IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/bjposi/v49y2019i03p823-836_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Political Dynamics of Bureaucratic Turnover

Author

Listed:
  • Dahlström, Carl
  • Holmgren, Mikael

Abstract

This Research Note explores the political dynamics of bureaucratic turnover. It argues that changes in a government’s policy objectives can shift both political screening strategies and bureaucratic selection strategies, which produces turnover of agency personnel. To buttress this conjecture, it analyzes a unique dataset tracing the careers of all agency heads in the Swedish executive bureaucracy between 1960 and 2014. It shows that, despite serving on fixed terms and with constitutionally protected decision-making powers, Swedish agency heads are considerably more likely to leave their posts following partisan shifts in government. The note concludes that, even in institutional systems seemingly designed to insulate bureaucratic expertise from political control, partisan politics can shape the composition of agency personnel.

Suggested Citation

  • Dahlström, Carl & Holmgren, Mikael, 2019. "The Political Dynamics of Bureaucratic Turnover," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 823-836, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:49:y:2019:i:03:p:823-836_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0007123417000230/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bach Tobias, 2020. "Top Officials’ Careers and the Relationship Between Politics and Administration," NISPAcee Journal of Public Administration and Policy, Sciendo, vol. 13(2), pages 35-48, December.
    2. Magnus Lundgren & Kseniya Oksamytna & Vincenzo Bove, 2022. "Politics or Performance? Leadership Accountability in UN Peacekeeping," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 66(1), pages 32-60, January.
    3. Chen, Shawn Xiaoguang & Liu, Yong & Xu, Xianxiang, 2020. "Dynamics of Local Cadre Appointment in China11We are grateful to the editor Cheryl Long, and three referees for their valuable comments. Shawn Xiaoguang Chen thanks the support of Beijing Municipal Ed," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    4. Tal Sadeh & Yehuda Porath, 2020. "Autonomous agencies and relational contracts in government bond issues," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(4), pages 741-763, October.
    5. Fernando Filgueiras & Pedro Palotti & Graziella G. Testa, 2023. "Complexing Governance Styles: Connecting Politics and Policy in Governance Theories," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(1), pages 21582440231, March.
    6. Isabel Narbón-Perpiñá & Maria Teresa Balaguer-Coll & Diego Prior & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2023. "Vertical transfers, political alignment, and efficiency in local government," Working Papers 2023/08, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:bjposi:v:49:y:2019:i:03:p:823-836_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jps .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.