Organizing Leviathan
Subtitle: politicians, bureaucrats, and the making of good government
By: Carl Dahlström, Victor Lapuente
Contributors: Lapuente Gine, Victor, 1976- author
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2017
Language: eng
Number of pages: 262
ISBN-13: 9781107177598; 9781316630655
Copyright date: 2017
Subjects: Bureaucracy; Administrative agencies; Government executives; Political corruption; Government accountability; Executive departments; Civil service; Comparative government; Evaluation
Description: "Why are some countries less corrupt and better governed than others? Challenging conventional explanations on the remarkable differences in quality of government across the globe, this book argues that the organization of bureaucracy is an often overlooked but critical factor. Countries where merit-recruited employees occupy public bureaucracies perform better than those where public employees owe their post to political connections. The book provides a coherent theory of why, and ample evidence showing that meritocratic bureaucracies are conducive to lower levels of corruption, higher government effectiveness, and more flexibility to adopt modernizing reforms. Data comes from both a novel dataset on the bureaucratic structures of over 100 countries as well as from narratives of particular countries, with a special focus on the relationship between politicians and bureaucrats in Spain and Sweden. A notable contribution to the literature in comparative politics and public policy on good governance, and to corruption studies more widely"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: 1. Why relations between politicians and bureaucrats matter; title: 2. Theory; title: 3. A closed Weberian bureaucracy; title: 4. Corruption; title: 5. Effectiveness; title: 6. Reforms; title: 7. Conclusions.