Does Bureaucracy Strike Back? How Signals from Bureaucratic Managers Influence Civil Servant’s Reactions to Democratic Backsliding

Liberal democracies are increasingly confronted by political attempts to weaken democratic institutions. This confronts civil servants with a dilemma between political responsiveness and guarding democratic values. However, civil servants are also part of an organizational hierarchy where they constantly must take stock of signals from their superiors. We argue that such signals are of key importance to how civil servants react. Employing randomized survey experiments among Norwegian civil servants in central government, we show that civil servants react to democratic backsliding by expressing less loyalty towards and by trying to sabotage the government’s wishes, by voicing concerns internally and externally in the organization, and by considering exiting the organization. However, we also find that managerial signals to some extent alter how civil servants react. Thus, civil servants are more inclined to consider exiting the organization or voicing their concerns in case the manager expresses responsiveness towards the government’s wishes.