appointed Khatanbaatar Magsarjav, the Deputy Minister of Military Affairs, who also declined for health reasons. Therefore, it was decided that N. Jadambaa, who had been appointed as a counselor in Moscow, as a Plenipotentiary Representative, would be appointed, but A. L. Okhtin, a representative of the Soviet Union at the time, criticized the decision, saying that he was “too young to be fit for office.” The People’s Government reconsidered the situation and appointed J. Davaa, an official of the MFA, with a provision stating that “it is not permissible to decline for any reason.” Prior to his departure, he was awarded the title of “State Tushee Gun” (Duke) in order to enhance the prestige and rank of the Plenipotentiary Representative to the only country with which Mongolia had official relations (Khangai 2021). These facts suggest that although an ambassadorial post was not a sought-after position in the government as it is today, the MPRP leadership gave careful consideration to the candidates and tried to send the best possible personnel to its first diplomatic mission in the Soviet Russia. In 1929, the Mongolian People’s Republic signed a treaty of friendship with the Tuvan People’s Republic and exchanged envoys. The first Mongolian envoy sent to Tuva was M. Dugarjav, a prominent revolutionary leader and artist, who previously served as the secretary of the Ulaanbaatar City Party Committee and the police chief. These facts show that the MPRP leadership was primarily responsible for appointing diplomatic envoys who were mostly party “apparatchiks” based on their loyalty to the party and their political experience.

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Due to the very limited scope of foreign relations of the time, in 1932, the MFA was downsized and its administration staff, services, and paperworks were transferred to the government, leaving only two departments, the West and the East. Thus until 1946, only five to seven staff were employed by the MFA (Dugersuren et al. 1998).

6.4.3  The Diplomatic Service of the Mongolian People’s Republic In February 1945, at their meeting in Yalta, the Allied Powers agreed to recognize the status quo of the Mongolian People’s Republic under pressure from the Soviet Union. Subsequently, the Republic of China recognized Mongolia’s independence and established diplomatic relations on February 13, 1946. When the Maoist-led communists seized power after the Chinese Civil War, Mongolia severed its diplomatic relations with the Republic of China and established diplomatic relations with the newly formed People’s Republic of China on October 6, 1949. Prime minister Marshal Kh. Choibalsan personally appointed B. Jargalsaikhan, who was the Chairman of the Institute of Sciences (forbearer of the Academy of Sciences of Mongolia), as the first Ambassador of Mongolia to China. B. Jargalsaikhan was one of the few Mongolians who received higher education in the Soviet Union at that time and had previous diplomatic experience as the secretary to Ambassador J. Sambuu in Moscow. He also had some additional international experience as he attended World Peace Council meetings held in Rome in 1949 and in Stockholm in 1950 (Jargalsaikhan 2001). Thus, Jargalsaikhan was seen as having the necessary policy expertise and qualifications to be an ambassador. Ambassador Jargalsaikhan assumed his duties on July 3, 1950, after presenting his credentials to Chairman Mao Zedong. Appointees in the diplomatic service during socialist times can be described as apparatchiks and party professionals because in most cases appointments were made based on the candidate’s loyalty to the MPRP and policy expertise. The reason is, like in other socialist countries, the most important decisions in the realm of foreign policy were taken by the ruling communist party-MPRP. Thus, almost all the Mongolian ambassadors who worked in the Soviet Union were political appointees, who previously held high positions in the government. For instance, Ambassador S. Bataa (1956–1959) was Defense Minister, Ambassador S. Luvsan worked as Deputy Chairman of the Council of

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Ministers (1960–1963), and Ambassador Kh. Banzragch (1973–1979) was Deputy Chairman of the State Planning Commission prior to their appointment. Since 1946, Mongolia started training its professional diplomats at the Moscow Institute for International Relations and the MPRP was directly involved in selecting the best and brightest students to send to this prestigious Soviet institute. J. Choinkhor, who served as Ambassador of Mongolia to the USA, was one of five young persons from herders’ and workers’ families, vetted and sent to the Moscow Institute for International Relations in 1964. All five of them later became ambassadors and represented Mongolia in foreign countries (Oyunsuren 2021). But by the 1970s, mostly children of MRPP officials and of diplomats were sent to the Moscow Institute for International Relations, while for ordinary people it had become almost impossible to enter the school. In one case, three out of four children of a cabinet minister went to that school one after another. To curb this corrupt practice, which was damaging the MPRP’s reputation, the Central Committee of the MPRP passed Resolution No. 170 “On the regulation of the composition of student body to study at the Institute of International Relations of the USSR” on May 17, 1974, which stated “It instructs the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to recruit mainly from the aimags and to ensure that at least 80 percent of the entrants are children of workers and herders!” (Bayarkhuu 2021). Due to the fact that future diplomats to study in Moscow were chosen from students studying in Mongolian universities from the beginning, there was no examination to enter the diplomatic service. After their graduation, the Central Committee of the MPRP and the MFA assigned them to the appropriate jobs.

6.4.4  The Diplomatic Service of Mongolia Until 1991, except for a few personnel trained in other socialist countries, including East Germany and Poland, almost all the diplomats of Mongolia were graduates of the Moscow Institute for International Relations. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mongolia had to train its diplomats domestically and established the School of Foreign Service (now School of International Relations and Public Administration) within the National University of Mongolia in

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December 1991. The SFS was originally established on the basis of the Departments of Western Linguistics, Oriental Studies and Russian of the Faculty of Foreign Languages. Currently, its graduates constitute a substantial portion of the Mongolian diplomatic service, including current Foreign Minister B. Battsetseg, several ambassadors, and heads of MFA departments. Currently, the MFA employs around 450 diplomatic personnel, of which 300 are stationed abroad. Unlike the diplomatic service of the Mongolian People’s Republic, which employed members of the MPRP and promoted or appointed only those who were loyal to the party, the diplomatic service of democratic Mongolia aspires to be politically neutral. In 2000, the Law on the Diplomatic Service was adopted. In accordance with Article 11.1.2 of the Law, during his/her diplomatic career, one shall not be a member of any political party or movement and shall refrain from participating in its activities in any form. However, breaches can be seen everywhere, as politicians use patronage appointments based on their loyalty to their party, faction or social group. As D. Bayarkhuu, former ambassador to Egypt, stated in his interview that “there are such appointments, politicians and authorities have always used. One third of the MFA and half of the diplomatic missions are filled with such people. This is an eternal phenomenon. It didn’t start yesterday, but it developed too far after the democratic revolution. Every party that wins a parliamentary election repeats this process. It has especially flourished since 2000.” In 2001, an entrance examination to the diplomatic service was introduced. The exam consists of a general knowledge test, a professional knowledge test, a skills test, and a language proficiency test, which are taken electronically, and those who meet the thresholds specified in the regulations, then take an interview. Although the exam is aimed to recruit the best and brightest, the integrity and transparency of the exam are still in question. One respondent in this study said that although he passed the exam and was registered in the roster, the MFA recruited another person, who had lower exam points than him. In addition, the exam does not take place on a regular basis. Since 2015, there has been only one exam that took place in the summer of 2021. Thirty-two of the seventy-seven individuals who took the exam passed the exam and entered the diplomatic service. The low number of applicants is somewhat surprising because in 2015, 333 persons competed to fill 15 vacancies (Shuud.mn 2015). The reason for this may be the

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lack of public information about upcoming exams, as only a select few were informed. As one respondent in this study observed “Just recently it came to my knowledge that the daughter of the Director General of Erdenet Mining Corporation was appointed as attaché at MFA not long after her university graduation. It is quite unusual to join MFA right after graduation from university. It is known among public that you need to have such powerful connections to join the ministry.” As several repondents to this study pointed out, it is important to institute an independent third-party monitoring in the diplomatic service entrance examination to ensure its transparency and integrity.

6.4.5  Ambassadorial Appointments by the Last Three Presidents of Mongolia The Constitution of Mongolia, adopted in 1992, defines three actors in the country’s foreign policy decision-making: the State Great Khural (parliament), the President, and the cabinet, headed by the Prime Minister. As stated in Article 33.5 of the Constitution, the President has the right to appoint and recall heads of plenipotentiary missions of Mongolia to foreign countries in consultation with the State Great Khural. In this study, we have examined ambassadorial appointments made by the last three presidents of Mongolia: Ts. Elbedorj, Kh. Battulga, and U. Khurelsukh between 2009 and 2021. Although President Elbedorj and President Battulga were both nominated by the Democratic Party, they substantially differed in their leadership styles and policy orientations. Subsequently, their ambassadorial appointments were also significantly different. On the other hand, President U. Khurelsukh was nominated by the MPP, and his appointments were also strongly influenced by his party policy. Out of 36 ambassadors appointed by President Ts. Elbegdorj, fifteen were political appointees. However, only six of them were members of the DP, the party that nominated him for president (Table 6.2). Others were from MPP, Civil Will Party, and MPRP that were the members of the government coalition at the time. On the other hand, six ambassadors appointed from the DP were all very close to President Elbegdorj and most of them worked as his advisors, who can be described as political agents having personal loyalty. For instance, Ambassador Sh. Battsetseg appointed to Indonesia, worked as his non-staff advisor, while Ambassador B. Delgermaa worked as his social policy advisor

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Table 6.2  Ambassadors appointed by President Ts. Elbegdorj

Name of the No. ambassador

Political or career Party/ appointment organization

Country to which the ambassador is appointed

Date of approval by the Parliament

1

D. Idevkhten

Political

Russia

2

Ts. Sukhbaatar

Career

China

3

Kh. Ayurzana

Career

Kazakhstan

4

Ts. Gankhuyag

Political

5

S. Tsoggerel

Political

September 7, 2009 September 7, 2009 September 7, 2009 September 7, 2009 September 7, 2009

6

Sh. Altangerel

Political

7

T. Zalaa-Uul

Career

Canada

8

B. Davaadorj

Career

Germany

9

L. Orgil

Career

Switzerland

10

B. Enkhmandakh Political

MPRP

Sweden

11

K. Sairaan

Political

MPRP

Kuwait

12

S. Khurelbaatar

Career

13

S. Bayaraa

Political

14

B. Delgermaa

Political

15

T. Janabazar

Career

16

O. Davaasambuu Political

17

M. Batsaikhan

Career

France

18

Ts. Bolor

Career

Germany

MPRP

Civil Will Party General Intelligence Agency DP

Bulgaria Czech Republic France

Japan Zorig India Foundation DP Singapore Laos MPP

Cuba

September 7, 2009 September 7, 2009 September 7, 2009 September 7, 2009 September 7, 2009 September 7, 2009 December 11, 2012 December 11, 2012 December 11, 2012 December 11, 2012 December 11, 2012 November 10, 2013 November 10, 2013

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Patronage in Mongolia Table 6.2  (cont.)

Name of the No. ambassador

Political or career Party/ appointment organization

Country to which the ambassador is appointed

Date of approval by the Parliament

19

R. Altangerel

Career

Canada

20

V. Purevdorj

Career

Switzerland

21 22 23 24

Sh. Battsetseg Ch. Sosormaa B. Delgermaa L. Galbadrakh

Political Political Political Career

DP DP DP

Indonesia Brazil Russia Laos

25

T. Lkhagvadorj

Political

DP

Singapore

26

Ts. Batbayar

Career

Cuba

27

G. Ganbold

Career

India

28

Ch. Bayarmunkh Career

Egypt

29

B. Chuluunkhuu Career

Australia

30

N. Bataa

Career

Poland

31

T. Tugsbilguun

Career

Thailand

32

S. Sukhbold

Career

November 10, 2013 November 10, 2013 April 17, 2014 April 17, 2014 April 17, 2014 January 29, 2015 January 29, 2015 January 29, 2015 January 29, 2015 January 29, 2015 January 29, 2015 January 29, 2015 January 29, 2015 January 29, 2015

33

D. Gankhuyag

Career

34

S. Tsoggerel

Political

GIA

35

Z. Batbayar

Political

MPRP

36

Ts. Jambaldorj

Career

Permanent Represen­ tative to the United Nations China January 29, 2016 North Korea January 29, 2016 Hungary January 29, 2016 Italy January 29, 2016

Source: Adapted from Khaliun. E.

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when he was the prime minister from 2004 to 2006. In addition, B.  Delgermaa served as the President of the Democratic Women’s Union (affiliated with DP). During his term in office from 2017 to 2021, President Battulga appointed sixteen ambassadors to foreign countries, of which seven were political appointees (Table 6.3). Apart from Yo. Otgonbayar who was appointed as ambassador of Mongolia to the United States, all of them were either his party comrades or personal advisors. For instance, D. Davaa, who was appointed as Ambassador to Russia, had been his advisor in charge of defense policy and security. In addition, President Battulga proposed the recall of four ambassadors and failed to appoint several ambassadors. In short, he has caused an unprecedented stagnant state in Mongolia’s foreign relations. For instance, in 2018, the government approved N. Chimguundari as Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand, G. Tenger as Ambassador to Australia, and B. Khurts as Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, but President Battulga did not approve their appointments citing the candidates’ inexperience and young age. In January 2019, the names of eleven ambassadors were approved by the government and presented to President Battulga. However, when the MPP Parliamentary Caucus did not support the nomination of the two candidates proposed by the President, he decided not to approve all of them. Ironically, the MPP Parliamentary Caucus did not support the president’s nomination of Ambassador to India Ch. Burenbayar, citing him as too old, and Ambassador to South Korea Ts. Unurzaya as inexperienced (Adiyamaa 2021). As a result, the appointment of ambassadors has been stalled for two years, damaging the national interests of Mongolia in important countries such as South Korea, where thousands of Mongolians live. Regarding ambassadorial appointments of President U. Khurelsukh in this study, several of our interviewees stated that his appointee U. Batbayar, Mongolian Ambassador to the United States, was a clear example of a patronage appointment. Traditionally, this post has been reserved for the most talented and reputable senior diplomats, but Ambassador Batbayar did not even work in the civil service (except for three years, when he worked as a non-staff advisor to the Chief of Staff of the Government and later to the Prime Minister L. OyunErdene) and was mostly known to the public as a travel show maker and admin of the World Wanderer Facebook group (with over 750,000 members). Interestingly, even after his appointment as an ambassador

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Patronage in Mongolia Table 6.3  Ambassadors appointed by President Battulga

Name of the No. ambassador

Political or career Party/ appointment organization

Country to which the ambassador is appointed

1

L. Purevsuren

Political

DP

Switzerland

2

A. Battur

Political

DP

3

D. Ganbat

Political

DP

4

Yo. Otgonbayar Political

5

O. Enkhtsetseg

Career

6

N. Tulga

Career

7

D. Batjargal

Career

8

Ya. Ariunbold

Career

9

D. Davaa

Political

10

Sh. Battsetseg

Political

11

B. Dorj

Career

12

A. Tumur

Career

13

T. Janabazar

Career

14

V. Enkhbold

Career

15

N. Erdenetuya

Career

16

T. Badral

Political

Source: Adapted from Khaliun. E.

MPP

Advisor to the President DP

Chief of the National Emergency Management Agency

Date of approval by the Parliament

May 25, 2017 France May 25, 2017 Germany May 25, 2017 USA May 25, 2017 Sweden May 17, 2018 United Kingdom May 17, 2018 Japan May 17, 2018 Canada May 17, 2018 Russia November 8, 2019 Cuba November 8, 2019 Poland November 8, 2019 Thailand November 8, 2019 Sweden November 8, 2019 United Nations November 8, 2019 South Korea May 7, 2020 China May 7, 2020

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and presentation of his credentials to President Joe Biden, he still serves as this group’s admin and his Facebook profile does not show any information that he is indeed the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Mongolia to the United States (www.facebook.com/ batbayar.ulziidelger). In fact, Ambassador Batbayar can be seen as an example of a political agent who has personal loyalty to a politician, namely the current Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene. Although during the parliamentary hearing on July 2, 2021, Foreign Minister B. Battsetseg declared that about 80  percent of the ambassadorial nominees by President Khurelsukh were career diplomats, in fact, as shown in Table 6.4, nine of them were patronage appointments. In addition, even among the career nominees, there were several controversial candidates. For instance, U. Nyamkhuu, who at the time worked as the first secretary at the Mongolian embassy in Paris, was approved as Ambassador to France. Such kind of an appointment is extremely rare in international practice, therefore Ts. Munkh-Orgil, Member of State Great Khural and former Foreign Minister, strongly opposed her appointment, stating that “In a way, it is like an assistant to the Secretariat of the State Great Hural becoming the Head of the Secretariat.” He also expressed his concern about how France would react on this matter (parliment.mn). One must admit that some of President Khurelsukh’s political appointees possessed necessary qualifications and experiences, and previously held important government positions. For instance, U.  Enkhtuvshin, who was appointed as Ambassador to Russia, had worked as the Deputy Prime Minister; G. Munkhbayar, who was appointed as Ambassador to Turkey, had worked as the Governor of Ulaanbaatar. Both of them are long-serving MPP cadres who can be described as political agents. As one respondent to this study, a mid-career diplomat stated “Personally, I am not completely against political appointments. This is because those who have accumulated experience and held high positions in one of the most important sectors of the country’s development are likely to have the ability and prestige to represent Mongolia abroad at the level of ambassadors and counselors. It is right for the Foreign Service to ‘use’ such people. However, we shall not let them misuse their positions.” On the other hand, President Khurelsukh’s appointments to France (first secretary), the United Kingdom (Former Deputy Chief of the General Intelligence Agency) and the USA (admin of a Facebook group) raised questions about their competence and experience in diplomacy.

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Patronage in Mongolia Table 6.4  Ambassadors appointed by President U. Khurelsukh

Name of the No. ambassador

Political or career appointment

1 2 3 4

D. Davaasuren M. Tsengeg B. Bayarsaikhan L. Bold

Career Career Career Political

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

L. Sayanaa J. Sereejav E. Bulgan Ts. Narantungalag D. Bayarkhuu S. Gankhuyag J. Byambasuren U. Enkhtuvshin L. Erdenedavaa

Political Career Career Political Career Career Political Political Career

14 15 16 17 18

S. Enkhbayar G. Munkhbayar S. Baatarjav U. Nyamkhuu D. Gansukh

Career Political Political Career Career

19

Sh. Odonbaatar

Career

20 21 22

D. Ganbold B. Mandakhbileg B. Enkhsukh

Career Career Political

MPP

23

U. Batbayar

Political

MPP

Party/ organization

United Coalition of Just Citizens Party MPP

MPP

MPP

MPP MPP

Source: Adapted from parliament.mn and news.mn.

Country to which the ambassador is appointed

Date of approval by the Parliament

Australia Austria Belarus Belgium

July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021

Bulgaria Vietnam Egypt Italy Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Laos Russia Democratic People’s Republic of Korea Singapore Turkey Hungary France Czech Republic United Arab Emirates India Germany United Kingdom United States

July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021

July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021 July 2, 2021

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B. Purevdorj, MP from the opposition Democratic Party declared during the hearing “I do not support your appointments, as the ‘Red Party’ sends its inexperienced comrades to UK, USA and France, which strongly support democratic Mongolia, thus spitting on democracy.” In a rare case of protest among Mongolian diplomats, five female directors for MFA departments addressed a letter to the ministry leadership, questioning the criteria for selecting candidates for ambassadors to the United States, Kuwait, France, Singapore, and Switzerland. They stated in their letter “The injustices associated with these candidates have eroded our energy and motivation, and we are concerned about the misconceptions that young employees are getting. It gives an impression to young professionals that you don’t have to work hard for the country and the ministry, just work moderately, be close to someone from the top, save money, and then you can become an ambassador” (news.mn). In fact, sending incompetent people as ambassadors to these important countries, might even send a wrong message to the outside world that Mongolia is withdrawing from its third-neighbor policy and is ceasing to give as much significance to these countries, as it used to do.

6.5 Conclusion Mongolia has a long-lasting legacy of civil service, tracing back to the Hunnu Empire which was established at the first millennium BC. In early times, the state structure resembled a military structure based on merit principles, evolving greatly from time to time. The modern civil service in Mongolia has undergone a series of reforms aimed at introducing a merit-based system in the selection of civil servants; however, the expected outcomes have not been realized in practice. As a result, political patronage has become a serious problem in civil s­ ervice, ­evidenced by various cases published in newspapers or websites. Yet, with the exception of two research works in English focusing on public administration in the country and political impact on the civil service, almost no research works in Mongolian have touched upon the subject of political patronage. To fill this research gap, we have examined political patronage in Mongolia by looking at political regime type and the party system in its interconnections with these systems of patronage appointments before turning to the diplomatic service as a case study. In Mongolia, loyalty to a party is relevant to a certain extent; yet, party factions or groups play a more decisive role in making political

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appointments. In fact, after every election, various government positions are distributed within party factions. As for personal loyalty to politicians, immediate family members and relatives are the most trusted persons by politicians, to whom they distribute government posts in defiance of merit principles. Furthermore, loyalty to a social group also matters in making political appointments. In Mongolia, political patronage is characterized by loyalty to local communities, such as the Uvs faction that is one of the most powerful crossparty factions, or memberships in interest groups, such as politically important NGOs. Mongolia has long attached great importance to its diplomatic service. With only 450 employees, the diplomatic service is considered to be the most prestigious and the most competitive branch of the Mongolian civil service. During socialist times, the MPRP leadership was primarily responsible for appointing diplomatic envoys who were mostly party “apparatchiks” and party professionals, based on their loyalty to the party and their policy expertise. Patronage appointments are still being widely practiced in the Mongolian diplomatic service and have especially flourished since the 2000s, as several respondents of this study stated in their interviews. Our case study of the ambassadorial appointments of the last three presidents of Mongolia also suggests that a substantial portion of them were indeed political agents who had personal loyalty to the presidents or to the party which had nominated them.

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Munkhtamir, B. (2021, February 10). Ерɵнхийлɵгч Х.Баттулга, “Голомт”-ын Д.Баясгалан нар хожсон (President Kh. Battulga and Golomt’s D. Bayasgalan won.) https://news.mn/r/2400569/ (accessed November 25, 2021). National Statistical Office, Mongolia. (2021). Монгол Улсын хʏн ам 2020 онд (Mongolian Population in 2020). https://1212.mn/ BookLibraryDownload.ashx?url=Population_2020.pdf&ln=Mn (accessed November 20, 2021). Nyamulzii, A. (2020, October 28). Х.Нямбаатар: УДШ бол компаниуд хуулийн зɵвлɵхɵɵ уралдаж тавьдаг газар биш (Nyambaatar: The Supreme Court is not a place where companies compete for placing their legal ­advisors). https://ikon.mn/n/20ug (accessed November 25, 2021). Oyunsuren, D. (2021). Дипломатуудтай хийсэн ярилцлага II (Interviews with diplomats II) in print. Radchenko, Sergey and Jargalsaikhan, Mendee. (2017). Mongolia in the 2016–17 electoral cycle: The blessings of patronage. Asian Survey, 1032–1057. Research Institute of Labour and Social Protection of Mongolia. (2017). Youth unemployment and economic inactivity. Research Report. Ulaanbaatar. Schmidt, Ryan. (2012). Unraveling the Population History of the Xiongnu to Explian Molecular and Archaeological Models of Prehistoric Mongolia. Las Vegas: University of Nevada. Shuud.mn. (2015) Дипломат албанд орох хаалга 20 саяар нээгддэг ʏʏ? (Does the door to the diplomatic service open for 20 million?). www.shuud.mn/ a/455133 (accessed on November 15, 2021) Social Medee. (2021). Хууль бусаар томилогдсон гэх УИХ-ын гишʏʏн М.Оюунчимэгийн хʏʏ Б.Энхмɵрɵнг ажлаас нь чɵлɵɵлжээ (B. E ­ nkhmoron, the son of MP M Oyunchimeg, who was allegedly illegally appointed, has been dismissed). http://socialmedee.mn/29678.html (accessed November 15, 2021). The Parliament of Mongolia. (2017). Law of Mongolia on the Civil Service. https://legalinfo.mn/mn/detail/15786 (accessed November 20, 2021). Tsolmon, D., Oyunsuren, D., and Bayasgalan, S. (2009). Гадаад бодлого, дипломат ажиллагаа, дипломат албаны ʏндэс (Introduction to Foreign Policy, Diplomacy and Diplomatic Service). Ulaanbaatar: MunkhiinUseg Group. Zumberellkham, Shurentsetseg. (2012). The Political Impact on the Civil Service System in Mongolia (Case study of personnel selection process). Master Thesis. Sejong: KDI School of Public Policy and Management. 24Barimt (24 Facts). (2018, November 15). Тɵрийн албаны ургийн мод (Family Trees in Civil Service). https://24barimt.mn/2263.html (accessed October 23, 2021).

7

Loyalty or Expertise? The Practice of Political Patronage in Taiwan Tong-yi Huang and Zong-xian Huang

7.1 Introduction There is a long-standing debate about patronage in modern democratic countries (e.g., Sorauf 1956, 1960; Weingrod 1968; Bearfield 2009; Lewis 2009; Kopecký et al. 2016). Researchers in the field of public administration and political science generate and hold different conjectures regarding the potential impacts of patronage appointments. Some scholars point out that political appointees function as institutional links in democratic countries and create an accountable environment inside the hierarchical bureaucracy (Lewis 2009; Resh 2015). On the other hand, the concerns of politicization of bureaucracy are also raised and noted by researchers for cases in which the selection of public servants is mostly based on political criteria (Peters and Pierre 2004; Cooper 2021). However, both inferences mentioned earlier appear to be too deterministic in today’s complicated world. The political leaders might select their appointees through trade-off strategies, which could lead to varied policy outcomes (Neto 2006; Waterman and Ouyang 2020). Therefore, in recent years, many scholars revisit the political patronage issues in a more detailed manner, incorporating comparative perspectives for comprehensive understanding (Kopecký et al. 2016; Panizza et al. 2019). Embedded in this edited book, which attempts to make contributions to political patronage issues through a comparative view, this chapter would provide valued substance for fulfilling these academic voids through the case of Taiwan—one of the most vibrant democracies in Asia. In this article, we use Taiwan’s case to address the following questions: ( a) What context constitutes the practice of patronage in Taiwan? (b) What are the strategies of patronage appointments in Taiwan? In addition, to align this article with other studies and provide a comparative perspective, we define the concept of patronage in

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accordance with the seminal work by Kopecký et al. (2016) and Panizza et al. (2019). Specifically, we follow the definition that political patronage is “the ability of political parties to appoint individuals to non-elective positions in the public and semi-public sector, including posts in core civil service, foreign embassies, state-owned companies, quangos or regulatory agencies, and the practical exercise of this ability” (Kopecký et al. 2016, p. 418). Based on the above-mentioned definition, this article distinguishes two equivocal terms, clientelism and patronage, and pays more attention to patronage. Significantly, there are a variety of elements that link to political patronage during Taiwan’s democratization, such as the transformation of political regimes, the establishment of party systems, and the institutional legacies of the public service recruitment process. This article thus sheds light on comparative studies of political patronage by comprehensively describing Taiwan’s context. We structure this article as follows: First, we review the current literature on patronage appointments. Second, we demonstrate the political system and government structure in Taiwan, providing a basis that relates to further discussions. By adopting in-depth interviews with informants, such as former political appointees, reporters, scholars, and senior executives, we explore the practice of Taiwan’s patronage appointments in the third section. In the fourth section, we employ and strengthen the comparative perspective of political patronage by the way of embedding Taiwan into the theoretical framework cultivated by Panizza et al. (2019). Finally, we draw the conclusion with findings, limitations, and future research suggestions.

7.2  Literature on Patronage Appointments Patronage is an ancient phenomenon but has received relatively scarce attention from researchers in public administration and political science, both in the United States (Bearfield 2009) and in Taiwan (Huang 2013, pp. 9–11). In this section, we would briefly discuss the pivotal literature on patronage appointments. The definition of patronage is highly relevant to the concept of political appointments; therefore, the studies related to political appointees as well as presidential appointments would also be covered. First, despite the fact that patronage and political appointments might not be the core issue in Taiwan’s political science research agenda, there are insightful research findings explored

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by manifold scholars, and we would discuss these works in the first part of the literature review. Second, we review the discussions about the logic of political appointments to provide a general understanding of patronage. Last but not least, we introduce critical studies that aim to provide an integrated knowledge of patronage. Scholars have recently invested significant efforts to explore a typology of patronage, attempting to develop testable hypotheses for better understanding of the actual practice of patronage in varied contexts.

7.2.1  Previous Research in Taiwan With the history of authoritarian rule, the previous studies related to political appointments in Taiwan are scarce and mostly centered on the mobility of administrative rather than political elites (Chiu and Hsu 2004). Hence, it is well predicted that the research in political appointments is tangled with a highly institutionalized bureaucracy, thereby driving Taiwan’s scholars to mostly consider political appointees as an embedded part of bureaucratic operations instead of a relatively independent group that could be distinguished from civil service. Following this line of inquiry, relevant studies have put their efforts into exploring political appointments’ topic with a democratic perspective, including how party alternation affects the public personnel management of the central government (Chiu and Hsu 2004; Yu 2016), what kind of collisions in civil service system results from extensive political appointments (Huang and Huang 2020), and how to develop the strategies of facilitating the politics–administration nexus (Tsai 2012; Huang 2013; Huang and Chen 2018). In addition, in contrast to discussing the positive roles of political appointees, such as enhancing political responsiveness and governance efficiency, most studies conducted in Taiwan have focused on the negative consequences of politicization of civil service system and potential damage led by the expansion of political appointments (Hu 2007; Hung 2020). Other scholars have focused on the phenomenon of patronizing business groups and financing certain coalitions during the period of Taiwan’s democratization and economic liberalization, but these studies have been pivoted by the concept of clientelism that emphasizes the exchange between political mobilization and financial interests rather than patronage appointments (e.g., Wang and Kurzman 2007; Chang 2008; Tzelgov and Wang 2016). We argue, however,

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that the distinction between clientelism and patronage is important. Aligning with the previous works (Kopecký et al. 2016; Panizza et al. 2019), patronage, in this article, is more related to the perspective that patrons, such as parties or social groups, would appoint specific individuals to positions affiliated with the government to enact, control, or implement public policy. This aspect of patronage is insufficient in Taiwan’s political appointment studies; therefore, this article would provide a baseline of relevant discussions and studies by delineating the profile of Taiwan’s political patronage in a comparative manner.

7.2.2  The Logic of Patronage Appointments There are at least two major reasons for making patronage appointments. With the motivation of winning campaign, patronage appointments might be used for the exchange of votes or political support (e.g., Sorauf 1960; Wilson 1961; Weingrod 1968). For example, Wilson (1961) argued that one function of patronage is to induce voters and maximize votes in the election. However, using patronage appointments to attract voters seems to be unrealistic in the modern government, because there are “too few jobs and too many voters” (Moynihan and Wilson 1964, p. 300); therefore, most researchers agree that patronage appointments intend to aggregate the political support rather than the number of votes in a ballot box. As Sorauf (1960, pp. 28–29) pointed out, patronage is a kind of “political currency” that facilitates political activities and political responses, such as maintaining the regular operation of a party, attracting supporters, financing party candidates, and securing the beneficial policy. Bearfield (2009) also suggested that one dimension of patronage is to bridge the political divisions for promoting particular policy agenda. On the other hand, along with the expansion of executive power in the past few decades, which is noted by Nathan (1983) as “administrative presidency,” some scholars argued that the president or the political leader would use the appointments mainly as a strategic resource for controlling the “hostile” bureaucracy instead of recruiting political allies from different political groups (e.g., Moe 1985; Aberbach and Rockman 2009; Lewis 2009; Rudalevige 2009; Resh 2015). For instance, Moe (1985)’s seminal study of political appointments in the United States elicited an insightful perspective for the power of appointments, demonstrating that the president would appoint

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individuals to enhance the responsiveness of administration and fulfill the gap between citizens’ expectations and the government’s institutional capacity. Therefore, through personnel appointments, political leaders can harness and employ the institutional capacity and knowledge of the bureaucracy for implementing a favorable policy agenda (Resh 2015, pp. 148–149). These two reasons of making patronage appointments coexist in a modern democracy, fostering different research directions and approaches. Hence, in contrast to the previous studies that strived to generate normative arguments regarding patronage issues, recent scholars pay more attention to the dynamics of political appointments and collect empirical data to address the complex phenomenon. For example, to examine the question that where presidents might prioritize patronage considerations over other aspects, Hollibaugh et al. (2014) proposed a formal theory of presidential appointments and collected empirical data during President Obama’s initial appointments for answering that puzzle. Based on the definition that patronage appointees are persons selected on account of the non-policy benefits and political benefits, Holibaugh et al. (2014) found that President Obama preferred to make patronage appointments in agencies that were relatively marginal to his policy agenda, in agencies that shared similar policy views with him, and in positions where political appointees had minor influence on agencies’ performance. In a similar vein, Waterman and Ouyang (2020) utilize the resume data of the U.S. political appointees on a large scale, analyzing presidents’ loyalty–competence trade-off behavior in different types of appointments. Their works suggest that the presidents might attempt to make a trade-off between loyalty and competence when they face divergent constraints and needs. Another research, which could be categorized as “President Calculation,” also focuses on the dynamics of presidents’ decision of allocating the positions of the cabinet, providing insightful evidence that presidents would use appointments to exert political influence for particular policy goals based on different social contexts (Neto 2006; Lee 2018). The abundance of relevant studies sheds light on the sophisticated political operation of the day, but the dynamics of the real world raises the difficulties of developing a general theory of patronage appointments. To solve this conundrum, scholars have put efforts into building the basic typology of divergent modalities of patronage to construct testable hypotheses

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regarding general theory (e.g., Bearfield 2009; Kopecký et al. 2016; Panizza et al. 2019). Therefore, we would discuss pivotal studies in the next section.

7.2.3  The Typology of Patronage Appointments The typology of patronage could become the cornerstone for developing testable hypotheses, enhancing our knowledge of the actual behavior of patronage and counteracting the confined approach that deems patronage as a merely pathological legacy of history (Bearfield 2009, p. 73). With the purposes of theorizing, Bearfield (2009) initiated a typology that differentiated patronage into four divergent styles based on the principal goals of the patron. Those patronage styles include organizational patronage that aims to reinforce political organizations, democratic patronage that attempts to accomplish egalitarian goals, tactical patronage that contributes to uniting political cleavages for a certain policy idea, and reform patronage that presents a symbolic signal of replacing the corruption caused by the prior political patronage. Similarly, Flinders and Matthews (2010) distinguished patronage into patronage as corruption (PasC) and patronage as governance (PasG). The former (PasC) is highly linked to clientelistic outcomes and the latter (PasG) could be used as a governance tool that facilitates good governance. Other scholars have attempted to develop frameworks that contain multiple dimensions. For example, Panizza et al. (2019) combined a type of skillset (professional or political) and nature of trust (partisan or nonpartisan) into a 2 × 2 matrix, generating four types of patronage: programmatic technocrats, apparatchiks, political agents, and party professionals. By collecting the empirical data within Latin America, Panizza et al. indicated several critical factors that correlated with different patronage types, such as the institutionalization of party systems and the relationship between political actors and voters. Beyond Panizza et al.’s typology, Peters (Chapter 1) revised the framework by adding the loyalty to social group into nature of trust dimension, thereby creating a 2 × 3 matrix that contains six types of patronage (see Table 7.1). Peters (Chapter 1) also demonstrated several potential factors that might explain the variation in patronage patterns, including, but not limited to, social factors, party systems, political regime types, and strength of civil service. Aligning with the

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Table 7.1  Typology of patronage Major role of appointees

Basis of Trust

Party Personal Group

Policy

Politics

Party professionals Programmatic technocrats Group experts

Apparatchiks Political agents Social liaisons

Source: Peters (Chap. 1).

work by Peters (Chapter 1), this article attempts to embed Taiwan’s practice and context into a generic framework, providing discussions for a better understanding of political patronage. However, caution must be applied before we move into the comparative analysis. Most, if not all, studies related to the typology of patronage regard a country as a unit of analysis (e.g., Flinders and Matthews 2010; Kopecký et al. 2014, 2016; Panizza et al. 2019) and suggest that aggregation might overlook some features or variation inside a country. Therefore, in the next section, we would describe the political system and government structure in Taiwan as a solid base for further analysis.

7.3  Political System and Government Structure in Taiwan For providing a contextual background of patronage appointments in Taiwan, this section would discuss two elements related to the practice of patronage, including political system and government structure.

7.3.1  Political System: Political Regime, Party System, Constitutional System Taiwan’s political system could be divided into three important dimensions, such as political regime, party system, and constitutional system. Before 1975, Taiwan’s political regime was authoritarian and centralized, and the central government was fully controlled by former President Chiang Kai-Shek and Kuomintang (KMT) under martial laws. In that period, KMT’s Central Standing Committee was the highest organ for making political decisions and patronage appointments

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and consolidating the authoritarian regime by means of clientelism, since clientelism could bring an edge in demobilizing and controlling social organizations (Wang 1994). The common strategies for applying clientelism in Taiwan include distributing the economic privilege to local factions (Chen and Chu 1992), vote-buying (Wang and Kurzman 2007), and protecting clients’ illegal activities through the judiciary (Wang 2006). Therefore, the political appointments were made for politics-oriented purposes rather than policy-oriented purposes. After Chiang Kai-shek died in 1975 and with the emergence of international conditions, such as the break-up of diplomatic relations between the Republic of China (R.O.C.) and the United States, former President Chiang Ching-Kuo, the son and successor of former President Chiang Kai-Shek, started to relieve some stress on social control. For example, compared with the earlier practice of appointing mostly Mainlanders (the persons born in Mainland China) as ministers, former President Chiang Ching-Kuo appointed and selected more Taiwanese youths into the administrative cabinet to reconcile with the challenge of his ruling legitimacy (Chiu and Hsu 2004). Following the trend of democratization, Taiwan’s central government repealed the martial law and the party ban in 1987, and the party competition became a normal and routine practice. To maintain the economic legitimacy and decrease the emerging social pressure after 1987, the KMT government authorized economic bureaucrats to develop a series of industrial policies, fostering many technocrats during that period (Wu 2014). Hence, to some extent, the transformation of political regime created an environment where the ruling party tended to select political appointees with merits and professional expertise. Taiwan’s political parties burgeoned and expanded after the deregulation of political activities, and two major parties emerged: KMT and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). As mentioned earlier, KMT was a substantive controller of the central and local governments before 1986, already penetrating its influence into different layers of society. In contrast, DPP was a young party formed in 1986, grounding its political support upon grassroots movement and Tangwai movement— the political movement outside the ruling KMT. Although KMT exercised high influence on the local government based on its “significant investment” in local factions, the openness of the political market (e.g., the direct election of the president and complete reelection of the Congress) created a niche for DPP, especially in the

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national elections (Hsu and Chen 2004; Wang 2007). In the 2001 Congressional election, the pan-Green coalition led by DPP secured 41% and the pan-Blue coalition led by KMT secured 48% of seats in the Congress. Nowadays, it could be concluded that the two-party system has gradually established in Taiwan, and most political conflicts center on the competition between pan-Green groups and panBlue groups. To some extent, the historical background of both KMT and DPP might have potential effects on shaping the different internal logic of party patronage, such as the strategies of distributing government positions. Apart from the political regime and party system, Taiwan’s constitutional system is a semi-presidential system, which means the President should share the power with the Prime Minister, who organizes the cabinet and takes responsibility for the legislature of the state (Duverger 1980). Despite the Prime Minister being the highest administrative leader in the Constitution, it is noteworthy that the fourth amendment to the Constitution (1997) deprived the Congress of the Premier appointment and confirmation power. By the fourth amendment to the Constitution, the President could appoint or displace Prime Minister directly by his/her own preference. Compared to other countries that have semi-presidentialism, Taiwan’s Presidents mostly have the pre-emptive and unrestricted power to appoint the Prime Ministers, thereby creating a strong leadership for themselves (Shen 2012, 2014; Hao 2013). Thus, although the Constitution states that Taiwan’s constitutional system follows semi-presidentialism, most scholars in Taiwan might agree that the real functioning of Taiwan’s constitutional system is more similar to the presidential system (or the so-called presidentialized semi-presidentialism).

7.3.2  Government Structure: Institutional Structure and Civil Service System In this section, we briefly introduce the institutional structure and civil service system in Taiwan’s central government. The Office of the President and five branches (or yuan) comprise the central government, including the Executive Yuan, the Legislative Yuan, the Judicial Yuan, the Examination Yuan, and the Control Yuan (see Figure 7.1). Those five branches have different responsibilities and authorities in Taiwan’s administrative operations. Specifically, the Executive Yuan

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Figure 7.1  Structure of the central government in Taiwan Source: Revised from R.O.C. Introduction (https://english.president.gov.tw/ page/105). Website visited on January 1, 2021.

is the highest administrative organ and holds a majority of the government’s civil servants. The Legislative Yuan is the highest legislative organ and responsible for enacting laws and budgetary bills. The major responsibility of the Judicial Yuan is to adjudicate civil, criminal, and administrative litigation, and conduct the constitutional review. The Examination Yuan has the obligations of holding the national civil service examination and overseeing all legal issues pertaining to civil servants, such as employment, performance evaluations, discharge, transfers, and promotions. The Control Yuan holds the power of impeachment, censure, and audit of all revenues and expenditure of government agencies. Among those five branches, the Executive Yuan is the most influential and powerful, employing a large number of civil servants and political appointees to orient and enact the public policy of the central government (Jan 2017). The Executive Yuan is comprised of twelve ministries, twelve councils, four independent commissions, two agencies, one national museum, and the central bank. The leader of the Executive Yuan (Premier) is directly appointed by the President and obliged to attend the meetings of the Legislative Yuan for interpellation and budgetary bills. Each ministry has one minister appointed by the President and three deputy ministers, including two politically appointed deputy ministers. The councils in the Executive Yuan are mainly of departmental form and each of them has one chairman appointed by the

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President and three vice-chairpersons of whom two are politically appointed. The independent commissions are of broad form, and the number of commission members varies from seven to thirteen. The commission members of independent commissions must be appointed by the President with the approval of the Legislative Yuan. In addition, there are nine ministers without portfolios; they are also appointed by the President directly but might be recommended by the Premier. The major tasks of ministers without portfolios include maintaining smooth coordination among multiple ministries and serving as a liaison among the President, the Executive Yuan, and the Legislative Yuan. In addition to institutional structure, Taiwan’s civil service system is also crucial to the operation of the central government. According to Chen (2012, pp. 7–8), the development approach of Taiwan’s civil service has a path similar to other democracies in Western Europe, which creates a public administration tradition—the formation of bureaucracy is the base for the formation of democracy. That development approach might have a historical explanation. Following the failure of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the KMT government retreated to Taiwan and built Taiwan’s initial civil service system. Therefore, modern Taiwanese civil service is built upon the authoritarian regime, thereby leading to its centralized and inflexible form, as well as the unclear demarcation between political appointees and senior civil servants (Su 2017, pp. 619–621). Under the centralized personnel system, the central government has a dominant authority to hold the national civil service examinations, distribute the personnel quota, and oversee the promotion of civil servants. However, with the lifting of the long-imposed and severe political control in 1986, the centralized and rigid civil service system faced emerging challenges from Taiwan’s society. Given the trend of democratization, Taiwanese society constantly requests the civil service system to become more efficient and responsive, and it is foreseeable that the conflicts between political appointees and civil servants might still be an important issue in Taiwan (Su 2017). The recruitment and composition of Taiwanese civil service are also noteworthy. As mentioned earlier, the Examination Yuan would administer nationwide, uniform, and independent civil service examinations to select civil servants. Moreover, the civil service examination is extremely competitive. In 2020, the average success rate of

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senior-level examination that requires college education was merely 6.5%.1 Though several critiques of the Taiwanese civil service examination must be noted (Su 2017), it is understandable that Taiwan’s civil service system maintains its basic quality, neutrality, performance, and competence based on such highly competitive examinations. Apart from the recruitment mechanism, the composition of the central government could depict a broad picture of Taiwan’s civil service system. Based on the databank of the Ministry of Civil Service, Table 7.2 shows that most Taiwanese civil servants have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and their average age is about 45 years. Moreover, although a majority of civil servants are male, the proportion of female civil servants has increased gradually in the recent years, which implies the gender inequality in the civil service system might be mitigated to some extent.

7.4  The Practice of Patronage Appointments in Taiwan By holding in-depth interviews with informants, such as political appointees, journalists, scholars, and senior executives,2 and collecting background information of each minister in the past two decades, we explored the practice of Taiwan’s patronage appointments. The research objects included ministries in Taiwan’s Executive Yuan from 2000 to 2020, ruled by KMT and DPP, respectively. Because of the difficulties of collecting empirical data, we have not included other political appointed positions at non-ministerial level, such as political advisors, ambassadors, and the chairpersons in public enterprises. In this section, we have divided our research questions into three different dimensions: (a) Who owns the capability to influence the ministerial 1

2

Data bank maintained by the Ministry of Examination (available at wwwc .moex.gov.tw/main/content/wfrmcontentlink.aspx?menu_id=268). Website visited on January 2, 2021. From 2019 to 2020, we interviewed twenty-three respondents who themselves are political appointees or keen observers of Taiwan’s political appointments. Eight of the respondents were politically appointed ministers or deputy ministers, thirteen were senior executives who have more than twenty years of administrative experience in the Executive Yuan, and two respondents were specialists including a journalist and a scholar. Most interviews lasted between one and two hours, and the interview questions were mainly related to ministerial appointments in different presidential terms, such as the presidents’ appointments strategies and considerations behind their appointments.

166

187,114 187,670 187,006 188,032 187,054 186,142 184,952 188,221

Year

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

60.4 59.7 59.0 58.5 57.9 57.5 57.5 57.2

Male (%)

39.6 40.3 41.0 41.5 42.1 42.5 42.5 42.8

Female (%)

Gender

6.6 6.8 6.7 6.8 6.9 7.2 7.7 8.2

18–29 (%) 22.6 23.3 23.7 24.1 24.8 25.1 25.7 25.7

30–39 (%) 35.1 34.6 33.7 32.9 32.2 31.6 30.6 29.6

40–49 (%)

Age

28.2 27.8 28.0 28.0 27.8 27.7 27.7 28.1

50–59 (%) 7.4 7.5 7.8 8.1 8.3 8.3 8.3 8.5

Above 60 (%) 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 1.9 2.0 2.1 2.3

Ph.D.

19.0 20.5 21.8 23.1 24.5 25.7 26.9 27.9

M.A.

64.5 64.2 63.9 63.5 63.2 63.0 62.6 62.0

Bachelor

14.9 13.6 12.5 11.5 10.4 9.3 8.5 7.8

Below high school

Educational level

Source: Data bank maintained by the Ministry of Civil Service (available at www.mocs.gov.tw/pages/law_list.aspx?Node=449&Index=4). Website visited on January 2, 2021.

The number of civil servants

Table 7.2  Taiwanese central government civil service (2011–2018)

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appointments? (b) What is the background of ministers? (c) What are the rationales behind these ministerial appointments?

7.4.1  Who Owns the Capability to Influence the Appointments? Taiwan’s constitutional system gives the President, who is directly elected by citizens, a solid authority to select and organize their own administrative team. According to the Constitution, the President could directly appoint the Premier and the important positions of the Office of the President, such as the Secretary-General. Therefore, most of the elected presidents, after winning the general election, would first select the Secretary-General to the President and the Premier to compose the “decision core of appointment.” In some cases, if the President does not concurrently hold the position of the chairman of the ruling party, the ruling party chairman also plays a crucial role in formulating the decision core. Significantly, the elected President appears to allocate the most important positions to the administrative teams or think tanks with which he or she was earlier associated with; this reveals a phenomenon that the strategies of the President’s initial appointments center on the trust relationship between appointees and political leaders. For instance, the former President Chen Shui-bian selected the deputy mayor of Taipei City (Chen Shih-meng) as Secretary-General to the President. The former President Ma Ying-jeou appointed Liu Chao-shiaun, who was the vice-chairman of KMT-funded think tank (National Policy Foundation), as the Premier during his first presidential term, and appointed the then deputy mayor of Taipei City (Yeh Ching-chuan) as Deputy Secretary-General to the President. President Tsai Ing-wen appointed Lin Chuan as the Premier during her first presidential term. Lin Chuan has been the Executive Director of Thinking Taiwan Foundation, which was established and sponsored by President Tsai Ing-wen. In addition, the ministers of the Executive Yuan are mostly recommended by the Premier and appointed by the president officially. However, the recommendation process appears to have become a courtesy instead of a necessity. As one respondent in this study pointed out, “No matter which political party wins, the president’s influence of political appointments is absolute.” Therefore, the Premier and the

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President might build the tacit understanding regarding appointing ministers: the President would informally approve the list of ministers before the list is declared to the public by the Premier. That relationship between the President and the Premier ensures that the elected President has the full authority to control the administrative machine. On the other hand, however, the weakness of the Premier’s power to appoint personnel also raises an underlying dispute. The Premier might become the scapegoat when there are major political upheavals, despite being the highest executive leader empowered by the Constitution. (Hao 2013; Huang 2013, pp. 229–235). Despite the President holding a significant authority, formally or informally, to decide the composition of cabinets, it is still practically impossible for the President to appoint all political members in the executive branch due to his/her limited time and energy. Therefore, the Premier or ministers might be empowered to select two politically appointed deputy ministers that each ministry owns. One respondent, a former minister, said “As far as I know, the Premier would be empowered to appoint the politically appointed deputy ministers. The minister could recommend the potential candidates of deputy ministers to the Premier, and the Premier would make the decision and report the list of deputy ministers to the President afterward.” Therefore, with the hierarchical “chain-of-appointment” by which the President controls the most important positions in the government and delegates the authority of appointing peripheral positions to the Premier or ministers, it seems safe to conclude that the president owns the definite power to recruit, appoint, and form leadership/administrative teams in Taiwan’s central government.3

7.4.2  What Is the Background of Ministers? We have collected the background data of each minister in the past two decades, providing a brief outline for understanding the ministerial 3

Despite it is hard to distinguish between ministers who are appointed by the President and those who are appointed by the Premier who has been empowered by the President, there might be some difference in appointment strategies between the elected President and the empowered Premier. We argue, however, based on the constitutional authority of the elected President, it is unlikely that the appointment criteria applied by the Premier would overstep the criteria held by the elected President.

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appointments. The data are collected from different achieves, including government websites, news reports, and a database that contains every record of personnel job rotation (over 850,000 records) in the Taiwanese government – “R.O.C. Government Post Database.” By doing so, we aggregated basic demographic information of ministers in Table 7.3. Most ministers in Taiwan, during 2000 to 2020, were middle-aged men with doctorate degrees, and their tenures were nearly two years but with large deviation in different presidential terms. In addition to demographic data of ministers, we also collected the information regarding the previous experience and partisanship of ministers, as shown in Table 7.3. First, the previous experience of a minister is crucial. For example, as Petrovsky et al. (2017) pointed out, the “outsiders” who were selected from outside the central government faced more challenges and hardships in retaining longer tenures. Therefore, we identified the minister who had a prior executive experience (or had no experience) in the central government. Importantly, in their second term both Chen and Ma administrations appointed more ministers with prior experience as senior executives or officials in the central government, which might reflect the phenomenon that presidents could develop and expand the human resources network during their presidential terms. Apart from the administrative experience of ministers, the fact that the ministers and presidents belong to the same party is also seen as an indicator measuring the concept of “loyalty” (Cohen 1986). Hence, we indicate whether appointees belonged to the same party as the president or not to measure the ideological differences between ministers and the president. Compared to another research conducted in Latin America where the proportion of non-party ministers is nearly 30% (Martínez-Gallardo and Schleiter 2015, pp. 245–247), Table 7.3 shows that the proportion of nonpartisan ministers in Taiwan is relatively high (more than 60%). However, we argue that this descriptive statistic information might not be illustrated as the insignificance of loyalty. Instead, this descriptive statistic information appears to reflect the presidents’ relative independence when they are appointing ministers, which suggests that the president might not need to make a political compromise with other political coalitions or factions inside his/her party. Moreover, senior executives inside the government might have opportunities to retire from civil servants to be eligible for political positions, and scholars in universities could temporarily

170 253

63

54

59.26%

71.43%

The number of appointed ministers

Partisanship

40.74%

28.57%

Same party as of 36.0% the president Different party 64.0% than that of the president

64.81% 35.19%

22.20% 27.80% 50.00%

13.00% 87.00%

53.6

637.6

42.86% 57.14%

23.80% 23.80% 52.40%

15.90% 84.10%

54.1

862

63

53.97%

46.03%

44.44% 55.56%

17.50% 17.50% 65.10%

23.80% 76.20%

55.9

947.2

39

69.23%

30.77%

84.62% 15.38%

10.30% 33.30% 56.40%

10.30% 89.70%

60.6

621.3

34

70.59%

29.41%

79.41% 20.59%

17.65% 23.53% 58.82%

14.71% 85.29%

61.0

625.4

Tsai Ma Ma Chen administration administration administration administration (2016–2020) (2012–2016) (2008–2012) (2004–2008)

59.3% 40.7%

Educational level

Administrative Yes No experience

19.0% 24.5% 56.5%

Bachelor (%) Master (%) Ph.D. (%)

Gender

56.4

Average age (years) 16.2% 83.8%

766.4

Average tenure (days)

Female (%) Male (%)

All

President

Chen administration (2000–2004)

Table 7.3  Background of ministers (2000–2020)

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transferred from academia to serve as political appointees. Compared with politicians, civil servants and scholars cherish political neutrality and their participation in the cabinet, thereby increasing the proportion of nonpartisan ministers. Furthermore, aligning with Neto and Samuels (2010)’s findings that the president under presidentialism might tend to appoint more non-party ministers, Taiwan’s statistical results might extend these findings and show that under presidentialized semi-presidentialism, presidents would also appoint a large share of nonpartisan ministers.

7.4.3  What Are the Rationales behind These Ministerial Appointments? Based on the in-depth interviews conducted, we aggregated four important rationales behind ministerial appointments, including loyalty and trust, professional expertise, political ability, and policy pledge. Although the variations exist among different political leaders, these rationales generally are important indicators for being appointed as a minister. 7.4.3.1  Loyalty and Trust Loyalty and trust are the key considerations when selecting political appointees. As we mentioned earlier, the President appears to reserve the most important positions of the government for people who have co-working experience in previous administrative teams or the partysponsored think tanks. One respondent said plainly that “It is impossible [for the President] to appoint a minister who does not have prior collaborative experiences or connections with the President. The political trust extended from prior collaborative experiences is extremely important.” Thus, the President could find like-minded people and screen potential saboteurs through the previous collaboration, ensuring the alignment of the administrative team. However, despite the importance of collaborative experiences for selecting political appointees, there exist noticeable differences between different ruling parties (KMT and DPP) in terms of whom they collaborate with. Based on the prior experience of long-term ruling, the KMT government maintains a closer relationship and a well-established collaboration with technocrats than what the DPP government does. On the other hand, however, the DPP government,

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which originated from grassroot movements outside the government system, has a better connection with social groups and dissent parties. 7.4.3.2  Professional Expertise After the lifting of martial law in the late 1980s, with the emphasis on new administrative values, such as accountability and anti-corruption, Taiwan’s bureaucracy has gradually centered on professionalism and neutral competence (Jan 2017). As Huang (2013, pp. 123–125) noted, the President is more likely to appoint a minister who has professional background in specializations, such as finance, technology, health, and environmental protection. For instance, most ministers of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, a department responsible for Taiwan’s public health system, come from the medical doctor system. Furthermore, most ministers of the Ministry of Finance would be selected from the banking system and national treasury system. Other departments, such as the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, and the Atomic Energy Council, also have the same pattern under which the professional expertise is a key criteria for choosing ministers. This ­professionalism-centered pattern provides a possible reason for a high proportion of nonpartisan ministers in Taiwan mentioned earlier. For example, in the past two decades, none of the chairpersons of the Atomic Energy Council has party membership. In addition, less than one-quarter of ministers of the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Ministry of Finance officially affiliate with parties. In general, both the KMT and DPP governments respect the pattern of professional appointments in specific departments. However, the degree of professional appointments might vary during the tenure of presidents, including Chen Shui-bian (2000–2008), Ma Ying-jeou (2008–2016), and Tsai Ing-Wen (2016–present). One respondent who served as a senior executive servant in the past few decades observed that “If we want to make a strict distinction between different presidencies, President Ma Ying-jeou tends to appoint ministers with pure professional consideration, recruiting many ministers who have a doctoral degree, thereby leading to the nickname of his cabinet – Ph.D. Cabinet (博士內閣). However, President Chen Shui-bian and President Tsai Ing-Wen appear to mingle professional consideration with political consideration such as the balance among factions.” This keen observation, we argue, is aligned with the previous research that

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demonstrates that DPP has highly valued the collaboration and competition among intraparty factions (Hsu and Chen 2007). 7.4.3.3  Political Skill Both the KMT and DPP governments valued the political skill of potential ministers, and that skill could be divided into two categories: the ability of political mobilization and the ability of political communication. In terms of the ability of political mobilization, the ministers are anticipated to maintain a good relationship with certain social groups and mobilize, or sometimes demobilize, them when political leaders attempt to enact controversial policies or win the elections. For instance, a respondent pointed out that “Sometimes we would be confused by some personnel appointments that seem to be arbitrary; however, the reason behind these appointments is usually simple – the person who has been appointed as a minister is an important and influential person in a powerful social group.” Hence, based on these appointments, which build bridges between the government and social groups, the administrative teams could set and advance policy agendas with fewer obstacles. Apart from the ability of mobilization, how to facilitate effective communication with the Congress and mass media is an important task for political appointees (Hart and Wille 2006; Askim et al. 2017). In the policy process, ministers mostly need to communicate with the legislators for positive collaboration on policy legitimation and policy budget. That is, as one respondent said, “the President will not appoint or tolerate a minister who always provokes conflict with the Congress.” During the development of Taiwan’s democratization, most ministers are monitored by the Congress and mass media, commonly known as the “Fishbowl Principle”; therefore, these political appointees are expected to have the solid ability to conduct political communication in an appropriate manner. 7.4.3.4  Policy Pledge In a well-functioning democracy, a solid linkage between election pledges and the policy agenda enacted by elected officials has been highly anticipated (Mansergh and Thomson 2007). By the same token, there is a sense in which elected presidents have a motivation to utilize political appointments, practically the first policy enacted by elected officials, for fulfilling policy manifestos. Despite the debates on exact

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effects of the distribution of ministerial portfolio on policymaking (see Mansergh and Thomson 2007, pp. 321–322), we would provide two different policy cases in Taiwan to illustrate the effects of political appointments on policy pledge: gender equality and unificationindependence issues. In Taiwan, a country that has a long history of paternalism, gender equality issues might be the first dispute when the President unfolds the list of ministers. Both former Presidents Chen Shui-bian and Ma Ying-jeou announced the campaign manifesto that they would appoint a certain proportion of female ministers in their cabinet, with the range varying from one-third to one-quarter (Huang 2013, p. 120). Therefore, aligning with other studies conducted in South Korea (Hahm et al. 2013), the appointments of female ministers in Taiwan sometimes appear to provide a base of symbolic representation that supports the political legitimacy of administrations. In addition to gender equality issues, the cross-strait issues are also significantly important in Taiwan’s society. In general, KMT is regarded a pro-China party that opposes Taiwan’s independence. However, to decrease suspicion that KMT administration would support the declaration of Chinese reunification and discard the sovereignty of Taiwan easily, Former President Ma Ying-jeou of KMT appointed Ms. Lai Shin-Yuan, who advocates for Taiwan’s sovereignty, as the minister of Mainland Affairs Council, which is mainly responsible for Taiwan’s cross-strait policies. As one respondent in our interview observed, “Mr. Ma Ying-jeou appointed Ms. Lai Shin-Yuan to reflect a binding pledge that his cross-strait policies will not ignore the sovereignty of Taiwan.” Moreover, the appointments of the minister of Mainland Affairs Council provide a great signal for cross-strait policy between KMT and DPP parties. Generally, the appointments of the minister of Mainland Affairs Council could complement the President’s crossstrait policy agenda. If the President has a relatively radical attitude toward cross-strait issues, he/she might select a person who has a relatively moderate standpoint on the cross-strait policy as the minister of Mainland Affairs Council. Therefore, the DPP governments mostly appoint relatively oblique ministers to modify the straightforward policy provided by the President or DPP legislators. To sum up, we explore three important dimensions of Taiwan’s ministerial appointments, sketching a comprehensive picture of the practice of patronage appointments at the ministerial level. With literature,

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ministers’ profile, and the interview data, we argue that the elected presidents own the major authority of making political appointments and appear to have a mixed consideration when they are choosing the Premier and ministers. Compared to other research (e.g., Hollibaugh et al. 2014), our findings might have similar and different perspectives of presidential appointments, which is caused by the historic events, the inherent culture inside different political parties, and institutional legacies. Therefore, these findings must be interpreted with a caution since patronage appointments seem to be highly embedded and vary among the context of society, economics, and politics.

7.5  Applying the Framework of Patronage Appointments in Taiwan Aligning with the framework chapter contributed by Peters (Chapter 1), in this section, we attempt to incorporate the case of Taiwan into that analytical framework. In Taiwan, we observed three major types of patronage: Apparatchiks, Programmatic Technocrats, and Party Professionals. Therefore, we would explore the types of patronage we have observed in Taiwan and the influence of potential explanatory variables that appear to shape different types of patronage. First, Apparatchiks was a prevalent type of patronage when Taiwan was ruled by the authoritarian regime before 1975. At that time, most politicians and even public servants registered as party members of the ruling party (KMT). With the purposes of consolidating the authority of the government, KMT invested the large amount of additional resources to extend organizational branches into each layer of government agencies and important social groups, such as labor unions and farmers’ associations (Cheng 1989). Therefore, the posts within the government were mainly occupied by partisans who vowed their loyalty to KMT, and the boundaries between the ruling party, the government, and the civil service system often blurred. Additionally, as noted earlier, to alleviate the increasing social pressure in the 1970s and 1980s, the KMT government authorized technical experts to develop several national public policies, including constructing the foreign trade, the industrial development, and the public health systems. Cheng and White (1990) used the term “technocrat patron” to describe a phenomenon in Chiang Ching-Kuo administration of the intellectual people gaining the opportunity to

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take leadership in important government positions and even Central Committee of KMT. Cheng and White (1990, pp. 3–9) also provided a rationale for the emergence of technocrats and pointed out both external factors and internal factors that contributed to elite transformation in Taiwan. External factors comprised the expansion of higher education, international affairs crisis, and the transition of economics, whereas internal factors included the support from President Chiang Ching-Kuo, and the disappearance of older generation of revolutionary elite. Programmatic technocrats, therefore, became a common type of patronage at that period, playing a crucial role in the modernization of Taiwanese governments. Third, with the development of political opposition and the normalization of electoral competition after 2000, there is an increasing motivation for each ruling party to appoint those who have both professional skills and commitments of party to government positions. Hence, party professionals gradually have become a significant type of patronage in current Taiwan government. However, it is biased, and irresponsible, to assert that party professionals would become the dominant type of patronage in Taiwan eventually. Due to the history of emphasis on technocracy since the mid-seventies, Taiwan’s public managers have relatively low tolerance of politics and low responsive attitudes to political leadership, and many senior executives focus on their programmatic commitment instead of ideological war between different political parties (Huang et al. 2005; Huang and Chen 2018). If the ruling party appoints partisan people to government positions too intensively, it might enhance the risk of frustrating senior executives in government departments, thereby leading to potential resistance of policy implementation.4 That is, the balance between the politicization of bureaucracy and the responsiveness of government is subtle but critical in Taiwan. We argue, therefore, the currently prevailing type of patronage in Taiwan might be a mixed mode of programmatic technocrats and party professionals. 4

After the first party alternation at the central government in 2000, the tension between senior executives and political appointees gradually came to the fore. For example, in 2000, one senior executive of the Department of Government Ethics unpredictably left midway through the meeting to show his dissatisfaction with the arrangements of personnel appointments of Government Ethics Officials, embarrassing high-ranking political appointees such as politically appointed deputy ministers of Ministry of the Interior (Yu 2016, p. 9).

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In terms of potential explanatory variables provided by Peters (Chapter 1), these four explanatory factors appear to have divergent effects on shaping the political patronage pattern of Taiwan. First, social factors have potential influence on patronage practices due to the division between Mainlanders and Taiwanese, which leads to the phenomenon that old elite groups have a disproportionate share of leadership in the government during the Chiang Kai-shek administration. In addition, after the lifting of party ban and martial law, a two-party system is gradually established in Taiwan, thereby fostering political competition and a stable tradition of party rotation. Institutionalized parties have a strong motivation to appoint those who are both loyal and professional to the government for controlling resources and orienting public policy; therefore, party professionals might become more common in Taiwan. The transition of political regime type from authoritarianism to democracy also plays an important role in explaining the practice of patronage in Taiwan. To consolidate the authority of the KMT government and alleviate the social pressure during the transformation of the political regime, many technical professionals were appointed to government positions and public managers gradually attached importance to policy programs rather than political expediency. Last but not least, benefiting from a centralized personnel system, an independent national examination system, and the tradition of technocracy, Taiwan’s civil service system could be considered strong. Hence, political leaders sometimes need to make the compromise to maintain a positive relationship with senior bureaucrats. That is, the patronage in Taiwan is highly tangled with the issues of democratic governance and politics–administration relationship.

7.6 Conclusion Through literature review, secondary resources, and in-depth interview data, this chapter sheds light on the practice of political patronage in Taiwan. Taiwan’s patronage appointments are highly tangled with the history of democratization and a solid civil service system. Elected political leaders, nowadays, must cooperate with senior executives and maintain a balance between political responsiveness and bureaucratic independence. Therefore, the elements of loyalty and expertise coexist in the practice of Taiwan’s patronage appointments. We also embedded

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this issue into the unified framework of patronage appointments, analyzing the observed types of patronage and potential explanatory factors. That initial analysis might provide useful insights for further comparative research when it comes to exploring the differences and similarities between Asian countries’ political patronage issues. Limitations and further developments in this article also need consideration. We did not collect enough empirical data to make a solid inference of patronage appointments at a non-ministerial level, including the patronage concerning political secretaries, public enterprises, and government-owned non-governmental organizations. Patronage appointments at non-ministerial level are relatively hard to observe due to the significant variation among different organizations and positions. Fulfilling that academic void is valuable in constructing a comprehensive picture of research topics in terms of Taiwan’s political appointments. However, despite the practice of political appointments at non-ministerial level leading to possible variations, the logic of these appointments might be similar instead of distinctive. Therefore, based on the comprehensive analysis of ministerial appointments, we argue that this chapter still provides a meaningful discussion of political appointments in Taiwan.

Acknowledgments This article is sponsored by Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology research program ‘Hidden Patterns of Appointing Ministers and Agency Head (2008–2018)’ (106-2410-H-004-093-MY2).

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8

Political Appointments in South Korea Hyejin Kang, Min Han Kim, and Byong-Seob Kim

8.1 Introduction In this chapter, we explore the extent to which the practice of patronage (political appointments) is embedded in the political and administrative landscape of South Korea, a country that boasts a long tradition of meritocratic bureaucracy. In so doing, we attempt to shed light on the dynamics of the country’s public personnel policy and politics, especially in the upper echelons of the bureaucratic hierarchy. The existence of a strong, merit-based bureaucracy may be why the extant literature on the political appointments of South Korea predominantly deals with the senior-level bureaucrats or the top-level management of public and quasi-nongovernmental organizations (QUANGO).1 Therefore, in this chapter, we focus on the political appointments practiced in the upper echelon of the country’s bureaucracy. In other words, we are not so much concerned about the relatively low echelons of the bureaucracy since they have long been insulated from political influence, especially in terms of recruitment and promotion. We first review a brief history of the South Korean civil service and thereby justify why we limit the scope of our investigation to the political appointments practiced in the upper echelons of the country’s bureaucracy. Then, we provide a brief account of political appointments in the South Korean government, with particular attention to presidential appointments. In so doing, we demonstrate why appointments of cabinet ministers warrant further scholarly attention. Then, we assess and discuss presidential appointments of ministers in an empirical manner. In the conclusion, we discuss the implications of our analysis. 1

See Lee et al. (2010) on appointments of ministers; Park and Kim (2014) on QUANGO CEO appointments.

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8.2  Bureaucracy in South Korea: Insulated vis-à-vis Political Influence – at Least at the Lower, Middle, and Even Upper-Middle Echelons of the Hierarchy In this section, we highlight some among the many distinctive characteristics of the governmental bureaucracy in South Korea. Our aim is not to describe every detail of the country’s public bureaucracy but rather to help better understand why it has long been primarily insulated vis-à-vis political influence (apart from the top tier of the hierarchy). Korea boasts a long history of recruiting, retaining, and promoting highly disciplined and competitive officials in the government. Indeed, there is abundant historical evidence. The influences of Confucianism dictating the statecraft of Korea can be traced from the so-called Three Kingdoms period, and some scholars argue that the Confucianismbased meritocratic principles of recruitment, retention, and promotion of public officials have been embraced with fervor for well over a millennium (since A.D. 788: Kim B. K., 1987, 100–102). Since its creation more than a millennium ago, the merit-based career bureaucracy is perceived to have long maintained a high level of continuity and thus managed to preserve its stature and authority even during the country’s most chaotic era of modern political history. The Japanese colonial period is not an exception.2 The post-war South Korean government, like its predecessors, has continued to uphold meritocratic principles that emphasize the political neutrality of public officials and guarantee fair competition and equality of opportunity (through an open examination) to become a public official (Choi, 2020). Although the founding president Rhee’s nepotism initially made the existing merit-based career civil service system perfunctory,3 the successive Park administration rapidly restored the country’s tradition of meritocratic career bureaucracy. In 1961, the Park administration officially announced the abolishment of the Rhee administration’s spoils system and, in the following years, introduced a series of personnel management reform measures, including 2

3

See Haggard et al. (1997) for Korean colonial bureaucrats; Kohli (1994) for bureaucratic reforms of Korea during the colonial period and the issue of continuity. During the Rhee Syngman administration, a merit-based career civil service system was largely bypassed as a mere 4 percent of higher rank positions were filled on the basis of meritocratic appointments, and the rest were filled by special appointments.

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the institutionalization of a merit-based career civil service system characterized by the higher civil servant examination (HCSE) as the prime mode of recruiting the best and the brightest to entry-level managerial positions (G5), with internal promotion as the principal means of filling high-ranking positions above them (Choi & Park, 2013; Kim B. K., 1987; Rho and Lee, 2017). One indicator of the extent to which such reformative measures were successful in restoring meritocratic bureaucracy was that the proportion of entry-level managerial positions filled by HCSE examinees quintupled during the Park administration. The percentage of those recruited by the HCSE promoted to senior-level positions (G1–G3), risen from below 4% before 1960 to nearly 60% in 2006, further demonstrates the successful restoration of the country’s meritocratic bureaucracy (Rho and Lee, 2017). Given South Korea’s long history and current practice of meritocratic career bureaucracy, it seems as though its government is impenetrable to patronage. For example, on the “Weberian Scale,” developed by Evans and Rauch (1999), that measures the extent to which a government employs meritocracy and offers predictable and long-term careers (therefore, according to the authors, the higher the rank of a country, the more likely it is to succeed economically), South Korea ranks second after Singapore. Moreover, in a global index generated by Sundell (2014) that measures the risk for patronage and the use of formal examinations to recruit public officials, South Korea is among the lowest-scoring countries for the former and among the highest for the latter. Furthermore, according to a large-scale survey conducted among public officials of seven countries by Poocharoen and Brillantes (2013), South Korea has the lowest percentage of respondents who think there is favoritism in hiring or promotion. In the same article, the authors also report that South Korea and the United States have the smallest percentage of respondents who believe that politicians or other influential persons can interfere in the hiring process. Therefore, it appears safe to say that the South Korean people (especially public officials) have long supported and reinforced the merit-based recruitment, retention, and promotion systems in the public sector. However, as noted by numerous scholars, whereas the South Korean government has administered personnel management for career civil servants fairly well, human resource practices for political appointees have been poorly institutionalized and not appropriately handled. In other words, although the low and middle (and to some extent, even

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the upper-middle) echelons of the South Korean bureaucracy have been by and large insulated from political influence, political appointments have been made at the upper echelons of the South Korean government and public organizations, and since such forms of highly personal, politicized, and largely noncompetitive appointments have not been well-managed, they warrant further scholarly attention and investigation. Therefore, in the next section, we turn to political appointments made mainly at the upper echelons of the country’s public sector.

8.3  Political Appointments in South Korean Public Administration Political appointees are individuals appointed by the head of the government, occupying key positions and thus constituting the core of civilian leadership in government (Kim P. S., 2009). Especially in the national political scene of South Korea, political appointees are almost synonymous with presidential appointees, and thus they are “an inescapable part of the patronage sub-culture of national politics” (Kim, P. S., 2004, 236). The scope of presidential appointments is indeed vast. According to Kim P. S. (2004), the total number of positions that a President can and does appoint, either directly or indirectly, is at least 5,000. Presidential appointees include, but are not limited to Cabinet secretaries (minister and vice-ministers), key officials in special government services, senior-level bureaucrats (G1–G3), and the top-level management of QUANGOs (including state-owned enterprises) (Kim, P. S., 2004). Of the 5,000 presidential appointees, ministers warrant further scholarly attention and investigation not only because of their political gravity but also the nature of their appointments. For example, as far as QUANGOs are concerned, there are institutional systems designed to prevent the incoming president from removing politically appointed holdovers from the previous administration at will (Hong and Kim, 2019).4 Especially, according to Kim and Hong (2019, 291), South Korean state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are an “unusually well-insulated class of public agencies.” Furthermore, as a matter of practice, not only the President but also QUANGOs sponsoring government departments and the QUANGOs themselves are organizational actors 4

In principle, only a nonpartisan committee consisting of government officials and civilian committee members can dismiss an incumbent QUANGO CEO.

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affecting the choice of CEOs (Park and Kim, 2014). On the contrary, ministers are “agents of the president,” and “the president’s appointment and dismissal authority is the fundamental basis that establishes the relationship between president and ministers as that of principalagent” (Lee et al., 2010, 81). In other words, at least in principle, whereas the President of South Korea cannot dismiss QUANGO CEOs before the end of their contracts, she or he can appoint and remove ministers at will. And presidents do appoint and remove their ministers at will. Therefore, it can be said that presidential appointments of ministers are more highly personal and political.

8.4  Presidential Appointments of Ministers in South Korea Ministers, who are head administrators of their respective ministries or agencies, are important actors in the policy decisions and processes (Dewan and Dowding, 2005; Huber and Martinez-Gallardo, 2008) and thus can affect the policy outcomes by significantly changing policy directions and contents (Lewis, 2011). Also, as presidential appointees, ministers are expected to be politically responsive to the President and to the President’s policy orientation by following the policy directions set by him/her. Therefore, it can be said that ministers play dual roles: not only as the chief policymakers and head administrators but also as politicians (Lee et al., 2010). Surprisingly, despite the importance of ministerial leadership, we do not know much about the biographic and sociodemographic characteristics of ministers, as well as what factors influence the selection and tenure of ministers, and there is a paucity of empirical studies on issues related to ministers, especially in non-Western countries (Hahm et al., 2013).5

8.5  Assessing Presidential Appointments of Ministers in South Korea 8.5.1  Loyalty v Competence A president has several drivers to appoint loyal agents to key bureaucratic posts. The appointments not only signal their political intent 5

See Berlinski et al. (2007) and Chang et al. (2001) for factors influencing the tenure of ministers in Western countries.

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and advance their agendas and goals at the bureaucratic level, but such appointments are a less costly technique to monitor agents to overcome information asymmetry and bureaucratic shirking. Presidential appointees, in turn, modify the agencies’ organizational structures, (re)shuffle personnel, and (re)allocate resources within agencies. However, there has been a long, ongoing debate about which quality or value – between loyalty and competence – a president should promote in appointing the agents. Literature sources on both sides of this debate are equally abundant (Krause and O’Connell, 2011). One example of studies advocating competence over loyalty is Hess (1976), recommending that presidents appoint agents with prior national-level government experience, to promote competence over loyalty. On the contrary, some examples of studies advocating loyalty over competence are as follows. Recommends that presidents reward loyalty. Also, scholars argue that agents loyal to the president are more likely to produce agency outcomes aligned with his/her preferred policy direction (Moe, 1982; 1985; Wood and Waterman, 1994). As such, presidents are likely to promote loyalty over competence (e.g., Moynihan and Roberts, 2010). Therefore, presidents appointing loyal agents are in parallel with a broader trend toward politicizing the bureaucracy (e.g., Aberbach and Rockman, 2000; Waterman, 1989; Waterman and Durant, 1992). However, the question of “What distinguishes a loyal agent from a competent one?” has not been fully answered yet, especially in an empirical context. For example, both Nathan (1975) and Hess (1976) address essential questions that can be summarized as “Should prior work experience or affiliation with Washington be cited as evidence of loyalty? Or competence? Or both?” In this section, we provide empirical evidence that we can leverage to answer the above questions. In so doing, we refer to Ouyang et al.’s (2017) refined framework of analysis and Peters’ (see the introductory chapter of this book) typology of patronage to not only better discern loyalty and competence but also different types of presidential appointments that rest on the loyalty–competence dichotomy imposed on a continuum of variation. We incorporate not only Ouyang et al. (2017) but also Peters (see the introductory chapter of this book) into our investigation because the loyalty–competence dichotomy that Ouyang et al. (2017), along with many other scholars, rely on does not fully explain to whom agents are loyal and what kind of competence

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is expected. In other words, as presidential appointees can be both loyal and competent, understanding combinations of varying degrees of loyalty and competence as well as different objects of loyalty, and categorizing those appointees into different types based on such an understanding would open a promising venue to the development of related studies.

8.5.2  Research Questions Guided by the extant studies, we address the following questions: Are there significant variations in presidential appointments of ministers by type of trust and roles? Are there significant variations in presidential appointments of ministers by regimes? Are there significant variations in presidential appointments of ministers by ministries?

8.5.3  Data Collection The most complete profiles of the ministers of the South Korean government, from the Rhee administration to date (i.e., 1948– 2019), were collected using various sources, including databases of newspaper companies (e.g., Chosun Ilbo and Joongang Ilbo), newswire services (e.g., Yonhap), and Internet portal service companies (e.g., Naver). We also referred to the publication titled Ministers of Korea, which is an exhaustive compilation of data on the past ministers of the South Korean government, for the purpose of crossvalidating the data.

8.5.4 Measurement Primarily guided by Ouyang et al. (2017), we designed a coding scheme of loyalty and competence factors. The loyalty factors include ‘work experience in the National Assembly’ (e.g., Lewis and Waterman, 2013), ‘previous immediate political career’ (e.g., Krause and O’Connell, 2011), ‘work experience in a presidential transition/ inauguration team’ (e.g., Ouyang et al., 2017), ‘work experience in the Blue House’ (e.g., Lewis and Waterman, 2013), ‘work experience in a political party’ (e.g., Hollibaugh et al., 2014; Krause and O’Connell, 2011; Mackenzie, 1981; Pfiffner, 1996), and ‘work experience on the president’s campaign team’ (e.g., Hollibaugh et al., 2014; Krause and

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O’Connell, 2011; Mackenzie, 1981; Pfiffner, 1996).6 The competence factors include ‘work experience at a ministry or an agency’ (e.g., Hess, 1976), ‘previous government career at the local or provincial level’ (e.g., Krause and O’Connell, 2011), ‘work experience as a political appointee’ (e.g., Ouyang et al., 2017), ‘previous career as an elected official’ (e.g., Ouyang, et al., 2017), ‘managerial experience in the private sector’ (e.g., Krause and O’Connell, 2011), ‘managerial experience in the nonprofit sector’ (e.g., Ouyang et al., 2017), ‘task expertise (i.e., task experience for a specific role such as budgeting in the budgeting department of a ministry or an agency)’ (e.g., Ouyang et al., 2017), and ‘subject area expertise (i.e. expert-level knowledge gained from graduate-level education or in-depth research experience in the relevant policy field)’ (e.g. Ouyang et al., 2017).7 We conducted the initial coding of the data and classified the ministers into six types of appointments per Peters’ typology of patronage. After the initial coding, when we noted unique factors that we suspected were likely to be associated with either type 5 or type 6 within Peters’ typology, we conducted additional past-career reviews of them and then recoded accordingly. After the second round of coding, we categorized the ministers by regimes and ministries. Lastly, we partitioned, rearranged, and regrouped the above factors to make them aligned with Peters’ typology.

8.5.5  Analysis: Socio-Demographic Attributes of the Ministers There are a total of 1,022 ministers across 12 regimes. On average, ministers serve 14.91 months. Of the total ministers, 95.01% are male, and 4.99% are female. The ratio of females to males is the highest in the Moon government’s cabinet. The mean age is 56.29 years. Age-wise, the Yoon government’s cabinet is the youngest (49.86 years). Education-wise, on average, 41.07% are undergraduate degree holders; 18.16% Master’s degree holders; and 31.68% Ph.D. degree holders. Table 8.1 summarizes socio-demographic attributes of the past and incumbent ministers from the Rhee government to date (1948–2019). As to the ministers’ prior job experience, 38.86% are former bureaucrats; 20.41% scholars; 15.11% members of the National Assembly; 6 7

All of them are dummy variables unless indicated otherwise. All of them are dummy variables unless indicated otherwise.

31.68

1022

PhD (%)

Total

127

18.02

5.41

1.57

18.16

4.99

Female (%)

98.43

Master’s degree (%)

95.01

Male (%)

51.43

65.77

56.29

Age (in years)

14.94

Bachelor’s degree (%) 41.07

14.91

Tenure (in months)

72

9.68

3.23

82.26

0

100

49.86

5.89

153

20.71

9.29

60

0.65

99.35

61.48

22.82

16.97

0.97 24.74

29

103

26.92 27.84

7.69

57.69 35.05

3.45

96.55 99.03

54.17 52.81

8.62

104

34.65

24.75

28.71

3.85

96.15

56.13

12.27

116

38.26

18.26

38.26

6.9

93.1

56.48

11.34

104

37.86

20.39

32.04

8.65

91.35

59.34

11.86

85

44.71

24.71

23.53

7.06

92.94

56.49

14.88

52

40.38

36.54

15.38

11.54

88.46

58.52

18.58

45

53.33

33.33

2.22

11.11

88.89

58.04

19.43

32

53.13

21.88

18.75

25

75

60.54

16.87

TOTAL S. RHEE YOON J. PARK CHOI CHUN T. RHO Y. KIM D. KIM M. RHO M. LEE G. PARK MOON

Table 8.1  Socio-demographic attributes of ministers

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Table 8.2  Ministers’ prior job experience

Bureaucrats Lawyers National Assembly Members Academicians Military Officers Others Total N

Frequency

Percent

396 30 154 208 110 121 1019

38.86 2.94 15.11 20.41 10.79 11.88 100

10.79% former military officers; and 2.94% lawyers. Table 8.2 illustrates the distribution of the ministers’ prior job experience. We categorized the ministers into the six types of political appointments per Peters’ typology. The most dominant group of ministers is the programmatic technocrats (65.16% of the total). The second and third largest groups of ministers are party professionals (15.8%) and apparatchiks (14.82%). However, the difference between the two groups is trivial. There are no significant numbers of social liaisons (2.65%), group experts (1.37%), and political agents (0.2%). Thus, our analysis results clearly demonstrate that there exist significant variations by type of trust and roles among the presidential appointments of ministers. The bar graph in Figure 8.1 displays the percentages of the ministers by the nature of their appointments (identified in terms of trust and roles). Furthermore, we confirmed that there are significant variations in the presidential appointments of ministers across the twelve regimes. Our analysis results also demonstrate that programmatic technocrats are constantly the dominant group regardless of the regime. The graph in Figure 8.2 shows historical changes in the number of ministers (identified by trust and roles) across the twelve regimes. Lastly, we also confirmed that there are significant variations in the presidential appointments of ministers by ministries. Again, our analysis results demonstrate that, only with a few exceptions, programmatic technocrats are the dominant group regardless of ministry. The graph in Figure 8.3 shows the total number of past and incumbent ministers (identified by trust and roles) across twenty ministries and agencies.

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70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Party Programmatic professionals technocrats

Political agents

Group expert Social liaison

Figure 8.1  Ministers by the nature of appointments

Party professionals

Apparatchiks

Programmatic technocrats

Political agents

Group experts

Social liaisons

90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 S. RHEE YOON

J. PARK

CHOI

CHUN

T. RHO

Y. KIM

D. KIM

M. RHO M. LEE G. PARK MOON

Figure 8.2  Historical changes in the number of ministers (by trust and roles)

Given the dominant presence of programmatic technocrats among the ministers, we demonstrate the breakdown of those programmatic technocrats in terms of their prior job experience. The three largest subgroups of the programmatic technocrats in descending order are bureaucrats (45.33%); scholars (28.46%); and military officers

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50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0

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194 Hyejin Kang, Min Han Kim, and Byong-Seob Kim

120 Social liaisons

100

80

60

40

20

0

Figure 8.3  Ministers (by trust and roles) across ministries

45.33 28.46 14.91 0.6 0.3

Figure 8.4  Prior job experience of programmatic technocrats

(14.91%). The bar graph in Figure 8.4 shows the breakdown of the programmatic technocrats in terms of their prior job experience.

8.5.6 Discussion

Overall, the vast majority of the South Korean ministers are programmatic technocrats. However, there are some differences across

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regimes. During President Yun’s term (the only period in which the South Korean political system was parliamentarian-like), the majority of the group of political appointees consisted of party professionals. However, after the third wave of democratization, President Youngsam Kim, to some extent, preferred party professionals, and his term coincides with the period in which the ruling party’s personnel system was robust. President Myungbak Lee appointed many ministers who helped him in his presidential campaign. President Jaein Moon appointed a significant number of ministers who were former social activists (especially during the era of democratization) and later joined the current ruling party as party staff or assistants of members of the National Assembly. The above-mentioned party professionals were loyal to their party and, at the same time, competent both policy and profession-wise. Apparatchiks, who are politicized bureaucrats or domain experts, were favored during the Presidential terms of Doohwan Chun, Taewoo Rho, and Myungbak Lee. Appointments of programmatic technocrats can be understood as those cases whereby a president (or the Blue House) made appointments based on those ministers’ professional attributes. Although the number of social liaison-based appointments is not high in general, a significant number of them were appointed during President Moohyun Rho’s and President Myungbak Lee’s terms. On the contrary, President Jaein Moon favored group experts, and so did President Dae-Jung Kim. Some examples of group experts are those women’s rights activists appointed as Ministers of Gender Equality and Family, whereas some examples of social liaison appointments are movie directors or actors appointed as Ministers of Culture and Tourism. There are also some differences among ministries. First, there are some apparent differences between the Ministry of Economy and Finance and Ministries concerned with social affairs. That is, the majority of ministers are professional technocrats in the Ministry of Economy and Finance, whereas other types are prevalent in those ministries concerned with social affairs (e.g., party professionals in the Ministry of Health and Welfare; social liaison and/or group experts in the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, and the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism). Moreover, as for the Special Minister of Political Affairs, as the title suggests, the majority consists of party professionals (68.9%).

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8.6 Conclusion This chapter first reviewed a brief history of the South Korean career civil service and discussed how it has long been insulated from political influence, especially in terms of recruitment and promotion. However, the upper echelons of the country’s bureaucracy have been subjected to patronage practices. Hence, we provided a brief account of political appointments in the South Korean government, with particular attention to presidential appointments. We also demonstrated why appointments of cabinet ministers warrant further scholarly attention. Then, we assessed and discussed the presidential appointments of ministers in an empirical manner. Our empirical findings suggest significant variations in presidential appointments of ministers by type of trust and roles. Also, there are significant variations in presidential appointments of ministers by regimes as well as by ministries. While the vast majority of the South Korean ministers are programmatic technocrats, there are some differences across different regimes and ministries. Although there are some variations in presidential appointments of ministers, the dominance of programmatic technocrats is salient. This may be attributable to the following reasons. First, maybe due to the remnants of the developmental state, bureaucrats are still very influential in all domains of the country’s politics and public administration, and many former high-ranking career officials become politicians (i.e., Members of the National Assembly), head administrators of education and research institutes, and chief managers of organizations, both public and private. Therefore, it seems almost natural that some of them become cabinet ministers. Indeed, the number of vice-ministers who are former bureaucrats is even more significant. Second, although presidential candidates are nominated through their party systems, the extent to which the party personnel system is institutionalized varies across political parties. Accordingly, the extent to which presidents can leverage the pool of human resources from political parties varies. Third, the trend suggests that the number of political appointments made based on an individual president’s personal trust does not seem significant, especially after the so-called “The Three Charismatic Kims” era (ended by President Dae-Jung Kim’s Presidency). In short, it can be said that even presidential appointments of ministers are indicative of a strong bureaucracy in practice in South Korea.

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9

Patronage Appointments in the Philippine Public Service Maria Fe Villamejor-Mendoza *

9.1 Introduction Patronage or the padrino system in Filipino culture and politics is the value system where one gains favor, promotion, or political appointment through family affiliation (nepotism) or friendship (cronyism), as opposed to one’s merit. Padrino is the Spanish term meaning patron or godfather (Heywood 2018). The system pertains to the complex web of mutually beneficial relationships between a patron (godfather or godmother) and a client (godchild). It can begin as a give-and-take relationship between a more powerful benefactor and a beneficiary of the patron’s goodwill (Wong and De Leon 2018). The padrino system has been the source of many controversies, undesirable undertones, and corruption in the Philippines (Hodder 2014). It includes the Filipino sense of kinship within which patron– client transactions often occur. It emphasizes the prominence of the Filipino notion on family and friends, chiefly during political decisionmaking (Wong and De Leon 2018). Filipinos have their own set of values, which are an amalgamation of Southeast Asian tribal practices and the Spanish Catholic influence of 300 years. The concepts utang na loob (debt of gratitude) and kapwa (fellow men) broadly underpin Filipino social relations. The first one is the self-induced duty to return the favor and goodwill to the giver patron. When a favor was done with more generosity, this can bring about reciprocity between two persons where the one who previously showed kindness is now the one with the debt and vice-versa. It continues to alternate and reinforce. The second one is hard to translate, but it evokes feelings of sympathy and empathy. It can mean sharing one’s self with others. In essence, along with pakikisama (getting along with others and your *

The author acknowledges the inputs and assistance of Allan Grand A. Sobrepena and Karl Emmanuel V. Ruiz, researchers of the College.

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group), these two values act as the grease that powers the gears of the Filipino political system (Reyes 2015). “Patronage appointments” is defined as the power of political actors to appoint by discretion individuals to non-elective positions in the public sector, irrespective of the legality or otherwise of the decision (Kopecký, Mair and Spirova 2012). It originates from the concept of political patronage, which Baracskay (2009) defines as the appointment or hiring of a person to a government post on the basis of partisan loyalty. Elected officials at the national, state, and local levels of government use such appointments to reward the people who help them win and maintain office. This practice led to the saying, “to the victor go the spoils.” Although there may be different political actors involved in patronage appointments, this study will focus on the appointments made by Philippine presidents who in the literature are considered the “patron in chief” or the “patron-strongman” in the country (Thompson 2014; Kreuzer 2020). Presidents are the all-powerful spoils dispenser. Presidential performance and successful completion of the incumbent’s term significantly rely on presidential patronage to other officials (i.e., appointees, legislators, and other influential politicians). Presidents who cannot become a good patron-in-chief can be unseated from office (like Estrada). Thus, it can be inferred that Presidents have to weigh a plethora of political, economic, social, and even personal considerations when making appointments. The Presidential Patronage is allowed under existing Civil Service laws, especially for positions that are policy determining, primarily confidential, or highly technical in nature. Patronage appointments cover different modalities of patronage, usually described as clientelism in less-developed and transitional political systems and discussed as the politicization of public administration in Western European and North American systems (Peters 2013). While there is a tendency in the literature to use interchangeably the terms politicization, patronage, and clientelism, the three concepts are analytically different. Politicization is a rather broad concept, and includes a range of mechanisms through which political actors attempt to influence public administration (Peters 2013). It can refer to the selection of appointees for positions in government on political grounds–patronage per se–but also to other, subtler, ways in which political actors attempt to shape the behavior of public servants (Bach, Hammerschmid, and Löffler 2018). It also means the act of increasing the number and penetration of presidential or political appointees in the bureaucracy (Monsod 2015).

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Clientelism has been defined as “the direct exchange of a citizen’s vote in return for direct payments or continuing access to employment, goods and services” (Kitschelt and Wilkinson 2007). James Scott (1972) describes clientelism as a relationship in which an individual of higher socio-economic status (patron) uses his own influence and resources to provide protection or benefits, or both, for a person of lower status (client) who, for his part, reciprocates by offering generous support and assistance, including personal service, to the patron. While the terms patronage and clientelism are often used interchangeably, clientelism is treated here as a much broader phenomenon than patronage, in which patronage is simply a specific strategy that may or may not be used as part of a clientelistic exchange. Moreover, an important difference lies in the position and types of resources available to the patron. In patronage, the patron must be an office holder or have access to state resources. In clientelism, the patron may or may not hold public office and must rely on alternative means of exchange (i.e., private resources, party resources, etc.) (Teehankee 2012) Studies on patronage appointments, clientelism, ‘cronyism,’ bossism, and spoils in the Philippine political system are fairly covered. However, studies on patronage appointments in the public service have been few and far between. Patronage is widely regarded as an unremittingly negative feature and one that remains deeply embedded; and academic literature on high-level political appointments is thin. This may be basically because of the difficulty in establishing the motives of the patron and clients, and the paucity and confidentiality of data to establish trends and patterns. Using secondary materials and available researches and public data on the Web and other sources, this study historically investigates the patronage appointments at the third tier of the Philippine civil service and describes the policy-patronage dynamics over time, in an attempt to conceptualize a typology of roles and relationships between the patron and the appointees. The latter would explore whether Peters, Larraburu, and Francisco’s (2018) framework is applicable to the Philippine setting or whether a unique framework emerges because of differences in assumptions and conditions. Peters et al.’s framework examines the nature of trust (partisan or nonpartisan) between patrons and appointees and the skills (professional or political) required to perform different roles. Combining these dimensions of trust and skillsets, they propose a typology of modalities of patronage appointments to include the general ‘control’ and

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‘reward’ or the specific ‘party professionals,’ ‘pragmatic technocrats,’ ‘apparatchiks,’ or ‘political agents’ roles. The main assumption here is that political parties play a more important role in patronage appointments, which may be not be true in the Philippine context where the Executive is very strong and the political party system is weak. The challenging research hopes to contribute to the scant literature on patronage appointments in public administration and provide bases for more directed, using primary data sets, future studies on patronage politics in the public sector, their implications and effects on the bureaucracy, public policy, and development.

9.2  The Philippine Political System Traditionally, the Philippines has been a patronage-based or clientelistic democracy, in which political power rests on the distribution of economic benefits to supporters. Philippine politics revolves around interpersonal relationships – especially familial and patron–client ones – and factions composed of personal alliances (Kerkvliet 1995) McCoy (1994) coined the expression “an anarchy of families” to describe a system in which a handful of fabulously wealthy clans use patronage networks to dominate politics and the state itself. Elections were contests between these oligarchic clans, with the victors distributing a share of the spoils to their dependents, mostly the rural and urban poor. The recent transmutation of this ‘anarchy of families’ is known as “political dynasties,” which refers to a situation in which an incumbent official has at least one relative in elected office in the past or the present government. They comprise over 70% of the members of Congress and looking at their impact on socioeconomic outcomes, they were found to exacerbate poverty, particularly in provinces outside Luzon (Mendoza and Ocampo 2017). The Philippines is often said to have wishy-washy political parties and a weak political party system. The country’s main parties are too personality-oriented, and not program-oriented. In fact, they are indistinguishable from one another in their political beliefs and programs. They have weak membership bases and operate only during election time. Political turncoatism is a venerable tradition (Miranda as cited in Quimpo 2007). Some scholars have long bemoaned the lack of institutionalization of Philippine political parties and the political party system. On one

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hand, one can say that there is no point in institutionalizing “­parties” that are nothing more than instruments of patronage and patrimonialism. Patrimonialistic parties are institutions of a patrimonial oligarchic state, which have played a key role in the systemic political corruption in the Philippines (Quimpo 2005). On the other hand, one can say that traditional political or ‘trapo’ parties, taken collectively, have already become institutionalized precisely as such instruments. Party loyalty is unheard of; everything boils down to loyalty to a person or patron. Their nebulous character suits their purpose to a ‘T’ (Quimpo 2005).

9.3  Strong Presidents Section 1, Article II of the Philippines 1987 Constitution declares that the country is “a democratic and republican state” and that all government authority emanates from the people. A republic is a representative government where public officials derive their mandate from the people, act on their behalf, and are at all times accountable to them on the principle that their office is a public trust. Three equal branches of government exist – executive, legislative, and judicial – and operate under the doctrine of separation of powers and a system of checks and balances. Executive power is vested in the president. Legislative power is vested in a bicameral Congress that consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Judicial power is vested in the Supreme Court and such lower courts as may be created by law. Despite the seeming equality of these three branches, the Philippine presidency has traditionally been accorded more coercive powers and fiscal prerogatives than the other branches. The Constitution has established an extraordinarily “strong presidency” by establishing presidential control over the decisions on the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, assumption of emergency powers, national finance, and budgetary appropriations; and the amendment of the constitution (Hedman and Sidel 2000). The President is also given other vast powers such as, among many, 1) power of control over the executive branch that may include restructuring, reconfiguring, and appointments of their respective officials; 2) power of supervision over local governments; and 3) power of appointment of officials of the Philippine government as provided by the constitution and laws of the Philippines. (www.officialgazette.gov.ph/ 1987/07/25/executive-order-no-292/): The latter will be the focus of this research.

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9.4  The Civil Service (CS) and the Career Executive Service (CES) D.1. The Philippine Civil Service (CS) has been a product of its colonial past and years of self-determination. It has undergone periodic criticism, soul searching, and identity crises. It has been buffeted by movements here and abroad for renewal, reform, and reinvention. It has been contested, obscured, and sometimes shunted aside (Ocampo 2008) as irrelevant, inefficient, bloated, corrupt, and unresponsive to the needs of the people (Mendoza and Baylon 2018). It evolved as a public bureaucracy and social institution introduced during the Spanish regime, carried on briefly by the Philippine Republic of 1899, reestablished by the American colonial government, Filipinized during the Commonwealth period, and institutionalized during the period of the Philippine Republic. Its weaknesses include a) vulnerability to nepotism exacerbated by the institution of godfathers, carried over from the Spanish period; b) spoils system; c) not an independent power in Filipino politics; did not have the power to resist encroachment upon its integrity; and d) highly vulnerable to attack by external parties to tamper with the merit principle of the service (Corpuz 1957). The Spaniards established a highly centralized colonial government and bureaucracy. The bureaucracy served to achieve the objectives of colonization and protect and promote the colonizers’ interests. The system of appointment and recruitment in government was dismal. Positions in government were for sale to the highest bidders, while other appointments were gained through royal merced or favor, encouraging political patronage. These led to, among others, incompetence, inefficiency, and corruption in government (Corpuz 1957; Carino 1985; Veneracion 1988). Three centuries of Spanish rule bequeathed four things: 1) the idea that everything should be rigidly run from Manila; 2) a suite of goslow bureaucratic techniques best summed up by the Spanish expression “obedezco pero no cumplo” (I obey but don’t comply); 3) a profound distrust of government on the part of the native population; and 4) the notion that it is somehow patriotic to subvert the bureaucracy (Endriga 2001). When the Americans came after the end of the Spanish–American War in 1898 and the Philippines was ceded to America by virtue of

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the Treaty of Paris, the formal introduction of the civil service system occurred with the establishment of the Philippine Civil Service in 1900, as reflected in Act No. 5 (Civil Service Act), “…for the Establishment and Maintenance of an Efficient and Honest Civil Service in the Philippine Islands.” It established the framework for a merit-based civil service system, mandating the appointment and promotion to government positions according to merit and through competitive examinations as far as practicable (Endriga 2001; Tjiptoherijanto 2008; Brillantes and Fernandez 2011). This led to the establishment of the Bureau of Civil Service (BCS), with a mandate that the ‘greatest care should be taken in the selection of officials for civil administration.’ To head the various executive and line agencies, the Philippine Commission preferred American civilians or military men who had been honorably discharged. All recruits, both American and Filipino, were to be “men of the highest character and fitness” who could conduct their duties unaffected by “partisan politics” (Tjiptoherijanto 2008). The BCS became the Civil Service Commission (CSC) in 1975 by virtue of PD 807 and became the central personnel agency of the government. The Philippine public bureaucracy is “the sum total of all administrative agencies of government.” (De Guzman et al. 1988). It refers to a “network of public organizations constituted to implement, help formulate, monitor, and assess public policies” (Alfiler 2008). It covers all branches – executive, legislative, judiciary, instrumentalities, and agencies of government, including government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) and other constitutional bodies and their interrelationships (1987 Philippine Constitution). De Guzman et al. (1988) explain, “that through this institution, the resources of the country are best rationalized and transformed into concrete programs and projects towards attaining the goals of ­development.” Essentially, the bureaucracy becomes the fourth branch of government because of its stabilizing and preserving role when top leaders enter and leave the political scene (de Guzman et al. 1988). Table 9.1 shows the total number of government workers from 1964 to 2020 by major subdivision of the government (e.g., national, local, GOCCs). In a span of 56 years, the total government workers have grown bigger by 787%. Data, however, include the job orders (JOs) and other contract of service (COS) staff without plantilla items,

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201,401 194,735 667,114 796,795 1,001,495 798,584 913,087 1,255,188 1,330,327 1,401,781 1,321,410 1,339,525 935,120 59%

1964 1974 1984 1994 2004 2008 2010 2016 (July) 2017 (Aug) 2018 2019 2020 (Aug) Average Percentage

71,444 85,432 189,876 316,023 370,277 272,610 365,725 827,615 919,893 878,343 859,698 864,666 501,800 32%

Local government units (LGUs) n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. 51,051 92,136 98,421 63,993 90,795 91,421 81,303 5%

State universities & colleges (SUCs) n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. n.d. 13,575 25,594 26,927 48,097 25,590 24,151 27,322 2%

Local water districts (LWDs)

272,845 280,167 991,445 1,225,676 1,475,699 1,153,651 1,409,660 2,301,191 2,492,185 2,500,201 2,397,988 2,416,117 1,576,402 100%

Total

Source: Civil Service Commission as cited by Mangahas and Tiu Sonco II 2011 for years 1964 to 1984; CSC at www.csc.gov.ph for more recent entries, e.g., 2004–2020.

n.d. n.d. 134,453 112,858 103,977 82,457 66,222 100,658 116,617 107,987 100,495 96,354 102,208 6%

Government-owned National government & -controlled corps (GOCCs) agencies (NGAs)

Year/ Subdivision

Table 9.1  Number of civil service personnel by major subdivision by year, 1964–2020

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Patronage Appointments in the Philippine Public Service Table 9.2  Number of government personnel, by classification of position, 2004–2020 Year

Career*

Non-career

Total CS

JO/COS

Total

2004 2008 2010 2012** 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 %

1,316,166 1,153,651 1,261,285 796,687 1,526,450 1,647,891 1,652,748 1,541,891 1,647,891 89

159,533 159,887 148,375 117,384 179,579 187,227 186,284 186,750 170,582 11

1,475,699 1,594,843 1,409,660 914,071 1,706,029 1,835,118 1,839,032 1,728,641 1,762,301 100%

n.d. 281,586 n.d. 206,120 595,162 657,067 661,169 669,347 653,816

1,475,699 1,595,124 1,409,660 1,120,191 2,301,191 2,492,185 2,500,201 2,397,988 2,416,117

*Does not include third-level officials, i.e., those belonging to the Career Executive Service for years 2016–2020. **Data coverage was 64% of government agencies only for this year. Source: Civil Service Commission at www.csc.gov.ph

which the CSC does not treat as part of the civil service s­ystem.1 Plantilla is a government-approved listing of positions in any governmental institution, instrumentality, and entity; both national and local; whether filled-up or vacant and is the count of government workers with allotted budget from the National Expenditure Program (www.dbm.gov.ph). JOs/COs comprise around 27% of the total public sector employees, 70% of whom are found in local ­government units (LGUs). The total employees with JOs/COS run to around 2.4M in 2020, making the public bureaucracy the biggest employer in the country. Some 59% are working in national government agencies (NGAs), followed by LGUs at 32% and GOCCs at 6%. State universities and colleges (SUCs) and local water districts (LWDs) used to be GOCCs and are fairly new classifications in the CS system based on a Supreme Court ruling (Table 9.1). A more CSC-compliant computation is on Table 9.2, where only the career and non-career appointments are counted in getting the size 1

JOs and COS are not covered by CS rules and regulations; are seasonal and temporary; and were not recruited based on merit and fitness. Thus, they could not be considered as part of the CS system.

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of the CS. Career service is characterized by (1) entrance based on merit and fitness to be determined as far as practicable by competitive examination, or based on highly technical qualifications; (2) opportunity for advancement to higher career positions; and (3) security of tenure (Executive Order No. 292, Revised Administrative Code of 1987, Section 7). Career officers are further categorized into first, second, and third levels. The first level covers clerical, trades, crafts, and custodial service positions, which involve non-professional or sub-professional work in a non-supervisory or supervisory capacity requiring less than 4  years of collegiate studies. The second level includes professional, scientific, and technical positions in non-supervisory or supervisory capacity requiring at least four years of college work up to Division Chief level. The third tier consists of positions in the Career Executive Service (De Leon 2000). Non-career service refers to appointments that have a fixed term or temporary status in government. Their appointments are not based on the usual tests of merit and fitness, and tenure is otherwise limited. They include “elective” officials (national, sub-national); appointment of officers holding positions at the pleasure of the president; chairpersons and members of the commissions and boards with fixed term of office, including their personnel and confidential staff; ­contractual personnel; and the emergency and seasonal personnel (EO 292, Section 9). Blurring the last two columns in Table 9.2, the size of the career and non-career public bureaucracy grew only by 16% from 2004 to 2020. This has been because of a number of right sizing, rationalization, and other measures to arrest the previously perceived bloated CS. These include the 5-year effectivity of RA 7041 or the Attrition Law; agency-specific streamlining programs; changes in budgetary allotments which funded only the filled positions; and to some extent, the exit of positions in the disposed or privatized units of government (CSC IGP, n.d.). Career bureaucrats comprise some 90% of the total. At 2020 CS total of 1.7M, with some 109.5M total population, the ratio of civil servants to the total population is 1:64. By branch of government, civil servants are posted mostly at the Executive (almost 98%), with the balance shared by the Judiciary, Legislature, and Constitutional Bodies. The latter are independent commissions, allowed to promulgate their own rules, consistent with

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Patronage Appointments in the Philippine Public Service Table 9.3  The Philippine civil service by branch, 2004, 2020 2004

2020

Branch

Career

Noncareer

Total

Executive (national) Executive (local) Legislative Judiciary Constitu­tional bodies Total

966,160

50,185

1,016,345

304,951

104,028 408,979

2,317 25,734 17,004

35,21 1,197 602

5,838 26,931 17,606

Career

Noncareer

Total

1,555,573 167,135 1,722,708

2,072 24,519 9,555

1,167 1,282 998

3,239 25,801 10,553

1,316,166 159,533 1,475,699 1,591,719 170,582 1,762,301

Source: CSC Website

law; enjoy fiscal autonomy and include the Civil Service Commission, Commission on Audit, Commission on Elections, and the Commission on Human Rights (Article IX, 1987 Philippine Constitution). See Table 9.3. Table 9.4, meanwhile, presents the distribution of the career civil servants by tier/position level in 2008 and 2017. Those belonging to the second tier (technical, professional, scientific) are around 67% and 77% of the career civil servants in 2008 and 2017, respectively. Those belonging to the first tier (administrative staff) are around 30% and 22%, respectively. Those in the third tier are only few: 1.5–3% in 2008, basically because they are the elite in the class. D.2. The Career Executive Service (CES) or the third tier constitutes the executive class of the Philippine civil service. It was established by President Marcos under Presidential Decree (PD) No. 1. These positions include the Undersecretaries, Assistant Secretaries, Bureau Directors, Assistant Bureau Directors, Regional Directors, Assistant Regional Directors, Chiefs of Department Service, and other officers of equivalent rank as may be identified by the Career Executive Service Board (CESB) as third-level positions in the CES [Sections 7(3) and 8, paragraph 1(c), Chapter 2, Book V, EO No. 292). Entrance to said positions are prescribed by the CESB, which was created in 1972 to serve as the governing body of the Career Executive Service and to promulgate rules, standards, and procedures

210

628,146

10,305

Third level

82,457

Total

272,610

795

931

101,863

n.d.

1,912

1,008,261

1,153,651 1,148,249

13,329 1.5%

13,316 1.5%

776,182 67%

138,076

66,581

n.d.

4

46,859

19,718

284,600

n.d.

n.d.

107,398

177,202

1,569.585

n.d.

1,916* 0.1%

1,162,518 77%

334,996 22%

NGAs 2017 GOCCs 2017 LGUs 2017 Total

2017

*As of 2017, there are a total of 2,682 CES positions, of which 1,916 are occupied (71.4%), while 766 (28.6%) are unoccupied. Noneligible individuals hold some 47 percent of the occupied positions (World Bank, 2018). Sources: Civil Service Commission (CSC) and Career Executive Service Board (CESB)

798,584

929

Non-executive 11,605 career

2,080

46,173

350,824 30%

Second level

169,021

148,528

First level

33,275

NGAs 2008 GOCCs 2008 LGUs 2008 Total

Position level

2008

Table 9.4  Distribution of career civil servants by level, 2008 and 2017

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Table 9.5  Career executive service officer rank, salary grade, and equivalent CES positions

CESO rank

Salary grade

Wage bill per month as of 2020

CESO I CESO II CESO III CESO IV

33 30 29 28 27

P407, 734(US$8,155) P200, 130(US$4,003) P177, 701(US$3,554) P156, 731(US$3,135) P138, 701(US$2,774)

26 25 1

P122, 744(US$2,455) P108, 623(US$2,172) P11, 551(US$ 231)

CESO V CESO VI

Equivalent CES position Undersecretary Assistant Secretary Regional/Bureau Director Assistant Regional/ Bureau Director Director II Director I

Source: CSC and RA 11466; Conversion is at US$1=P50

on selection, classification, compensation, and career development of the CES members. The objective of the CES is to form a continuing pool of well-selected and development-oriented career administrators who will provide competent and faithful public service, inspite of turnovers in the political leadership. The Integrated Reorganization Plan further provides that “a person who meets such managerial experience and other requirements and passes such examinations, as may be prescribed by the Board, shall be included in the register of career executive eligible.” The CES operates on the Rank concept where officers are appointed to Ranks, assigned to CES positions, and bound by the mobility principle that CES Officers (CESOs) can be re-assigned or transferred from one CES position to another and from one office to another but not oftener than once in every two (2) years. The Rank defines the status and compensation of the CESOs as is found in Table 9.5. CESO compensation is from Salary Grades (SG) 25 to 30 with a pay ranging from US$2,000 to $4,000 per month. The latter is 100% less than the monthly pay of the highest officer of the land, e.g., the President of the republic, who holds SG 33. The CESOs’ pay is, however, more than 940% than those in the lowest SG. Salaries of civil servants have increased since 1989 via a series of salary standardization laws. The pay of first- and second-level officers has been comparable to the private sector. The latter receive higher salaries though than those in the third level and top executives of the public sector.

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CES Eligibility is conferred to a candidate who is able to successfully complete the CES Eligibility Examination Process and meet other requirements as may be prescribed by the CESB. Upon inclusion of the candidate’s name in the Roster of CES eligible, he/she is appointed by the President to a CES rank and to any CES position in the bureaucracy.

9.5  The President’s Political Intervention in the Bureaucracy: Patronage Appointments at the Third Tier The Philippine President, as ‘Patron-in-chief,’ has considerable influence over appointments under the 1987 Constitution. Only two institutions limit the President’s power to appoint: Congress, through the Commission on Appointments (CA), and the seven-member Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) (Ackerman et al. 2011). Instead of full Senate confirmation, the 25-member CA must consent to high-level appointments, including heads of executive departments, ambassadors, and top military officials. It must also give its consent to appointments to oversight bodies that perform checking functions vis-à-vis the executive. Outside of the CA process, the President, on his/her own, appoints many less senior officers in cabinet departments although the Congress may assign some appointment authority elsewhere. The President can make recess appointments when Congress is not in session, which are “effective only until disapproval by the Appointments Commission or until the next adjournment of the Congress.” The appointment provisions – copied almost verbatim from the 1935 Constitution – also permit Congress to dilute the President’s appointment power by sharing or reallocating the President’s authority (Ackerman et al. 2011). The second institution that checks the executive’s influence is the JBC, which makes recommendations to the President regarding appointees to the judiciary and to constitutional commissions such as the Civil Service, Elections, and Audit Commissions. In a few cases, the President is prohibited from even proposing potential appointees; for example, she/he must appoint members of the Supreme Court, the Ombudsman, and the Ombudsman’s deputies only from a list provided by the JBC. Neither institution, however, has meaningfully counterbalanced the President’s vast appointment power. If the CA fails to act on a proposed appointment while Congress is in session, the President can

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Table 9.6  Occupancy of CES positions, 2011–2017

Year

Total number of CES positions

Total number of occupied CES positions

Total number of Vacant CES positions

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 (July)

2,942 2,862 2,768 2,808 2,781 2,778 2,682 2,688 2,721 2,721

2,293 2,173 1,976 1,856 1,915 1,983 1,916 1,896 1,943 1,940

649 689 792 952 866 795 766 792 778 781

Source: CESB at http:/www.cesb.gov.ph

keep renewing the appointment on an interim basis until the CA acts. The Philippine Supreme Court has held that the President can also make a temporary stopgap appointment “to fill an office for a limited time until the appointment of a permanent occupant to the office.” This broad interpretation of the President’s appointment power therefore limits the Appointments Commission from acting as a meaningful check on the President. Instead of keeping a vacancy in the office or permitting the incumbent official to remain, the President can virtually appoint his or her original CA nominee to the ad interim appointment despite the absence of approval from the CA (Ackerman et al. 2011). This state of affairs gives the President vast powers and a lot of leeway and discretion in appointments based on political accommodation. Such is true across the board but particularly in third-level positions, which undermines the integrity of the civil service, as eligibility requirements are only weakly enforced. Table 9.6 shows the occupancy of CES positions from 2011 to 2020. On the average, some 71% are occupied and 29% of these are vacant, i.e., no one qualified or has been appointed to such post. For the occupied CES positions, World Bank (2018) observed that these were not always held by CES eligibles. This is confirmed in Table 9.7 and Figure 9.1, which show a tapering of CESOs and an increasing share of non-eligibles to the CES positions over time. CESOs used to

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Table 9.7  Composition of occupied CES positions by gender, 2011–2020 CESOs or ranked career officers & third-level eligibles

Total occupied CES positions

Non-CESOs or Non-eligibles

Year

Total

Male

Female Total Male Female Total Male Female

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 (July)

2,293 2,173 1,976 1,856 1,915 1,983 1,916 1,896 1,943 1,940

1,090 1,278 1,152 1,090 1,096 1,124 1,087 1,081 1,126 1,122

1203 895 824 766 819 859 829 815 817 818

1,512 1,229 1,126 1,077 1,087 1,106 1,071 1,008 988 986

579 668 596 566 584 601 577 538 533 536

933 561 530 511 503 505 494 470 455 450

781 944 850 781 828 877 845 888 955 954

511 610 556 511 512 523 510 543 593 586

270 334 294 270 316 354 335 345 362 368

Source: CESB

2,500 2,000

2,293

2,173

1,976

1,856 1,915

1,983 1,916 1,896 1,943 1,940

1,512 1,229

1,500

1,126 1,077 1,087 1,106 1,071

1,008 988

986

1,000 500

781

944 850 888 955 954 781 828 877 845

0

Total Occupied CES Positions CESOs or Ranked Career Officers & Third Level Eligibles Non-CESOs or NonEligibles

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 (July)

Figure 9.1  Composition of occupied CES positions, 2011–2020 Source: Table 9.7

be about 66% in 2011 but were only 51% in 2020. This implies an increasing number of Presidential appointees who are not vetted as to their qualifications for the third-level positions. By gender, there seems almost parity in males and females among the CESOs; among the non-eligibles, there are more males appointed than females (Figure 9.2).

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Patronage Appointments in the Philippine Public Service Table 9.8  Status of eligibility of third-tier appointments in the civil service from Aquino to Duterte

Years (Term) 2016–2022 2010–2016 2000–2010 1998–2000 1992–1998 1986–1992

Status of eligibility

Appointing authority Rodrigo Duterte Benigno Aquino III Gloria Macapagal Arroyo Joseph Estrada Fidel Ramos Corazon Aquino Not Listed TOTAL

Eligible

Non-eligible

Total

185 (26%) 420 (63%) 203 (68%)

517 (74%) 251 (37%) 97 (32%)

702 671 300

23 (77%) 19 (86%) 7 (78%) 124 (62%) 981 (51%)

7 (23%) 3 (14%) 2 (22%) 77 (38%) 954 (49%)

30 22 9 201 1,935

Source: Consolidated Database from 3 CESB Databases 1600

1,512

1400

1,229

1200

1,126

1,077 1,087 1,106 1,071

1,008 988

986

1000 800 600

944 781

850

781

828

877

845

888

955

954

400 200

CESOs or Ranked Career Officers & Third Level Eligibles Male CESOs or Ranked Career Officers & Third Level Eligibles Female Non-CESOs or NonEligibles Male Non-CESOs or NonEligibles Female

0 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 (July)

Figure 9.2  Gender distribution among occupants of CES positions, 2011–2020 Source: Table 9.7

Table 9.8 confirms this general trend found in Tables 9.6 and 9.7. From the raw data of active officers at the third level as of June 2020, gathered from the CESB,2 we can see that the older the administration, 2

The data provided by the CESB are current records of active officers in the third level. The data are in three databases containing different and varying information. Thus, trends per administration were not possible as the only common information in these databases are name of appointee, department where they are appointed, and office where they are currently stationed.

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Table 9.9  Profile of the career executives Feature

Profile

Gender Age Eligibility Status Rank

More males (58%) than females (42%) Youngest is 31 years old; oldest is 76; Average age is 57 51% eligibles, CESOS; 49% non-eligibles, non-CESOs CESO V (26%); CESO III (22%); no rank appointment yet (20%) SG 28 (30%); SG 26 (27%); SG 27 (20%); One has a SG 31 (earmarked for Department Secretaries) Department of Education (16%); Interior and Local Governments (9%) Master’s Degree (63%); PhD (21%); Bachelor’s (7%)

Salary Grade Agency Positioned Educational Attainment

Source: Consolidated Database from 3 CESB Databases

the fewer are the third tier active occupants. Over time, Presidents appoint more eligibles and CESOs, except in the current administration, where appointment of non-eligibles is higher and at the level of 74% (Table 9.8). This Presidential/patronage appointment seems to be abused (Constantino-David 2007). The last three tables point to the growing politicization of this appointment process, with more non-eligibles appointed, and no meaningful means for vetting to ensure they meet the criteria and have the required qualifications for the positions to which they are appointed. Monsod (2017) avers this can negatively impact on the behavior and attitudes of civil servants, including difficulty in building and retaining capacity, lowering motivation and performance by career civil servants, and shifting the focus from serving the public to serving the President/politicians. Following through Table 9.8 to get trends in the third level by President/administration was not possible based on the CESB databases gathered. In addition to containing varying and different information on active CESOs, after cross-referencing, the only complete and consolidated information for 1, 934 active CES appointees as of June 2020 are on 1) Name of Appointee; 2) Department where they are appointed; 3) Office where appointee is currently stationed; 4) Region where the appointee is stationed; 5) Career Executive Service Status; 6) Sex; 7) Age; and 8) Position. Their general profile inferred from the limited

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data includes a male-dominated CES, with an average age of 57 years old. They are usually CESO and eligible, holding a rank of CESO V, salary grade 28, stationed at the Department of Education or Interior and Local Government, with minimun of a Master’s degree. These are fairly the minimum qualifications for the third level (Table 9.9).

9.6  The Policy-Patronage Dynamics Without data sets to show the dynamics of patronage appointments in the third tier, except for the trends and patterns in the seeming politicization and appointment of more non-eligibles above, a scanning of the literature was resorted to complement the analyses above, and shows the following. Marcos used technocracy to legitimize the dictatorship by recruiting the best and brightest minds from the academe and industry. These technocrats were the elite, the best, development-oriented career administrators were expected to provide proficient and selfless service (Brillantes and Carag 2016). He also used the military and appointed them based on loyalty, faithfulness, and old school links (Abinales 2005). President Marcos also employed “patrimonial authoritarianism,” where as dispenser of favors and a ruler, he did not distinguish between personal and public patrimony and treats matters and resources of the State as his personal affair; he also centralized patronage to himself (Jones 1989; Quimpo 2005). Aquino working to be the “exact opposite of Marcos,” drew from a small circle of EDSA 1 supporters for policy advice and managerial competence to systematically de-Marcosify the bureaucracy and society (Carino 1990) and took ‘almost everyone out’ (Monsod 2015). President Aquino’s central theme was about “Demarcosification,” which was focused on removing the Marcos’ legacy, rebuilding national unity, and restoring democracy. Thus, she reorganized and instituted reforms in the bureaucracy that included promoting private sector participation, devolution, accountability, and transparency (Carino 1990). Most of President Aquino’s appointees were key opposition figures against Marcos, part of the coalition forces that worked to topple the dictator, and key personalities in the EDSA 1 popular revolt. They included victims of Martial Law, members of the civil society organizations who went underground during the Marcos dictatorship, the repressed press during Martial Law, the generals who sided with the

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opposition on the last hours of EDSA 1, and others who found voice to restore institutions, freedoms, and rights that were curtailed during the reign of the late President Marcos. Ramos, without the same obligations to a party or political class as Aquino, explicitly pursued meritocracy and cast a much wider net. To Ramos, who was himself a CESO, “professionalism, honesty and integrity were the primary criteria” and it did not matter which side of the political party spectrum one fell (Monsod 2015). President Ramos was a professional soldier, who despite being a relative of President Marcos wanted the bureaucracy to be run efficiently, professionally, and effectively, with complete staff work. He extracts loyalty to public service and not to him or any other political leaders. Macapagal-Arroyo seemed to give more weight to patronage considerations, treating qualifications or merit as a minimum legal or administrative requirement to hurdle. Her general directive to the office which processed presidential appointments was to “make sure they are qualified,” that is, candidates had to possess all the qualifications (i.e., minimum standards) and none of the disqualifications for the position (Monsod 2015). Then, all things being equal, her recommendations and desires mattered. She appointed an unprecedented number of ineligible people to the bureaucracy using her “desire letters,” documents of endorsement signed by her, stating, “It is my desire” that a named person be given a particular job. While past administrations appointed favorites through “whispers” or “marginal notes,” Arroyo waved around these desire letters, despite half of the CESOs she appointed were unqualified and lack the educational skills, training, background, civil service eligibility, and professional experience for the positions. She also appointed retired military or police officials, and installed “politics in command.” Because of the “desire letters,” the bureaucracy under President Arroyo “has already 60 u ­ ndersecretaries and assistant secretaries more than it needs. Each one has a staff and an office, which has electrical costs. And more than half of them are not eligible.”(Constantino as cited in Robles 2008). Aquino III, to be the “exact opposite” of Macapagal-Arroyo, resorted to issuing a MC 1 s 2010 declaring “all positions occupied by non-Career Executive Service Officer (non CESO) presidential appointees” as vacant and designating the most senior CESO as OIC of these vacated positions until a replacement was found or until the end of July (or one month after his assumption to Office), whichever was earlier in order to prevent the unnecessary disruption of government

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operations and the impairment of all official processes and transactions as well as the delivery of services to the people. The latter rationale is fuzzy. The effect: an estimated 2,500 executives in government were affected, that is, retrenched, replaced (Monsod 2017). President Aquino III enhanced good governance principles among civil servants, especially those who were politically appointed. He demanded higher qualifications, integrity, and professionalism and has enshrined open government as a response to the ideals of a corrupt-free public sector. He also reemphasized that ‘public office is public trust.’ Duterte, the populist strongman–patron-in-chief appointed the most number of non-eligible executives (74%) coming from his small town cliques (from Davao, San Beda, of his age group, e.g., 70 and above), campaign supporters and the military point men He usually appoints based on trust, not competence or track record. “He will not appoint, especially in highly sensitive positions, unless he knows them personally from anyone before” (Rappler 2021). His administration is also the most “militarized” democratically elected civilian government because he believes soldiers in civilian clothes strictly follow his directives and do not question his authority (Heydarian 2018). Moreover, the emerging modalities of patronage appointments over different administrations in different levels in the bureaucracy apparently include a. Purging and reorganization that replace career personnel perceived to be disloyal or resistant with loyalist-appointees or with more acceptable careerists; b. Layering adds executive and other key positions to the plantilla. This has the effect of layering politically appointed managers on top of existing careerist managers and/or diluting the administrative responsibilities of careerists at the same level; c. Adding appointments of confidential staff thru the addition of special assistants or confidential staff who are usually coterminous with incoming appointees. Confidential assistants are typically assigned to monitor bureaucratic activity and liaise with employees, stakeholders, and other clients (Lewis 2008) – often operating parallel or “backroom” offices for the appointee. Although without formal accountabilities, assistants can gain substantial informal authority as “gatekeepers.” This could also be done through the creation of ad hoc bodies;

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d. Appointing non-eligibles to career positions, in particular at the 3rd tier, usually in violation of the law. The rule in law (P.D. 1) is that only eligibles are to be appointed to CES positions and only in ‘exceptional cases’ can the President appoint a non-eligible, who is then required to undertake the processes in order to obtain eligibility. Without eligibility, the appointment is, effectively, temporary, with a maximum tenure of 12 months (CBD 2010). In practice, however, because appointments to the 3rd level are issued by the President, these have not been submitted to the CSC for attestation and the OP has gone on to interpret a non-CES eligible occupying a CES position as “a political appointee who serves at the pleasure of the President,” without the need for a reappointment [if beyond 12 months]; and e. Burrowing or appointing under ‘acting’ capacity (Monsod 2015). Over the years, various presidents have exercised presidential privilege and circumvented merit and fitness by using one or more of these modalities. Presidents Marcos and Aquino presumably mainly used reorganization and purging; Presidents Ramos and MacapagalArroyo used layering; and President Duterte appointed more noneligibles in the CES. All have added confidential staff or appointed some on an ‘acting’ capacity. Although seemingly apparent in the Philippine context, more empirical substantiation is needed to prove these presumptions. Patronage in the bureaucracy is an issue in the Philippines because civil service appointments continue to be made according to political consideration. This destroys the principle of merit, undermines security of tenure, and demoralizes career civil servants. Politicization exists despite various programs designed to maintain high standards in the civil service by attracting the best and brightest leaders. The prevailing culture of political patronage undermines the government’s efforts to professionalize the bureaucracy and improve the capabilities of government workers to serve the public effectively and efficiently (Robles 2007).

9.7  The Roles/Relationships Patron-Appointees Presumably Play: Towards a Model Based on the review of literature, the limited data presented, and the practices in the country, Presidents usually seek to appoint their allies and

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some others to important positions in the public bureaucracy, sometimes regardless of their eligibility. They also resort to the resignation of sitting officials to create vacancies that can be filled with political stalwarts. They also reorganize, remove, reassign or discipline, reverse or modify the acts of the appointee in the performance of his/her duty. Other Presidents layer, purge, appoint those they trusted in positions which are policy determining, and highly technical and confidential in nature. The compelling reasons why Presidents want to control the bureaucracy include 1) The bureaucracy is a key part of the policy process; a president who has a specific policy agenda would want to fill key positions in the hierarchy with loyal and qualified people to ensure that a bureaucracy’s activities are directed to his/her interests and competently executed; and 2) Personnel is an important source of political capital: a president will try to place numerous people in agency jobs to reward supporters, fulfill political obligations, and gain congressional or interest group support. Although all appointment decisions ultimately take patronage concerns into account and all appointees can influence policy options, ‘filling positions’ and ‘placing people’ are conceptually, if not empirically, distinct personnel goals for presidents (Lewis 2008; Monsod 2015). Interrogating the roles and relationships presumably played by the actors in the patronage/political appointments in the third level of the Philippine public bureaucracy, and integrating the observations and syntheses presented in the previous sections, the following conceptual typology is offered (Figure 9.3). It is a redesign of Peters et al.’s 2018 typology, as conceptualized in the Philippine setting. Peters et al.’s 2018 typology of not mutually exclusive patronage roles include (1) Party Professionals who are appointees with partisan trust and techno-professional competencies. Their main role is policy design and implementation; (2) Programmatic Technocrats combine technical competence with nonpartisan trust. They are independent experts who influence their political bosses through personal trust and specialized knowledge of a policy field. Their allegiance is to the appointing authority, not to political parties; (3) Apparatchiks combine political savvy with partisan trust. They are party loyalists and operators who control the public sector on

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President (patron-in-chief) Appointees

Institutionalized/ Formal systems

Programmatic Professionals and technocrats Eligible (public administrators, policymakers and implementers who push the national agenda)

Clientelistic Non-eligible

Political agents and “behaved” civil servants (media and other influencers, die-hard supporters and loyalists who would push for the president’s personal advocacies, e.g., stifle dissent and opposition; ensure perpetuation of one’s power)

Non-institutionalized/ Non-formal circles Policy entrepreneurs (policy analysts and advocates who tinker on the policy agenda, using innovative and creative solutions, sometimes to suit their ends) Political agents (brokers for clandestine and other transactions; implementers of the president’s ‘marching orders’)

Figure 9.3  Author’s conceptual typology of the emerging roles/relationships in patronage appointment in the Philippine public sector

behalf of the government. They articulate support to the ruling party or government coalition; (4) Political Agents combine political skills with nonpartisan trust. They are “minders” and gatekeepers of political bosses and act as the latter’s “eyes, ears, and mouth.” These roles assume that political parties are key actors in the politics of patronage appointments and, hence, that the characteristics of parties and party systems, especially party system institutionalization and the nature of their relations with voters, are important explanatory variables in accounting for differences in patronage roles (Peters et al., 2018). This assumption may not hold in the Philippines because as earlier mentioned, we have wishy-washy political parties and a weak political party system. The country’s main parties are too personality-oriented, and not program-oriented. In fact, they are indistinguishable from one

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another in their political beliefs and programs. They have weak membership bases and operate only during election time. In addition, political turncoatism is a venerable tradition (Miranda as cited in Quimpo 2007). However, we have a strong Executive. Thus, if ever loyalty is extracted, it will be loyalty to the appointing authority, e.g., the President who is the patron-in-chief, or loyalty to public office. Trust will not be partisan but mostly personal and nonpartisan, especially with the cultural values of ‘utang na loob’ and ‘pakikisama’ or ­‘pakikipag-kapwa.’ Skills and competences would include both political and technocratic/professional as the CESOs and non-eligibles navigate the political landscape of public administration. Appointees. Patronage and (legal) political appointments happen in the bureaucracy. For the third level (top management) of the public bureaucracy, patronage appointments seem to be more prevalent among those not qualified or non-eligible to the posts. They have a more clientelistic relationship with the President and seem to be more loyal to the latter, than to the public office and the people they swore to protect and serve. Their appointments seem to be a function of them being supporters, loyalists to the President, or part of the trusted inner circle of the patron-in-chief. A more ministerial presidential appointment, based on existing laws and processes, is applicable to those who are qualified and CES eligible. As professional and competent career service officers, their loyalty seems more to the republic and the people they serve. They are also in the formal and institutionalized Career Executive System, and are expected to be programmatic, professional, and politically neutral technocrats who are truly public servant-leaders, administrators, policymakers, and program implementers. As CESOs, they are expected to push the national agenda, development policies, and plans of the country. To a greater extent, they are Programmatic Technocrats in Peters et al. (2018) typology. Patron-in-Chief. The President rewards allies and people s/he trusts; s/he also appoints to control the bureaucracy. S/he navigates in a political landscape within the public bureaucracy where there are institutionalized or formal or official, as well as non-institutionalized, non-formal structures for the patronage and political appointees. His/her role expectations are for the appointees to do the traditional (and sometimes ‘unusual’) tasks of third-level executives and managers, e.g., policymaking, program planning, and implementation, some

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monitoring, supervising, and review. Here, they are expected to be Programmatic Technocrats and Policy Entrepreneurs. Technocrats exercise governmental authority because of their knowledge and competency. They are “a member of a powerful technical elite,” or “someone who advocates the supremacy of technical experts.” They are the select few who have the expertise in economics, engineering, and development administration and thus could take on the lead in these areas, on behalf of the government (Tadem 2018). Policy entrepreneurs in a more positive light, are change agents who innovate and invest their resources – time, energy, reputation, and sometimes money – to identify policy problems and solutions. They use their political skills and timing to achieve specified future return (Kingdon 1984). They usually display social acuity (and operate in networks), define problems, build teams, and lead by example (Mintrom and Norman 2009). Patronage appointees meanwhile are supposed to behave in the public sphere, especially if they are in the CES. However, because they are non-eligibles or have no or less qualifications, their roles are more of Political Actors, propagandists, spokespersons, and implementers of ‘marching orders’ of the President, in the guise of implementing national development plans and programs. They may also be expected to be Political Agents (Peters et al. 2018), and be brokers for clandestine and other transactions in the bureaucracy. In local parlance, for the clandestine transactions, they are pejoratively called “bagman” of patrons, who may be the President or his/her designate/ proxy. For other transactions, they are considered as mere “blind followers,” “yes men/women,” “not those of grand plans, but of a hundred of carefully executed details” (Billington 1999), at the beck and call of the President. This conceptualization which confirmed only two of Peters et al.’s major patronage roles, e.g., programmatic technocrat and political agent, is preliminary and has to be validated and substantiated by more empirical researches later. Also, the roles played by both the eligibles and non-eligibles may not be purely positive or negative, productive or derogative. There may be grays in between. Patronage appointment in the public sector is a challenging study. Transparent and open records may not be readily accessible and other limitations pose constrains in thickening the discourses such as those offered by this chapter. Doing a more substantive and systematic

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scanning and analyses of the literature, anecdotal commentaries, and primary data sets may be in order to better understand the politics and dynamics of this important area of public administration and public policy.

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Constantino as cited in Robles, Alan C. (2008). Civil Service Reform. Whose service? Development + Cooperation (D+C). Constantino-David, Karina. (2007). “Politics, Perils and Pains of Building Institutions”. Keynote address to the Human Development Network General Assembly. March. Corpuz, Onofre D. (1957). The Bureaucracy in the Philippines. Manila: University of the Philippines. De Guzman, R. P., A. B. Brillantes Jr. and A. G. Pacho (1988). The Bureaucracy. In R. P. De Guzman and M. A. Reforma (Eds.), Government and Politics of the Philippines (pp. 180–206). New York: Oxford University Press. De Leon (2000). Reforms in the Philippine Civil Service. Endriga, Jose N. (2001). The National Civil Service System of the Philippines. In John P. Burns and Bidhya Bowornwathana (Eds.), Civil Service System in Asia (pp. 212–248). United Kingdom: Edward Elgar Publishing. Hedman, Eva-Lotta E. and John T. Sidel, (2000). Philippine Politics and Society in the Twentieth Century: Colonial Legacies, Post-Colonial ­Trajectories (p. 125). London and New York: Routledge. Heydarian, R. J. (2018). The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt against Elite Democracy. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: 10.1007/978-98110-5918-6 Heywood, Paul M. (2018). Cooptation: Recruiting Clients and Patrons. In A. Ledeneva (Ed.), Global Encyclopedia of Informality: Understanding Social and Cultural Complexity, Volume 2 (Open Access) (pp. 380–382). [7.10] London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781787351899 Hodder, R. (2014). High-level Political Appointments in the Philippines. Singapore: Springer. DOI: 10.1007/978-981-4560-05-4 Jones, Clayton (1989). Assessing the Marcos Legacy. Philippines. The Christian Science Monitor. Kerkvliet, B. J. T. (1995). Toward a More Comprehensive Analysis of Philippine Politics: Beyond the Patron-Client. Factional Framework. ­ Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 26(2), 401–419. Kingdon, John W. (1984). Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. ­Boston, MA: Little, Brown. Kitschelt, H. and Wilkinson, S. I. (2007). ‘Citizen-Politician Linkages: An Introduction’. In H. Kitscheltand S. I. Wilkinson (Eds.), Patron, ­Clients, and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political ­Competition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kopecký, P., P. Mair and M. Spirova (Eds.). (2012). Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kreuzer, Peter (2020). A Patron-Strongman who delivers. Explaining enduring public support for President Duterte in the Philippines. A Peace Research Institute Frankfurt Report 1/2020.

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Lewis, D. E. (2008). The Politics of Presidential Appointments: Political C ­ ontrol and Bureaucratic Performance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton ­University Press. McCoy, Alfred (Ed.). (1994). An Anarchy of Families: State and Family in the Philippines. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University. Mendoza, Ronald U. and Jude B. Ocampo (2017). Caught between Imperial Manila and the Provincial Dynasties: Towards a New Fiscal Federalism, in: Public Policy vols. XVI&XVII, 29–51, https://t1p.de/6yv9 Mendoza, Maria Fe Villamejor and Minerva S. Baylon (2018). “The State of the Philippine Public Bureaucracy: Challenges and Prospects” Paper presented at the International Conference on “The State of Public Bureaucracy in East Asia” held on 6–7 July, 2018 at the Korea University, Seoul, South Korea. Mintrom, Michael and Phillipa Norman (2009). Policy Entrepreneurship and Policy Change. The Policy Studies Journal, 37(4), 2009. Monsod, Toby C. (2015). Political intervention in the Philippine bureaucracy, 1987–2010: How, where and to what effect? UPSE Discussion Paper No. 2015–17. Monsod, T.C. (2017). Political Appointees in the Philippine Bureaucracy: Do Increasing Numbers Help or Harm? Philippine Political Science Journal, DOI: 10.1080/01154451.2017.1320130, 2017 Ocampo, Romeo B. (2008). From Public Administration to Public Management, from Governance to Governmentality: Conceptual Challenges to Public Administration. Philippine Journal of Public Administration, 52(2–4), 91–118. Peters, Guy B., Conrado Larraburu and Panizza Francisco (2018). Roles, Trust and Skills: A Typology of Patronage Appointments. DOI: 10.1111/ padm.12560. Also in Public Administration, Wiley Online. Peters, B. G. (2013). Politicisation: What Is It and Why should We Care? In Civil Servants and Politics (pp. 12–24). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Quimpo, Nathan Gilbert (2005). Oligarchic Patrimonialism, Bossism, ­Electoral Clientelism and Contested Democracy in the Philippines. Comparative Politics, 37(2), 229–50. DOI: 10.2307/20072884 Quimpo, Nathan Gilbert (2007). “Trapo Parties and Corruption” KASAMA Vol. 21 No. 1, Solidarity Philippines-Australia Network, January–March. Rappler Pia Ranada (2021). “The Davao Boys Are Alright” Duterte Final Year. July 9. Reyes, Jeremiah (2015). Loob and Kapwa: An Introduction to a Filipino Virtue Ethics. Asian Philosophy 25(2), 1–24. DOI: 10.1080/09552367. 2015.1043173 Robles, A. C. (2007). The Asia-Europe Meeting: the theory and practice of interregionalism. London: Routledge.

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Scott, J. C. (1972). Patron-Client Politics and Political Change in Southeast Asia. American political science review 66(1), 91–113. Tadem, T. S. E. (2018). Technocracy and Class Politics in Policy-making. In M. R. Thompson and E. V. C. Batalla (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Philippines (pp. 267–272). London: Routledge. Teehankee, Julio C. (2012). “Clientelism and Party Politics in the Philippines.” In Dirk Tomas and Andreas Ufen (Eds.), Clientelism and Electoral Competition in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines (pp. 186–214). Oxford, UK: Routledge. Thompson, Mark Richard (2014). The Politics Philippine Presidents Make, Critical Asian Studies, 46(3), 433–460, July. Tjiptoherijanto, Prijono (2008). “Civil Service Reforms in the Philippines: The Role of Civil Society”, A Report Submitted to The Nippon Foundation Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines August. Veneracion, J. B. (1988). Merit or Patronage: A History of the Philippine Civil Service. Quezon City: Great Books Trading. Wong, Pak Nung and Kristinne Lara-De Leon (2018). Padrino System (The Philippines) In A. Ledeneva (Ed.), Global Encyclopedia of Informality: Understanding Social and Cultural Complexity, Volume 2 (Open Access) (pp. 380–382). [7.10] UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/ 111.9781787351899 World Bank (2018). Strengthening Human Resources in the Philippine Bureaucracy: Developing a Modern, Fit for Purpose Civil Service to Support a “Middle Class” Society. Draft Report. www.cesb.gov.ph www.csc.gov.ph www.officialgazette.gov.ph/1987/07/25/executive-orderno-292/ www.ocialgazette.gov.ph/1991/10/10/republic-act-no-7160-s-1991/ www.dbm.gov.ph 1987 Philippine Constitution PD 1 Act No. 5 ­Executive Order No. 292, Revised Administrative Code of 1987, Section 7). RA 11466 Rule I, General Policies on Recruitment, 2017 Omnibus Rules on Appointments and Other Human Resource Actions (ORAOHRA), Revised 2018.

Pa rt I I I

Autocracies*

*

Autocracy is defined here as a form of government where control is concentrated in the hands of a leader, a small group, or a single political party in power.

10

Varieties of Patronage in a Single-Party State Ministers in China Jiangnan Zhu, Siqin Kang, and Yaowensong Song

10.1 Introduction To manage a country with a wide territory of varied levels of economic development and a population of more than 1.4 trillion people of diversified ethnicities, China has one of the largest bureaucratic systems in the world. Approximately 7 million civil servants work in this system.1 The sheer size of the Chinese bureaucracy probably already makes the significance of studying civil service in China self-evident. Moreover, since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been the single ruling party of the country. In a one-party authoritarian regime without much competitive elections, the CCP almost monopolizes all the public sectors’ personnel issues, such as appointment, promotion, and demotion of officials of all the administrative levels and various departments, including the party organs in the party hierarchy, the functional departments in the state hierarchy, the judiciary departments, the state-owned enterprises, and public institutions affiliated to the party state (e.g., universities, ­public hospitals, government sponsored civil associations) (Burns, 2000). Thus, patronage, even clientelism and corruption, becomes a primary way for politicians to advance in such a bureaucratic system, making China a valuable case to study patronage in Asia.2 1

2

According to the Statistical Bulletin on the Development of Human Resources and Social Security in 2016 issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, there were 7.19 million civil servants in China in 2016. No specific number has been disclosed since then. Officials sometimes pay bribes for their promotion, for example, see Jiangnan Zhu (2008), “Why are offices for sale in China? A case study of the office-selling chain in Heilongjiang province,” Asian Survey, Vol. 48, No. 4 (July/August 2008), pp. 558–579.

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A long-time debate about the Chinese bureaucracy is whether it is meritocratic-oriented by promoting leaders based on performance or more preoccupied with internal competitions between factions (e.g., Shih et al., 2012). On the one hand, a series of early studies show that China’s remarkable economic development since reform may have a strong connection with officials’ incentives to enhance economic growth at subnational levels, from the grassroots such as townships and counties and up to provinces (e.g., Chen et al., 2005; Edin, 2003; Li & Zhou, 2005; Maskin et al., 2000; Whiting, 2004). Some scholars argue for the existence of “promotion tournament,” in which local leaders generating better economic performance (e.g., higher GDP growth rates) than their peers or predecessors can be awarded with promotions, though evidence is mixed (e.g., Chen et al., 2005; Li & Zhou, 2005; Tao et al., 2010). On the other hand, the other vein of research argues that factionalism, or a leader–follower relationship based on personal connections and loyalty, to put it in another way, has been the central part of the Chinese political system, especially elite politics (e.g., MacFarquhar & Schoenhals, 2006; Nathan, 1973; Tsou, 1995). Recent studies with advanced quantitative methods also find that factionalism, rather than economic performance, weighs more in the promotion of Chinese high-echelon leadership. Most notably, Shih et al. (2012) assert that although officials may get promoted in their government positions for good economic performance, promotion of the more important political status has no significant relationship with economic performance. Landry et al. (2018) also find that economic performance is only significant for county-level officials’ promotion; when the administrative ranking moves up to prefecture and provincial levels, factional ties matter more. The authors argue that the dualist strategy may help authoritarian rulers to balance the need for both loyalty and competence of subordinates in political selection and enhance regime survival. More recently, research by Junyan Jiang (2018), to some extent reconciles the above debate by showing that city-level officials having patron–client ties with incumbent provincial leaders tend to have faster economic growth. This is because the informal connections ­foster mutual trust and help solve the principal-agent problems in a system lacking a third-party enforcement. Although this study does not completely solve the myth about the relation between performance

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and promotion, the findings indicate that in a bureaucratic system like China, loyalty and competence are not two mutually exclusive characteristics of officials. Appointing loyal officials does not necessarily mean a sacrifice of officials’ competence for the regime. Regardless of the empirical findings reviewed above, an important group of high-ranking officials much less engaged by the existing debate is the Chinese ministers in the State Council. These politicians arguably are most comparable to the political appointees in a westernWeberian bureaucracy. They are major policy makers of different functional sectors and oversee the implementation of policies on behalf of the central government in China. Without exaggeration, the selection of these officials can influence Chinese economic growth and social development no less than governors of local jurisdictions. However, extant research has overwhelmingly focused on leaders of subnational localities. Although the limited research, such as Shih et al. (2012) uses the large dataset of Central Committee members and alternate members of the CCP, only ministers tend to be included in the analyses with many vice-ministers filtered out, because many vice-ministers are not members of the Central Committee. Moreover, because local governors are usually the main subjects of analyses, meritocracy tends to be equated to political achievement often measured by GDP growth rate. This leaves us to know little about the configuration of policy expertise of the Chinese ministers, a spectrum more suitable to gauge merit for this group of officials. The research of this chapter attempts to unveil the Chinese ministers. The proposed theoretical framework of this book provides us a good tool to analyze the appointment of Chinese ministers in a comparative perspective. We collected the data of 188 ministers and vice-ministers from 26 ministry-level units in the year of 2020 under President Xi Jinping. Some of them are ministers before President Xi assumed power in the end of 2012, while others were recently promoted to the posts. The very recent data also make our research the most up to date research of Chinese ministers so far. We set out to find out the extent of policy appointments and politics appointments of the Chinese ministers and their policy expertise. We also examine their loyalty basis, such as personal connections to top leaders and linkages to specific social groups, that can also potentially explain their appointment. The information altogether can help illustrate the scope of different types of patronage across ministries in China and tell us how the Chinese

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Party state balances between competence and loyalty at the ministerial level. In the following sections, we first introduce where the ministries and ministers stand in the Chinese formal political system. This is followed by empirical strategies and findings generated from the data. The last section provides final discussions and concluding remarks.

10.2  Ministers in the Chinese Political Hierarchy To understand where China’s ministries are placed, it is necessary to understand the Party–state structure first. After winning the Civil War in 1949, the CCP began to face the challenge of transforming itself from a revolutionary party to a ruling party that needs to govern the vast country in a modern way. Being a Leninist party, the CCP constructed a Party–state system that mixes modern state hierarchy with a party hierarchy that intrudes to socio-political corners of all levels. Unlike the western democracies that feature separation of powers, the Chinese political system emphasizes the leadership of the Communist Party (Saich, 2015). In particular, the formal political system consists of three parts, the Party hierarchy, the state hierarchy, and the military (Guo, 2012). The Party hierarchy goes from the Party central at the top, down to different levels of Party committees, and manages various party organs of political importance, such as personnel, propaganda, united front work, and political and legal affairs. For personnel issues, the Party manages its officials, or cadres, through the Nomenklatura system. The Central Organization Department of the Party compiles lists of government positions and lists of reserve officials for available positions and make appointment based on many criteria, such as age, education, years serving in the Party, evaluations of superiors and peers, and disciplinary violation records (Burns, 1987). Li and Walder (2001) characterize such career advancement as party patronage, which sponsors grassroots cadres that are favored by the Party, such as young cadres or those from a “red” class considered representing the proletariat, to attain more education at colleges or party schools and put them on a fast track toward promotion. An example of this kind of sponsored upward mobility is the leaders of the Chinese Youth League. The state hierarchy, which consists of executive, legislature, and judiciary, is led by the State Council, the central government of China. Theoretically speaking, the State Council is the executive organ of

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the National People’s Congress (NPC), the national-level legislature of China. The highest judiciary organs include the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. With the corresponding subordinate branches of government, people’s congress, court, and procuratorate at local levels, China’s state hierarchy extends from the central level to provinces, prefectures, counties, and townships. Finally, the military is headed by the Central Military Commission at the top and includes military subareas in localities. Although there is internal division of labor within the state hierarchy, for instance, execution, legislation, and judication, it by no means leads to separation of powers. Executive organs are usually considered to have greater power than legislature and judiciary (Saich, 2015). Most importantly, all the state institutions are under the leadership of the CCP, either through the embedded Party committees or the appointed Party leaders. For example, every local government in China is dual headed by a Party secretary and a governor. Although neither of them has restrictive power over the other in practice, both are under the leadership of the local Party committee, which the Party secretary leads, and the governor also sits in. To give another example of the Party leadership of the state hierarchy, the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the NPC is usually a member of the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), the supreme ruling body of the CCP and China. Thus, China has a Party–state system where the Party and state hierarchies overlap on top of each other at different layers, and the Party has the ultimate leadership. The State Council, being the central government of the state hierarchy of China, is headed by the premier, whose power literally is only secondary to the General Secretary of the CCP. Under the premier are a few vice premiers each taking care of several policy portfolios, such as agriculture, industry, and so on. Following the vice premiers are several State Councilors, usually one of whom serves as the General Secretary of the State Council. The above mentioned members also form the standing committee of the State Council, also called Executive Meeting (EM), and meet weekly. The constituent organs of the State Council include ministries and commissions, and many other directly affiliated institutions or ad hoc institutions/offices, and state bureaus managed by ministries and commissions. The focus of this chapter is the ministries and commissions, which make and implement policies of major functional areas in China. Appendix 10.1 lists all the ministries and commissions under the current Xi-Li administration.

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Figure 10.1 visualizes the complex political system with the de facto power status of different organs under the Xi-Li administration. While the large structure of Figure 10.1 keeps similar over time, institutional and personnel adjustment occurred from time to time. We also highlighted the ministries and ministers in yellow to clearly show where they stay in this power hierarchy. Formally, the Premier is nominated by the President of the state, who is also the General Secretary of the CCP in most of the times, and voted by NPC delegates in the NPC plenary session, and finally gets appointed by the President upon the approval of the NPC (Saich, 2015). After being appointed, the Premier nominates minister candidates of each ministry and commission. The list of candidates will be submitted to vote by the NPC plenary session or its standing committee, and the President will then formally appoint the elected candidates. In reality, the premier, vice premiers, ministers, and vice-ministers are all centrally managed high-ranking officials. Candidates of these posts are selected by the PSC. NPC is largely a rubber stamp of the nomination. The premier is also a member of the PSC; every ministry/commission has a Party group, which is even more powerful than Party committee (Lieberthal, 2004), and ministers are usually the secretaries of the Party groups. This institutional setup ensures the Party leadership over the entire State Council such that the ministries can uphold party lines while making policies. Ministers take charge of the overall work of specific functional departments, and vice-ministers assist ministers in their duty. In the socalled Chinese governing matrix muddle (Lieberthal, 2004), ministries are the highest vertical coordinating organs that directly govern the corresponding governmental departments at local levels. For example, the Ministry of Education has authority over the Education Bureau of Shanghai; professional policies and advice from the upper levels supposedly should be followed by the lower levels. However, local government maintains administrative power over the local functional bureaucracy by making decisions of its personnel and financial issues, such as officials’ promotions and operation budget of a bureaucracy. This fragmentation sometimes may lead to bargaining and conflicts between the vertical functional bureaucratic system and the horizontal geographical jurisdictions (Lieberthal & Oksenberg, 1990). To adjust the bureaucratic fragmentation and adapt to the rapidly changing situations in China, the State Council has undergone

237

Judiciary

Divisions of Power

Figure 10.1  Where the ministries and ministers stay in China’s Party–state hierarchy

Nominal Organs Number of Members (in each organ under the Xi-Li administration. Number varies over time)

Relationships beyond the State Council

Departments and Commissions of the Central Military Commission

Central Military Commission (State) (7)

Military (People’s Liberation Army)

Leadership

Relationships within the State Council ()

National Party Congress (2280+74)

Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (133)

Central Secretariat (7)

Politburo (25)

Offices and Departments of the Central Committee

Formal Sectors of the Political System

Ministries and Commissions of the State Council

Concurrent

Sits in (rank no.1) Politburo Standing Committee (7)

Central Military Commission (Party) (7)

x

Led by

Party General Secretary (1)

Central Committee (204)

x

Ministers

National People’s Congress (2980)

Affiliated to

State Council (Executive Meeting: 11)

Executive

Positions

Supreme Procuratorate

Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (175)

Legislature

Led by

Premier

Sits in (rank no.2)

Concurrent

Organs

Ministerial Level

Supreme Court

National Level

President

State

Leadership

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Table 10.1  Number of ministries across years Premier

Year

Number of ministries

Zhou Enlai

1954–1959 1959–1965 1965–1970 1970–1975 1975–1976 1976–1978 1978–1980 1980–1983 1983–1987 1987–1988 1988–1993 1993–1998 1998–2003 2003–2008 2008–2013 2013–2018 2013–present

35 38 48 25 29 29 57 57 44 44 41 40 29 28 27 25 26

Hua Guofeng Zhao Ziyang Li Peng

Zhu Rongji Wen Jiabao Li Keqiang

Note: State Council replaced Government Administration Council (GAC) in 1954. Under GAC (1949–1954), the ministry system was not completely the same as it is later, so we did not include the number of ministries then. Some premiers took more terms than others.

several rounds of restructuring until today (Saich, 2015). In the past, the number of ministries and commissions has changed many times with new ministries established and old ones dismantled or merged. For instance, with the deepening of the market economic reform, the former Commission of Economic Planning gradually changed into today’s National Development and Reform Commission; the Ministry of Railways was dissolved in 2013 with its duties taken up by the Ministry of Transport and China Railway Corporation. Generally, an increase of the total number of ministries may indicate Chinese government’s tendency to professionalize its bureaucracy by refining the division of labors and creating specialized departments; in contrast, a decrease of the total number of ministries could reflect a government attempt to centralize power and streamline policy process (Lieberthal, 2004). Table 10.1 in the following shows clearly the boom and bust of the number of ministries in China since 1949. In

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the peak time, under Premier Zhao Ziyang, which was the early years of the economic reform, the number of ministries reached 57. But since 1998, with the promotion of administrative reform, the number of ministries has been decreasing to less than 30. In the latest round of restructuring, several former ministries were either merged or got rid of and new grand ministries were created. For example, the Ministry of Supervision was replaced by the State Supervision Commission, an overarching anticorruption agency directly under the NPC’s supervision. The Ministry of Land and Resources and the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation were dismantled, whereas the new Ministry of Natural Resources was set up to oversee the development and protection of natural resources, and spatial planning. The new Ministry of Veterans Affairs was also created by taking some responsibilities from other departments, such as Ministry of Civil Affairs, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission, and Logistics Support Department of the Central Military Commission. What kind of people tend to be selected as ministers? To rejuvenate the cadre corps of China, Deng Xiaoping introduced the retirement system in the 1980s. Officials with “both socialist-mind and professional competence (youhong youzhuan)” were especially preferred by the Party to fill in the vacancies as fresh blood to the bureaucracy (Li, 1998). Young and well-educated people with professional knowledge and expertise began to get more opportunities of promotion in the bureaucratic system. Technocrats with dual qualifications of loyalty and profession started to wield power as ministers and governors, taking the place of old revolutionary cadres who were often peasant and worker cadres with low levels of education promoted in Mao’s era (Andreas, 2009). The peak time of the rise of technocrats was the Hu-Wen administration. When selecting ministers, the CCP also co-opts different social groups by appointing some ministers and vice-ministers outside of the Party or from social minority groups, most notably ethnic minorities, women, and the minor democratic parties in China. Sometimes the people selected may bear double or triple identities of the above groups. This cooptation strategy arguably may contribute to regime resilience in at least two ways: signaling legitimacy and facilitating policy making. CCP has a long tradition of the united front policy,

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which is to build a “limited and temporary alignment between a Communist party or state and one or more non-Communist political units” (Armstrong, 1977). By signaling the support from different social groups and a reign on ostensible alliance, the united front work helps establish CCP’s legitimacy (Wang & Groot, 2018). Co-opting social groups into the political arena is also consistent with China’s consultative authoritarianism practice, which aims at incorporating “information relevant” to the Party-state’s decision-making process through non-party citizens’ political participation and collecting information from a wide base of the society (He & Warren, 2011). Moreover, appointing ministers from minority groups may help policy implementation, because these ministers’ minority identities and personal connections could facilitate conveying policies to the specific social groups. In particular, appointing ethnic minority ministers very likely reflects Chinese government’s concern about the national unity and ethnic minority affairs, which is always an important issue on Chinese leaders’ table, especially given that several ethnic groups occupy large borderline territory in China (Sun, 2018; Zang, 2015). These members not only may signal to the ethnic minorities that the central government welcomes their presence in the decision-making process if they are loyal to the Party-state but also can help liaison between the central government and the minority groups. Ulanhu, the Mongolian CCP official whose Chinese name is Yun Ze, is such an example. He joined the CCP at the age of 17 in the 1920s and organized communist rallies in Mongolia and participated in several battles as a military commander in the revolutionary years. With his demonstrated loyalty to the Party, military contributions, and the ethnic minority identity, he was assigned several significant positions at national level. He was the founding Chairman and Party Secretary of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region from 1947 to 1966. From 1954 to 1975 he served as vice premier and simultaneously the Chairman of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission. He was also the vice chairman of the National People’s Political Consultative Conference (NPPCC) between 1978 and 1983 and vice president of the PRC from 1983 to 1988. His offspring continued to serve important positions in Inner Mongolia. Ulanhu was a model figure of loyalty both to the PRC and the Mongolian people (Gries & Rosen, 2004).

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Similarly, to show support to gender equality, the CCP always has some female leaders in the elite echelon. Some of them may also have ethnic minority or democraticparty identities. For example, Soong Ching-ling, the wife of Sun Yat-sen, was a vice president of the PRC, the vice chairman of the standing committee of the NPC, and the vice chairman of the NPPCC when PRC was just founded. Within the State Council, there are women ministers most of the time, and sometimes there are female vice premiers. For example, Wu Guixian was the first female vice premier of the PRC from 1975 to 1978; Shi Liang was the first Minister of Justice, Li Dequan was the first Minister of Health, and Ho Hsiang-ning was the first chairman of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission of the PRC. Finally, the minor democratic parties are constitutionally given the right to participate in the administration and discussion of state affairs but with no ruling power in China. These parties constantly learn the CCP Party lines and strictly follow the Party leadership (Saich, 2021). In addition, most of the democratic parties recruit people with expertise in various fields, sometimes even celebrities of their fields. For instance, the China National Democratic Construction Association is a party largely for entrepreneurs and people in economic circles, and several other parties, such as the China Democratic League, the China Association for Promoting Democracy, and the 93 Society mainly appeal to intellectuals working in different arenas from cultural to science and technology. Therefore, appointing people from democratic parties is potentially also a signal of emphasis of professionalism and expertise in the Chinese bureaucracy. In the early years of the PRC, approximately one-third of the ministers and Government Administration Council members were from democratic parties, as the CCP claimed to seek co-ruling with other democratic parties. We further examined the trend of appointment of ministers of minority groups over time in Figure 10.2. We can see that the presence of ethnic minority and female ministers is generally stable across years, regardless in terms of number and percentage, except for some interruptions during the Cultural Revolution era (1966–1978). Also, since 1978, there have been over 20 female ministers in the State Council. The Xi-Li administration also keeps one female vice premier in the cabinet since they came into power. In contrast, the trend of appointing ministers from democratic parties waned significantly from the

242 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

Jiangnan Zhu, Siqin Kang, and Yaowensong Song 35

35

23

38

16

1413

9

9

1 4

49

26

9

9

9

3

EM M

1 4

1

EM M

18 1

1 3

EM M

18

47

18

1129

1 1

1 1

1 1

EM M

EM M

EM M

57 15 2

3

EM M

17 1

3

29

3

1

2

16 3

1 3 1

1 2 1

EM M

EM M

EM M

EM M

16

27

28

40 41

11 2

11 1 2

2 1 3

EM M

2

11 1 2 4 1

EM M

25 1

11 2

26 11

1 1

1 1 1

EM M

EM M

1949-54 1954-60 1960-65 1965-70 1970-75 1975-78 1978-83 1983-88 1988-93 1993-98 1998-03 2003-08 2008-13 2013-18 2018-

female

minority

democratic party

Figure 10.2  Number of ministers from the minority groups across years Note: “EM” refers to the executive meeting of the State Council, which includes premier, vice premiers, State Councilors, etc. “M” refers to ministers. Total number of ministers is on the top of each bar.

1970s when the CCP turned to strengthen the one-party rule. Only from 2003, under the Hu-Wen administration, democratic party members began to be appointed as ministers again, however, still largely in minority. Under the Xi-Li administration, the Minister of Science and Technology (2013–2018), Wan Gang, is from the China Zhi Gong Party, and the Minister of Natural Resources (2020–now), Huang Runqiu, is from the 93 Society.

10.3  Unpack Patronage of Chinese Ministers: Method and Data After the latest round of restructuring under the Xi-Li administration, the State Council in China today consists of 26 large units, including 20 supra-ministries (e.g., Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Finance), 5 ministerial-level commissions (e.g., the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission), and People’s Bank of China, which is China’s central bank.3 These 26 units constitute the main functional governing machine of today’s Chinese central government. Each of them is led by one minister and several viceministers or ministerial-level officials. We will address all of them as “ministers” in the following analyses. We collected their detailed 3

The constitutes of state council can be found on state council website: www.gov.cn/ guowuyuan/gwy_zzjg.htm

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bibliography information, including age, education attainment, and career ­trajectories.4 Altogether, we collected 188 observations in our dataset. Among them, 129 were newly promoted to their current positions in the 19th Party congress in 2017. Another 57 were promoted after the 18th Party congress in 2012. Only 5 veteran officials have been staying in the same position for more than ten years. As elaborated in the theoretical chapter by Guy Peters, the patronage appointment nexus has two dimensions. The first is the major role of the appointees, largely based on their functions, which is divided into policy versus non-policy (or politics) appointment, and the second dimension is loyalty, which can further break down into three types: loyalty to a political party, personal loyalty to a politician, and loyalty to a social group. In the following, we first explain how we identify and code different dimensions and sub-categories of each dimension, followed by respective findings and analysis.

10.3.1  The Major Role of Appointees: Measuring Policy and Political Appointment Political leaders seek different skill sets from their appointees at the same time. Some of the officials are appointed more for their expertise and are expected to take policy-related jobs, while others are appointed for their other skills to manage non-policy jobs, which usually tend to bear more political nature. However, there is no guarantee that different types of positions are filled with qualified candidates. The appointment could be more complicated in real cases, especially for a single-party regime like China. As explained in the previous section, all the Chinese officials, especially high-ranking ones, are selected with strong political considerations and the large majority of them are members of the CCP. In such a regime, policies may especially be likely to “be used as political salvo – bolstering the positions of allies against opponents and exacerbating policy conflicts” (Heikkila et al., 2020), because political elites, who lack regular elections to measure popularity, tend to use policy fighting to signal political power. Despite this 4

The Ministry of National Security does not offer detailed information of its ministers on the official website, most likely due to the sensitive nature of the ministry.

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strong tendency of politicization of policies, some jobs of the ministers still rely more on policy-related expertise and merit. In contrast, other jobs need to handle more about political issues. As Peters in Chapter  1 suggests, non-policy-related tasks for partisan political figures can be a measure for political appointment. Thus, we consider officials who are appointed to the positions targeted on Party and political affairs as politics appointments. For the ministers there are mainly three types of posts specializing in political affairs: Party secretary of a ministry/commission, who leads the Party organization works of a unit; Party discipline inspector, who supervises officials for their compliance of Party disciplines and corruption control by and large; and director of political affairs office, who mainly organizes human resource training and development of regulations (i.e., this position only exists in the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Public Security). For the above positions, we code the officials as “political appointment,” which accounts for about a quarter of the ministers in our sample. All non-political appointments are in the bulk of policy appointments, which take up three-quarters of all head accounts. Complicating the story, the appointment of Chinese officials to a policy position could go beyond policy concerns but for other reasons, such as loyalty concerns (e.g., Jiang, 2018; Shih et al., 2012). Thus, we cannot assume the job title or description of an official genuinely reflect why he or she is appointed to a certain position. We may sometimes find that a minister does not appear to possess expertise in the field he/she oversaw if judging based on this official’s past education and work background. Thus, besides the nominal number of policy appointments induced by excluding politics appointments, we would like to know as well to what extent the policy appointments really go to experts. To examine this, we bring in an additional parameter, policy expertise, to hopefully identify whether one’s expertise matches with the policy field that he or she oversees. Policy expertise is measured by one’s years of working experience in the field and educational background, including the universities graduated from, the highest degrees achieved, and the majors specialized at universities. If one served in a single ministry or the same functional system for more than 10 years, we consider him or her an expert in that field, regardless of the educational background. For example, Wang Yi, who graduated from

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Beijing International Studies University with a major of Japanese and has been working in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for more than thirty years before promoted to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, fulfills both the criteria of education and long-term working experience, therefore considered as having high expertise. Ren Hongbin, the assistant to the Minister of Commerce (deputy-minister level), though holding a bachelor’s degree not directly related to trade and commerce, has been serving the Minister of Commerce for more than 20 years, hereof can also be considered a senior expert of trade and commerce. Officials are also considered having some level of expertise of their field if their education background is related to the fields of their respective ministries and worked in the field fewer than 10 years. For instance, Yi Gang, who returned to work in Peking University first and then Ministry of Finance after acquiring a Ph.D. degree of Economics from US, was appointed to the president of People’s Bank of China in 2018. Another example of this kind of the so-called “scholarly official” is Huang Runqiu, a geology professor and former vice director of Provincial People’s Congress of Sichuan, who was appointed to the Ministry of Environment and became the minister 4  years later. We consider cases like these two also experts of the related field. But to differentiate the above two kinds of experts, we code the officials with more than ten years of pertinent working experience as a senior expert, scoring “2”; and give “1” to those working in related field for less than 10  years but holding a relevant college degree; and all other types as “0.”

10.3.2 Findings We first use a two-by-two table to present the proportional distribution of officials along the policy–political axis and expertise axis (Table 10.2). In general, 48 officials have politics appointments, and 140 ministers can be considered as policy appointments; and 162 ministers have policy expertise at different levels, whereas 26 without any apparent policy expertise. Moreover, among the 26 full ministers, we found 12 of them are senior experts, 10 have some expertise, and 5 are not experts, which somewhat suggests that most ministries are led by experts. In particular, political appointments account for about 26% of all posts in our sample. In this group, while 15 of them (8.0% of the

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Table 10.2  Proportion of policy and political appointment

Expertise

Policy appointment

Politics appointment

Total

0 1 2

11 (5.9%) 28 (14.9%) 101 (53.7%)

15 (8.0%) 20 (10.6%) 13 (7.2%)

26 (13.6%) 48 (25.5%) 114 (60.9%)

Total

140 (74%)

48 (26%)

Note: Policy expertise: 2 = senior officials with more than ten years of working experience; 1 = working in related ministry for fewer than 10 years but holding a relevant degree; 0 = neither of above, not much of explicit indicators of expertise.

entire sample) has no clear policy expertise, 33 of them (17.8% of the sample, dark gray cells in Table 10.2) have field-related expertise (policy appointment scores 1 or 2). For the 33 political appointments with expertise, 15 officials have dual roles of both the Party secretary and the full minister of their ministries. This dual role arrangement is quite different from local jurisdictions, where local governor and Party secretary most of the times are assumed by two persons separately. While it is hard to pin down the exact reasons behind the dual role setting, it probably indicates higher trust to ministries by the central government because after all the ministries are considered as part of the central government as well as the tendency to give experts more say in leading the functional ministries. Another 16 political appointees with expertise are discipline inspectors to highly technical ministries, such as Ministry of Industrial and Information Technology and Ministry of Natural Resources. Appointing experts in these ministries may aim at strengthening anticorruption supervisions as emphasized by the Xi-Li administration. The rest 4 appointees include 3 party secretaries and one director of political affairs office. Seventy-four percent of the sampled officials (n = 140) are appointed for non-political jobs. If using a simple divide, we may equate them to policy appointments. Moreover, we find that among the 140 non-­politics appointees, 101 (53.7%) are senior experts with long-time working experience in the related field. Another 28 officials (14.9%) can also be considered as experts though with less field-related working experience. Put together, 68.6% of the current ministers (i.e., light gray cells) can be

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considered as strongly oriented to policy appointments. This is a considerably large proportion, indicating the Chinese government has generally built a professional bureaucratic troop with relevant specialties of respective ministries, a sign of China’s pursuit of bureaucratic modernization. However, we also find 11 officials (5.9% of the whole sample) does not show clear expertise but being appointed to ­non-politics tasks, which is approximately a policy appointment. This small group may be a measurement error caused by information unavailability, but it may also manifest other potential factors, such as loyalty to be discussed shortly, influencing high-level personnel in Chinese politics. We further probe the pattern of policy and politics appointment across ministries. First a general pattern to notice is: Although the number of deputy or above ministerial positions varies across different ministries, all ministries have at least two politics positions, the Party secretary and the discipline inspector. However, the proportion of experts in each ministry may differ and is especially worth checking, because the proportion of experts in a ministry is not only an indicator of the quality of current crew in policy making, but also suggests the policy significance for the Chinese leadership. If the expertise level of one ministry is low (e.g., half of the ministers of the Ministry of Veteran Affairs have little relevant experience), that ministry probably bears less policy significance or concerns in the eyes of central leaders, and vice versa. In other words, comparison across ministries may potentially help us read the Chinese central government’s mind about the relative importance of different policy domains. Since some ministries have more ministerial headcounts than others, we calculated both the absolute total number and proportion of experts in each ministry. We present the results in Figure 10.3. The two charts in the figure generally deliver consistent patterns. The proportion of experts in different ministries shifts from 40% to 90%, if we combine expertise scoring 1 and 2 together. Ministries with high percent (i.e., 50% and above) of policy expertise are: National Audit Office (NAO), Ministry of Science and Technology (MST), People’s Bank of China (PBOC), Ministry of Public Security (MPS), and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). In contrast, Ministry of Veteran Affairs (MVA), National Ethnic Affairs Commission (NEAC), Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS), Ministry of Education, and

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Figure 10.3 Distribution of expertise across ministries: (a) in absolute number, and (b) in proportion Note: A full list of ministries and their acronyms are in Appendix 1.

National Development and Reform Committee (NDRC) are among the low end of expertise percent (i.e., below 50%). The variations in expertise may to some extent reveal the nature of different ministries in terms of how “technical” their work is. Those with high expertise percentage tend to need non-acquirable expertise, such as professional skills of accounting, finance, diplomacy, natural science, engineering, and geology that cannot be easily obtained only through years of work but need professional educational backgrounds. In contrast, those ministries with low expertise percentage have relatively loose expertise requirements, and much of the skills needed can be learned from work experience. However, NDRC is well known to be very powerful and plays an important role in economic reform, and supposedly should also need professional knowledge. Why it has

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relatively low expertise proportion is worth further inquiry, and our analysis of the trust dimension in the following may provide some tentative explanation.

10.3.3  Basis of Trust: Loyalty to the Political Party, Political Leaders and Social Groups The other dimension of the patronage appointment is the loyaltybased appointment. For the three types of loyalty appointment, one caveat for the case of China is that most high-level officials are CCP members with only a small percent of them being members of the eight minor democratic parties or members of no parties. As introduced in the previous section, the eight minor democratic parties were first established for elite control and information sharing, which makes them rather supportive organizations under the leadership of CCP rather than the political oppositions. Regardless of the party affiliations, appointments of ministers and vice-ministers should go through the formal procedure with the Party, thus all the ministers in China theoretically speaking have some loyalty to the CCP. Therefore, to make the category “party loyalty” informative, we only code those officials that we cannot identify personal connections to the top leaders or social groups identities as having “loyalty to the Party.” As for personal loyalty to a political leader, we mainly examine ministers’ potential connections with the current members of the PSC and former members of the PSC under the Hu-Wen administration, the immediate predecessors of the current PSC. Elder PSC members are less likely to be closely linked to the current ministers as their generation gap is so large. Some major indicators have been used by different scholars to detect potential factional ties between clients and their patrons. Shih (Shih et al., 2010; Shih, 2016) established a comprehensive measurement to capture the factional ties. Generally, officials who were co-workers of the same work units, natives of the same birthplaces, and schoolmates of the same institutions for higher education are considered more likely to have stronger personal connections. Other scholars use a more conservative proxy and only consider officials who worked under their superiors and received promotions as an indicator of a potential patron–client relationship between the two sides.

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For methodological rigor, we experimented both the measurements. We find that the birth province of the ministers is not a good indicator for personal loyalty in our sample for two reasons. First, several PSC members come for the same provinces. For example, Xi Jinping and Zhao Leji are both from Shaanxi province; Li Keqiang and Wang Yang both come from Anhui province. This makes it hard to differentiate factions based on birth places of officials. Second, 26 of ministers come from Shandong province, which is also the birth province of Wang Huning. However, it would be surreal to interpret them all as followers of Wang, as the pure number even surpassed the sum of officials from Anhui and Shaanxi, where the top two leaders Xi and Li come from. Schoolmate is less a clear indicator of personal ties either, in this dataset. For one thing, the number of ministers being schoolmates is so small, only 13 out of 188. In addition, 8 of the 13 graduated from Peking University, where Li Keqiang and Zhao Leji also graduated from. Hence, it is ambiguous who these 8 officials are clients of. Thus, we mainly rely on the conservative way, co-worker experience plus getting promoted under current leader’s supervision back then, to measure personal ties. One example identified by this coding is the director of NDRC, He Lifeng, who was the Party secretary of Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province when Xi was the provincial governor there in the early 2000s. He was promoted to the vice director of NDRC right after Xi consolidated power. For loyalty to a social group, we measure it mainly based on an official’s affiliation or belonging to a particular group, such as one of those eight democratic parties, ethnic minorities, or being a woman. As discussed previously, China has a loose affirmative action in favor of less represented social groups. This means despite no designated proportions for these people in each level of the leadership, they have some advantages over others in promotion if the number of representatives is small (Qiao, 2012). Thus, we code officials affiliated to any of the above groups as having loyalty to a social group. 10.3.3.1 Findings Figure 10.4 shows that the large proportion of ministers have l­ oyalty to the party (i.e., 65.4%), and less than a quarter of the ministers have apparent ties to current and previous PSC members. Social

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Loyalty to Social Group

Loyalty to both Person and Social Group

Loyalty to Person

1.6%, 8.5%, n=16 n=3 24.5%, n=46 65.4%, n=123 Loyalty to the Party

Figure 10.4  Basis of trust: loyalty to the Party and social groups, and personal connections

group loyalty accounts for 8.5% of the whole crew, suggesting a potential of window dressing. Finally, three officials appear to have double loyalty to both top leaders and social groups, for which we separate from the other types and count as a new category, “personal-group.” Overall, the high percentage of appointment ­ based on party loyalty shows that the ministries are a party apparatus to a large extent, rather than a fragmented machine constituted by different political factions. Nonetheless, given the inherent factionalism in Chinese politics, it is worth further examining the distribution of personal ties across ministries to probe top leaders’ potential influence on policy making in the functional systems and to get a sense of power-balancing at policy level. For instance, is it possible that, despite the State Council looks faction neutral in general, there be intensive competition between top leaders over some key ministries? Results in Figure 10.5 suggest that NDRC, Ministry of Public Security (MPP) and Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) have the highest proportion of appointment with personal connection.

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Figure 10.5 Distribution of personal connections across ministries: (a) by absolute number and (b) by proportion Note: The red color represents personal connections that are identified, and gray colors are cases not identified to have personal connections. A full list of ministries and their acronyms are in Appendix 10.1.

We take a step further to look into connections to specific leaders and present the results in Figure 10.6. We find that no patron has a dominant say in any single ministry. Moreover, NDRC has the largest number of peronal connections, which also tend to include several leaders in a relatively balanced way. For instance, the Youth League – if we consider Li Keqiang and Wang Yang as the leader of Youth League faction – has three clients inside the organization, and there are two officials have a close tie to president Xi and Han Zheng, respectively. Finally, Figure 10.7 shows that appointment based on loyalty to social groups also distributes relatively equally across different ministries. Even for National Ethnic Affairs Commission (NEAC), where minority identity is related to the professional knowledge, ethnic

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Figure 10.6  Distribution of personal connections by patrons across ministries: (a) by absolute number and (b) by proportion Note: XJP = Xi Jinping; LKQ = Li Keqiang; LZS = Li Zhanshu; WY = Wang Yang; ZLJ = Zhao Leji; HZ = Han Zheng. A full list of ministries and their acronyms are in Appendix 10.1.

minority ministers do not account for a significantly larger percent than other ministries.

10.4  Discussion and Conclusion: Variety of Patronage Appointment of Chinese Ministers To conclude this chapter, we first draw an overall picture of Chinese ministers’ appointment types in Figure 10.8 along the two-dimensional patronage nexus. The horizontal axis is the policy-politics divide with the parameter of expertise added by us to further differentiate the role of appointment. The vertical axis is the trust dimension with an extra

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Figure 10.7  Distribution of loyalty to social groups across ministries Note: A full list of ministries and their acronyms are in Appendix 10.1.

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Figure 10.8  Varieties of patronage of Chinese ministers

group of “double loyalty” to both the top leaders and a social group, “personal-group,” identified by us from our dataset. In general, while most ministers have policy expertise and loyalty to the CCP, a variety of patronage appointment exists among the Chinese ministers. To name the top three categories, the largest group is the highest blue c­ olumn (n=88), referring to policy appointment with expertise and loyalty to the political party, or “party professionals” in Peters’ typology in the introduction chapter. Next to it is the highest orange column (n=28),

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referring to the policy appointment with expertise and loyalty to top leader, corresponding to “programmatic technocrats” in Peter’s typology, if we consider them as appointed to “assist friends in making better policy.” The third largest group is a blue column (n=20) of politics appointment with expertise and loyalty to the political party; they are kind of in between “party professionals” and “apparatchiks” but close to the latter in Peter’s definition. Altogether these top three groups sum up to 136 ministers of the entire sample, forming the mainstream of the Chinese ministers. What is in common for them is that all of them have policy expertise, and 108 of them hold loyalty to the political party. In the political context of China, these 108 ministers can be considered as relatively neutral technocrats, who are probably most similar as their western counterparts. In addition, for politics appointment, there are also ministers having policy expertise, indicating government’s awareness of the importance of professionalism for policy makers. These kinds of officials also more likely blur the line between politicians and civil servant, reflecting the special context of a single-party regime. Also, surprisingly, the factional patronage competition over ministerial positions is not as severe as some may expect based on observations of local governors.5 For politics appointment, 16 out of 48 ministers are identified to have connections with top leaders, maybe considered as “political agent” in Peter’s typology. However, even for this group, 6 of them also have policy expertise. Personal connections explain even less for the policy appointments, for only 33 out of 140 ministers have personal ties. In other words, more than 75% of the policy appointees do not show clear evidence of personal connection to top leaders. Altogether, we probably can argue that despite the seemingly increasing personal-connection appointment in the past few years (Shirk, 2018), Chinese government manages to maintain a relatively faction neutral and professional crew for its functional bureaucracy at the top level. This is especially the case for several sectors that are crucial for the Chinese politico-economy and relatively technical in the eyes of the central government, such as People’s Bank of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and Ministry of Public Security, and so on. 5

For example, Shih et al. (2012) estimates that Central Committee members having various personal ties may account for 61% in the 16th Party Congress.

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This emphasis on professionalism also seems to be the approach of appointment of leaders of the judiciary, such as the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate. Unlike democratic countries, court and procuratorate in China maintains a close linkage with politics, fundamentally inferior to Party’s leadership. However, the court and procuratorate require exceptionally high level of expertise to ensure justice and the public trust. We find for the current judiciary crew, all the policy appointments are taken by judges or procurators with legal education and expertise (i.e., 16 in total). This seems to work toward the direction of strengthening rule by law claimed by the Chinese government. However, we cannot neglect the fact that all the politics appointments of the court and procuratorate are taken by people without any legal expertise. Thus, non-professional factors can still influence professional decisions in the legal system just as in the ministries. In general, the perspective of patronage appointment is a useful tool to compare the bureaucrat troops across countries in terms of their competence and loyalty. A challenge of applying the political/ policy appointment framework to the case of China is the unique relationship between the party and bureaucracy, or politics and policy, which are “direct and pervasive” as argued by Peters in the introduction chapter. Therefore, the quality of policy appointment, whether the officials have expertise, should be incorporated into the policy/political appointment axis. Our finding in general confirms that most of the policy appointments are occupied by policy experts. However, our cross-sectional data only cover the current term of ministers. To examine whether the patronage appointment structure has been changing over time in China in the past four decades, panel data would be needed. Future research may also explore whether policy making in China is becoming more scientific with a large portion of experts being ministers. Also, existing literature recognizes a rise of “red technocrats” in the early days of reform, whether and how this trend will transform in the future as China reorients its national and international development strategy is largely an open question worth further research.

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Appendix 10.1  Full list of ministries and commissions under Xi-Li administration Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA)

Ministry of National Defense (MND)

National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)

Ministry of Education (ME)

Ministry of Science and Technology (MST)

Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT)

National Ethnic Affairs Commission Ministry of Public Security (MPS) (NEAC) Ministry of State Security (MSS)

Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA)

Ministry of Justice (MJ)

Ministry of Finance (MF)

Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS)

Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR)

Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE)

Ministry of Housing and UrbanRural Development (MHURD)

Ministry of Transport (MT)

Ministry of Water Resources (MWR)

Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA)

Ministry of Commerce (MC)

Ministry of Culture and Tourism (MCT)

National Health Commission (NHC)

Ministry of Veterans Affairs (MVA)

Ministry of Emergency Management (MEM)

People’s Bank of China (PBOC)

National Audit Office (NAO)

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11

Party Patronage in Kazakhstan Colin Knox and Saltanat Janenova

11.1 Introduction Party patronage is defined as ‘the power of political parties to make appointments to the public and semi-public sector’, and has attracted global attention in the research literature (Kopecký et al, 2008; Arriola, 2009; Scherlis, 2013; Kopecký et al, 2016; Askim et al, 2016; Panizza et al, 2019). Researchers in the field differentiate between studies on patronage associated with politics, clientelism and corruption (Cruz and Keefer, 2015; Lewis and Hossain, 2019) and, what they describe, as ‘a relatively narrow but more precise conception of party patronage’ namely ‘how far political parties are in control of the allocation of public positions’ (Kopecký et al, 2016: 418). This chapter takes as its starting point research on party patronage in 22 countries across five regions (Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Latin America and Africa). Absent from extant research is the Central Asian region comprising the five post-Soviet countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan (see Dettman and Gomez’s (2020) research on patronage in Malaysia; and Verver and Dahles (2015) on Cambodia). Four of the five Central Asian countries are defined as ‘hardline autocracies’, and the fifth (Kyrgyzstan), as a ‘defective democracy’ (Bertelsmann Transformation Index, 2020). Central Asian countries are typically dominated by single parties linked to the President or claim (tokenistic) party plurality. If we look at the ‘defective democracy’ of Kyrgyzstan, the party system therein is highly fragmented and has weak representative links into public policy issues which reflect citizens’ concerns. In the remaining autocracies, political systems are practically non-existent. In Kazakhstan, the pro-Presidential party Nur Otan has a virtual monopoly position protected by a vote’s threshold for new parties. Uzbekistan has no party system which reflects the needs of society. The two alternative parties to the dominant Democratic Party of Turkmenistan simply provide a

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façade of plurality. And in Tajikistan, although there is a functioning multi-party system, it does not influence the political will in the country: ‘The composition and nature of the authoritarian, clientelistic and patriarchal regime centered on President Rahmon changed very little in the review period’ (Bertelsmann Transformation Index, Country Reports: 2020). In short, Central Asian countries lack basic functioning party systems which can offer their citizens political choice, based on parties’ manifestos, elected democratically to reflect public policy priorities. Since autocratic regimes are, by definition, already in a position to build up, sustain and project power (Muñoz and Baraybar, 2018; Muñoz and Dargent, 2016) then, a priori, one might expect that patronage is less of a concern in Central Asia (Driscoll, 2017). If a political party holds a monopoly on political space, does it really need to engage in party patronage to consolidate its position? This chapter aims to build on the global reach of existing patronage research by investigating party patronage in authoritarian regimes. In order to maintain comparative consistency, we use the same methodology as existing research which looks at three broad questions (Kopecký et al. 2016). First, we consider the scope of party patronage or the range of state institutions that attract political appointments, and the extent to which this permeates organisations, the depth of patronage, respectively. Second, we examine the motivation of parties and politicians in appointing people to these positions of power. Third, we investigate the criteria parties and politicians use when selecting appointees. To conclude, we locate party patronage in Central Asia within the framing typology of the book (Peters, 2021). We approach this task by selecting Kazakhstan as our case study unit of analysis and, based on the results of primary data gathering, extrapolate with proxy indicators to other Central Asian countries.

11.2 Kazakhstan Kazakhstan is a post-Soviet Central Asian country with a population of 18.7 million people which gained independence in 1991. It is a large landlocked state the size of Western Europe with a low population density which has borders with China, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. It is strategically positioned for the markets of China and South Asia, on the one hand, and Russia and Western Europe on the other. Kazakhstan has developed from a lower-middle-income

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country to an upper-middle-income country in less than two decades. In economic terms it has a GDP per capita of 8,524 US$ and is heavily dependent on natural resources of oil, gas and precious minerals, making it vulnerable to global prices (World Bank, 2020). Politically the first President, Nursultan Nazarbayev, ruled since independence until June 2019 when his chosen successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, took over in a relatively peaceful transition, itself a prime example of patronage. Kazakhstan sees itself as the leading public sector reformer in the Central Asia region and has aspirations to become one of the top thirty developed countries by 2050 and join the OECD (Knox, 2019; Janenova and Knox, 2019). If, according to international metrics (Worldwide Governance Indicators: Kaufmann and Kraay, 2020), Kazakhstan is seen as having the highest level of ‘independence from political pressure’, then patronage practices discussed in this chapter are likely to be similar, or more pronounced, in other Central Asian countries. Freedom House, Freedom in the World report on Kazakhstan (2020) noted that: ‘Corruption is widespread at all levels of government. Corruption cases are often prosecuted at the local and regional levels, but charges against high-ranking political and business elites are rare, typically emerging only after an individual has fallen out of favor with the leadership’. Before considering the substantive issue of party patronage it is important to point out that the traditional political–administrative divide does not exist in Central Asian countries (Campbell and Peters, 1988; Connaughton, 2015). The Western liberal democratic model where politicians from a multi-party state are elected, and civil servants serve the governing party of whatever political hue, simply does not apply in Central Asia. There are political and administrative civil servants. Political civil servants include: heads of state bodies, ministers, deputy ministers, akims (mayors) of regions and cities, deputy akims and ambassadors. Administrative civil servants are categorised from A through E. Corpus A includes General Secretaries, heads of state bodies, as well as chairs of committees of central state bodies. Categories B and C are central-level civil servants working in ministries. Categories D and E are regional- and local-level civil servants. Despite this delineation, at the senior level there is free movement between political civil servants and Corpus A administrative civil servants under a patronage system closely associated with loyalty to the President’s political party, Nur Otan. This is despite the fact that Kazakhstan has invested

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heavily in building a meritocratic civil service system where selection, performance and promotion are purportedly based on objective and measurable competency-based criteria (Janenova and Knox, 2020).

11.3  Index of Party Patronage The primary data gathering tool used to investigate party patronage in Kazakhstan is an adapted questionnaire used globally (Kopecký et al., 2008). The questionnaire was administered through semi-structured interviews (see Appendix 11.1) with 65 civil servants spanning nine policy areas in Kazakhstan. Conducting primary research with officials in authoritarian states poses specific challenges, not least their reticence to participate in what they can perceive as sensitive topics (Janenova, 2019). The methodology replicates to a large extent a similar study conducted on party patronage in Argentia and Uruguay (Panizza et al, 2018). The questionnaire scoring system is set out in Table 11.1 from which three patronage indicators were calculated (Kopecký, Scherlis, and Spirova, 2008; Kopecký, Mair, and Spirova, 2012; Kopecký et al, 2016). First, the Index of Party Patronage (IPP) is calculated by multiplying the median values for respondents’ estimates of the range and depth of patronage in each of the nine policy areas and three administrative tiers. The IPP was subsequently aggregated to produce policy area estimates (Table 11.2), standardised from 0 (lowest level of party patronage) to 1 (highest level of party patronage). The second indicator measures ‘who appoints’, and the third indicator captures the motivation involved in making political appointments. The overall raw data score was 74.2 (out of a possible 108) or a standardised IPP score of 0.69 for Kazakhstan (data are available on request). Table 11.2 shows the breakdown of IPP by policy area. These scores for individual policy areas need to be treated with caution, because of the small n when survey participants are disaggregated by sector. Regional and local administration scores highest in terms of party patronage, closely followed by the judiciary, military and police service. Regional and local appointments offer significant range and scope for patronage in Kazakhstan given its huge geographical spread (and low population density) which provides enormous opportunities for patrons to exploit their positions of power and authority at some distance from the centre of government. As one interviewee puts it: the

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Table 11.1  Range and depth of party patronage scoring Range score High level Middle level Low level

Depth score 1 2 3

80–100% 50–79% 10–49% 1–9% 0%

4 3 2 1 0

Table 11.2  Index of party patronage by policy area

Regional and Local Administration Judiciary Military and Police Economy Finance Foreign Service Culture and Education Health Care Media

Raw Data

Standardised IPP score

11.0 10.5 10.0 9.0 9.0 8.0 6.0 6.0 4.7

0.92 0.88 0.83 0.75 0.75 0.67 0.50 0.50 0.39

akims and senior regional officials ‘control their territories like minifiefdoms, dispensing largesse and treating public positions like their own to distribute on a grace and favour basis’. Several interviewees divided patronage into central and regional geographies with the purpose of the former being to access particular managerial skills, and the latter described as ‘more excessive and negative because it is based on tribalism and ethnic relations’. There is no direct correlation between the policy areas highlighted above and institutions identified as corrupt by external observers. In a monitoring report conducted by Transparency International Kazakhstan (2019), the research found that five institutions accounted for up to 60% of the cases of corrupt interaction between citizens and state bodies. These were, in order of importance: state polyclinics and hospitals, police, land relations departments, state kindergartens

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and state universities. To illustrate how strong familial networking is in Kazakhstan, the report also found informal corrupt transactions through intermediary channels in almost 50% of all cases. These intermediaries are acquaintances, employees of the department and relatives, respectively. The data illustrate that networking, through relatives, is an integral part of everyday life in Kazakhstan. By way of comparison, other studies show the IPP as follows: Argentina (0.77), Uruguay (0.61), Eastern Europe (0.42), Southern Europe (0.45), and two Latin American countries Guatemala (0.98) and Paraguay (0.97) (Kopecký et al, 2016; Panizza et al, 2018).

11.4  The Scope of Patronage The survey asked respondents to identify the scope of patronage or the proportion of political appointed across different levels of government. High level included: ministerial advisors, Ambassadors, General Secretaries, Vice Ministers and similar positions. Middle level included: managers, divisional directors, departments and regional offices, leaders of projects and programmes, and similar positions. Lower level included civil servants who interface with the public, regional staff and similar positions. Table 11.3 shows the results. The scope of patronage relates directly to the level of appointments. At the highest level around three-quarters of respondents claimed almost all political appointees at this level were through patronage. Patronage reduces significantly as we move down the tiers. That said, even at the lowest tier almost half of the respondents suggested ‘quite a lot’ of patronage existed at this level. So, why is there such a high level of party patronage in Kazakhstan? Interviewees explained this in several ways set out here in no order of importance. There are historical and cultural reasons for patronage. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Khans (leader of nomadic tribes in Central Asia) surrounded themselves with close relatives to consolidate and protect their positions of power. There followed division along the lines of Zhuz, tribes and clans, all of which placed value on close networks of support, loyalty and kinship. This tradition became the foundation for the patronage system which prevails in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries. Following independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, there were few well-qualified civil servants available to take control of key

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Table 11.3  Scope of patronage by level Level

Scope

Kazakhstan (%)

High level

All-almost all (80–100%) Many (50–79%) Quite a lot (10–49%) A few (1–9%)

72.3 20 4.6 3.1

Middle level

All-almost all (80–100%) Many (50–79%) Quite a lot (10–49%) A few (1–9%)

12.3 55.4 29.2 3.1

Low level

All-almost all (80–100%) Many (50–79%) Quite a lot (10–49%) A few (1–9%) None (0%)

3.1 15.4 49.2 26.2 6.2

public services. When ministers were appointed they naturally looked to close and trusted friends and relatives as a support mechanism in delivering their portfolios. This led to institutionalised patronage. As one interviewee noted: You need a patron if you want to advance your career in the ministries. This involves being part of his/her team, and being totally loyal to the patron. Loyalty in Kazakhstan is a synonym for accountability in Western systems, and the direction of accountability is upwards to the Minister rather than downwards to the citizen. The entire public administration system is based on the patronage system. If you remove the patron, the system becomes unstable. This is palpable in organisations – remove the patron and officials feel rudderless until a new patron is appointed.

Such is the pervasiveness of the patronage system that one can trace the trajectory of team members who follow in the footsteps of their patron throughout their careers. They must share the same values as their patron in the knowledge that to serve one’s boss is also to advance one’s personal interests. These include promotion, social packages and access to informal payments. Where these values are about self-aggrandisement through corruption, for example, then the patron is ‘protected’ by his/her team and even ‘rewarded’ following any associated punishment. There is also strong competition amongst

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team members for access to the patron, for his/her trust, attention and approval. This creates a self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing system which defies the notion of a meritocracy and leads to a chain reaction where the patronage system recreates itself at lower levels. There is also competition between teams which consolidates silo government. Ministerial teams are unwilling to share data, skills, learning and experiences which can lead to constantly unfinished reforms in a fast-moving political environment where ministerial turnover is high. This creates a lack of institutional memory and poor public policy implementation. Faced with an embedded patronage system, new applicants to the civil service, some of whom have been Western educated, become dispirited with an organisation, which suffers from weak ethical standards, where morale is low, and selection and promotion unfair. To survive in this system, instead of focusing on developing professional skills and building capacity, they concentrate on developing networks with the aim of having a patron. This has a gender dimension involving male-dominated activities: sauna, watching/playing football, drinking and hunting. Patronage, in turn, consolidates the elites in Kazakhstan. It shores up a system of privilege, access and resource capture, inextricably linked to corruption and nepotism. Early career talented officials who refuse ‘to play the patronage game’ end up leaving the country to seek opportunities elsewhere in the hope that their skills and talents will be valued based on merit rather than connections. One interviewee gave the following example: The Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MFA) illustrates a pervasive system of patronage in practice given that it is one of the more desirable ministries to work in the public sector in Kazakhstan. Young graduates are attracted to it because of overseas assignments and representatives’ offices around the world. It also offers high level salaries and generous social packages. However, it is well-known that mostly close family members of top officials secure good positions in the MFA and Embassies of Kazakhstan abroad. It is virtually impossible to enter the MFA without connections and a phone call of endorsement from a senior politician.

Interviewees also saw positive sides to the patronage system. A new ministerial team can begin their tasks quickly and efficiently. Without this, it takes time for a Minister/patron to establish his/her reputation amongst subordinates. Having a loyal team does not require these

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start-ups costs. Trust and loyalty to the patron creates stability in a system which is otherwise fluid and fast changing. The transition from First President Nazarbayev to Kassym-Jomart Tokayev was given as an example of the ultimate example of patronage and the relative stability which ensued (although there were protests and dissatisfaction about subsequent decisions). Ministerial turnover is high and there are significant expectations from the President that tasks will be completed quickly. A patron with a team of trusted patrons does not have to spend time developing a cohesive team. As one interviewee described it: The positive side of the patronage system in Kazakhstan is that a Minister charged with a new portfolio must move quickly, deliver efficiency and, in so doing, strengthen the team spirit amongst his appointees. For their loyalty, there are associated career opportunities. It can take time for a boss to create a reputation amongst subordinates. Bringing your own team members with you resolves this problem. The practice of patronage is so integral to the Kazakh way of life, and across all sectors – public, private and third sector, that people take it for granted. The term ‘patronage’ is not used in the Kazakhstani narrative – a synonym could be ‘agashka’ (the word ‘aga’ is translated as wise old men [sic]; the word ‘agashka’ is a jargon term for patron).

There is no formal term in Russian or Kazakh for ‘patron’ or ‘patronage’. The nearest equivalent is when adults decide to take a child into guardianship, trusteeship or foster care in Kazakhstan – this process is described as patronage. The analogy with an adoptive child fits perfectly the relationship between politicians and their appointees in Kazakhstan. Moreover, when the authors described the practice of political appointment as patronage, interviewees completely understood the subject of the research. Because patronage is the norm in Kazakhstan, interviewees rationalised it as politicians exercising power to promote trusted and loyal individuals to non-elected positions. In a political environment where the fear of failure is high and there is pressure to deliver ‘quick wins’, the ‘obvious solution’ is to appoint close friends and relatives. In the words of one interviewee: ‘there is an ethical and moral imperative to help members of your loyal team and find a good job for your relatives’. There is a Kazakh proverb: Bir adam taqqa qonsa, kyryk adam atka qonady (If one person gets a high post, forty people, who are close to him/her, will get good positions). Even amongst young people in Kazakhstan,

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patronage appears to be the norm. In research conducted by Junisbai et al (2017: 5), they characterised Kazakhstan as patronage-based authoritarianism whose context influenced the behaviour of young people: ‘they are less in favour of questioning government decisions and less likely to be troubled by nepotism and family rule’. Importantly, young Kazakhstanis ‘are not attracted to a quest for knowledge and see higher education only as a tool for getting a good job; they trust that having the right social connections will help them build their lives and careers’ (Junisbai and Junisbai, 2019: 28). Patronage is part of the psyche of young people and therefore embedded in society.

11.5  Who Appoints? Despite the legal acts and the formal authority associated with public positions, there is considerable discretion associated with making political appointments. Although technically Kazakhstan has several political parties, de facto it is a one-party state (the President’s Nur Otan Party (Light of the Fatherland). In the 2019 presidential elections, seven parties ran for office and Nur Otan secured over 71% of the vote. In the 2021 legislative elections to elect members to the lower house of Parliament (Mazhilis), Nur Otan won 71.1% of the vote. The Party, although highly influential, makes few political appointments in isolation (5%). The largest source of patronage is exercised through the President and Ministers acting autonomously (some 72% of appointments). A smaller number of appointments (23%) are made by the President and Ministers in consultation with Nur Otan (see Figure 11.1 for a summary). The responses in our survey to the above question on ‘who appoints’ were supplemented by an open-ended question on whether social and economic actors exercise power of influence in the political appointment process. This elicited a range of views from respondents which indicated that elite groups are informally involved in appointments, particularly the business sector (a significant lobby group in Kazakhstan known as Atameken with close links to Nur Otan). As one interviewee described it: It seems that business tycoons like (respondent listed names) and others have some influence on the political appointment process. Trade unions and civil society have no influence at all on this process. These business influencers are affiliated, formally or informally with political actors, so there is mutual influence.

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80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

Nur Otan Party

President or Minister autonomously

President or Minister in consultation with Nur Otan

Figure 11.1  Who exercises patronage in Kazakhstan?

Others took the view that the influence of outsiders varied depending on the level of social tension in the country at any point in time. In that sense influence on political appointments was reactive rather than strategic. This was described in the following way: When there is social unrest, the Government can use political appointments to appease citizens by co-opting civil activists in positions of seeming authority. In reality, however, they will find ways to limit their real influence. This is not a universal practice. For example, there are very active bloggers on Instagram who were blocked and then punished for their negative opinions on the politics of Kazakhstan. Ministers do not always use the political appointment process as a way of appeasement or to ‘spike the guns’ of dissenters.

Responses to this question, however, illustrated that discretion and power of influence rests with individual ministers when it comes to political appointments.

11.6  Motives and Roles Participants were asked to address the motivations which politicians prioritised when using their discretion in making political appointments across the different administrative tiers. The results are presented in Table 11.4 – the top two motivations are selected for each tier. The data show that for the higher and middle tiers, the objectives of the appointees were to strengthen control over bureaucrats, and

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Party Patronage in Kazakhstan Table 11.4  Motivations in making political appointments Level

Motivations

Importance (%)

High

Strengthen control over bureaucrats Improving capacity to design and implement public policy Strengthen control over bureaucrats Improving capacity to design and implement public policy Communicating, negotiating and articulating public policies Improving capacity to design and implement public policy

61.5 27.7

Middle

Low

49.2 27.7 43.1 23.1

improve capacity to design and implement public policies, respectively. In a post-Soviet ‘command and control’ country, this is hardly surprising. Appointees are there to raise the profile of the Minister, to make sure his/her priorities are taken seriously by officials, and political achievements attracts the approbation of the President, which is good for the career trajectory of both the patron and his appointees. As we move down the tiers to the lower level, motivations shift. The primary role for appointees at this level is to communicate, negotiate and articulate public policies. Notably, absence from these responses is the role of gaining electoral support. In a country dominated by the President’s political party, electoral support is taken as a given. As one interviewee described it: Patrons want ‘their people’ in place to strengthen control over bureaucrats. They don’t want maverick officials acting with discretion and losing focus on their political goals. Part of that control is exercised by working to design and implement public policy. In fact, the system is self-sustaining. Officials don’t want to take risks because they will be punished for doing so. Hence taking directions, instructions or orders from political appointees works for them, and Ministers get what they want from officials. If the policies fail, they can simply claim – we were only doing what the Minister instructed.

Respondents were asked about the technical and political priorities of appointees across the three administrative tiers – see Table 11.5. These results clearly illustrate how important ‘personal trust to the Minister’ is in making political appointments. The patronage system

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Table 11.5  Technical and political priorities Technical capacity (%)

Level

Political capacity (%)

Communication, articulation, Nur Otan Personal Electoral trust to the negotiation of party public policies appeal Minister Independent loyalty

High 3.1 Middle 24.6 Low 30.8

6.2 21.5 32.3

90.8 53.8 36.9

93.8 89.2 60.0

6.2 10.8 40.0

is predicated on loyalty to the Minister. Such is the importance of loyalty to one’s patron that interviewees provided examples of team members who had served prison sentences ‘doing the bidding of their patron’. Importantly, on their release, they were rewarded with good positions and their credibility restored. Being loyal to the Minister is, by association, also being loyal to the political party, Nur Otan. These two pillars of the political system do not exist in isolation. Appointees’ political capacity is, in descending level, about communication, articulating and negotiating public policies. Promoting electoral appeal is largely unimportant (except in the lower tier where civil servants interface with the public). This illustrates the relative unimportance of electoral accountability in an authoritarian state such as Kazakhstan. One of the respondents explained the capacities of political appointees in the following way: The system in Kazakhstan operates via a set of tacit rules that everyone understands, and they go like this. ‘I have been appointed by the Minister to do his (sic) bidding. My future depends on this and therefore I exercise my blind loyalty to him. It doesn’t matter if I disagree with the tasks or policies I have been asked to oversee because, from my point of view, the Minister is infallible. The Minister has reached his position because of his connections in Nur Otan. Being loyal to the Minister therefore means I am loyal to Nur Otan’. It’s that simple.

Respondents did not see a role for trade unions or civil society in influencing the political appointment process because of their weak capacity/ development in Kazakhstan. However, given strong links between the business and political elites, the representative group for business (Atameken) was considered to be influential, in an informal way, in lobbying for political appointees.

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The Bertelsmann Transformation Country Report (2018) on Kazakhstan noted that: The most important interest groups remain the financial-industrial groups that lobby for political power. The key components are housed under the conglomerate, Samruk-Kazyna. These groups’ assets are either controlled by Kazakhstani officials or belong to foreign investors who work in the country with the permission of the President. Most are involved in extracting natural resources or providing services for extractive industries. These interest groups are all loyal to the President but curry favor with the inner circle.

President Nazarbayev resigned in March 2019 and appointed Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as interim leader. Tokayev was confirmed as President in elections held in June 2019 (with 71% of the vote) which attracted public protests. Respondents in the survey indicated that it was too early to judge whether the political appointment process would change, but most doubted that it would. The first President still retains significant powers in his role as Head of the National Security Council and the ruling Nur Otan political party. In addition, he has a constitutional right of impunity for life and bank secrecy in his role as ‘Yelbasy’ or Head of the Nation. This, in turn, means that he must be consulted on every major political decision. To mark his resignation, the name of the capital city was changed without any public consultation from Astana to Nur-Sultan in his honour. Given his political presence, patronage will continue to feature writ large in appointments. From the survey and interview evidence, we can summarise patronage in Kazakhstan in the following way. There are formal political appointees guaranteed in the law of Kazakhstan, known as political civil servants. This is somewhat at odds with the strict divisions in many countries between elected politicians and career civil servants which allows the practice of patronage to flourish. Because senior officials and beyond (a very large quasi-public sector) are members of Nur Otan Party, patronage is not confined simply to formal political appointees but rather permeates a system where political and administrative civil servants ‘drink from the same trough’. In short, because of no strict delineation between politicians and officials, patronage operates without boundaries, fuelled by a system of vertical accountability upwards to the President that consolidates neopatrimonial rule. See Box 11.1 as an example of party patronage in practice.

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Box 11.1  Patronage Vignette Kuandyk Bishimbayev is the former Minister of National Economy of Kazakhstan. He was educated in Taraz State University in Kazakhstan and, at the same time, in George Washington University as a Bolashak scholar. His father was the Rector of Taraz State University when he was ‘simultaneously’ studying in the USA. By the age of 26 he had been appointed Vice Minister of Trade and Industry and within the next 10 years was a political appointee in high-level positions in Samruk Kazyna, Head of the Baiterek Holding, and finally Minister of National Economy. He was dubbed by the media as the ‘future golden boy’. In January 2017 he was arrested on two charges of corruption. The first was in relation to the construction of a glass factory in Kyzylorda where investigators claim he received a bribe of two million dollars from the entrepreneur building the large facility. In a similar case he is alleged to have taken bribes from construction companies for development linked to Baiterek Holding. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March 2018 and released 18 months later. At his trail he claimed (referring to his patronage network): “I feel ashamed for the situation I am in now. I failed the president when I created my team. I picked up wrong people, who used me and my trust. I apologize to the President and to the nation for that” [January 08, 2018: RFE/RL’s Kazakh Service]. Bishimbayev’s father, Valikhan Kozykeevich Bishimbayev, is a wellrecognised public figure, ex-deputy of the Mazhilis (lower house) of the Parliament of Kazakhstan, and ex-Rector of Taraz State University. The official explanation by the authorities for Kuandyk Bishimbayev’s early release from prison is that the ex-Minister made financial restitution to the state. Strong party political patronage and family networks have also been helpful.

11.7  Beyond Kazakhstan How typical is Kazakhstan of the Central Asian region? There are some reasons to suggest that Kazakhstan is emblematic of patronage practice in Central Asia and, in fact, may not exhibit its worst features. If, for example, we consider the World Bank Governance indicator of ‘government effectiveness’ which measures: the quality of public services; the capacity of the civil service and its independence from

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Party Patronage in Kazakhstan

100 90 80 70 60

57.69

50 40

39.81

30 20 10 0

21.84 18.93 13.11 4.85 2008 Kazakhstan

Kyrgyzstan

35.55 30.81

34.13

18.96 14.69 9

14.42 11.06

2013

2019

Tajikistan

25

Turkmenistan

Uzbekistan

Figure 11.2  Government effectiveness

political pressures; and the quality of policy formulation, Kazakhstan is a leader in the region (Kaufmann & Kraay, 2020). Figure 11.2 shows trends over an 11-year period on a scale of 0–100 (with 100 being top score in government effectiveness). If, as our research indicates, there is a high level of patronage in Kazakhstan then the lack of ‘independence of the civil service from political pressures’ in other Central Asian countries makes them more amenable to party patronage practices. Other proxy measures of patronage paint a similar picture. Data from V-Demo (Varieties of Democracy, 2020) offer insights into Central Asia countries through a number of survey questions, completed by country experts and indirectly linked to political patronage.1 We list three survey variables and one index of interest in no particular order: access to state jobs by political group; rigorous and impartial public administration; criteria for appointment in the state administration; and neopatrimonial rule index.

1

V-DEM has developed innovative methods for aggregating expert judgments in a way that produces valid and reliable estimates of difficult-to-observe concepts. This is critical because many key features of democracy are not directly observable. They typically gather data from five experts for each observation, which enables them to statistically account for both uncertainty about estimates and potential biases that experts may evince, using a custombuilt Bayesian measurement model (Maxwell et al, 2019).

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11.7.1  Access to State Jobs by Political Group Survey question Score of 0

Score of 4

Are state jobs equally open to qualified individuals regardless of their association with a political group?1 Scale 0–4 Extreme. Because of their political group affiliation, 75 percent (%) or more of the population, even if qualified, lack access to state jobs Equal. Because of their political group affiliation, less than 5 percent (%) of the population, even if qualified, lack access to state jobs

1

A political group is defined as those who are affiliated with a particular political party or candidate, or a group of parties/candidates. Source: Coppedge et al (2020), V-Dem Country- Year Dataset v10.

Kazakhstan 4 3 Turkmenistan

2

Kyrgyzstan

1 0

Tajikistan

Uzbekistan

1991

2020

Figure 11.3  Access to state jobs by political group

Figure 11.3 shows the results at two points in time (1991 and 2020): at independence from the Soviet Union and the most recent results. Although, to a greater of lesser extent, all Central Asian countries claim a semblance of political party pluralism, in fact there is a prevalence of state/presidential parties, membership of which is necessary for access to state jobs: the dominance of the Nur Otan Party in Kazakhstan; President Atambayev’s Social Democratic Party in Kyrgyzstan; the absence of de facto opposition parties in Uzbekistan; the presidentled People’s Democratic Party in Tajikistan; and the state Democratic Party of Turkmenistan. Although Kazakhstan scores highest of all

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Kazakhstan 4 3 2 Turkmenistan

Kyrgyzstan

1 0

Tajikistan

Uzbekistan

1991

2020

Figure 11.4  Rigorous and impartial public administration

Central Asian countries in terms of equality of access to state jobs (2.91 out of a possible 4), this drops to a low of 1.11 for Tajikistan and highlights how politicised state jobs are in all neighbouring countries in Central Asia.

11.7.2  Rigorous and Impartial Public Administration Survey question Score of 0 Score of 4

Are public officials rigorous and impartial in the performance of their duties?1 Scale 0–4 The law is not respected by public officials. Arbitrary or biased administration of the law is rampant. The law is generally fully respected by the public officials. Arbitrary or biased administration of the law is very limited

1

This question focuses on the extent to which public officials generally abide by the law and treat like cases alike, or conversely, the extent to which public administration is characterized by arbitrariness and biases (i.e. nepotism, cronyism or discrimination). The question covers the public officials that handle the cases of ordinary people. Source: Coppedge et al (2020), V-Dem Country- Year Dataset v10.

Figure 11.4 shows the results at two points in time (1991 and 2020). All Central Asian countries score relatively poorly on this indicator. Even Kyrgyzstan which in 2020 scores highest (2.06) attracts criticism. The Bertelsmann Transformation Report 2020 noted:

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Informal politics (i.e., activities and interests pursued by informal networks and groups of people organized outside the legal framework) is part of how official state politics is run and all high-level officials, including presidents, have been part of these networks. (Bertelsmann Transformation Country Report, Kyrgyzstan, 2020: 10).

While Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have made modest improvements since 1991, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan have actually regressed.

11.7.3  Criteria for Appointment in the State Administration Survey question

Score of 0

Score of 4

To what extent are appointment decisions in the state administration based on personal and political connections, as opposed to skills and merit?1 Scale 0–4 All appointment decisions in the state administration are based on personal or political connections. None are based on skills and merit None of the appointment decisions in the state administration are based on personal or political connections. All are based on skills and merit.

1

Appointment decisions include hiring, firing and promotion in the state administration. Note that the question refers to the typical de facto (rather than de jure) situation obtaining in the state administration, excluding the armed forces. Source: Coppedge et al (2020), V-Dem Country- Year Dataset v10.

Figure 11.5 shows the results which speak directly to the issue of patronage. Here again, Central Asian countries show an absence of meritocracy with Kazakhstan showing the least politicised system with a score at 1.76 in 2020. In fact, compared to 1991, only Kazakhstan and Tajikistan have improved. Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have made a greater number of appointments to the state administration based on personal and political connections. Turkmenistan is worst and scores a low 0.49.

11.7.4  Neopatrimonial Rule Index The final proxy indicator of party patronage in Central Asia is an index which attempts to measure neopatrimonalism by combining

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Party Patronage in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan 4 3 2 Turkmenistan

Kyrgyzstan

1 0

Tajikistan

Uzbekistan

1991

2020

Figure 11.5  Criteria for appointment decisions in the state administration

three sub-indices (comprising 16 indicators) of clientelism, presidentialism and regime corruption. According to Clapham (1985), neopatrimonial rule is associated with regimes where personalistic forms of authority pervade formal institutions. In that sense neopatrimonial regime combines political relationship, dominant and unhindered presidents, and the use of public money for political legitimisation (Bratton and Van de Walle, 1997; Sigman and Lindberg, 2017). Survey question

To what extent is rule based on personal authority. Scale: from low to high (0–1)

Source: Coppedge et al (2020), V-Dem Country- Year Dataset v10.

Figure 11.6 shows the comparison in neopatrimonalism across Central Asian countries at 1991 and 2020. Aside from Kyrgyzstan, neopatrimonalism has increased or remained the same over time. Turkmenistan is consistently the worst with a score of 0.94 and Tajikistan has regressed to 0.94. In summary, what these proxy indicators show is that Kazakhstan is a case of the most likely variety (Eckstein, 2000) when it comes to party patronage in Central Asia. Other post-Soviet countries in the region (Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan) are, at best, similar to Kazakhstan and, at worst, indicate even higher levels of party patronage. This is a ‘race to the bottom’ where party patronage

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Kazakhstan 1 0.8 0.6 Turkmenistan

0.4

Kyrgyzstan

0.2 0

Tajikistan

Uzbekistan

1991

2020

Figure 11.6  Neopatrimonial Index

is rife and arguably has worsened since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

11.8 Conclusions Where does Kazakhstan fit into the wider typology of patronage set out in Table 11.6. In Kazakhstan, on the Y-axis, the boundary between party and personal is permeable (in other words there is a symbiotic relationship between personal loyalty to the Minister and loyalty to the political party in one-party states). Given that many of the patronage appointments are made and conditional on trust, and trust is earned by supporting the Minister’s programmatic achievements, we see the preponderance of protégé/appointees in cell [C] of the typology but facing towards Cell [A] i.e. programmatic technocrats but with a strong party professional orientation. What do the primary data findings on Kazakhstan, and extrapolation to Central Asia, tell us about party patronage in this region? First, selecting Kazakhstan as the case study site of enquiry offered a window into other Central Asian countries. Since Kazakhstan is the most active reformer in the region then it is reasonable to suggest, drawing on proxy indicators of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, that party patronage is likely to be, at best, as

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Party Patronage in Kazakhstan Table 11.6  Typology of types of patronage Major role of appointees Policy Basis of trust Party Personal Group

Politics

[A] Party professionals [B] Apparatchiks [C] Programmatic technocrats [D] Political agents [E] Group experts [F] Social liaisons

Source: Peters: 2021 based on Panizza et al (2019)

prevalent and, at worst, more ubiquitous. However, the key question remains: if party patronage is a tool used to build up, sustain and project power (Muñoz and Baraybar, 2018), then in de facto one-party autocratic systems lacking competition from other rival parties, why is this necessary? This can be explained in a number of ways. Party patronage is used to consolidate the existing power base of the political elites in Central Asia. With examples of civil unrest in the wider post-Soviet region (Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan), those in power fear popular contagion. We can see glimpses of this in Central Asia (street protests in Kazakhstan against Chinese ‘land grab’, opposition to rising food prices in Turkmenistan, and regular dissent amongst Kyrgyzstan citizens against government policies). Patronage is also part of the post-Soviet legacy in Central Asia – high centralised systems of governance with power used for personal aggrandisement. Importantly, party patronage is integral to the cultural fabric of the region. The pivotal role played by family, relatives, tribes and networking is part of the normal lifestyle of people living in Central Asia. Party patronage is merely an extension of this. As one of our interviewees pointed out: ‘I am not sure we recognize the term ‘party patronage’ in Central Asia but we all know of its existence in practice because it is an acknowledged and regular part of the way our societies function. Actually, few people would see it as irregular – we rely on those we can trust, this starts with our family and relatives – what’s wrong with that?’ While other country studies differentiate between party patronage, clientelism and corruption, this is less applicable in Central Asian authoritarian states. Therein, party patronage is simply a manifestation of wider institutionalised patronage. Political and administrative boundaries are permeable. Senior officials are, by default, members of the Nur Otan Party in Kazakhstan. Party

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patronage is therefore an extension of clientelism, nepotism, networking and tribalism in Central Asia. This makes the civil service highly politicised (Peters and Pierre, 2004) and party patronage an accepted practice in making appointments. Taken from this perspective, the results of our survey/interviews in Kazakhstan are explicable. The scope and depth of party patronage crosses all key public policy sectors and reaches from the top to the lower tiers of governance. Mallinson (2019: 10 & 14)) has argued that ‘Kazakhstan’s formal political system is largely decorative, with true power exercised via a ‘hidden constitution’ built on patronage … This opaque decision-making process is played out among informal patronage networks’. Political appointees are made largely by the President without consultation or Ministers in consultation with the Presidential Administration. The role of appointees is mainly to strengthen control over bureaucrats so that the Minister’s agenda is delivered in a fluid political environment. Appointees, in turn, prioritise loyalty to the Minister over accountability to citizens as their primary objective and see their role as communicating, articulating and negotiating the public policy agenda to align with the Minister’s wishes. The link between the dominant political party and the business sector is mutually reinforcing, discounting any role for civil society or other key stakeholders (the media, trade unions). Looking at the trends for Central Asian countries since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the system of neopatrimonialism rule shows no signs of improving – in fact, the statistics (save for Kyrgyzstan) indicate consolidation of party patronage or a worsening development.

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Appendix 11.1 Survey questionnaire: Kazakhstan PROFESSION: FORMAL QUALIFICATIONS: CURRENT POSITION: LAST POSITION: MAIN POLICY FIELD OF EXPERTISE:

‘Within the public administration some positions are occupied by career civil servants, while others are filled by the government authorities with a higher degree of discretion. For the purposes of this research, the latter will be called ‘political appointments’. We will ask you several questions about the way these political appointments are made within the public institution you know most about’. Scope: (1) What is the proportion of political appointees, from your own knowledge, at the typical Ministry X across the following tiers? Higher level: ministerial advisors, Ambassadors, General Secretaries, Vice-Ministers and other similar positions. Middle level: Managers, Directors of Divisions, Departments and regional offices, leaders of projects and programs, and similar positions. Lower level: civil servants who interface with the public, regional staff and similar positions. Tier/ Proportion

All/Almost all (80–100%)

Many (50–79%)

Quite (10–49%)

A few (1–9%)

None (0%)

High Middle Low

Who appoints? (2) Despite the legal acts and the formal authority associated with public positions, who proposes the individuals to be politically appointed? A- Nur Otan political party □ B- Office holders: President: B.1. In consultation with Nur Otan □ B.2. Without any consultation □

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Ministers: B.3. In consultation with Nur Otan □ B.4. In consultation with Presidential Administration □ B.5. Without any consultation □ Motivations (3) Which objectives are prioritised by politicians using their discretion to appoint political appointees in the different administrative tiers of the Ministry X? (Important/Not important) Tiers/ Motivations

Strengthen Communicating, Control Gaining Improving opposing electoral negotiating, capacity to control over voices support articulating design and bureaucrats public policies implement public policy

High Middle Low

Appointees (4) Which capacities are prioritised amongst political appointees in the different administrative tiers of the Ministry X? (Important/Not important) Technical capacity Independent Tiers/ Capacities

Nur Otan party loyalty

Political capacity

Personal Communication, articulation, trust to negotiation of the minister public policies

Electoral appealing

High Middle Low

Modality (5) Do you think social and economic actors (e.g. business companies, trade unions, civil society organisations) exercise any power to influence the political appointment process? (Important/Not important). Please give specific examples.

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(6) Which differences, if any, do you find between the presidential terms of Nursultan Nazarbayev and Kassym-Jomart Tokayev regarding political appointment practices?

References Arriola, L. (2009). Patronage and Political Stability in Africa. Comparative Political Studies, 42 (10): 1339–62. Askim, J., Karlsen, R., and Kolltveit, K. (2016). Political Appointees in Executive Government: Exploring and Explaining Roles Using a Large-N Survey in Norway. Public Administration, 95 (2): 342–58. Bertelsmann Transformation Index (2020). Available at: www.bti-project .org/en/home.html?&cb=00000 Bertelsmann Transformation Index (2018). Kazakhstan Country Report, available at: www.bti-project.org/en/reports/country-reports/detail/itc/KAZ/ Bertelsmann Transformation Index (2020). Kyrgyzstan Country Report, available at: www.bti-project.org/content/en/downloads/reports/country_ report_2020_KGZ.pdf Bertelsmann Transformation Index (2020). Tajikistan Country Report, available at: www.bti-project.org/en/reports/country-report-TJK-2020.html Bratton, M., and Van de Walle, N. (1997). Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Campbell, C. and Peters, B. G. (1988). The Politics/Administration Dichotomy: Death or Merely Change? Governance, 1 (1): 79–99. Clapham, C. (1985). Third World Politics: An Introduction. London: Routledge. Connaughton, B. (2015). Navigating the Borderlines of Politics and Administration: Reflections on the Role of Ministerial Advisers. International Journal of Public Administration, 38 (1): 37–45. Coppedge, M. et al (2020). V-Dem Country- Year Dataset v10. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project. www.v-dem.net/en/data/data/ Cruz, C. and Keefer, P. (2015). Political Parties, Clientelism and Bureaucratic Reform. Comparative Political Studies, 48 (14): 1942–73. Dettman, S. and Gomez, E. T. (2020). Political Financing Reform: Politics, Policies and Patronage in Malaysia, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 50 (1): 36–55. Driscoll, B. (2017). Why Political Competition Can Increase Patronage. Studies in Comparative International Development, 53 (4): 1–24.

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Eckstein, H. (2000). Case Study and Theory in Political Science. Case Study Method, pp. 238–258 in R. Gomm, M. Hammersley and P. Foster (eds). Case Study Method: Key Issues, Key Texts. London: Sage. Freedom House (2020). Nations in Transition Report Kazakhstan Country Profile available at. https://freedomhouse.org/country/kazakhstan/nations-transit/2020 Janenova, S. (2019). The Boundaries of Research in an Authoritarian State. International Journal of Qualitative Methods. 18: 1–15. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/1609406919876469 Janenova, S. and Knox, C. (2019). Civil Service Reform in Kazakhstan: Trajectory to the 30 Most Developed Countries? International Review of Administrative Sciences, 85 (3): 419–439. Janenova, S. and Knox, C. (2020). Depicting Public Servants in Authoritarian Regimes in H. Sullivan and H. Dickenson (eds). The Palgrave Handbook of the Public Servant. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Junisbai, B. Junisbai, A. and Whitsel, C. (2017). What Makes “Ardent Democrats” in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan? PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 489 October 2017. Junisbai, B. and Junisbai, A. (2019). Are Youth Different? The Nazarbayev Generation and Public Opinion pp. 25–48 in M. Laruelle (ed.) Nazarbayev Generation. Studies on Youth in Kazakhstan. Lexington: Rowman & Littlefield (September 2019). Kaufmann, D. and Kraay, A. (2020). Worldwide Governance Indicators accessible at: https://info.worldbank.org/governance/wgi/ Knox, C. (2019). Public Sector Reform in Central Asia and the Caucasus. International Journal of Public Administration, 42 (2): 168–78. Kopecký, P., Scherlis, G., and Spirova, M. (2008). Conceptualising and Measuring Party Patronage. Leiden University: Committee on Concepts and Methods Working Paper, Series 25. Kopecký, P., Peter, M., and María, S. (2012). Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kopecký, P., Scherlis, G., and Spirova, M. (2008). Conceptualizing and Measuring Party Patronage. Leiden University: Committee on Concepts and Methods Working Paper, Series 25. Kopecký, P., Meyer-Sahling, J., Panizza, F., Scherlis, G., Schuster, C., and Spirova, M. (2016). Party Patronage in Contemporary Democracies: Results from an Expert Survey in Twenty Two Countries from Five Regions. European Journal of Political Research, 55 (2): 416–31. Lewis, D. and Hossain, A. (2019). Local Political Consolidation in Bangladesh: Power, Informality and Patronage. Development and Change. DOI: 10.1111/dech.12534. Mallinson, K. (2019). Governance in ‘Kazakhstan: Tested by Transition.’ pp. 10–22 in A. Bohr, B. Brauer, N. Gould-Davies, N. Kassenova, J. Lillis, K. Mallison, J. Nixey and D. Satpayev (eds). London: Chatham House.

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Maxwell, L., Marquardt K. L., and Anna Lührmann, A. (2019). V-Dem Methodology: Aggregating Expert Assessments. Accessible at: www.v-dem .net/media/filer_public/99/de/99dedd73-f8bc-484c-8b91-44ba601b6e6b/ v-dem_democracy_report_2019.pdf Muñoz, P. and Baraybar, V. (2018). Patronage without parties? Paper submitted to the workshop Patronage in Transition: The Politics of Patronage in Latin America, Escola Nacional de Administração Pública, Brasilia, 5–6 March. Muñoz, P. and Dargent, E. (2016). Patronage, subnational linkages and Party-Building: the Cases of Colombia and Peru, in S. Levitsky, B. Van Dyck, and I. Domínguez, Challenges of Party-Building in Latin America. Panizza, F., Larraburu, C. R. R., and Scherlis G. (2018). Unpacking Patronage: The Politics of Patronage Appointments in Argentina’s and Uruguay’s Central Public Administrations. Journal of Politics in Latin America, 10 (3): 59–98. Panizza, F., Guy Peters, B., and Ramos Larrburu, C. (2019). Roles, Trust and Skills: A Typology of Patronage Appointments. Public Administration, 97 (1): 147–61. Peters, B. G. and Pierre, J. (eds) (2004). Politicization of the Civil Service in Comparative Perspective: The Quest for Control. London: Routledge. Peters, B. G. (2021). Patronage in Asian Political Systems: A Framework for Research. Scherlis, G. (2013). The Contours of Party Patronage in Argentina. Latin American Research Review, 48 (3): 63–68. Sigman, R. and Lindberg, S. (2017). Neopatrimonialism and Democracy: An Empirical Investigation of Africa’s Political Regimes. University of Gothenburg, Varieties of Democracy Institute: Working Paper No. 56. November 2017. Transparency International Kazakhstan (2019). Monitoring Corruption in Kazakhstan accessible at: http://tikazakhstan.org/monitoring-corruptionin-kazakhstan/ Varieties of Democracy (2020). University of Gothenburg, accessible at: www.v-dem.net/en/ Verver, M. and Dahles, H. (2015). The Institutionalisation of Oknha: Cambodian Entrepreneurship at the Interface of Business and Politics, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 45(1): 48–70. World Bank (2020). Kazakhstan Overview accessible at: www.worldbank .org/en/country/kazakhstan/overview

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Political Patronage in Vietnam Minh-Quang Le, Chi-Kien Phung, and Quang-Minh Le

12.1 Introduction Contemporary politics in Vietnam is envisioned by scholars today as a single-party state under the centralized leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), which is provided for by Article 4 of the Constitution, where secondary associations are strictly limited (Thayer, 2009). Dissident acts declared through channels unlisted by the state face strict control. Attempts to create another political party to compete with the Communist Party are criminal under the law. These descriptions, obviously, give the impression to most foreign scholars that the Vietnamese political regime is still “firmly totalitarian.” However, Jonathan London (2014), in “Politics in Contemporary Vietnam,” argued that behind this “surface truth” and oversimplification, Vietnamese politics is not widely understood. Formally, Vietnamese politics appears stable and predictable, but its dynamics are complex and rapidly changing (Gainsborough, 2017). And so, very often, popular understandings of Vietnamese politics tend to be oversimplified or outdated, or both. Another common mistake is, given the similarities in culture and political institutions between the two regimes, assuming that Vietnamese politics can be read-off from the case of China, where patronage networks have merged into distributive politics (Jiang & Zhang, 2020). The assumption of this similarity itself, or more profoundly, whether the de facto ideology of the CPV and the Communist Party of China are indeed similar is also a subject of controversy (Kerkvliet et al., 1998; Chang, 2021). We suggest that a certain understanding of the above argument would be beneficial to the study of political topics, including patronage, in Vietnam. When conducting researches in patronage in Vietnam, we found that there is a close relationship between Vietnamese cultural, historical, and political context and its patronage appointments. By analyzing this particular context, we might clarify the origin, nature, and identify forms 288

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of political patronage in Vietnam. This assumption is not beyond the general spirit of this book that political patronage is country-specific. Studies of Vietnamese politics over the past two decades have become accessible, and so far there are many researches on Vietnamese politics and economy, especially focusing on analysis social changes and economic conditions in the country before and after The Reform in 1986 of the CPV. The source of research on Vietnamese culture and history historically to contemporary is even more abundant, because studies on this topic have never been restricted or forbidden by the authorities, like other political topics—therefore, it has had certain achievements from the French colonial period, until the period of the Indochina war (1946–1954), the Vietnam war (1956–1975), and later on. However, there seems to be a gap in the research on patronage in Vietnam, extending to other contemporary political issues, as they overemphasize regime-specific factor of Vietnam (although this is fundamentally important) and argue that institutional differences can effectively explain the unique phenomena of this country, while ignoring or downplaying the specific elements of cultural and historical context. Though older literature on authoritarianism remains relevant, it is apparent that it suffers from three principal limitations. One is its tendency to view regime characteristics through the prism of normative theories of democracy (London, 2014). Interestingly, there are enough studies on another totalitarian socialist state, North Korea, that point to a connection between the imprints of feudal history and the way its state operates today (Noland, 2005), although document transparency and accessibility for North Korea and its ruling party, Korean Workers’ Party, is more difficult than in the case of Vietnam. This does not necessarily suggest a comparative study between the two countries within the framework of this article. In fact, this study is expected to fill in that gap when it comes to patronage in Vietnam. We also find a second interesting gap in the literature on the Vietnamese politics research, namely, the interpretation or approach of scholars when they discuss the reaction of the CPV toward negative problems it counters; not limited to patronage, e.g., corruption, dogmatism, or ineffective management. Research conducted by scholars living in Vietnam on this topic is not usually by independent bodies, but more often from scholars at state-affiliated research–educational institutions, where most of them are members of the communist party.

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Here, the political activities of party members are associated with professional careers. This is an example of the highly politicized state apparatus to the extent of homogeneity outlined in the framework of this book. This particular political sensibility does not actually prevent dissenting criticism in the way that many Western observers are assessing Vietnam. Again, we reiterate what was stated above that open democratic debate is today existed in Vietnam, except for “red lines” unallowed to be challenged, such as the legitimacy of Communist Party and the historical role of President Ho Chi Minh, the founder of the CPV and the first leader of independent, post-French colonial Vietnam. The existence of space for certain degree of open debate is a notable difference between the case of Vietnam and China. However, the likelihood of harsh criticisms being published officially, either in the mass media or in science, is unlikely. Political communication is still tightly controlled by the state. In addition, the core operating mechanism of the CPV follows the principle of democratic centralism. We will further analyze the influence of this principle on patronage later in this article. So how about the studies done by foreign scholars? Over the past decade or so, the general attitude of Western scholars about the CPV and its totalitarianism seems to be more moderate and less negative than before, partly explained by certain social–economic achievements and Vietnam’s integration into international institutions. However, skepticism about the management capacity, transparency and effective countermeasures of the CPV with the above issues (corruption, clientism, appointment patronage, etc.) mainstream. We do not necessarily imply that political bias leads to unbiased arguments. Obviously, however, achieving political neutrality is generally difficult when it comes to a political regime whose operating principles conflict with the basic, popular beliefs of another culture, especially those who come from the West, e.g., collectivism and individualism. Within the framework of this article, when analyzing the patronage appointments within the political dynamics of the CPV, we will not fall into repeating or reinterpreting the propaganda arguments of research institutions affiliated to the party. On the other hand, we aim to analyze the issue on the basis of the internal dynamics and the leadership of the CPV. Research on the typology of types of patronage by Panizza et al. (2019) and Peter and its interpretation of the major role of appointees will be applied when analyzing the situation in Vietnam.

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By the above observations, the research is presented in the following outline: the next section, we will analyze the origin of patronage in the context of Vietnamese culture and history, emphasizing the element of feudalism, confucianism, and village culture. After that, we discuss patronage appointments in contemporary Vietnamese politics, in light of its specific institutional dynamics. The study provides 3 typical case studies for the classification of patronage according to the model of Panizza et al. (2019) and Peter. It is helpful to discuss certain responses by the CPV toward patronage, at least under the following suggestions: whether there exists the possibility of an effective response on a broader scale than simply maintaining power of a one-party totalitarian state against negative patronage? In this sense, the study could open up rooms for comparative ­studies, in terms of approaches and practicing, between different political institutions for the problem posed initially by the framework of the book: the patterns in which governments choose who will be ­working for them.

12.2  Political Patronage within the Historical–Cultural Context of Vietnam In today’s Vietnamese society, in addition to new cultural characteristics emerging from the process of Reform 1986 (Doi Moi ) and international integration over the past three decades, the influences of traditional factors (both positive and negative) are still bold. Stemming from this fact, we found remarkable connections between political patronage and factors belonging to the historical–cultural category of Vietnam. In general, the formation and development of Vietnamese culture and society in most of its history can be identified in a frame of reference including spatial context, time context, and subject characteristics as follows (Figure 12.1). Traditional Vietnamese culture and society are shaped mainly on the basis of the paddy-rice farming civilization. Favorable spatial conditions (natural conditions, geographical location, soil, and climate characteristics) have led most of the inhabitants along the Vietnamese territory to live by rice farming for centuries and shape their distinctive personalities; at the same time, making the interference and transformation between the traditional values of this civilization and

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Spatial context: - Located in the south-east region of the Asian continent. - Located in the monsoon tropics. - There are two large deltas (Red River Delta and Mekong River Delta) with many rivers, streams, canals.

Human: - The inhabitants of Vietnam for many centuries lived mainly on wet rice cultivation. - People are less likely to move out of their places of residence. - The peasant-agricultural-rural character dominates the shaping of personality.

Time context: Experiencing 04 major cultural and social changes: 1. The first time: Cultural transformation from indigenous Southeast Asian culture to Chineseinfluenced culture. 2. The second time: Cultural transformation from the Eastern character to the culture influenced by the West. 3. The third time: Transforming from traditional culture to culture influenced by the Soviet Union. 4. The fourth time: Transforming from traditional culture to the culture of the period of industrialization, modernization and international integration.

Figure 12.1  The context of formation of the traditional Vietnamese culture and society

other values from the outside become one of the main contents of the nation’s historical process. With such a background, the traditional culture of Vietnam is also affirmed with the fundamental characteristic of village culture, as pointed out as follows: “Vietnamese traditional culture has the essence of a culturevillageoise, which is both the strength and the weakness of traditional Vietnamese culture” (Trà ̂n Quô ć Vuong, 2016). Although urban culture has been developing strongly in recent decades in Vietnam, the vitality of traditional village culture is still very strong. Even, for most of the country’s history, “due to the strong domination of the countryside, in Vietnam, there was no case where the countryside was urbanized spontaneously but only the urban area was ruralized” (Ngô Đúc Thịnh, 2010). In other words, many aspects of urban areas in Vietnam today (lifestyle, administrative organization, economic organization) still bear the imprint of village culture.1 1

For example, many guilds in megacities (typically Hanoi) are still operating under the principle of “buying with friends, selling with wards”; This stems from the characteristics of traditional village culture, and to some extent, it is also an indication of the possibility of patronage relationships.

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Basically, the process of urbanization in the past 3 decades has not been able to impose an industrial lifestyle on Vietnamese people. With the same foundation, traditional Vietnamese society is structured according to a very specific framework of Home–Village– Country, in which “home and village are sustainable, little changed, heavily traditional elements, while the country/regime is a dynamic element that changes over the times and over different political institutions.” Therefore, to some extent, home (including family and clan) and village can be considered as constants belonging to the core of society, while regime is a variable element and can exist under different forms depending on the particular situation. This structure really plays a fundamental role for the existence and development of the Vietnamese nation, as a whole. Such an important role of village culture leads to the following conclusion: “If you want to understand the history of the formation of the Vietnamese nations, you must learn about the village community, and if you want to rebuild Vietnam, you must also start from rebuilding the village community. Since if there are no Vietnamese villages, there is no Vietnamese nation” (Vũ Đình Hòe, 1997). However, besides the positive contributions, in other aspects, the presented characteristic of Vietnam’s traditional socio-culture can also be the source for negative characteristic which exists in a persistent way ever since. Some of them may directly/indirectly lead to the existence of political patronage in Vietnam. First of all, due to the importance of the “home–village” structure, the social network arising from that structure is considered as a very important form of social capital for individual/group development in Vietnamese society. In addition to capital existing in the form of tangible assets, Vietnamese people need a lot of support from social capital (created by family relation, residence relationship, group interest relationship) for career. Within the framework of the Monarchy– Confucian model, besides the family relationship, there are others relationships such as the neighbor relationship (the principle: the same residence), group interest relationship (the principle of the same interests: material, spiritual), and occupational organizations (Trà ̂n Quô ć Vuọ ng, 2016). Although social capital exists widely in societies around the world, through the above analysis, the specificity of Vietnam’s case can be lied in two aspects. First, many parts of social capital are bonded

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social capital because family, clan, and village relationships are more prone to closed internal relationships. This is likely the kind of environment suitable for political patronage. Second, because the “home–village” relationship is the foundation of society, these bonding social capitals are more likely to gain more advantages in comparison with other forms of capital and resources (individual talents, material resources, healthy social relations). This leads to the fact that, despite being constrained in other resources, individuals with such a bonded social capital still have many opportunities for development, because the advantage in the closed negative social capital that gives them patronage (with many privileges) that other competitors can hardly obtain. Not only in the traditional society, the excessive dependence on bonded social capital has caused political patronage relations to appear in modern Vietnamese society as well. Accordingly, in the environment of the market economy, this connection and consciousness emerge stronger, creating family partiality and protection with the concept of “A big fish is the crutch of the whole family” (Ngô Đú c Thịnh, 2010). Bonded social capital can lead to clustering within the group. As a result of such clusters, the participation of outsiders is prevented. The familiar saying that many people often mention “born with a silver spoon in your mouth” (Ngô Đúc Thi ṇ h, 2010) refers to the negative nepotism in recruiting and appointing civil servants. Going deeper into the “home–village” structure with primarily family and clan relationships, we can also see signs of patronage and cronism. Besides the peasant family, other traditional family types of Vietnam are the Confucian family and the mandarin family. Confucian families are often built on the basis of a number of family members who have excelled in education and achieved mandarin status, thereby taking on different positions in the state apparatus, creating a foundation for the next generations to maintain and further develop the prestige and position of the family. Unlike the peasant family, which oriented toward economic production to feed its members, prestige in the community and/or social status were the priority of the Confucian family. Their families are organized to study, pass the exam, and become a mandarin. So for these families, socializing is often more important than anything else. What makes up the value, determines the social status of these families is the family background

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(Nguyen, 2016). Thus, building the prestige of the Confucian family is done in many ways, in which expanding social relations is a priority channel. In that complex network of social relationships, it is difficult to avoid specific patronage relationships, especially with individuals and families who want to move up in the social hierarchy. For the mandarin family (including the royal family, aristocratic family), the patronage relationship is even more evident. This type of family “lived on the subsidized distribution of the tax paid to the King” (Ngô Đú c Thịnh, 2010). From the above expressions, we can identify one of the first remarkable development directions of political patronage in Vietnam: political patronage on the basis of family relationship (especially in families, lineages that have desire to follow the mandarin path and/or have power in society). Regarding to characteristics of village in the social structure, its influence is so great that it has shaped one of the core values of the Vietnamese traditional value system and is still very strong until the beginning of the twenty-first century, the origin of collectivism in Asian culture in general and Vietnam in particular. On the positive side, this value has created a very close connection, contributing to building the unity and solidarity of the Vietnamese people to fight against the invaders and deal with natural disasters. For modern society, the culturevillageoise still plays a big role in shaping the good c­ haracters of Vietnamese people such as attitudes toward collective interests. However, the strong community character but being framed in the context of closed villages and communes also left many long-lasting consequences for Vietnamese society. The most noticeable point is the imposition of the community on the role of the individual in his or her life, family, and society. There are non-cultural characters derived directly from appointment patronage: reliance, dependence, narrowmindedness, selfishness, sectarianism, and exclusion of personal interests. The remaining non-cultural characters can also be exploited to make political patronage easier to exist and more deeply ingrained in the society. Besides, a number of other non-cultural characters derivatives closely related to political patronage are also mentioned in this work, including: passivity, closedness, conservatism; lifestyle shaping by “relationship” (derived from totalitarianism). From the above analysis, we come to the initial conclusion that culturevillageoise is not only the most typical traditional value

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of Vietnamese culture, but also one of the main origins of negative derivative values related to political patronage in general and appointment patronage in particular. It is this closure of the village culture that has created more negative than positive personalities of the Vietnamese people. The closure of the village makes people dependent on the community, not developing individual consciousness, thus limiting the individual’s ability; Vietnamese people have a collective-dependent attitude. That tradition also creates sectarianism, localism, and makes people only care about in their own locality. Localism ideology leads to cover up among village members. In a nutshell, the transformation of culturevillageoise and some other traditional values has created another great feature of appointment patronage in Vietnam: political patronage on the basis of regionalism and depending on actual conditions can be expanded to a larger scale. However, Vietnamese history is also associated with values and characteristics that aim to counter political patronage in different ways. These countermeasures can be made clear through a few key points: First of all, as we have emphasized, the above-mentioned features related to political patronage are derivatives characters derived from many traditional values that shape Vietnamese national identity. Objectively, if it is accepted that duality exists in the affairs of human society, then even things that are considered valuable (i.e., good things, positive benefits for society) is also hard to avoid the dark side, especially when we look at them through different lenses. As for the issue of political patronage, this can also be considered as one of the theoretical directions to deal with specific cases. Second, if political patronage in Western countries tends to maintain long-term political privileges and exclusive rights for individuals/ groups belonging to the aristocracy (especially the aristocratic elite groups) and privileges and exclusive rights are relatively sustainable in society, in this case, it is unlikely to happen in Vietnamese society. There are underlying historical–cultural reasons; in principle, Vietnamese and Chinese societies are more egalitarian, at least compared to other Asian social structures, such as India. The government and territory are not the privileges of any social class, it welcomes all talented people in the country. The aristocratic rights in Vietnam, according to the law, are only enjoyed for a few generations, and then

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the descendants of the beneficiaries must return to the normal people and are merged with other people, so they cannot form permanent aristocratic class like in European society (Luo ng Đúc Thiệp, 2017). Thus, the traditional Vietnamese social structure is relatively flexible with frequent social status transitions between individuals/groups belonging to social classes/hierarchy, instead of ensuring a solid existence of a certain segment of society (accompanying with political patronage). It can be seen that such social class flexibility opens up opportunities for political career development for people of many different classes, including those lower in the social hierarchy. In general, for thousands of years of existence, Vietnamese feudal systems recruited mandarins from several main sources, one based on talent, the other is from hereditary. As mentioned, despite being appointed, the recruitment of mandarins based on hereditary met strict restrictions on the time limit and the target people. Moreover, the society’s attitude toward those who have inherited positions from previous generations and some other forms of intermediaries is also more negative than those who succeed through talent2 and exams (Phan, 2017) (Table 12.1). Third, Vietnamese feudal dynasties not only developed along the trend of gradually reducing the privileges of the nobility, but also “early recognized the harmful effects of corruption and took many prevention and control measures. These measures are still valuable experience for Vietnam’s anti-corruption campaign,” including valuable suggestions on how to deal with appointment patronage. Specifically, among many effective measures to manage and promote the efficiency of the feudal mandarin apparatus, the “Law of Avoidance” (Luat Hoi ty) is directly related to the problem of political patronage. The “Law of Avoidance” stipulates that close relatives and people from the same hometown are not allowed to serve as officials in same province, not allowed to participate in the same examination. Although the above law originated in China and was not always fully 2

It should be noted that the concept of talent in the past was very different from that of today. In the feudal period of Vietnam, the talents suitable for serving as mandarins were often recognized by their ability to understand literature under the influence of Confucianism. Therefore, the mandarin recruitment competitions of that time focused on finding people who only excelled in this regard.

298 - The monarchy is based on a more powerful mandarin system. - Only those who are very close to the king’s lineage will enjoy high privileges, and the nobles and below will receive subsidies in some specific form. - In the early period, the role of the nomination and appointment was still quite large, but later on, the examination was the main way to recruit mandarins, thereby indirectly helping the King to concentrate power.

Le Dynasty (1428–1789)

- The political feudal autocracy developed. - The aristocracy is no longer privileged, political or economic. Therefore, the position of mandarins is also more precarious than before. - All high-ranking officials and martial arts officials are recruited through competitions. - Other forms of recruitment have a very limited role.

Nguyen Dynasty (1802–1945)1

1 For the Nguyen Dynasty, we limit the scope of our research to the time before Vietnam was invaded by the French–Spanish Alliance in 1858, because the country of Vietnam after 1858 encountered many major political changes, making comparisons with previous periods difficult.

- Appointment (priority is given - Demand for civil servants’ to members of aristocratic increases, recruitment families) and nomination through examinations is (recommended by reputable done regularly. people, especially monks) - The privilege of education are appreciated. was still reserved mainly - Actual needs require for aristocratic families. additional recruitment from - Appointment and contests. (The first literary nominations still play examination of Vietnamese a big role. history took place in 1075)

Recruiting mandarins

- Only assign important positions to princes. - More extreme than the Ly dynasty, imposing internal marriage for members of the royal family to suppress the rise of other clans.

- Government of the nobility. - The noble class holds the most important duties.

Tran Dynasty (1226–1400)

The status of the nobility

Ly Dynasty (1009–1226)

Table 12.1  Brief comparisons of the status of the nobility and the methods of mandarin recruitment among some major feudal dynasties in Vietnam

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implemented during feudal times in Vietnam,3 it is a testament to the fact that the Vietnamese feudal government was aware of its limitations in traditional national culture–society and has proactively taken drastic measures to address the development risk of negative appointment patronage. The law of “Law of Avoidance” is partly inherited by the principle of “rotation of servants” of the Communist Party and the contemporary Vietnamese Government.

12.3  Specific Political Institutions and the Advocacy of Patronage in Contemporary Vietnamese Politics Based on the analysis of history and traditional culture, we return to the current period by approaching the phenomenon of patronage appointments in terms of contemporary Vietnamese political institutions. Specifically, in this section, we focus on clarifying a number of institutional issues in Vietnam that could facilitate appointment patronage. Peters implemented that “countries such as China and Vietnam with a hegemonic political party, the link between politics and the bureaucracy are very direct and pervasive so that the bureaucracy is almost inherently politicized.” In Vietnam, this link is evident in the state administrative apparatus, when each administrative committee from the lowest level (ward) to the intermediate level (district), the highest administrative level (cities) are attached to a corresponding Communist Party Committee (see Figure 12.2). The Party Committee has profound political influence over its respective administrative body. However, to this issue, outspoken coverage took many forms. Some of it was predictable like dissidents calling for multiparty politics, but there were also mainstream politicians who appeared to go further than usual in their criticism of the way the party was operating. The former party general secretary, Lê Kha Phiêu, in 2006, for instance, called for an end to what he called the “illness of party-isation” [bệnh d ̄ang hóa], in which the party dominates everything. Politics in Vietnam is not reducible to the CPV but cannot be understood in isolation from the operations of the party and its metamorphosis over time. Arguably, three aspects of CPV rule have been most consequential: “its ability to 3

The fact that the “Law of Avoidance” became noticeable under King Le Thanh Tong (Le Dynasty) and King Minh Mang (Nguyen Dynasty).

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Figure 12.2  Vietnamese political government system in relation to appointing power and political influences

secure national independence and unification in the face of immense and highly destructive external pressure; its ability to maintain its position of dominance in politics in the context of war and post war adversity and the subsequent disintegration of the state-socialism and, more recently, its role in promoting unprecedented economic expansions and associated gains in living standards” (London, 2014).

12.4 Legends Note that the administrative structure of Vietnam does not exist at the regional- or state-level like some European countries (Italy, Germany) or the United States. The Prime Minister, nominally, appoints the chairman of the provincial people’s committees, with the help of a special body, the Ministry of Internal/Home Affairs (MOHA). There are two exceptions, in the two metropolitan cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the chairmans of the people’s committees are appointed by

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the Politburo. At the lower levels (communes and small districts), the head of the administrative agency and its respective communist party committee is usually one person. At a high level like larger districts and all provinces, the Chairman of the Committee and the Secretary of the Party Committee are two different people. It should be further emphasized that the Prime Minister is not only responsible for appointing the Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee (in terms of state administration) as mentioned above, but he also has the power to appoint his cabinet. Thus, in terms of State administration, the Prime Minister has a higher practical power than the President; although the Prime Minister is nominally required to report his appointment activities to the President. This division in Vietnam, in terms of appointment power, shares some similarities with European countries such as Italy or Germany. At the central level, leadership titles such as President of State and Prime Minister are elected de jure by the National Assembly, but are subject to a mysterious and secret referral process by the Politburo. This ‘referral’ process is de facto decisive. The Politburo is a collection of a small group of individuals leading the headquarters of the Party, State, Government, and National Assembly, elected by a Party Central Committee Conference held once every five years. The term of the Communist Party’s plenum coincides with that of the State and the Government, once again we reaffirm the high politicization among the administrative agencies and the ruling party in Vietnam. During this five-year period, the Politburo will appoint an internal agency to assist them, called the Secretariat Board, and appoint all Party secretaries (leaders) at the provincial and ministry levels. The Politburo also has political influence (through its subordinate committees) over senior leadership positions in the Administration sectors such as provincial presidents or ministers. Practically, Politburo is the most powerful and influential body in the Vietnamese political system. Historically, all individuals who were ‘introduced’ by the Politburo into positions of state and government leadership were later legitimized and elected by the National Assembly. The centralization of the communist party in Vietnam is expressed as “the Party leads, the State manages”; and the final decision on an issue where democratic consensus cannot be reached will be made by the leadership council of the Party Committee of which the Secretary is the leader. This principle is described as democratic centralism.

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Table 12.2  Typology of types of patronage Major role of appointees

Party Basis of Trust

Personal Group

Policy

Politics

Cell A Party Professionals Cell C Programmatic Technocrats Cell E Group Experts

Cell B Apparatchiks Cell D Political Agents Cell F Social Liasons

Associated with Leninism, this is a practice in which political decisions by discussing and voting processes are binding upon all members of the political party. However, in reality, whether this principle is properly implemented in Vietnamese politics is a difficult question to find an exact answer for, even among insiders. Each specific case will present different situations but within the framework of this article, outlining the principle of close contact and deep involvement between the state apparatus and the respective party committees of the Communist Party is mainly for the purpose of clarifying the specificity of the appointment patronage in the Vietnamese political system. In many situations, the head of a Party Committee will tend to patronize appointments in a way that minimizes democratic debate within the committees he leads. Inherited politicization also exists in government agencies, as ministries and their subordinate agencies (functional Departments under the Ministry, and Divisions under Departments) have committees of the Communist Party (see Figure 12.1). This principle in government agencies creates less confusion in leadership and accountability than in the case of public administration agencies. Because, the heads of departments, and low-level divisions of the government, except in special cases, are also the head of the equivalent Communist Party Committee. On the other hand, this suggests that the likelihood of appointment patronage in government agencies may be higher, as power tends to be more individually concentrated. Recognizing this difference will help us categorize appointees according to the Typology of Patronage as discussed by Panizza et al. (2019) and Peters (see Table 12.2).

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Patronage appointments, in terms of political behavior organization, is composed of two components, the Basis of Trust and the Major Roles of Appointees. Summarization of the Typology, see Panizza et al. (2019) and Peters: Cell A of our typology contains patronage appointees who have been put into office because of their policy skills and their loyalty to a political party. In Cell B of our typology we find “apparatchiks.” There are individuals appointed because of their loyalty to the party, and who are responsible for political tasks within the public sector. Cells C and D are loyal to, and trusted by, individuals within government, usually a minister or the chief executive. The “programmatic technocrats” found in Cell C are experts in a policy domain who are willing to join the government to assist their friend in making better policy. The occupants of Cells E and F are somewhat more difficult to specify than are those found in the other four cells. If these positions within government are granted by virtue of membership in social groups such as ethnic groups, families or clans then this version of patronage can be seen as enhancing the representative nature of bureaucracy. In popular multi-party politics, the division of appointees according to the major roles of appointees following to above typology is likely to be more complicated than in one-party system like Vietnam. In plural party system, we see politicians change their parties, forming new parties in opposition to the party they used to be loyal to. Being loyalty to a political party in Vietnam is automatically assumed to be loyalty to the CPV. Political clans seem to exist, however, in CPV’s propaganda, this is a forbidden topic. Disciplinary expulsion from the CPV for party members is interpreted as the end of a political career, and in some cases also professional career, nor does it rule out the possibility that it is a sign of criminal prosecution. Individual political advocacy in Vietnam is not obvious, and if exists, it is assigned by a higher party committee in the CPV. Thus, individual political advocacy in Vietnam takes place more often within the CPV’s committee or the respective vertical appointing unit. Political Agents (Cell D), officially understood in pluralist politics as “a person legally responsible for the conduct of a candidate’s political campaign,” or a person officially appointed out of allegiance to a politician, is not clearly defined in the Vietnam situation. This is not to say that the appointment of one or more individuals out of personal political loyalty does not exist in Vietnam; however, our study will not take into account

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of this group by cases because of the specific nature mentioned above. Similarly, Cell C, the appointees selected for their technocratic ability and personal loyalty, will also be surfaced as experienced people in their appointed field, which likely happens in government offices than political bodies. Continuing the same debate, ideas of technocraticbased government is not new; when former deputy prime minister, Vu Khoan, said that talent and moral stature were more important when deciding appointments, including ministerial appointments, than whether someone was a party member.4 The CPV’s comprehensive leadership both politically and policiesrelated suggests that the patronage appointment based on party loyalty is strongly expressed in this organization (Cell A, Cell B, and Cell F). We study case studies (see Case Study 1 and Case Study 2) to clarify this later on. In contrast, Cell E occurs along the longitudinal axis in sub-national organs (see Case Study 3). Cell C appears often in intermediary agencies, and is often concentrated in the government sector instead of the CPV agencies.

12.4.1  Case Study 1: Cell A in the Central Commission for Economy Management of the CPV Regarding the organization of vertical functions and tasks, the CPV has nine central agencies that advise on policy and ensure the leadership of the CPV in the fields of economy, justice, media, etc., one agency is in charge of staff training and three agencies are in charge of publishing, official speech, and propaganda. The leaders of these agencies must be both loyal to the Communist Party and knowledgeable in the policies of their respective fields. Patronage appointees at these organs are in Cell A (see Figure 12.3). We observe appointments to the CPV’s Central commission for Economy management (one of the nine central organs that advise on policy for the CPV). All of the heads appointed in these agencies have served directly as the leaders of government agencies on policy promulgation and management of financial, banking, and macroeconomic activities: •• Period 2012–2016: The Minister of Finance was appointed as the Head of the Commission 4

V: Khoan, quoted in Tuoi Tre newspaper, April 19, 2006; Thanh Niên newspaper, April 24, 2006.

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Figure 12.3  Typology of Patronage Appointees divided by characteristics and levels in the Vietnamese political system: a meta-analysis

•• Period 2016–2021: The Governor of the State Bank was appointed as Head of the Commission. •• Period 2021–present: The Minister of Industry and Trade is appointed as Head of the Commission. Although the above appointment method is not an official regulation, it does clarify the patronage appointing logic in these agencies.

12.4.2  Case Study 2: Cell B in The Secretariat of the CPV The Secretariat of the CPV is formally the standing, assisting body of the Politburo. This agency has a particularly important role in running the political tasks of the CPV in the public sector. According to Appendix 1/Regulation 105 of 2017 of the CPV’s central committee on the decentralization, management & appointment of high-rank public servants, and nomination of candidates, the Secretariat has the right not only to decide on titles lower committees of the CPV, but also can decide leadership positions outside the communist party system, in which the majority are deputy levels of central government and state agencies. Leading civil servants at the level managed by the Secretariat are those who are “able to coordinate budgets and resources.” Patronage appointments in this case have a tendency to

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affirm that appointees would later on allocate resources in a faithful manner, the so-called neopatrimonialism, and this phenomenon can emerge at this level (see Figure 12.3). The most important function of the Secretariat is to direct the coordination of activities among organizations in the political system. Patronage at this agency belongs to Cell B. In nominal terms, the General Secretary of the CPV also leads the Secretariat, however, the person in charge of this agency’s activities is the Standing Secretary of the Secretariat, who is also the 5th powerful figure in the Politburo and the Vietnamese political system. The individuals elected to this body are those who have experience in political activities and are loyal to the CPV.

12.4.3  Case Study 3: Cell E and Cell F in the Northwest Region’s Appointment: Vietnamese Government’s Program Aiming to Develop Commune-level Civil Servants of Ethnic Minorities’ Origin and Negative Patronage Appointments Influenced by Nepotism and Regionalism The Northwestern region of Vietnam is a large mountainous region that shares a border with China, but it has a sparse population density and mostly concentrate ethnic minorities in Northern Vietnam. Noted that Vietnam officially has 54 ethnic groups, however, the Kinh ­ethnic group accounts for the majority with more than 85%, while the remaining 53 ethnic minorities account for only 15% of the population. In general, ethnic conflict in Vietnam has not existed for more than two decades. However, the standard of living and development level including literacy rate, university enrollment rate and other social problems of ethnic minorities are significantly lower than that of Kinh people. Basic infrastructure in this region is limited. Ethnic minorities in the Northwest have relatively different languages, customs, and cultures. As a result, the Vietnamese government patroned the appointment of commune-level civil servants for ethnic minorities to enhance the locality and transnational nature of the administrative apparatus in these areas. Resolution No. 24 in 2003, followed by Conclusion No. 65 in 2019 of the Politburo of the CPV directs the government to implement the “Project on developing the contingent of civil servants and public employees of ethnic minorities’ origin,” and the corresponding

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specific programs have been carried out. Accordingly, localities need to develop specific plans such as new training, retraining programs to consolidate and improve capacity, professional qualifications, and working skills for civil servants of ethnic minorities’ origin at commune level. The Vietnamese government sets quotas for most commune-level administrative units in the Northwest, requiring that “the proportion of ethnic minority civil servants participating in commune-level agencies is at least 10% to 50% of the total positions assigned.” Patronage appointments here can be from Cell E or Cell F. The two groups work in tandem, and sometimes play a role in each other, or both. The negative political patronage that arises in this case study is that appointments are often influenced by nepotism and localism (refer to Figure 12.3). The mainstream media in Vietnam once reflected the case in Ha Giang province in 2016: The secretary of the Ha Giang Provincial communist party committee appointed many family members (including siblings, brother-in-law, wife, and cousins) to leadership positions in the district and departments under this province. This is one of the prime examples of patronage deeply influenced by nepotism, of which some situations are legitimized by “appointing ethnic minorities to strengthen locality.”

12.5 Limitations Patronage is a major issue in political science, attracting the attention among academics. In Vietnam, despite the great urgency and theoretical and practical importance, the research on this topic still has the following limitations and notes: Firstly, in Vietnam, political science is an immature field compared to other social science fields. Theoretical foundations and terms of this field have not been clearly defined in the Vietnamese literature, including theory of political patronage. There is no denying that the study of politics has appeared in Vietnam for a long time, but in almost the entire twentieth century, due to the strong impact of historical macrochanges, these research activities have faced many obstacles to develop into political science with an objective rather than subjective sense. For this reason, approaching political patronage from the perspective of Vietnamese scholars in the manner of this scientific work can contribute to supplementing the theoretical limitations mentioned above.

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Secondly, due to the limited scientific theoretical background, the study of political patronage in Vietnam is difficult to avoid controversy in how it should be approached. The concept of political patronage itself and the underlying theory are also formulated by ­foreign scholars rather than by Vietnamese counterparts. Therefore, the theoretical framework for this study will still essentially follow the popular Western understanding of political patronage. In contrast, finding the specific indigenous imprints of patronage in Vietnam as seen from the Vietnamese side will be more challenging and needs further studies. Moreover, while exploiting documents and data on the case of Vietnam, instead of focusing solely on the political field, we refer to research results of close disciplines (such as economics, history, culture), which are essential to provide a more comprehensive and complete view. Third, researching and clarifying a sensitive political issue in Vietnam is challenging and complex. An anonymous survey of officials and their appointees in Vietnam was taken into consideration when conducting this study. However, and of course, we would doubt whether the survey results efficiently reflect the situation of appointment patronage; when interviewees would tend to avoid providing information detrimental to their career, including political career. Some of the case studies presented in this study do not necessarily reflect the entire situation of patronage in Vietnam, but their typicality is strong enough for us to summarize the realities in Vietnam, with the help of tools and approaches obtained from other studies. We expect from this base, there will be further research opened and developed, not only limited to the problem approach, but also from other perspectives from practitioners, key planners, and comparative studies with other systems.

12.6 Conclusion Political patronage, although not commonly referred to as such, has long existed in Vietnam. Influenced by the specific historical–cultural context, patronage in Vietnam progressed in three main directions: patronage on the basis of blood relations (nepotism), patronage on the basis of friendly relations (cryonism), and patronage on the basis of local and regional relations (regionalism). At higher level in the Party–State– Government apparatus, neo-patriarchalism, and ideological conflict do

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exist in patronage appointment decisions. Due to the negative impact of traditional culture, modern Vietnamese society still has backward features of the previous period, causing difficulties in forming a ruleof-law state on the basis of civil society. This is a favorable environment for political patronage. However, it should be affirmed that Vietnamese feudal politics also made drastic efforts and measures (gradually reducing the privileges of the nobility, increasing the selection of mandarins through examinations, using political specific policies such as the Law of Avoidance) to combat the negative effects of political patronage, thereby leaving lessons and experiences for the CPV and its government later on. The dynamics of contemporary political patronage in Vietnam is closely related to the single-party regime. Political power is highly concentrated in the Party organization but has not been accompanied by an effective power control institution, causing corruption and negative appointment patronage of Party members and Party organizations. Political loyalty to the individual in Vietnam is unlikely to define officially, by this nature. We use the findings of Typology of Patronage appointees, by Peter, to categorize the cases in Vietnam. Cell A (Party Professionals) and Cell B (Apparachiks) tend to be selected at the highest levels of the CPV. The “technocrats” appointees of Cell C are chosen at the middle levels of government, but this is an ambiguous group in Vietnamese politics. Cell E (Group Experts) and Cell F (Social Liaisons), appointees selected for the privilege of ethnic minorities, are reflected by the official policy program of the Vietnamese government. Nepotism, extreme regionalism, and cronyism still strongly exist. In fact, there are campaigns to prevent negative phenomena arising from patronage appointments. They have been put on the main agenda by the CPV from the top to the local level. The CPV’s elite leadership is aware that they affect the ability to centralize power and the survival of its single-party regime.

References Chang, Y. (2021), Constructing Vietnam, Constructing China, Journal of Vietnamese Studies, 16(1): 90–131. Gainsborough, M. (2017), The Myth of a Centralised Socialist State in Vietnam: What Kind of a Myth? Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 3(2017): 119–143.

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Jiang, J. and Zhang, M. (2020), Friends with Benefits: Patronage N ­ etworks and Distributive Politics in China, Journal of Public Economics, 184(2020): 104143. Kerkvliet, B., Chan, A. and Unger, J. (1998), Comparing the Chinese and Vietnamese Reforms: An Introduction, The China Journal, 40 Special Issue: Transforming Asian Socialism. China and Vietnam Compared (July, 1998): 1–7. London, J. D. (2014), Politics in Contemporary Vietnam, doi:10.1057/ 9781137347534 Nguyen, V. T. (2016), Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War. Harvard University Press. Noland, M. (2005), North Korea in Transition, Korean Journal of Defense Analysis, 17(1): 7–32. Panizza, F., Peters, B. G. and Ramos Larraburu, C. (2019), Roles, Trusts and Skills: A Typology of Patronage Appointments, Public Administration, 97: 147–161. Phan, L. H. N. (2017, August), Challenges/constraints in teaching today’s English in Vietnam: Teachers’ voices. In SEAMEO International TESOL Conference, Ho Chi Minh City. Thayer, C. A., (2009), Vietnam and the Challenge of Political Civil Society, Contemporary Southeast Asia, 31(1): 1–27.

Literature Exclusively in Vietnamese Language ́ Viẹt̂ ] [Tài liẹu ̂ Tiê ng Luo ng Đú c Thiệp (2017), Xã hội Viêṭ Nam tù so su dē n ̂ ́ cận dạ̄ i, NXB. Tri thú c, Hà Nội, tr. 91, 149–150. Ngô Đú c Thịnh (2010), Nhũ ng giá trị van hóa truyè ̂n thô ń g Viêṭ Nam, NXB. Chính trị Quô ć gia, Hà Nội, tr. 300–301, 312–313. Trà n ̂ Quô ć Vuọ ng (2016), Van hóa Viêṭ Nam: Tìm tòi và Suy ngẫm, NXB. Van học, Hà Nôị . Vũ Đình Hòe (1997), Hô í ký Thanh Nghị, NXB Hà Nộ i, Hà Nộ i, tr. 318.

13

Political Patronage in Asian Bureaucracies Colin Knox and B. Guy Peters

13.1 Introduction Political patronage is the object of criticism by reformers of the public sector who believe that a merit-based civil service can provide better governance. Despite decades of pressure for reform in many countries patronage persists, and in some cases has even increased. In this book, we are examining levels of patronage in a range of Asian countries, and the reasons that this practice exists and persists. Patronage is more or less extensive amongst these countries and appears to exist and persist for a variety of reasons. We began this collection of studies on Asian bureaucracies by offering a framework for research. It is appropriate to return to this framework having considered a wide variety of Asian countries. As a reminder of where we started from, the opening chapter adopted the definition of patronage appointments as: the power of political actors to appoint individuals, using their own discretion, to non-elective positions in the public sector, irrespective of the legality of the decision (Kopecky et al, 2012; Panizza et al, 2019). The focus of our interest is the recruitment of individuals into posts within government, many of whom may be directly involved in making public policy. The opening chapter argues that not all patronage are the same, and hence we can classify types of patronage along two dimensions: the tasks performed by appointees, their influence on public policy, and the nature of the trust relationship, whether political or personal loyalty. These dimensions sub-divide further giving us a 2 × 3 typology, which disaggregate: tasks of appointees into policy and politics; and trust relationships into party, personal and group. The typology is useful for at least two reasons: first, it helps us to understand how patronage can be used in different political systems, and second, it prompts questions as to which factors help explain the specific nature of patronage. In short, if we see patronage as the 311

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dependent variable, which independent variables explain the differences in the various types of patronage experienced across Asian bureaucracies? Before considering the overall findings based on the research of country specialists in this collection, we can make some overarching comments from their contributions. First, patronage is described by Asian scholars in this edition at various levels of government. In the case of China, we consider patronage amongst ministerial appointments; in the Philippines, patronage is exercised through civil service appointments, presidential appointees in South Korea; and in Mongolia, we witness patronage in the appointment of ambassadors. Because country authors have selected different types/levels of appointment to demonstrate patronage, it is more difficult to compare like-with-like or extrapolate across tiers of governance. That said, the identification of the various ways in which patronage is practiced points to the importance of understanding public personnel systems. These differences also help us to better understand politics and government within the several countries. Second, ‘patronage’ may not be an accepted phenomena in all Asian countries described in this book. The most obvious example here is the Singapore chapter, where the authors pointedly use the term ‘politically motivated appointments’. They do so because the term ‘patronage’ is seen as synonymous with corruption, and Singapore has built its world-class reputation on being ‘corruption-free’. Hence, to acknowledge the presence of patronage is, by association, to accept systemic corruption. Patronage may also be firmly embedded in the cultural context of some countries and is not always viewed negatively. The strong familial relationships which exist in Kazakhstan and the Philippines, for example, demonstrate that patronage is integral to their value system and not necessarily perceived as driven by a political imperative. Third, the opening chapter in the collection makes a clear distinction between patronage and politicisation of the public sector. We state clearly that patronage refers specifically to the appointment of public officials by political leaders. Politicisation, on the other hand, is a more encompassing concept, referring to all attempts to impose political control over the public bureaucracy (Peters and Pierre, 2004; Cooper, 2020). Chapters on India and Bangladesh, for example, show that patronage described by these country authors is primarily about promoting an extensive politicisation of the civil service.

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Fourth, contributions to patronage as a topic of research enquiry illustrate the problems of gathering primary data. Much like the study of corruption, it can be difficult for politicians and officials to acknowledge the existence of patronage, still less to be questioned about its extent and various guises. This issue is more problematic in authoritarian regimes such as China, Vietnam and Kazakhstan (and to a much lesser extent Singapore). The authors of these chapters therefore have had to be creative in developing information about patronage. The evidence used in the chapters is not always the same, but it all does provide evidence about our fundamental concern with patronage. Therefore, although the authors have all utilised the common framework for the analysis of patronage, the results may be somewhat dependent upon the research opportunities in each country. This problem is almost inevitable in countries with such varying levels of development and political structures. The presence of several oneparty, control-oriented, states made the task especially difficult. Even with that difficulty, we believe that the evidence presented here does illuminate political patronage in Asia in ways that previously have not been available.

13.2  Factors Explaining the Extent and Types of Patronage In the opening chapter, we postulate several factors which may influence the extent and type of patronage in Asian countries. Having considered the experiences of the several countries, included in this study, we return to review the strength of these claims. We do this in no order of importance.

13.2.1  Party Systems In the framing chapter of this edition, we make several points. There may be some political systems, even functioning democracies, that do not have political parties in the usual sense (see Munoz, 2021). More institutionalised or stable party systems may be more effective in organising patronage on a partisan basis, although the personalistic basis poorly institutionalised systems may lead to higher levels of appointment from outside the civil service. In majoritarian political systems, there may be a greater incentive to utilise patronage appointments in government.

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In light of the country chapters, we consider these assertions in more detail. What we witness in Asia is a mix of party systems from authoritarian regimes to parliamentary democracies with limited party competition. In the former, countries such as Kazakhstan, China and Vietnam are obvious examples. In the latter, we observe parliamentary democracies which are dominated by a small number of political parties. Singapore, Mongolia, Taiwan, India and Bangladesh feature here. In addition, we see the Philippines with weak political parties and a weak political party system often resulting in coalition government for the purposes of expediency. South Korea is an example of a Presidential Republic dominated by two political parties. Even Japan, which is the ‘best’ example of a multi-party parliamentary democracy in our sample of Asian countries, is largely dominated by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) with the Democratic Party of Japan as the main opposition party. Is there a pattern of patronage across these board categories of countries? In authoritarian regimes we see, for example, consistent evidence of ‘party professionals’. This seems intuitively logical. Patronage appointments have strong professional skills, are committed to the party, and seek to influence public policy as articulated by their party. This is well illustrated in the case of China when Zhu et al note in this collection of case study countries that amongst the 136 ministers in their sample, all of them have policy expertise, and 108 were loyal to the political party. Similarly in Vietnam, Quang Le et al note that the dynamics of contemporary political patronage in Vietnam is closely related to the single-party system. In those countries which are broadly categorised as parliamentary democracies but dominated by one or more political parties (Singapore, Mongolia, Taiwan, India and Bangladesh), we see evidence of apparatchiks, those who are loyal to the dominant party and take responsibility for political tasks in the public sector. Their remit can involve ensuring the success of their political party through negotiation and deal ­making with other parties or to copper-fasten the dominance of their own party. Mongolia is a good example of apparatchiks. Damdinsuren et al examined the diplomatic service of the Mongolian People’s Republic which aspires to being politically neutral, but they found breaches of this principle everywhere, as politicians used patronage appointments based on their loyalty to the party. South Korea as a presidential republic offers evidence of ­programmatic technocrats amongst presidential appointees.

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In most of these countries there are also patronage appointments of officials who are loyal to individual leaders. These appointments sometimes are the consequence of factions within the party being led by individuals. In other cases, powerful political figures, such as the presidents in the Philippines make numerous appointments both in policymaking roles and in more political roles.

13.2.2  Social Structure The second independent variable we posited in the opening chapter which may influence the type of patronage is social structure or the nature of society. In our sample of Asian countries there is a wide variation in ethnicity, religion, language and clan. Some countries are relatively homogeneous (Japan, Mongolia, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Bangladesh) and others are very diverse (Singapore, the Philippines, India). In addition, the nature of society may be important for the pattern of patronage. In societies where the family is central to its citizens’ value system then, by extension, these close relationships may well spread into the wider political and public sector milieu. This is well illustrated by Knox and Janenova’s chapter on Kazakhstan when they quote the local proverb: ‘if one person gets a high post, forty people, who are close of him/her will get good positions’. If social structure is a strong influencing factor on patronage, then one would expect to see country studies identifying loyalty to clan, tribe or ethnic group, feature in their findings. In fact, few countries claimed this type of patronage as the dominant mode. Rather surprisingly Japan which can be described as having a homogeneous social structure highlighted the fact that zoku politics, a political clan based on reciprocal political and economic interests, is one of the defining features of Japanese politics. Kikuchi in his contribution to this collection therefore noted the existence of group experts in the Peters’ typology or those who work to protect the rights and interests of specific groups. That said, he argued that this clan interest had less to do with patronage than economics and concluded that patronage practices in Japanese politics were limited in scope and depth compared with other democracies in Asia. India is also an example where ethnic loyalties play an increasingly significant role in patronage and the politicisation of the civil service. Saxena argues in this volume that since the election of Prime Minister

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Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), powerful posts in the Indian Administrative Service are given to those officers who are close to the Prime Minister and willing to submit to the Hindutva ideology, a form of right wing Hindu nationalism which believes Islam to be its greatest enemy. In this sense, we see evidence of ‘group experts’ from the Peter’s typology promoting the interests of Hindus over Muslims, scheduled castes (Dalits) and scheduled tribes (Adivasis) who are economically and socially marginalised. Saxena cites examples of civil servants using social media to promote the ideological position of the BJP, contrary to their code of conduct requiring them to remain politically neutral. Vietnam presents an interesting example of ‘social liaisons’ from the Peters typology. Although Quang Le et al argue that under the Communist Party of Vietnam political clans should not exist, there are group interest relationships built around material and spiritual issues. The transformation of culturevillageoise and the peasant family structure, they argue, have created greater opportunities for patronage in Vietnam where social rather than partisan relations feature, although loyalty to the political party still remains the dominant mode of patronage.

13.2.3  Political Regime Types In the framing chapter to this collection, we hypothesised that regime types must be particularly important in explaining patronage. In countries where the political system is controlled by a single leader or a small elite, then we might expect personal trust to be the dominant factor in the selection of individuals to fill government jobs. In other words, we would anticipate evidence of programmatic technocrats and/or political agents. In our country chapters the obvious examples here are Vietnam, Kazakhstan, the Philippines and China. In the case of Kazakhstan, Knox and Janenova provide evidence of the spoils system. When ministers are appointed they look to close and trusted friends and relatives as a support mechanism in delivering their portfolios. Loyalty to the minister (programmatic technocrats) becomes the overriding priority for patronage appointees and their career t­rajectories are inextricably linked to the success of the minister. The Philippines with its presidential form of government appears to institutionalise a populist regime where the ‘Patron-in-Chief’ or

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the Philippine President has considerable influence over appointments under the constitution. Villamejor-Mendoza argues in this volume that political parties and the political system do not explain the patronage in the Philippines, rather the president has vast powers which are increasingly abused for the purposes of political accommodation. Hence, the nature of patronage is personal loyalty to the President or his political elite in the form of programmatic technocrats or political agents. South Korea as a presidential republic is an interesting case. Kim et al in this volume show a strongly meritocratic system of appointments for civil servants but the dominance of programmatic technocrats in those appointments made by the President. Vietnam does not, however, appear to follow this pattern of loyalty to a single leader. It offers an interesting example of Confucian families as an important aspect of regime type. These are families who excel in education and achieve mandarin status, thereby taking on different positions in the state apparatus. Quang Le et al argue that families are organised to study, pass examinations and become mandarins which builds prestige in Confucianism and expands social relations. In these circumstances, patronage flourishes and Confucian families move up the social hierarchy, through ‘social liaisons’ in the Peters’ typology. China is perhaps less nuanced when it comes to a discussion of political regime. As Zhu et al point out, since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party has been the single ruling party in the country and monopolises all public sector personnel issues. Unsurprisingly in this unitary authoritarian regime, loyalty is firmly to the political party (party professionals and apparatchiks). The authors point out that loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party and competence are not mutually exclusive and does not necessarily mean sacrificing the regime’s competence in a system which employs some seven million civil servants.

13.2.4  Level of Development We might also speculate that the level of a country’s development impacts on the type and extent of patronage. In this regard, appointees in highly developed countries are more likely to be chosen for their public policy expertise than political loyalty, accepting the point made above in relation to China’s case. In our sample of countries,

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the most developed countries are Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Singapore is the exemplary case. Mussagulova and Wong argue in this volume that Singapore’s civil service is lauded around the world for being corruption free, highly professional and managerially efficient yet certain aspects still bear the institutional and cultural vestiges of politically motivated appointments. Importantly, they conclude that politically motivated considerations surfaced in public service positions where ideological alignment is critical to policy coherence and efficacy. Unsurprisingly, therefore, party professionals and programmatic technocrats feature largely in Singapore’s patronage appointments. There are clear similarities with South Korea—a strong meritocratic system of civil service appointments but evidence of programmatic technocrats based on presidential appointments. The least developed countries in our case study chapters are India and Bangladesh, whose authors tend to focus on the politicisation of the civil service as the most prominent trend. Since Peters argues in the opening chapter that politicisation is more encompassing than patronage in that it attempts to impose overarching political control of the public bureaucracy, it may well be the case that politicians in less developed countries feel the need to exert pressure through appointments in what they perceive as inept bureaucracies. This attempt at control appears characteristic of developmental states. In the case of Bangladesh, loss in policy capacity amongst officials and greater politicisation in appointments appears to be mutually reinforcing. Rahman, in this volume, argues that civil service politicisation occurs at the cost of overall professionalism and meritocracy. Party loyalists amongst the officials are rewarded with accelerated promotion, lucrative postings and important positions after retirement. This, he suggested, unleashes fierce competition in the civil service to prove party loyalty rather than demonstrating merit. Patronage appointments are therefore party political (apparatchiks and political agents) when, given the low level of development, policy experts could play a much more important role. The case of India is similar. Saxena argues that the BJP government has further promoted a patronage-based administrative culture by giving powerful posts to those officers who are close to Prime Minister Modi since he came to power in 2014. Given India’s level of development, party professionals and technocrats would serve the country better.

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13.2.5  Path Dependency We also speculate that path dependency may influence the extent and nature of patronage amongst Asian countries in our sample. This variable may be correlated with those countries having a stable political system dominated by a single party and a strong civil service. Japan, for example, provides evidence of a political system largely dominated by the LDP with a strong bureaucratic culture which assumes primacy over the policy making system. Even when the Democratic Party of Japan, the main opposition party was in power, public policy making rested firmly in the hands of bureaucrats because of Japan’s historical and administrative culture. Singapore also provides evidence of path dependency largely due to the dominance of the People’s Action Party (PAP) since independence in 1965 and a strong well-trained civil service. Here, again we see a country which has a stable political system and meritocratic bureaucracy as the ingredients for path dependency. In the case of Singapore, Mussagulova and Wong describe this as the PAP government viewing governing competencies not just through the right ‘brains’ but also the right ‘heart’ (loyalty to the PAP). South Korea claims the influence of Confucian-based meritocratic principles which have continued to inform recruitment, retention and promotion of public officials for well over a millennium. China, on the other hand, with its one-party system, the Chinese Communist Party, has evolved over time. The revolutionary cadres under Mao’s era drawn from peasants and worker cadres have now been replaced with technocrats who can demonstrate loyalty to the party but also possess a high level of professional competence. The Great Leap Forward between 1958 and early 1960s is an example of punctuated path dependency. This campaign was a reaction to the failure of the Soviet model of industrialisation in China which promoted the use of heavy machinery in the agriculture sector. China rejected this model in favour of more labor-intensive processes. Similarly, Kazakhstan, dominated by a single political party (Nur Otan) associated with the President, has engaged in isomorphic mimicry rather than path dependency. To gain international legitimacy, including its quest to join the OECD, Kazakhstan has adopted, at least formally, many Western style New Public Management practices (e-government, public–private partnerships, open government).

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Vietnam, another country with a single-party state, under the centralised leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam has transformed from a traditional culture to a period of industrialisation, modernisation and ­international integration. In countries like India and Bangladesh, with their history of British rule until independence in 1947, one might expect strong evidence of path dependency under a parliamentary form of government. However, India’s BJP and its discriminatory policies towards Muslims have witnessed increasing politicisation of the bureaucracy. In Bangladesh, alternating civilian and military rule has eroded path dependency. The consolidation of power by the Awami League over the main opposition party (Bangladesh Nationalist Party) has also led to the erosion of path dependency based on the British system of a strong merit-based bureaucracy which is politically neutral and ready to serve whichever political party is elected to power. Mongolia falls somewhere in between countries with strong path dependency and those where the dominance of the civil service has waned in favour of patronage and politicisation. The dominance of two major political parties (Mongolia People’s Party and the Democratic Party) and the lack of ideological differences between them might suggest continuity and patronage yet there are remnants of a meritocratic civil service enhanced through recent legislative reforms. The evidence of the link between path dependency and political patronage in our sample of Asian countries is therefore mixed. We summarise the profile of the above factors in Table 13.1.

13.3  Mapping Patronage In a rough mapping exercise which draws on the narrative of each of the chapters and the authors’ description on patronage patterns, we can see evidence of apparatchiks, party professionals, programmatic technocrats, political agents, group experts and social liaisons, respectively. Given the different levels and types of patronage appointments examined in the chapter, such an overview can only be described as a crude picture of Asian countries. That said, it prompts some observations. First, loyalty to the political party is high amongst patronage appointees. This is hardly surprising but apparatchiks, the dominant group, are also there to enforce control by the party over lower levels

Party professionals Dominance of People’s Apparatchiks Action Party (PAP) since independence Programmatic technocrats in 1965

Singapore

Multi-party system but largely dominated by Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) with Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) as main opposition party

Apparatchiks Political Agents Group experts

Party system

Japan

Country

Typology location/pattern of patronage Political style

Multi-ethnic: Chinese dominated (75%), followed by Malays and Indians. None of these communities are homogeneous. Most Chinese have a degree of attachment to Confusicanism, Buddhism, or Daosim

Path dependence based on dominance of PAP rule since independence

(continued)

Highly professional and technocratic civil service based on meritocratic principles but with some limited scope for ‘politically motivated’ appointments

Strength of Civil Service

Scores 0.938 Parliamentary UNDP Human representative Development democratic republic Index Scores 48/100 in the Rank 11/189 Freedom in the countries World 2021 Classified as ‘partly free’ some political pluralism, but it constrains the growth of opposition parties and limits freedoms of expression, assembly, and association.

Path dependency

Strong evidence of Dominant civil path dependency service based on meritocratic principles Patronage practices limited in their scope and depth.

Level of Development Scores 0.919 in UNDP Human Development Index Rank: 19/189 countries

Insofar as a social class Multi-party system does persist, parliamentary it does not have the democracy ethnic basis that can Scores 96/100 in exist in multi-racial Freedom in the societies, since the World 2021 Japanese regard Classified as ‘free’ themselves as belonging to a single ethnic group.

Social structure

Table 13.1  Factors explaining political patronage

De facto one-party Party system (Chinese professionals Communist Party: (dominant CCP) group) Programmatic technocrats Party professionals… apparatchiks

China

Social structure

Long-term debate Technocrats with on whether the dual qualifications Chinese of loyalty to the bureaucracy is Party and meritocratic by professionalism promoting replace old leaders based revolutionary on performance cadres who were or more often peasant and preoccupied worker cadres with interna with low levels of competition education under between Mao’s era factions Scores 0.761 UNDP Human Development Index Ranks 85/189 countries

Strength of Civil Service

Unitary authoritarian Multi-national with regime large number of ethnic and linguistic Scores 9/100 in Freedom in groups. The Han the World (Chinese) by far the Classified as ‘not free’ largest ethnic group. Repressive programs against Uighurs and ethnic Mongolians aimed at changing demographics to ensure ‘social stability’

Path dependency

Some evidence of Remnants of path dependence meritocratic based on selection dominance of remain, some of two-party this enhanced system through recent legislation.

Level of Development Scores 0.737 UNDP Human Development Index. Ranks 99/189 countries

Political style Semi-presidential multi-party representative democracy. A hybrid presidential– parliamentary system Scores 84/100 in Freedom in the World Classified as ‘Free’.

Dominance of two Mongols are quite political parties: homogenous Mongolian People’s ethnically: Khalkha Party (MPP) and Mongols comprise Democratic Party (DP) 80% of the Lack of policy population competition—difficult Familial relations— to distinguish loyalty to ideological differences politicians from between the two immediate family parties members

Party apparatchiks Party professionals Political agents

Party system

Mongolia

Country

Typology location/pattern of patronage

Table 13.1  (cont.)

(continued)

Increasing number Civil service is a of Presidential product of appointees not colonial past and years of vetted as to their qualifications self-determination for third-level positions Scores 0.718 in UNDP Development Index Ranks 107/189 countries

Republic with a presidential form of government Scores 56/100 in the Freedom in the World Index Classified as ‘partly free’

Ethnically diverse. Of these, the largest are the Tagalog of Luzon and the Cebuano of the Visayan Islands, each of which constitutes about one-fifth of the country’s total population.

Weak political parties and political party system

Programmatic technocrats Political agents

Philippines

Free movement between political and administrative civil servants. Patronage exercised through President and ministers acting autonomously

Formally adopted western style NPM practices to gain international legitimacy but pervasive corruption, nepotism and patronage prevails

Scores 0.825 in UN Human Development Index. Ranked 51/189 countries

Unitary Republic Authoritarian regime Scores 23/100 in Freedom in the World index Classified as ‘not free’

Familial society, clan and tribes tradition Multi-ethnic society, largest group Kazakhs, followed by Russians. Other ethnic groups include: Uzbeks, Uighurs and Tajiks, along with Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars and Koreans.

De Facto one-party system (Nur Otan)

Kazakhstan Programmatic technocrats Party professionals

Party professionals Programmatic technocrats Apparatchiks

Party professionals Apparatchiks Social Liaisons

Taiwan

Vietnam

Country

Typology location/pattern of patronage

Table 13.1  (cont.)

Single-party state under the centralised leadership of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV)

Dominance of two major parties: KMT and Democratic Progressive Party

Party system Semi-presidential system Democracy Scores 94/100 in Freedom in the World Index Classified as ‘free’.

Political style

Totalitarian Complex ethnoScores 19/100 in linguistic country but with Vietnamese Freedom in the the largest ethnic World Index group. Classified as ‘not free’ Monarchy–Confucian model

Two main ethnic groups: Taiwanese and mainland Chinese

Social structure

Path dependency

UNDP Development Index = 0.704. Ranks 117/189 countries

Centralised inflexible form of civil service with unclear demarcation between political appointees and senior civil servants

Strength of Civil Service

Transforming from Confusian family organised to traditional culture study, pass to period of exams and industrialisation, become a modernisation mandarin. and international integration

No data available Moved from authoritarian from UN HDI regime to but Taiwan has democracy become a key global player in the world of information and communication technology. Taiwan belongs to the group of 4 Asian Tigers (along with South Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong)

Level of Development

Politicisation of civil service

Alternating civilian and military rule.

UNDP Development Index = 0.632 Ranks 133/189 countries

Parliamentary form of government Scores 39/100 on Freedom in World Classified as ‘partly free’

The majority of the population of Bangladesh is Bengali—a term describing both an ethnic and a linguistic group.

(continued)

Increasing politicisation of the civil service

Vestiges of British system of parliamentary democracy

UNDP Development Index = 0.645 Ranks 131/189 countries

Formally a democracy with multi-party system but becoming a majoritarian and illiberal democracy under BJP. Scores 67/100 in Freedom in the World report. Described as ‘partly free’

Evidence of: While India is a Diverse multi-ethnic Apparatchiks and multi-party country that is political agents democracy, the home to thousands (politicised government led by of small ethnic and civil servants Prime Minister tribal groups. loyal to the Narendra Modi and Muslims, scheduled BJP Party) his Hindu nationalist castes (Dalits) and Group Experts Bharatiya Janata Party scheduled tribes (work to (BJP) has presided (Adivasis) enhance the over discriminatory economically and rights of policies and increased socially Hindus over violence affecting the marginalised. Muslims) Muslim population.

Awami League (AL) Bangladesh Evidence of consolidating power Party professionals over main opposition Apparatchiks party Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) through sustained harassment of opposition

India

South Korea

Country

Evidence of programmatic technocrats

Typology location/pattern of patronage

Table 13.1  (cont.)

Social structure

Political style

The majority of the Presidential Republic Multi-party system in population of South Scores 83/100 in which two parties Korea are Korean Freedom in the have tended to with a very small World dominate, although minority of Japanese Described as ‘free’ their names and and ethnic Chinese. composition have often changed. The main two political parties in South Korea are the liberal Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and the conservative People Power Party (PPP), formerly the United Future Party (UFP).

Party system UNDP Development Index = 0.916 Ranks 23/189 countries

Level of Development

Influences of Confucianism dictating the statecraft of Korea and embedding the principles of merit-based career bureaucracy

Path dependency

Institutionalisation of strong merit-based bureaucracy within civil services. Political appointments at confined to presidential appointees.

Strength of Civil Service

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Political Patronage in Asian Bureaucracies Table 13.2  Asian patronage patterns Asian political systems: Patronage patterns Policy

Politics

Party

Party professionals:  Singapore  Mongolia  China  Vietnam  Kazakhstan  Taiwan  Bangladesh

Personal

Programmatic technocrats:  Singapore  China  Kazakhstan  Philippines  Taiwan   South Korea Group experts:  Japan  India

Apparatchiks:  Japan  Singapore  Mongolia  China  Vietnam  India  Taiwan  Bangladesh Political agents:  Japan  Mongolia  India  Philippines

Group

Social liaisons:  Vietnam

of government, including officials charged with implementing party policies (Table 13.2). Party professionals also feature largely in Asian bureaucracies. These are appointees who are also loyal to the political party and, in addition, have strong professional skills typically from the private sector, thinktanks and universities. Such skills are important particularly when countries have lower levels of development (Vietnam, Bangladesh) and could benefit from external expert advice and support. The third most prevalent appointees are programmatic technocrats who display personal loyalty to an individual minister and come with policy expertise in a particular domain. Technocrats appear to be appointed in countries which are well developed (Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore) or those on an upward trajectory (Kazakhstan and China).

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The final group of appointees, political agents, group experts and social liaisons feature to a lesser extent in Asian bureaucracies. These groups are characterised as providing support to a political leader (political agent); working to protect the rights and interests of specific groups such as minority cultures (group experts); and providing political support to leaders for social rather than partisan reasons (social liaisons), respectively. From this rough summary, we can conclude that loyalty to the political party features largely amongst political appointees in Asian bureaucracies, rather than personal loyalty to individual politicians or clan, tribe or ethnic group. Given the nature of the political systems in Asian countries which are dominated by autocracies (China, Kazakhstan, Vietnam and the Philippines) or de facto one-party systems (Singapore, India and Bangladesh), such a conclusion may not be surprising. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that in countries with Confucian traditions or strong clan/tribal history (Vietnam, South Korea and Kazakhstan), loyalty to party or minister takes ­preference over loyalty to the group.

13.4  Conclusions and Further Research These studies of patronage in a range of Asian countries demonstrate both similarities and differences in how these appointments are used within governments. Although some countries attempt to disguise the existence of patronage, it does exist in some form in all these countries, and indeed in all countries in the world. Despite its ubiquity, patronage manifests itself in different forms, and to differing degrees. These Asian cases can also be compared with similar research in Latin America (Panizza, Peters and Ramos, 2022). At the national level in those countries there was relatively little mass patronage of the sort that exist in some Asian countries, but if anything the patronage appointments were more central to governance. Political tasks were important in some cases, but the majority of the appointments in the seven countries in that study were directed at making better public policies. Comparisons of this sort are needed for the remainder of the world as well. There is good primary evidence on patronage in Europe (Kopecký and Scherlis, 2008) and secondary evidence in the United States, but less systematic research has been done on other parts of

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the world (but see Armstrong, 2016). In addition, these chapters on Asia contain a variety of information drawn from different types of sources. Some of the differences in the data are a function of the types of political systems, and their relative openness to research. The type of record-keeping within the public service also influences the ­availability of some sorts of data. Attempting to develop more comprehensive information on patronage will involve building and accessing more administrative data about turnovers in office, and their relationship to the timing of changes in political control of government. We would also need to interview political leaders more extensively about their uses of appointments and their evaluations of patronage in government. We might also want to ask citizens how they evaluate the role of patronage. In short, it will be both interesting and important to develop more complete data on patronage, to do so comparatively, and to consider the true impacts of patronage appointments on governance.

References Armstrong, T. J., 2016. Oswald Brierly and the Art of Patronage: A Colonial Journey. Cooper, C. A. 2020. At the Pleasure of the Crown: The Politics of Bureaucratic Appointments. UBC Press. Kopecký, P., Mair, P. and Spirova, M. eds., 2012. Party Patronage and Party Government in European Democracies. Oxford University Press. Kopecký, P. and Scherlis, G., 2008. Party Patronage in Contemporary Europe. European Review, 16(3), pp. 355–371. Muñoz, P., 2021. Latin America Erupts: Peru Goes Populist. Journal of Democracy, 32(3), pp. 48–62. Panizza, F., Peters, B. G. and Ramos Larraburu, C. R., 2019. Roles, Trust and Skills: A Typology of Patronage Appointments. Public Administration, 97(1), pp. 147–161. Panizza, F., Peters, B. G. and Larraburu, C. R. eds., 2022. The Politics of Patronage Appointments in Latin American Central Administrations. University of Pittsburg Press. Peters, B. G., and Pierre, J. 2004. Politicization of the Civil Service: Concepts, Causes, Consequences. In The Politicization of the Civil Service in Comparative Perspective (pp. 13–25). Routledge.

Index

Abdulai, A.-G., 69, 73, 91 Abe, H., 115, 117 Aberbach, J. D., 30, 44, 113, 117, 157, 178, 188, 197 Abinales, P. N., 217, 225 accountability, 34–35 Ackerman, Susan R., 212, 213, 225 Adiyamaa, S., 146, 151 administrative reform, 26, 55 Adolph, C., 259 advisors, 7 Afghanistan, 12 Akizuki, K., 117 Alfiler, M. C. P., 205, 225 Almendares, N., 74, 91 Altankhuyag, N., 132 Andreas, J., 239, 257 Anews., 134, 151 Apparatchiks, 9, 42, 114, 139, 159, 175, 192, 202, 221, 255, 309, 314, 320 Appiah, D., 69, 73, 91 Aquino, Benigno II, 215 Aquino, Corazon, 215, 217–220 Armstrong, J. D., 240, 257 Armstrong, T. J., 329 Arriola, L. R., 12, 17, 260, 285 Arroyo, Gloria Macapagal, 215, 218, 220 Askim, J., 173, 178, 260, 285 Aspinall, E., 101, 115, 118 autocracy, 260, 281, 288, 313 Bach, T., 5, 17, 200, 225 Badamjunai, T., 134 Badarch, K., 122, 128, 129 Badie, Bertrand, 91 Baimenov, A. M., 77, 92 Bangladesh, 3, 14, 69, 314, 318, 320

330

Bangladesh Public Commission, 82–83 bureaucratic careers, 76 developmental state, 69–70, 75 elections, 75 interview methodology, 70–71 regulatory commissions, 70, 85 Banik, Dan, 55, 67 Baracskay, Daniel, 200, 225 Baraybar, V., 261, 281, 287 Bardhan, Pranab, 54, 67 Barr, M. D., 38, 44 Bat-Ulzii, Erdenedalai, 134, 151 Bataa, S., 140 Batalla, E. V. C., 228 Batbayar, Erdenebat, 128, 151 Battulga, Kh., 134, 143, 146, 147 Batzaya, S., 133, 152 Bauer, M., 1, 15, 17–20 Bayarkhuu, D., 152 Bayartsogt, S., 132 Bayasgalan, S., 153 Baylon, Minerva S., 204, 227 Bearfield, D. A., 113, 118, 154, 155, 157, 159, 178 Becker, S., 1, 17–20 Bell, D. A., 27, 28, 44 Berenschot, W., 7, 18, 101, 115, 118 Berlinski, S., 187, 197 Berman, E. M., 93, 117, 118, 180, 181, 198 Bermeo, N., 74, 92 Bersch, K., 69, 92 Bertelsmann Stiftung, 75, 80, 85, 92, 124, 152 Bertelsmann Transformation Country Report, 278 Bertelsmann Transformation Index, 124, 260, 261, 285 Béteille, Tara, 59, 67

Index Bhat, Naseer Ahmad, 57, 67 Billington, James H., 224, 225 Bioy, X., 7, 19 Blair, H., 79, 80, 88, 92 Bodoo, D., 138, 139 Bogd Khaan, 137–139 Bogd Lama, 127 Bohr, A., 286 Boräng, F., 73, 92 Bourguignon, 85, 95 Bowornwathana, Bidya, 226 Boyne, G. A., 181 Brans, M., 2, 18, 19 Bratton, M., 279, 285 Brauer, B., 286 Brazil, 51 Brehm, J. O., 6, 18 Brewer, G. A., 21 Brierly, S., 2, 18 Brillantes, A. B., 43, 46, 185, 198, 205, 217, 225, 226 Brun, D. Abente, 19, 118 Brusco, V., 21 Bur, J., 16, 18 Burns, John P., 226, 231, 234, 257 Cabrera, L., 57, 68 Camones, P. J., 4, 20 Campbell, C., 262, 285 Campbell, J. C., 111, 118 Canada, 2 Carino, Ledivina V., 204, 217, 225 Casas, A., 18 Chan, A., 310 Chan, H. C., 34, 38, 39, 44, 46 Chand, Vikram K., 59, 67 Chang, T. C., 156, 178 Chang, Y., 288, 309 Chatterjee, E., 61, 67 Chen, 156, 161, 164, 172, 176, 232 Chen, D.-Y., 179, 180 Chen, H.-C., 179 Chen, M., 179 Chen, P. S., 38, 44 Chen, Shui-bian, 167, 169, 170, 174 Chen, Y., 257 Cheng, L., 175, 176, 179 Cheng, T.-J., 179 Cheung, B. L. A., 27, 44 Chiang, Ching-Kuo, 161, 175, 176

331 Chiang, Kai-Sheck, 161, 177 China, 1, 4, 12, 14, 17, 51, 231, 288, 312, 317, 319 bureaucratic performance, 233 bureaucratic politics, 243–244 Central Committee, 233 Communist Party, 231, 234, 317 consultative authoritarianism, 240 corruption, 239 ethnic minorities, 240 factional competition, 232 gender equality, 241 ministers, 234–235 National Policy Foundation, 167 policy expertise, 245–247 reorganization, 238–239 State Council, 233–235 state-owned enterprises, 231 technocracy, 239 vice ministers, 236 Chinn, D., 29, 44 Chiu, Y.-C., 156, 161, 179 Choi, K. H, 191 Choi, S. J., 184, 197 Choi, S. O., 185, 197 Choibalsan, Kh., 140 Chu, Y., 161, 179 Chubb, J. E., 180, 198 Chun, Doohwan, 191, 195 Cingolani, L., 76, 77, 92, 94 civil service, 1, 101 compensation, 6, 26, 52 recruitment, 2, 25–26, 43 strength of, 15–16 Weberian model, 1, 50 Civil Service Council of Mongolia, 129, 130, 131, 135, 152 Clapham, C., 279, 285 Clark, H., 77, 92 clientelism, 3, 4, 79, 100–101, 112, 117, 121–122, 157, 199–201, 260 coalition government, 7 Cohen, J. E., 169, 179 competence, 188–189 Connaughton, B., 18, 285 Connelly, B. L., 32, 44 Constantino-David, Karina, 216, 218, 226 Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, 30, 44

332 Cooper, C. A., 3, 18, 50, 67, 69, 92, 154, 179, 312, 329 Coppedge, M., 276–279, 285 Corpuz, Onofre D., 204, 226 corruption, 26, 53, 59, 136, 159, 199, 203, 260, 262, 264–265, 297 Crotty, W. J., 19 Cruz, C., 260, 285 Curtis, G., 115, 117, 118 Dahles, H., 260, 287 Dahlström, Carl, 1, 18, 50, 67 Damdinsuren, Oyunsuren, 121, 314 Dargent, E., 261, 287 Das, Sabyasachi, 54, 62, 67 Daud, S., 35, 44 Davaa, J., 139 Davao, San Beda, 219 De Guzman, R. P., 205, 226 De Leon, Kristinne Lara, 199, 208, 218, 226 De Tommaso, Giulio, 68 Deep State, 1 democratic backsliding, 74 Derlien, H.-U., 30, 44, 46 Deshpande, S., 53, 67 Desierto, Diane Alferez, 225 Dettman, S., 260, 285 Dewan, T., 187, 197 Diamond, L., 19, 118 Dickenson, H., 286 Dierkes, Julian, 121, 125, 152 Dimson, J., 44 distributive politics, 3 Domínguez, I., 287 Douglas, J. W., 45 Dowding, K., 187, 197 Driscoll, B., 118, 261, 285 Duan, H., 258 Dugarjav, M., 139 Dugersuren, 140 Dunning, T., 21 Durant, R., 188, 197 Dussauge-Laguna, M. I., 4, 10, 18 Duterte, Rodrigo, 15, 215, 219, 220 Duverger, M., 162, 179 Eckstein, H., 279, 286 economic development, 317–319 Ecuador, 11

Index Edin, M., 232, 258 Eichbaum, C., 27, 44 Elbegdorj, Ts., 143, 144 Elite cohesion, 38–39 Ellwein, T., 44 Endriga, Jose N., 204, 205, 226 Enkhbayar, N., 135 Eriksen, S. S., 11, 18 Estrada, Joseph, 215 ethnic groups, 10, 12, 38, 72 Europe, 11, 13, 27, 30 Evans, Peter B., 50, 68, 69, 76, 92, 185, 197 Evertsen, K. F., 80, 92 expertise, 190 Eymeri-Douzans, J. M., 7, 9, 18, 19 Farazmand, A., 91 Fearon, J. D., 12, 19 Fernedez-Carag, M. T., 205, 216, 225 Flinders, M., 159, 160, 179 Foster, P., 286 Francesch-Huidoboro, M., 40, 44 Freedom House, 124, 152, 262, 286 Freeman, J., 41, 44 Friedman, E., 46 Fukui, H., 117, 118 Gainsborough, M., 288, 309 Gandhi, 66 Gates, S., 6, 18 Gerlak, A. K., 258 Gibney, F., 118 Gleeson, I., 44 Goetz, K., 30, 45 Golden, M., 3, 19 Gomez, E. T., 260, 285, 286 Gomm, R., 286 Goodman, A., 44 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 124 Gould-Davies, N., 286 government effectiveness, 274–275 government outsourcing, 41 Gries, P. H., 240, 258 Grindle, Merilee S., 4, 19 Groot, G., 240, 259 Guedes-Neto, J., 6, 19 Guo, S., 234, 258 Gupta, Vishal, 54, 62, 67

Index Haggard, S., 184, 197 Haglund, E. T., 198 Hahm, S. D., 174, 179, 187, 197, 198 Hamilton-Hart, N., 40, 45 Hammerschmid, G., 17, 200, 225 Hammersley, M., 286 Han, C., 5, 19, 40, 45 Han Zheng, 252 Hansard (Singapore), 35, 45 Hao, P.-C., 162, 168, 179 Haque, M. S., 34, 35, 40, 45 Harriss, J., 67 Hart, P. ‘t, 173, 179 Harvey, C. J., 75, 92 Hassan, M., 74, 80, 81, 85, 87, 92, 93 Hayao, K., 113, 118 He, B., 240, 258 Heclo, Hugh, 8, 19 Hedman, Eva-Lotta E., 203, 226 Heikkila, T., 243, 258 Hess, S., 188, 190, 197 Heydarian, R. J., 219, 226 Heywood, Paul M., 199, 226 Hill, M., 38, 45 Ho Chi Minh, 290 Ho, K. C., 45 Ho, K. L., 45 Hodder, R., 199, 226 Hollibaugh, G. E., 158, 175, 179, 189, 197 Hong, S., 186, 197 Hood, C., 2, 19 Horton, G., 179, 197 Hossain, A. A., 80, 81, 93, 260, 286 Hsu, Y.-M., 156, 161, 162, 173, 179 Hu, L. T., 156, 180 Hu-Wen, 239, 249 Hua, Guofeng, 238 Huang, C.-H., 176, 180 Huang, Tong-Yi, 154–156, 168, 172, 174, 180 Huang, Zong-Xian, 154, 156, 180 Huber, J. D., 69, 93, 187, 197 Hung, M. J., 156, 180 Hutchcroft, P. D., 10, 16, 19, 111, 112, 116, 118 Hyden, G., 76, 93 implementation, 28, 63 Index of Party Patronage, 263

333 India, 3, 5, 12, 14, 15, 312, 314–316, 318, 320 accountability, 61 Administrative Reforms Commission, 67 Bharatiya Janata Party, 49, 55, 57, 316 Hindu nationalism, 55–57 Indian Administrative Service, 49 Indian Civil Service, 49 legislatures, 54, 60–61 political control of postings, 58–59, 62 political neutrality, 56–57 recruitment, 52–54 Indonesia, 5 Islam, M. M., 79, 81, 93 Iyer, Lakshmi, 62, 67 Jackman, D., 75, 93 Jadamba, N., 138, 139 James, O., 181 Jan, C.-Y., 163, 172, 180 Janenova, Saltanat, 260, 262, 263, 286, 315, 316 Japan, 3, 4, 12, 14, 66, 99, 314, 315, 319 Cabinet Bureau of Personnel Affairs, 106, 116 Cabinet Législation Bureau, 109 Clans (Zoku), 105, 114 constitution, 102, 103 Democratic Party of Japan, 99 Government reform, 99 Liberal Democratic Party, 104, 115, 117, 314 National Personnel Authority, 112 National Public Service Act, 103 Special advisors, 99, 109 special civil service, 107, 112–113 Jargalsaikhan, Mendee, 122, 124, 132, 152, 153 Jargalsaikhan, U. B., 140, 152 Jiang, J., 7, 19, 232, 244, 258, 288, 310 Johansson, M., 27, 47 Johnson, C., 69, 76, 93, 111, 118 Jones, Clayton, 217, 226 Jung, K., 179, 197 Junisbai, A., 286 Junisbai, B., 269, 286

334 Kang, D., 197 Kang, Hyejin, 183 Kang, Siqin, 231 Kapur, Devesh, 50, 51, 62, 67 Karlsen, R., 178, 285 Kassenova, N., 286 Katz, R. S., 19 Kaufmann, D., 262, 275, 286 Kazakhstan, 3, 260–276 278, 280, 312, 316, 319 Clans, 265 control of bureaucracy, 270–271 local government, 263–264 Nur Otan (political party), 260, 262, 269, 273 social networks, 267, 282 trade unions, 272 Keefer, P., 260, 285 Kenny, P. D., 3, 5, 19, 113, 118 Kerkvliet, B. J. T., 202, 226, 288, 310 Ketchen, D. J., 44 Khaliun, E., 145, 147 Khan, A. A., 80, 81, 93 Khan, M. M., 79, 80, 93 Khangai, L., 152 Kherlen, Badarch, 152 Khurelsukh, U., 123, 135, 143, 146, 148, 149 Kikuchi, M., 116, 118, 119, 315 Kim, B. H., 197 Kim, B. K., 184, 185, 197 Kim, Byong-Seob, 95, 183, 186, 198 Kim, Dae-Jung, 191, 195 Kim, Min Han, 183 Kim, P. S., 186, 197, 198 Kim, S., 5, 19, 40, 45 Kim, Y., 183, 191,195, 197 Kingdon, John W., 224, 226 Kingston, J., 112, 115, 118 Kitschelt, H., 119, 201, 226 Knox, 260, 262, 263, 286, 311, 315, 316 Koh, B. C., 118 Kohli, A., 184, 198 Kolltveit, K., 178, 285 Kopecký, P., 1, 2, 4, 11, 19, 27, 45, 69, 93, 118, 122, 152, 154, 155, 157,159, 160, 180, 200, 226, 260, 261, 263, 265, 286, 311, 328, 329

Index Kraay, A., 262, 275, 286 Krause, G. A., 27, 45, 188–190, 198 Krauss, E., 112, 118 Kreuzer, Peter, 200, 226 Kurzman, C., 156, 161, 182 Kyrgystan, 260, 275–276, 278, 280 labor unions, 10 Landry, P. F., 232, 258 Lapuente, Victor, 1, 18, 67 Laruelle, M., 286 Latin America, 10, 11, 16, 328 Le, Minh-Quang, 288 Le, Quang-Minh, 288, 314, 316, 317 Ledeneva, A., 226, 228 Lee, C., 31, 46 Lee, C. K., 69, 93 Lee, D. S., 158, 180 Lee, E. W., 45 Lee, G. O. M, 2, 19 Lee, H., 40, 45 Lee, M., 191, 195 Lee, S. Y., 179, 197, 198 Lee, T., 40, 45 Leng, Tse-Kang, 182 Levitsky, S., 287 Lewis, D., 260, 286 Lewis, D. E., 28, 45, 154, 157, 179, 180, 187, 189, 197, 198, 219, 221, 227 Li, B., 258 Li, D. D., 258 Li, K, 238, 250 Li, H., 257, 258 Li, Pend, 232, 234, 238, 239 Lian, K. F., 38, 45 Lieberthal, K., 236, 238, 258 Lijphart, A., 13, 19 Lillas, J., 286 Lim, L., 31, 45 Lindberg, S., 279, 287 Liu, M., 258, 259 Löffler, L., 17, 225 London, Jonathan D., 288–300, 310 Loong, Lee Hsien, 27, 45 loyalty, 6, 64–65, 72, 111, 132, 158, 169, 187–189, 266, 328 Lu, L., 31, 46 Lu, X., 258, 259 Luguusharav, Byambakhand, 121

335

Index Lührmann, A., 287 Lương Đửc Thiêp, 297, 310 Ma, Ying-jeou, 167, 169, 170, 172, 174 Macapagal-Arroyo, 218, 220 MacFarquhar, R., 232, 258 Mackenzie, G. C., 189, 198 Maclachlan, P., 112, 118 Madrid, R. L., 15, 20 Mahmood, Mahroor, 136, 152 Mahmud, W., 80, 81, 85, 93 Mainwaring, S., 13, 19 Mair, P., 19, 122, 152, 180, 200, 226, 263, 329 Maitrot, M., 75, 93 Majoritarian political systems, 13–14, 66 Mallinson, K., 282, 286 Mani, Anandi, 62, 67 Mansergh, L., 173, 174, 180 Mao, Zedong, 140, 239 Marcos, F, 209, 217, 218, 220 Marquardt, K. L., 287 Martinez-Gallardo, C., 169, 180, 187, 197 Maskin, E., 232, 258 Massey, A., 119 Matheson, A., 69, 94 Matthews, F., 159, 160, 179 Matthias, S., 259 Mauzy, D., 34, 35, 37, 39, 46 Maxima Consulting, 136, 152 Maxwell, L., 275, 287 Mayntz, R., 30, 46 McCourt, W., 69, 94 McCoy, Alfred, 202, 227 McDonnell, D.l, 57, 68 McKinsey Global Institute, 76, 94 Meer, F. M. van der, 95 Mendoza, Maria Fe Villamejor, 227 Mendoza, Ronald U., 202, 204, 227 merit system, 30, 263, 311 Mexico, 10, 11 Meyer-Sahling, J., 19, 69, 76, 88, 90, 94,180, 286 Milne, R. S., 34, 35, 37, 46 Min, D., 3, 19 Ministry of Civil Service, 166 Minow, M., 41, 44

Mintrom, Michael, 224, 227 Miranda, 202, 223 Modi, Narendra, 49, 51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 63, 316, 318 Moe, T. M., 157, 180, 188, 198 Mongolia, 3, 14, 121, 312, 315, 320 ambassadors, 144–147 Chinggis Khaan, 127 Civil Service Council, 122 Civil service recruitment, 129–131 Clans, 202 Communist party rule, 127–128 constitution, 123 democratic party, 125 democratization, 124 diplomatic service, 136–139 elections, 123–124 Mongolian People’s Party, 126, 141–142 non-governmental organizations, 178 parliament, 129, 153 party system, 124–125 public employment, 129 social groups, 151 Moniruzzaman, Md., 75, 94 Monsod, Toby C., 200, 216–219, 221, 227 Montsame, 152 Moon, C. I., 197 Moon, Jae, 198 Moon, Jaein, 191, 195 Moon, M. J., 197, 198 Moseley, A., 181 Mostafa, S. M. D., 75, 80, 94 Mouton, S., 19 Moynihan, D. P., 1, 20, 157, 181, 188, 198 Mueller, H., 69, 94 Mukherjee, Amitabha, 68, 75 Mukherjee, P., 92 Müller, J. W., 4, 12, 20 Munkhtamir, B., 135, 153 Muñoz, P., 261, 281, 287, 313, 329 Muramatsu, M., 118 Murtazashvili, J. B., 12, 20 Mussagulova, Assel, 25, 318, 319 Nakamura, A., 116, 119 Nathan, A. J., 258

336 Nathan, R. P., 157, 181, 188, 232 National Statistical Office, Mongolia, 129, 153 Naughton, B., 259 Nazarbayev, Nursultan, 262, 268, 273, 285 Nazare, M., 21 Neary, I., 111, 115, 119 Nehru, 66 Neopatrimonialism, 277–278, 306 Neto, O. A., 154, 158, 171, 181 Neuhold, C., 95 New Public Management, 4–5, 26, 40, 128 Ngô Đửc Thịnh, 292, 294, 295, 310 Nguyen, V. T., 295, 310 Nistotskaya, M., 76, 94 Nixey, J., 286 Noland, M., 289, 310 non-party states, 13 Norman, Philippa, 224, 227 North Korea, 289 Norway, 51 Nyamulzii, A., 134, 153 Obama, Barack, 158 Ocampo, Jude B., 202, 227 Ocampo, Romeo B., 204, 227 O’Connell, A. J., 188–190, 198 O’Dwyer, C., 14, 20 OECD, 70, 78, 94 Okhtin, A. L., 139 Oksenberg, M., 236, 258 Osman, F. A., 80,81, 95 Ouyang, Y., 154, 158, 182, 188–190, 198 Oyun-Erdene, L., 125, 146, 148 Oyunsuren, D., 141, 153 Pacho, A. G., 226 Page, E. C., 45 Painter, M., 28, 46, 116, 119 Panievsky, A., 56, 68 Panizza, F. E., 2, 8–11, 18–20, 69, 93, 95, 113, 119, 154, 155, 157–160, 180, 181, 201, 227, 260, 263, 265, 281, 286, 287, 289–291, 302, 303, 310, 311, 328, 329 para–political organizations, 28, 34

Index Park, G.,191 Park, J., 184, 191 Park, S. M., 183, 185, 187, 197, 198 Party systems, 13, 159, 313–314 institutionalization, 202–203, 313 Parvez, S., 75, 80, 95 Patel, Sardar, 66 path dependency, 319–321 patronage, types of apparatchiks, 9, 42, 114, 139, 159, 175, 192, 202, 221, 255, 309, 314, 320 group experts, 114, 192, 304, 307, 309, 315 party professionals, 114, 116, 159, 175, 192, 195, 202, 221, 254, 302, 304–305, 317, 320 political agents, 9, 114, 121, 135, 143, 159, 192, 202, 222, 224, 255, 303, 316, 320 programmatic technocrats, 9, 114, 159, 175–176, 192, 193, 196, 202, 221, 223–224, 255, 302, 309, 314, 316, 320 social liasons, 9, 114, 160, 192, 193, 281 Pekkan, R. J., 112, 118 Pempel, T. J., 112, 115, 119 personalistic politics, 15, 279–280 Peru, 11 Pervez, S., 75, 80, 95 Peters, B. Guy, 1–3, 5, 6, 12, 18–20, 27, 42, 46, 50, 68, 69–74, 77, 93, 95, 113, 119, 121, 131, 154, 159, 160, 175, 177, 181, 188, 190, 192, 200, 201, 221–224, 227, 243, 244, 254–256, 261, 262, 281, 282, 285, 287, 302, 303, 310, 311, 312, 315–318, 328, 329 Peterson, P. E., 180, 198 Petrovsky N., 169, 181 Pfiffner, J. P., 189, 198 Phan, L. H. N., 297, 310 Philippines, 5, 14, 15, 312, 316–317 American control, 204–205 Career Executive Service, 209–211, 213–215

Index Career Executive Service Board, 210, 213, 214, 225 civil service, 204–212 Civil Service Commission, 205, 207, 210, 211, 225 Commission on Appointments, 212 independent commissions, 209 martial law, 217–218 non–career service, 208 padrino system, 199 political dynasties, 202 populism, 219 presidential system, 200, 203 public policy, 217–218 salaries, 211 separation of powers, 203 Spanish regime, 204 Phung, Chi–Kien, 288 Pierre, J., 3, 5, 18–20, 27, 46, 50, 68, 69, 73, 74, 95, 119, 154, 181, 282, 287, 312, 329 Podger, A., 225 Poguntke, T., 5, 20, 51, 68 policy advice, 15 policy capacity, 55, 72, 87 policy entrepreneurs, 224 policy making, 8, 158 political administrative relations, 262 political appointees, 2 political culture, 14, 50 political leadership, 33 political machines, 4 political parties, 7 political regimes, 316–317 political skills, 173 politicization, 3–4, 27, 30, 33, 50, 69, 70, 72–75, 77, 91, 101, 106, 132, 156, 216, 302, 312 Poocharoen, O. O., 31, 43, 46, 185, 198 populism, 5 presidentialization, 5, 51 Pritchett, Lant, 60, 68, 93 professionalism, 69, 89, 112, 172, 256 public policy, 5–6 Public Service Motivation, 6 Putnam, R. D., 30, 44 Qian, Y., 258 Qiao, L., 250, 258

337 Quadir, F., 77, 87, 95 Quah, J. S. T., 46 Quango, 183, 186 Quaresima, F., 69, 95 Quibria, M. G., 81, 87, 95 Quimpo, Nathan Gilbert, 202, 203, 217, 223, 227 Radchenko, Sergey, 122, 132, 153 Rahman, Mohammad Mizanur, 69, 77, 87, 95, 318 Rahman, R., 77, 87, 96 Rahman, Ziaur, 79 Raihan, S., 80, 81, 85, 87, 93, 95 Ramos, Fidel, 215 Ramos Larraburu, C., 18, 20, 310, 329 Ramseyer, M., 101, 119 Rappler, Pia Ranada, 219, 227 Rauch, James E., 50, 68, 76, 92, 185, 197 Read, B., 34, 46 Reed, S., 111, 112, 115, 119 Reforma, M. A., 226 representative bureaucracy, 10 Research Institute of Labour and Social Protection of Mongolia, 131, 153 Resh, W. G., 113, 119, 154, 157, 158, 181 responsiveness, 157–158 Reyes, Jeremiah, 200, 227 Rhee, Syngman, 184, 189–191 Rho, M., 191, 195 Rho, S. Y., 185, 198 Rho, T., 191, 195 Rhodes–Purdy, M., 15, 20 Riaz, A., 74, 79, 80, 95 Ritz, A., 21 Roberts, A. S., 188, 198 Robertson–Snape, F., 14, 20 Robles, Alan C., 218, 220, 226, 227 Rockman, B. A., 30, 44, 113, 117, 157, 178, 188, 197 Rodan, G., 39, 46 Rogenhofer, J. M., 56, 68 Rosen, S., 240, 258 Rosenbluth, F., 101, 119 Rouban, L., 69, 73, 95

338 Rudalevige, A., 157, 181 Ruhill, A. V. S., 4, 20 Ruparelia, Sanjay, 58, 68 Ryan, R. M., 94 Rybář, M., 69, 96 Sabharwal, Gaurav, 54, 62, 67 Sabharwal, M., 93 Saich, T., 234–236, 238, 241, 258, 259 Saikhanbileg, Ch., 132 Samuels, D., 171, 181 Samuels, R. J., 119 Sarker, A. E., 81, 91, 95 Satpayev, D., 286 Saxena, Naresh Chandra, 49, 62, 64, 68, 315, 316, 318 Scheiner, E., 111, 112, 116, 119 Scherlis, G., 19, 27, 45, 95, 180, 260, 263, 286, 287, 328, 329 Schiavo–Campo, Salvatore, 68 Schleiter, P., 169, 180 Schmidt, Ryan, 127, 153 Schoenhals, M., 232, 258 Scholz, S., 32, 47 Schröter, E., 20 Schuster, C., 19, 180, 286 Scott, Ian, 44 Scott, J. C., 201, 228 Seah, C. M., 34, 37, 46 Sebastian, H., 259 Selden, S. C., 10, 20 Sen, K., 93 Shameem, Bazila, 67 Shams, 81 Shan, W., 259 Shaw, R., 27, 44 Shefter, M., 13, 20, 115, 119 Shen, Y., 162, 181 Shih, 232, 233, 244, 249, 255, 269 Shimizu, Y., 119 Shirk, S. L., 255, 259 Shirking, 6 Shrivastava, K., 64, 68 Shuud.mn, 142, 153 Sidel, John T., 203, 226 Sigman, R., 279, 287 Silberman, B., 111, 119 Singapore, 3, 12, 17, 66, 312, 314, 315, 318 Administrative Service, 29–30

Index community engagement, 34 Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, 26 People’s Action Party, 34, 38, 42 People’s Association, 28, 33–38, 46 Permanent secretaries, 30–31 Personnel boards, 29 Prime Minister’s Office, 26, 46 Public service, 25–27 Public Service Division, 29, 46 Recruitment, 28 Scholarship, 31–32 Singh, B., 34, 37, 47 Sircar, Jawhar, 56, 63, 66, 68 Slater, S. F., 44 S’liwa, M., 27, 47 So, B. W. Y., 27, 47 social groups, 7, 16, 151 Social Medee, 133, 153 social structure, 315 Song, Yaowensong Sorauf, F. J., 113, 120, 154, 157, 181 South Korea, 3, 12, 14, 66, 183, 312, 317, 318 confucianism, 184 democratization, 195 demographic attributes, 190–191 Japanese colonial period, 184 ministers, 187, 192–193 national assembly, 196 nepotism, 184 state–owned enterprises, 186 Spaulding, R. M., 120 Spence, M., 32, 47 Spirova, M., 19, 122, 152, 180, 200, 226, 263, 286, 329 Staronova, K., 69, 96 Stiglitz, J. E., 32, 47 Stokes, S., 3, 21 street–level bureaucrats, 36 Su, F., 259 Su, T. T., 164, 165, 181 Subedi, D. B., 75, 80, 94 Sullivan, H., 286 Sun, Y., 240, 259 Sundell, A., 185, 198 sustainable development goals, 70, 77, 91 Swan, J., 1, 21

339

Index Tadem, T. S. E., 224, 228 Taiwan, 154, 314 authoritarian government, 160–161, 175 business groups, 156 chain of appointment, 168 civil service system, 156, 164–165, 177 democratization, 161–162 Five yuan, 162–163 ministerial appointments, 170–171 Ministry of Examination, 165 policy pledges, 173–174 political elite, 156 political factionalism, 161–162, 171–172 presidential appointments, 167–168 semi–presidentialism, 162 social factors in appointments, 177 Tajikistan, 260, 261, 275–276, 278, 280 Takenaka, H., 117, 120 Tan, K. P., 31, 33, 34, 43, 47 Tao, R., 232, 259 Tavits, M., 13, 20 Teehankee, Julio C., 201, 228 Teorell, Jan, 67 Thayer, C. A., 288, 310 Thompson, Mark Richard, 200, 227 Thomson, R., 173, 174, 180 Ting, M. M., 69, 93 Tjiptoherijanto, Prijono, 205, 228 Tokayev, Kassym–Jomart, 262, 268, 273, 285 Tomas, Dirk, 228 Torcal, M., 13, 19 Törnquist, O., 67 Trà ̂n Quô ́c Vương, 292, 293, 310 Transparency International, 25, 47, 124 Transparency International Kazakhstan, 287 Trump, Donald, 1 Trust, 159, 243, 249–253, 268, 311 Tsai, H.-C., 181 Tsai, Ing–wen, 167, 170, 172 Tsolomon, D., 138, 153 Tsou, T., 232, 259 Tsuji, K., 116, 117, 120 Tsuneki, A., 40, 47 Turkmenistan, 260, 275–276, 278, 280

Typology, 311–312 Tzelgov, E., 156, 181 Ufen, Andreas, 228 UN CEPA, 96 UNDP, 96 UNDP GCPSE, 96 Unger, J., 310 United Nations Development Program, 69, 70, 76, 96 United Nations Development Program GCPSE, 78, 96 United States, 4, 8, 13–15, 116, 146, 150, 155 Urban governance, 37 Urban politics, 17 Uruguay, 11 Uzbekistan, 260, 275–276, 278, 280 V–Dem Project 285, 287 Vajpayee, A. B., 62 Vallance, S., 28, 47 Van de Walle, N., 279, 285 Van der Wal, Z., 26, 47 Van Dyck, B., 287 Van–Biesen, G., 27, 47 Vandenabeele, W., 6, 21 Varieties of Democracy, 275–277, 279, 287 Varshney, Ashutosh, 58, 68 Veit, S., 32, 47 Veneracion, J. B. F, 204, 228 Verver, M., 260, 287 Vietnam, 3, 4, 14, 288, 313, 314, 316 Communist Party, 289, 290, 299–300, 309 French colonialism, 289 Nepotism, 294 Politburo, 301 Political science, 308 Regionalism, 309 Rural life, 293, 296 Social capital, 293–294 Social development, 291–292 Volosin, Natalia, 225 Von Maravić, P., 20 Vũ Đình Hòe, 293, 310 Wade, Robert, 58, 68 Walder, A. G., 234, 258 Wang, C. S., 182

340 Wang, F., 182 Wang, R., 240, 259 Wang, Y. T., 156, 161, 181 Wanna, J., 225 Warren, M. E., 240, 258 Wasif, F., 89, 96 Waterman, R. W., 154, 158, 182, 188, 189, 198 Webb, P., 5, 20, 51, 68 Weberian bureaucracy, 73 Wedel, J. R., 7, 21 Wehling, H.-G., 44 Weible, C. M., 258 Weingrod, A., 154, 157, 182 Weiss, M. L., 37, 47 Wen, Jiabao, 238 Werker, E., 93 White, L., 175, 176, 179 Whiting, S. H., 232, 259 Whitsel, C., 286 Wilkinson, S. I., 119, 201, 226 Wille, A., 173, 179 Wilson, J. Q., 157, 181, 182 Wong, George, 25, 318, 319 Wong, J., 46 Wong, Pak Nung, 199, 228 Woo, J. J., 40, 47 Wood, B. D., 188, 198 World Bank, 25, 48, 76, 51, 52, 68, 69, 96, 129, 132, 152, 210, 213, 228, 262, 287

Index World Development Report, 75 World Economic Forum, 25, 48 Worsdell, T., 64, 68 Wright, V., 45 Wu, Y. S., 161, 182 Xi, J=P., 236, 241, 242, 246, 250, 252, 283 Xu, C., 258 Xu, G., 69, 96 Yadav, Nisha, 67 Yamamoto, H., 109, 120 Yang, D., 259 Yesilkagit, K., 18–20 Yoon, Y. S., 191 Yu, C., 156, 176, 180, 182 Yuen, S., 35, 48 Yun, Z., 195 Zafarullah, H., 77, 81, 87, 91, 95, 96 Zang, X., 240, 259 Zhang, M., 288, 310 Zhao, Ziyang, 238, 239 Zhou, En–lai, 238 Zhou, L., 232, 257, 258 Zhu, J., 231, 259, 314, 317 Zhu, Y., 259 Zumberellkham, Shurentsetseg, 122, 132, 135, 153