Ministerial Advisers in Highly Politicized Bureaucracies: Towards a Conceptual Framework

In this paper we seek to explore the variation in institutional settings within which ministerial advisers operate, constituted by high-level formal political appointees, and patronage appointments into bureaucracy. We posit that the scope of other political appointments within the executive, and into bureaucracy, have a bearing on the characteristics of advisers and the type of advice they provide to ministers. Formal political appointments are politically recruited actors who come and go with governments. These appointments are legal and legitimate; the existing regulations typically foresee that some positions in the state administration hierarchy are filled on political criteria. These appointments comprise posts just around/below the ministers and create the nexus between politics and administration. They may include political staff around the ministerial office (such as ministerial Cabinets), cross-partisan appointees (such as state secretaries), and/or chiefs of administration. In contrast, appointments into bureaucracy refer to the ability of political elites to shape the composition of the civil service. Formal merit criteria in selecting civil servants may exist, but the appointment decisions rest with political executives rather than an autonomous administrative body. Thus, political executives have wide powers of firing and hiring the nominally merit-based bureaucracy by manipulating, bypassing, or ignoring civil service laws. They can achieve desired levels of penetration and turnover within the ministerial administrative hierarchy. Bureaucrats are made politically responsive by their selection and de-selection during the governmental (or ministerial) change. At the same time, there is a high level of formal political appointees. The existence of unconventional settings where ministers directly appoint their loyalists into bureaucracy raises the question of why ministerial advisers exist in the first place. After all, the tasks and roles played by MAs are often easily taken up by bureaucrats. There is some evidence that fuzzy MAs play a distinct role in which the personal bond of trust to their ministers is central. Ministers may need close aides who provide unconditional support and backing, which is based on personal rather than partisan ties. Besides formal ministerial advisers, there is a sizeable group of invisible advisers in such highly politicized bureaucracies. Invisible advisers constitute a highly heterogeneous group of actors with mixed motivations and functions. Some of them act in a pro-bono capacity, others receive only symbolic pay, yet others are renumerated like regular employees or even in a corrupt way. Invisible advisers may run private consultancy companies and provide advice simultaneously to several ministers. The most significant seem to be those who act in a de facto full-time capacity but do not appear in any public register, often without formal contracts with the ministries they work for. While some invisible advisers do provide substantive advice and expertise, the lack of regulation and transparency is a breeding ground for shady deals, backroom transactions, and potentially corrupt behavior.