The prevailing narrative on the Portuguese case has commonly suggested that the politicisation of personnel policy is widespread (Lopes, 1997). Portugal has been largely conceived as a country with appointments deep into the administrative hierarchy, largely motivated by partisan considerations, as its Southern European counterparts (Page & Wright, 1999a; Diamandouros et al., 2006). However, these accounts neglect the considerable differences that exist between different hierarchical levels and, consequently, it overlooks different rationales for civil service politicization. This paper thus seeks to re-examine accounts of the influence of parties in the recruitment of appointed elites in Portugal. It does so by exploring the logics of recruitment on three inter-related dimensions. First, to what extent policy considerations help explain patterns of appointments. Second, by analyzing appointees’ career pathways, and the logics of recruitment these reveal. Third, by assessing the impact of party competition on patterns and logics of recruitment to the civil service.
We argue that appointments to upper echelons of the civil service are largely driven by concerns to ensure political control of the bureaucracy and of policy-making processes. By increasing political control, parties in government attempt to obtain a more responsive and accountable bureaucracy which can potentially have positive consequences for the pursuit of the policy goals of parties in government (Andeweg, 2000). At the same time, this coexists with the rationale of rewarding party loyalists, which mainly emerges in positions that are less visible – and thus less prone to the control of opposition parties and voters.
