IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/eurman/v33y2015i5p354-365.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Governing the purple zone: How politicians influence public managers

Author

Listed:
  • Bellò, Benedetta
  • Spano, Alessandro

Abstract

One of the issues raised by the New Political Governance (NPG) is the independence of senior management from politicians in public sector organizations. This article investigates how politicians influence managerial activities by providing empirical evidence for the existence of a deep form of politicization and a partisan management of public service in Italy. This relationship is also called the “purple” zone, where the “blue” of political strategy and the “red” of public administration merge in “strategic conversation”.

Suggested Citation

  • Bellò, Benedetta & Spano, Alessandro, 2015. "Governing the purple zone: How politicians influence public managers," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 354-365.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:eurman:v:33:y:2015:i:5:p:354-365
    DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.2015.04.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237315000602
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.emj.2015.04.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simona Milio, 2007. "Can Administrative Capacity Explain Differences in Regional Performances? Evidence from Structural Funds Implementation in Southern Italy," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(4), pages 429-442.
    2. Flamholtz, Eric, 1996. "Effective organizational control: A framework, applications, and implications," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 14(6), pages 596-611, December.
    3. Banfield, Edward C, 1975. "Corruption as a Feature of Governmental Organization," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 587-605, December.
    4. Kutsal Yesilkagit & Sandra Thiel, 2008. "Political Influence and Bureaucratic Autonomy," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 137-153, June.
    5. McCubbins, Mathew D & Noll, Roger G & Weingast, Barry R, 1987. "Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 243-277, Fall.
    6. Hofstede, Geert, 1981. "Management control of public and not-for-profit activities," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 193-211, July.
    7. Weingast, Barry R & Moran, Mark J, 1983. "Bureaucratic Discretion or Congressional Control? Regulatory Policymaking by the Federal Trade Commission," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(5), pages 765-800, October.
    8. Scholz, John T. & Wei, Feng Heng, 1986. "Regulatory Enforcement in a Federalist System," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(4), pages 1249-1270, December.
    9. Pollitt, Christopher & Bouckaert, Geert, 2004. "Public Management Reform: A Comparative Analysis," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, edition 2, number 9780199268498, Decembrie.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Federico Quaresima & Fabio Fiorillo, 2020. "The economics of politics: patronage and political selection in Italy," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 27-48, March.
    2. Igor Benati & Mario Coccia, 2017. "The relation between public manager compensation and members of parliament’s salary across OECD countries: explorative analysis and possible determinants with public policy implications," quaderni IRCrES 201702, CNR-IRCrES Research Institute on Sustainable Economic Growth - Moncalieri (TO) ITALY - former Institute for Economic Research on Firms and Growth - Torino (TO) ITALY.
    3. Lukrafka, Tatiany Oleques & Silva, Diego Souza & Echeveste, Marcia, 2020. "A geographic picture of Lean adoption in the public sector: Cases, approaches, and a refreshed agenda," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 506-517.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jodi L. Short, 2021. "The politics of regulatory enforcement and compliance: Theorizing and operationalizing political influences," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(3), pages 653-685, July.
    2. Andrew B. Whitford, 2007. "Competing Explanations for Bureaucratic Preferences," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 19(3), pages 219-247, July.
    3. Kutsal Yesilkagit & Sandra Thiel, 2008. "Political Influence and Bureaucratic Autonomy," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 137-153, June.
    4. Andrew B. Whitford, 2002. "Decentralization and Political Control of the Bureaucracy," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 14(2), pages 167-193, April.
    5. Dixon, Keith, 2009. "Calculative practices in higher education: a retrospective analysis of curricular accounting about learning," MPRA Paper 18295, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Lehr, William & Sicker, Douglas, 2017. "Communications Act 2021," 28th European Regional ITS Conference, Passau 2017 169478, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    7. Michael Makowsky & Thomas Stratmann, 2014. "Politics, unemployment, and the enforcement of immigration law," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 131-153, July.
    8. Ando, Amy, 1998. "Delay on the Path to the Endangered Species List: Do Costs and Benefits Matter," RFF Working Paper Series dp-97-43-rev, Resources for the Future.
    9. Thomas Braendle & Alois Stutzer, 2013. "Political selection of public servants and parliamentary oversight," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 45-76, February.
    10. Adam R. Fremeth & Guy L. F. Holburn & Richard G. Vanden Bergh, 2016. "Corporate Political Strategy in Contested Regulatory Environments," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 1(4), pages 272-284, December.
    11. Miltos Makris, 2003. "Administrative Bureaus with Standard Operating Procedures," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 03/062, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    12. Cyril Benoît, 2021. "Politicians, regulators, and regulatory governance: The neglected sides of the story," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(S1), pages 8-22, November.
    13. Maoz Rosenthal, 2012. "Agenda control in an unstable multiparty parliamentary democracy: evidence from the Israeli public sector," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 22-44, March.
    14. Marques II, Israel, 2018. "Firms and social policy preferences under weak institutions : Evidence from Russia," BOFIT Discussion Papers 7/2018, Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition.
    15. Moszoro, Marian W. & Spiller, Pablo T., 2014. "Third-Party Opportunism and the Theory of Public Contracts: Operationalization and Applications," MPRA Paper 101592, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Manning, Nick & Mukherjee, Ranjana & Gokcekus, Omer, 2000. "Public officials and their institutional environment - an analytical model for assessing the impact of institutional change on public sector performance," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2427, The World Bank.
    17. Keefer, Philip, 2004. "A review of the political economy of governance : from property rights to voice," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3315, The World Bank.
    18. Boland, Matthew & Godsell, David, 2021. "Bureaucratic discretion and contracting outcomes," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    19. Israel Marques II, 2017. "Political Connections and Non-Traditional Investment: Evidence from Public-Private Partnerships in Vocational Education," HSE Working papers WP BRP 56/PS/2017, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    20. John Brehm & Scott Gates, 1994. "When Supervision Fails to Induce Compliance," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 6(3), pages 323-343, July.

    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:eee:eurman:v:33:y:2015:i:5:p:354-365. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/115/description#description .

    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.