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.