Political Accountability and Real Authority of Government Bureaucracy

50 Pages Posted: 2 Nov 2013 Last revised: 18 Nov 2021

See all articles by Marina Dodlova

Marina Dodlova

University of Passau; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Date Written: December 20, 2013

Abstract

In a country with weak institutional constraints on the executive, the real power might belong to the government bureaucracy rather than to an autocratic leader. We combine the Aghion-Tirole definition of formal and real authority with the Barro-Ferejohn model of political agency to study the relationship between the accountability of elected politicians and the extent to which their subordinate bureaucrats have real decision-making power. We show that the lower is the level of political accountability, the lower should be real authority at the bottom of the government hierarchy. Empirically, we find that in countries with lower political accountability those in political power have less authority over the public administration. On the contrary, countries with higher political accountability have bigger governments in terms of administration employment.

Keywords: political accountability, bureaucracy, real authority, decision-making, government employment

JEL Classification: D720, D730, D830, H110

Suggested Citation

Dodlova, Marina, Political Accountability and Real Authority of Government Bureaucracy (December 20, 2013). CESifo Working Paper Series No. 4443, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2348062 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2348062

Marina Dodlova (Contact Author)

University of Passau ( email )

Innstrasse 27
Passau, 94032
Germany

CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute) ( email )

Poschinger Str. 5
Munich, DE-81679
Germany

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