Programmatic Parties and the Politics of Bureaucratic Reform
Abstract: In many countries, politicians neglect the basic financial and personnel management systems that are essential to political oversight of bureaucratic performance. To explain this, we present a new perspective on the political economy of bureaucracy, arguing that politicians organized into programmatic political parties have stronger incentives to pursue public policies that require a well-functioning public administration. They are also better able to act collectively to demand that the executive provide such an administration. We find robust support for this argument with novel evidence: ratings of 511 World Bank public sector reform loans in 109 countries are systematically higher in countries with programmatic political parties.
