Patterns of Ministerial Recruitment and its Consequences for Politicization of State Administration: Evidence from New Democracies

Given the importance of the executive for democratic political representation, it is not surprising that scholars have paid considerable attention to the processes of cabinet formation in parliamentary democracies. Explaining the outcomes of coalition bargaining among political parties has been at the core of this research agenda. However, much less attention has been devoted to the consequences of ministerial recruitment for the functioning of their ministries. King's (1975) assertion pointing out the scarcity of research on the consequences of executive recruitment to executive functioning remains almost equally valid today as it was four decades ago. In this paper, we seek to shed some light on the consequences of ministerial recruitment for the functioning of ministries in two new democracies - Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Specifically, we address the question whether variation in the type of government ministers results in different degree of politicization (replacement and turnover at the top administrative level) of administration in government ministries. There is a strong evidence that top civil service in central and eastern Europe has been highly politicized, and that the levels of politicization have even resurged since the accession to the European Union. Nevertheless, there is a strong cross-country variation, and important differences exist also within countries as well as between ministries of the same coalition government. The aim of this paper is threefold. Firstly, it provides a systematic account of ministerial recruitments in two new democracies, namely in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Our analysis shows comparatively low importance of parliamentary experience and party membership for appointments to the ministerial posts. In addition, professional-managerial skills feature prominently in ministerial profiles of cabinet members. Secondly, the paper contributes to our understanding of executive recruitment methodologically as well as theoretically. Methodologically, it specifies and expands the notion of ministerial expertise to cover both professional-managerial skills and political skills. Theoretically, it considers cases from new democracies and thus highlights factors related to the instability of party systems (which is one of key features of the political scene in the post-communist Europe). Thirdly, we link variation in the type of executive recruitment to its consequences for politicization of top ministerial bureaucracy: Our data on replacement and turnover rates at Slovak and Czech ministries since 2004 until 2015 suggest not only the importance of electoral cycle (i.e. ministers of the new government tend to replace the appointees of the previous government) but also that non-party technocratic ministers are not necessarily less inclined to "purge" their ministries than ministers with political skills and explicit party background. Furthermore, we identify not only "stable units" within otherwise politicized ministries but also differences in the level of politicization that occurs within the electoral cycle, under subsequent ministers from the same political party. Our research shows the need to refine the notion of non-partisanship and expertise of ministers under conditions of volatile parties that use ministerial appointments as a strategic tool for party-building purposes.