CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2010
| Author | Nistotskaya, Marina S |
|---|---|
| Title | Organizational Design of Welfare-Enhancing Public Bureaucracy: A Comparative Analysis of Russia's Regions |
| Summary | The question ‘What type of bureaucracy is most likely to enable sustainable prosperity for all members of a society?’ is a classical puzzle in the field of political science. This thesis investigates this research question both theoretically and empirically. It draws on Gary Miller’s (2000) theory of interactive social production, which advocates the welfare-enhancing properties of a de-politicized bureaucracy (or civil service), and develops it further by showing the capacity of individual elements of civil service to contain politicians’ moral hazard. This theoretical argument is then investigated within the empirical milieu of regional governance of post-Soviet Russia. Statistical analysis shows that, controlling for relevant factors, the striking variation in the levels of aggregate economic performance and small business growth observed across Russia’s regions is accounted for by the extent to which bureaucracy is de-politicized. Two cases-studies from the context of post-Soviet Russia further illuminate the working of the causal mechanism. These quantitative and qualitative analyses constitute the first empirical verification of Miller’s theoretical explanation of the welfare-enhancing properties of de-politicized bureaucracies. The documented variation in de-facto de-politicization of bureaucracy in Russia’s regions allows an inquiry into the reasons for the adoption of real merit, which is a persistent puzzle in social science. Whilst dominant explanations underscore the importance of interactions among core constituencies of voters, legislators, and executives in democratic settings, they fail to explain the adoption of merit in autocracies and are not corroborated empirically outside the Anglo-Saxon world. Utilizing analytical tools from game theory, this thesis offers an alternative – formal and parsimonious – theoretical explanation as to the conditions under which self-interested politicians opt to curb their authority over bureaucratic personnel decisions. Central to this explanation is the idea of the ruler’s discount rate or time horizons, which reflects the ruler’s strategic thinking over time as affected by the likely reaction of economic agents to the ruler’s choices. The thesis also subjects this theory to empirical test, using the obtained measure of de-politicization of bureaucracy as dependent variable. Controlling for factors from existing theories, it is found that rulers’ discount rate is the most powerful predictor of the level of de-politicization of bureaucracy. By challenging conventional wisdom about the factors that lead to the adoption of civil service, this thesis represents both theoretical and empirical contributions to the literature on merit adoption. |
| Supervisor | Meszerics Tamas |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2010/pphnim01.pdf |
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