Political nominee may have advantages, says study – 02/03/2023 – Politics

People who occupy a technical position, such as that of school director, by political indication can deliver more results than public servants, although the practice also has negative effects, research shows.

The work, published in January in the prestigious American Journal of Political Science, joins a new generation of studies that have shown nuances and positive aspects of sponsorship in the public service, a practice traditionally associated with corruption and clientelism.

The thesis is not a consensus among researchers. Some of them point out relevant risks of political appointment for the results of public policies, such as the choice of low-qualified professionals.

The study by Guillermo Toral, professor of political science at IE University, in Spain, analyzed the work of directors of municipal schools based on administrative data and interviews with both civil servants and politicians.

Isolating other factors, he concludes that principals who lost their political connections after the mayor lost re-election became less effective in improving school quality.

In his assessment, this suggests that political alignment can help in achieving results.

This would occur because nominees would have greater alignment with politicians and access to material and non-material resources.

Another conclusion by Toral is that directors who took office through political appointments, but did not reach quality goals, are more likely to be replaced than those who were selected in the same situation.

Still, in general, he also points out problems with patronage: it can facilitate the use of bureaucracy for their own advantage by corrupt politicians and also makes public policy more vulnerable when there is a change in management.

That is why the researcher defends a mixed system, in which there is a qualified bureaucracy, but also some degree of discretion on the part of the political agent to choose a civil servant for a management position.

If it’s a difficult balance to strike in practice, it’s not hard to know which would be the worst of all worlds when choosing to hold leadership positions, says Toral.

In his evaluation, it would be the case of political appointments of people not directly aligned with the ruler, but sponsored by allies, for example —which can be a vulnerability in the case of governments with many party interests to attend to, as is the case of the administration of the President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (PT).

Positive evidence of political appointment was also found in other recent studies, on India and Peru, for example, although negative aspects were also pointed out.

Another recent book comes to the conclusion that trust, and not necessarily clientelism, is the main motive behind political appointment in Latin American countries.

This is the work “The Politics of Appointment in Latin America Central Administration” (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2023), with a series of articles edited by Francisco Panizza ( London School of Economics and Political Science), Guy Peters (University of Pittsburgh) and Conrado Ramos Larraburu (Universidad de la Republica).

They conclude that, as in other countries around the world, political appointments in the region would not only have the role of securing political support, but would substantially be a tool for implementing public policy.

This does not prevent them from warning about the possible negative implications of sponsorship, especially at lower levels of the hierarchy and, in the long term, for the formation of a qualified bureaucratic body.

Professor at FGV-SP and author of several studies on bureaucracy, Gabriela Lotta says that a balance is needed between technique and politics in public office.

“It is part of democracy that politicians manage to implement the agenda for which they were elected, and that means having people in public administration aligned with politics.”

“But good policy is based on decisions based on evidence. Technique is very important to support good policy, even though it cannot replace it”, he says.

She assesses that the occupation of technical positions only by political indication, without other combined criteria, may not even make a difference when there is a lack of candidates qualified enough for the function, but not when there is an abundance of qualified professionals.

It is necessary to remember, he says, that many of the functions in the bureaucracy demand specific technical knowledge, which would be the case for both a school director and an Ibama inspector.

When talking about the occupation of courts of accounts by wives of politicians, similar reasoning applies. “Court of accounts should not be a space for politics. The nature of this action is similar to that of a judge”, says Lotta.

Specifically in relation to the choice of school directors, Lara Simielli, who is also a professor at FGV, points to the need, which is not met in much of Brazil, for the occupants of this position to be qualified to perform the function.

This already occurs in successful educational systems, both in Brazil and abroad, says she, author of a report on the subject presented by the association Data for a Democratic Debate in Education (D3e).

In Sobral (CE), for example, a national reference in education, the change in the criteria for choosing directors is considered key to the results of the municipality. If they used to be electioneering agents for local politicians, they are now professionals trained for the role and chosen through a selection process that takes technical aspects into account.

The experience led to the inclusion of merit criteria or community choice as a condition for public networks to receive additional value from Fundeb (basic education financing fund).