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The past decades have seen a dramatic increase in the number of regulatory agencies (RAs) across countries and policy domains.
To establish credible regulatory regimes, many RAs are formally shielded from direct political influence and thus enjoy high
levels of legal autonomy. While granting formal independence to an agency may erect some instituti...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... these cases to the reference category has no impact on the results reported below. To be sure, it is possible – even likely – that not all instances of party affiliation can be observed, because such information is not always in the public domain. However, the figures presented below correspond closely to conventional expectations and earlier research about the level of politicization across West European democracies (Kopecký 2012; Müller 2006). Also, it is likely that individuals who keep a low profile with respect to their party affiliation (and therefore cannot be identified as party affiliates) are less closely associated with the party than, for instance, appointees with a life-long career in elected public office. FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE Figure 1 presents the share of appointees with party ties to the government by country. There is large variation in the extent to which appointments are politicized. Among the 16 countries, some of the ‘usual suspects’ when it comes to politicization score high, for example Austria, Italy, or Belgium. Yet, countries such as France and Germany also display high levels of party ...
Context 2
... these cases to the reference category has no impact on the results reported below. To be sure, it is possible – even likely – that not all instances of party affiliation can be observed, because such information is not always in the public domain. However, the figures presented below correspond closely to conventional expectations and earlier research about the level of politicization across West European democracies (Kopecký 2012; Müller 2006). Also, it is likely that individuals who keep a low profile with respect to their party affiliation (and therefore cannot be identified as party affiliates) are less closely associated with the party than, for instance, appointees with a life-long career in elected public office. FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE Figure 1 presents the share of appointees with party ties to the government by country. There is large variation in the extent to which appointments are politicized. Among the 16 countries, some of the ‘usual suspects’ when it comes to politicization score high, for example Austria, Italy, or Belgium. Yet, countries such as France and Germany also display high levels of party ...
Context 3
... larger number of members at the top of the agency), and combine these with shorter overall tenures (due, in some cases, to age or term limits). The implication of the numbers shown in Figure 1 for the empirical analysis is to control for cross-national variation, since national political cultures appear to vary dramatically in tolerating party politicization of the civil service. The central explanatory variable is Gilardi’s index of formal agency independence. Since the analysis focuses on appointments of top-level personnel, a simple average of the two component indices A and B which capture features of the appointment and dismissal process ...
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Citations
... Management a konzekventného vytvárania podriadených organizácií, poloautonómnych organizácií zodpovedných za implementáciu verejných politík v určitej oblasti (Verhoest, 2018), výskumníci (Bach et al. 2018;Lewis 2012;Ennser-Jedenastik 2016) poukazujú na tendenciu politikov využívať proces obsadzovania štátnozamestnaneckých miest s cieľom politizácie vedúcich pozícií v štátnej službe. ...
... Výskumníci zameriavajúci sa na západoeurópske krajiny, ktoré dlhodobo vykazujú nízku mieru politizácie (Meyer-Sahling -Veen 2012), konštatujú motiváciu znovunadobudnutia politickej kontroly, ktorú politici v podriadených organizáciách sčasti stratili (napr. Bach et al. 2020;2012;Lewis 2012;Ennser-Jedenastik 2016) vplyvom New public managementu a s ním spojenej agenturizácie. Na druhej strane v krajinách strednej a východnej Európy vykazujúcich vyššiu mieru politizácie (Meyer-Sahling -Veen 2012, Staroňová -Rybář 2021) ide najčastejšie o snahu politikov o odmeňovanie lojálnych úradníkov (Grzymala-Busse 2007; Kopecký -Scherlis 2008). ...
... Odborná literatúra formuluje viacero komplexnejších typológií (Peters 2013;Beblavý et al. 2012) ako aj čiastkových foriem politizácie (napr. Bauer -Ege 2012;Pierre 2004;Eichbaum -Shaw 2008), ktoré odrážajú viacero možností politikov zaisťovať politickú responzívnosť administratívy. Podobne, existencia niekoľkých typológií politizácie naznačuje viacero mož-ností skúmania a merania rozsahu a hĺbky politizácie. ...
... However, loss of control (e.g., agencies acting contrary to the preferences of their principals, Thatcher, 2005: 349) may expose governments to a higher risk of blame (Bertelli et al., 2015). Scholars have warned that politicians are reluctant to lose control over agencies and observed that they utilize various means to maintain control even if formal independence has been granted to an agency (de Kruijf & van Thiel, 2018;Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016;Hood, 2002). Elites intend to prevent agency losses (Thatcher, 2005) and consider their political survival (for example when nominating heads of IRAs, Baerg et al., 2020). ...
... Some studies use indicators of resources as covariates with formal independence to explain features of agencies, such as their management strategies (Migliorati, 2020;Verhoest et al., 2010), perception of credibility and efficiency in the "quality press" (Maggetti, 2010), or the politicization of their head (Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016). However, to the best of our knowledge, no study has looked for theories of agencies' resources, and more specifically of the relationship of formal independence with agencies' resources. ...
Independent police oversight is a specific government delegated function that has been neglected by scholars of regulation. The main goal of this article is to understand the allocation of state resources to independent police oversight agencies (POAs) in the post delegation stage. We test whether the aim of delegation is better governance in complex areas to increase police agents' accountability (“policy complexity”) or to avoid political costs of agencification (“agency losses”). A survey of 27 POAs in Europe and Canada shows that POAs tend to receive significantly fewer state resources when they have a high level of formal independence or strong legal empowerment. Resource allocation seems more congruent with an “agency losses” logic than with the goal of making regulation more efficient. Our findings have notable implications for international norm‐setting bodies (the UN, the Council of Europe), who have not sufficiently codified the allocation of resources.
... The index consists of five main sections-the agency head status, the management board members' status, the general framework of relationships with the government and the parliament, financial and organizational autonomy, and the extent of regulatory competencies. The vast majority of studies use this index or at least build on it, and some also use Gilardi's original dataset (e.g., Maggetti 2007;Hanretty and Koop 2013;Koop and Hanretty 2018;Wonka and Rittberger 2010;Guardiancich and Guidi 2016;Ennser-Jedenastik 2016). Although the Gilardi index is widely used to measure de iure independence, there are some criticisms of its composition (e.g., in Hanretty andKoop 2012, 2013;Wassum and De Francesco 2020). ...
Are the leaders of independent agencies independent in practice? Are the independence requirements set out in legislation a guarantee of de facto independence? This paper reveals the relationship between de iure independence and de facto independence of independent agencies through two dimensions: political affinity and political vulnerability of their leaders. Our analysis reveals how the de iure independence of an agency affects the probability that agency heads will have connections to political parties and whether their mandates will end prematurely in a period of political transition, i.e., when a new government takes office. It also determines whether the biographical profile of agency heads (PhD degree, bureaucratic background, and political affiliation) can influence their security of tenure when governments change, and hence their independence. This is supported by an empirical evaluation of independent authorities in the Czech Republic between 1993 and 2021.
... Traditionally, the party criterion is considered one of the main explanations for appointments, especially for high-ranking positions (Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016;Lopez and Silva, 2019). However, more recent studies have identified that partisanship is not enough to explain the dynamics of appointments in different countries (Albrecht, 2021;Field, 2021). ...
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to explain the dynamics of public appointments and present new possibilities for research in this field.
Design/methodology/approach
The article is based on a systematic literature review from 2012 to 2021, identified in Web of Science, Scopus and SciELO, in English, Spanish or Portuguese. To explain the dynamics of public appointments, the following were analyzed: the nomination process; the motivations, objectives and criteria used; the results and impacts of appointments; and the profile of the nominees. The study focused only on discretionary appointments to fully public bodies and agencies.
Findings
The literature offers a limited explanation for the dynamics of appointments, by focusing on the dichotomy between loyalty and competence. Despite this, studies suggest that different contextual factors, such as administrative tradition or strategic choices, for example, determine the dynamics of appointments, indicating that it is a complex process that goes beyond the simple discussion of merit or clientelism.
Originality/value
The article presents an unprecedented analysis of the literature on the dynamics of public appointments and proposes an explanatory model that indicates that other factors, in addition to merit and loyalty, should be considered relevant for the selection criteria, the nomination process and the profile of who will be appointed. This model is useful both for the practical management of appointments and for the advancement of theory in this field and should receive improvements and future empirical evaluations.
... Recent research has also shown that partisanship matters for recruitment to the civil service (Dahlström and Holmgren, 2017) and for delegation to technocratic institutions, such as central banks and independent regulatory agencies (e.g. Ennser-Jedenastik, 2014, 2015Hallerberg and Wehner, 2018). ...
It is often claimed that parties on the left and right have different preferences for scholarly knowledge. However, little research has addressed whether partisanship actually matters for science advice preferences, particularly in the European setting. Drawing on original data on governmental appointments of academic scholars to more than 1400 public advisory commissions in Norway between 1969 and 2020, this article examines whether the left–right divide matters for cabinets’ consultation of economists and social scientists. The findings reveal that left-wing governments in Norway have consulted scholars of social science—such as sociologists and political scientists—more frequently than right-wing governments. In contrast, partisanship seem to matter less for the consultation of economic scholars, as economists have been extensively used as advisors by both blocs in the period studied. Overall, the article contributes theoretical and empirical knowledge to the politics of science advice.
... The relationship between expertise and participation and between experts and citizens has been subject to much debate in different fields of the social sciences. Some fields, such as agency and delegation research, tend to stress conflicts between the autonomy of 'de-politicized' expert bodies and the accountability imperative of democracy (Ennser-Jedenastik 2016;Majone 2001). 3 Other fields of research have rather made out room for reconciliation, and these are the debates that this study builds on: Within political theory, deliberative democracy's 'systems perspective' has made an important point in emphasizing that the 'ethical', 'epistemic' and 'democratic' functions of democracy do not have to be simultaneously fulfilled by every single political institution on its own, but can be distributed between institutions within a system (Mansbridge et al. 2012). ...
Against the background of an increasing dependency of governance on specialized expertise and growing calls for citizen participation, this study discusses solutions to the tension between knowledge and democracy. It asks: Which institutions and practices add to striking a balance between knowledge-based decision-making and the involvement of the affected? Based on the social studies of science, knowledge and expertise as well as democratic theory with a focus on participation , representation and inclusion, the study first identifies quality criteria of expertise and participation, and then, with reference to two quite different, up-and-coming empirical answers to the epistemic-democratic tension, spells out the conditions of realizing these criteria in practice. In focus are a) highly complex, multi-layered structures of policy deliberation and advice that combine expert panels with a range of public input channels and b) the involvement of 'lay experts' into policy-making through participatory knowledge practices such as 'service user involvement' or 'cit-izen science'. The study underlines, inter alia, how claims that transcend individual viewpoints and integrate a multiplicity of experiences and concerns are of particular democratic and epistemic value; it points to the key role of organized advocacy groups when it comes to credibly combining a mandate to speak for others with useful and reliable experience-based expertise; and it illustrates the relevance of conflict-minimising institutions for the making of public policies.
... In the last few decades, a general trend toward the reinforcement of such independence can be observed (Gilardi, 2005). However, in an only apparent paradox, legal insulation has been argued to lead to a compensatory reaction from governments, manifested in the increased frequency with which board members with political links are appointed to agencies (Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016). An alternative explanation of "revolving doors" points, in contrast, to the irrelevance of formal rules, stressing instead the role of what has been called "sectoral path-dependency" (Maggetti, 2007(Maggetti, , 2012: the possibility that the composition of IRAs is shaped by sector-specific patterns, particularly those to the preservation of a legacy of informal relationships and durable networks between the political arena, industries, and regulators. ...
The movement of personnel between roles in regulation, politics, and regulated industries is thought to affect the risks of politicization and industry capture of independent regulatory agencies. To test whether such movements are better explained by formal rules or by sector‐specific patterns, we employ an original dataset of the 152 appointees to 11 IRAs in Portugal over the last 3 decades. We find that variations in the formal independence of agencies have been of little consequence. Instead, revolving doors abound in the financial sector, with a disproportionate share of regulators of that sector coming from, and moving back, to the industry. In turn, appointment of regulators with political links to Portuguese IRAs seems related with legacies of sectoral public control.
... As such, it covers formal rules that govern appointment, renewal and dismissal terms of agency head and board members as well as a latent informal dimension: whether agencies' key decision-makers refrain from enacting decisions that will upset the executive. While there are formal guarantees that protect agencies against political intervention, the actual agency independence exhibits a great deal of variation across different political contexts Koop, 2012, 2013;Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016;Jordana et al., 2018). Building on Maggetti (2007) and Gilardi and Maggetti (2010), we focus on two key indicators to assess this uncoded component of agency independence: (a) whether the agency head and/or board members have departed prematurely before the end of their term and (b) the extent of partisan influence on board member nominations. ...
In recent decades, independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) have been introduced as part of public administration reforms around the world. Unlike traditional administrative agencies, most IRAs are not accountable to the executive and their accountability relationship to the legislative tends to be weak. Nevertheless, these agencies often engage in acts of voluntary explanation and justification of their decisions to stakeholders. Based on a comparative study of financial regulation agencies, this article shows that these IRAs resort more actively to voluntary accountability when the expectations of actors interacting with the agency are at conflict. Specifically, we argue that the agency’s ability to manage expectations is shaped by the level of agency independence and the degree of organizational capacity. Our findings contribute to the existing debates by conceptualizing voluntary accountability as a mechanism for managing stakeholders’ conflicting expectations through the lens of financial regulation based on original evidence from Spain and Turkey.
... While the bureaucratic politics literature focuses on institutional designs that allow varying agency autonomy as a tool of political control (e.g. Kim, 2008;Ennser-Jedenastik, 2016;Palus and Yackee 2016;Hammond et al. 2019), it remains a critical issue to examine their performance impact. For public administration scholars, understanding the performance impact of agency autonomy is key to evaluating the merits of various administrative reforms that advocate for higher managerial autonomy, for example, the New Public Management reforms (Bezes and Jeannot 2018). ...
While agency theory predicts mixed impacts of agency autonomy on organizational performance conditioned by result-based controls, stewardship theory predicts positive effects. This study contrasts the two views by introducing public service motivation (PSM) to this debate. As the PSM increases, the employees move closer to the ideal type of stewards, and thus agency autonomy should have a larger impact on organizational performance. Using the 2005 and 2010 Merit Principles Surveys, the empirical tests support this proposition. This study bridges the literature on agency autonomy and PSM by highlighting interactions between organizational structures and employee motivations in shaping organizational performance.
... Two criteria are key here: the independence and impartiality of the advisory body on the one hand and the usability and relevance of the advice on the other. (c) Independence is a central epistemic issue from a PA-, trustee-and delegation-perspective (Busuioc 2009;Carpenter 2010;Curtin 2007;Ennser-Jedenastik 2015;Hood and Lodge 2006;Majone 2001). From these public administration viewpoints, the independence of an expert body essentially lies in its organisational autonomy from the 'parent body'. ...
... 9 It is a source of discretion as it frees an advisory body from the constraints of external interference (Verhoest et al. 2004). It is generally seen as a resource of an organisation's reputation and credibility that enhances its performance (Busuioc 2009;Carpenter 2010;Curtin 2007;Ennser-Jedenastik 2015;Thatcher and Stone Sweet 2002) and it promises to make advice more reliable, accurate and trustworthy (Haas 2004, p. 576). Distance between the advisor and the advised avoids particularism and strengthens independent, systematic (scientific) judgment (Lentsch and Weinhart 2011, p. 15). ...
This chapter shows how the coupling of arenas of citizen participation, consultation and policy advice on the one hand, and the sponsoring, representative institution on the other, affects key norms of democratic legitimacy and epistemic authority, i.e. resonance and policy-relevance of the developed input and accountability and independence of the subordinate, advisory body. It discusses the possible tensions between these norms and develops design solutions that strike a balance. It is shown that independence is the hardest norm to reconcile with all the others and that the key for balancing the potentially conflicting norms is to provide for loose forms of coupling between sponsor and subordinate that allow for continuous transmission, but tame government delegates and avoid procedural control.
