Patronage — the selection of government officials at the discretion of a political actor — is ubiquitous among democracies. Yet, some countries managed to curb it over time while others failed. Under what circumstances do democratic governments reduce patronage and establish professional bureaucracies? The paper argues that the success of bureaucratic reform is rooted in the type of patronage regime. Although all countries had some form of patronage, substantial differences in their firing practices can significantly impact the reform’s outcome by creating opportunities for the emergence of political entrepreneurs interested in bureaucratic reform or precluding such opportunities. Drawing on state-building scholarship in comparative politics and political development in American politics, I introduce a theoretical framework that accounts for successful and failed bureaucratic reform attempts. I apply the theory to the U.S. and Argentina, providing original archival evidence. The article elucidates the longstanding puzzle of bureaucracy professionalization in democratic contexts, generating new insights for contemporary debates on state-building.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Julieta Casas is the Einstein-Moos Postdoctoral Fellow in Rule of Law at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. Her research lies at the intersection of comparative political development and political economy with a substantive focus on the state bureaucracy, political parties, and democracy. Her projects address fundamental questions regarding the causes and effects of state capacity, concentrating geographically on Latin America and the U.S. Her research includes retrieving and digitizing original archival materials to produce new datasets.

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