The politics of public sector appointments in comparative perspective

Abstract

There is a significant literature on patronage appointments for senior positions in the public sector. A large part of this literature focuses on the party politicization of appointments, yet disregards the relative importance of appointee competence. However, whereas trade-offs between loyalty and competence in public sector appointments have been studied extensively in the United States, we know much less about such trade-offs in other contexts. This Panel especially invites papers that empirically analyze loyalty and competence in public sector appointments in a comparative perspective.

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