Clientelism in the Public Sector : Why Public Service Reforms May Not Succeed and What to Do About It
The World Development Report 2017 Governance and the Law (World Bank, 2017) highlights the intimate connection between the effectiveness of policy reforms and governance. The Report argues that power asymmetries play an important role in ensuring t...
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World Bank, Washington, DC
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/797771489498533549/Clientelism-in-the-public-sector-why-public-service-reforms-may-not-succeed-and-what-to-do-about-it http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26257 |
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okr-10986-262572021-05-25T08:58:38Z Clientelism in the Public Sector : Why Public Service Reforms May Not Succeed and What to Do About It Bold, Tessa Molina, Ezequiel Safir, Abla public service reform clientelism governance policy reform power structures The World Development Report 2017 Governance and the Law (World Bank, 2017) highlights the intimate connection between the effectiveness of policy reforms and governance. The Report argues that power asymmetries play an important role in ensuring that policy reforms are credible and overcome collective action problems; with one particular manifestation being clientelism. Further, it notes that in order to expand the set of implementable policies, there is need to change the policy arena by: (a) changing incentives; (b) reshaping preferences; and (c) increasing the contestability of the decision-making process. In this background paper, The author focusses on how power structures affect incentives for policy reforms and ultimately outcomes in the context of public service delivery. Here, It have a particular power structure in mind, namely when public servants themselves hold power. In many developing countries (and beyond), public servants are not just the agents tasked with delivering services by the principal (the clients of the service, usually represented by politicians), they are also elites, in the sense that they can have direct influence on policy design and implementation. This has implications for the quality of public services: if the main purpose of the relationship between principal and agent is not to deliver quality public services, but rather to share rents accruing from public office, then service delivery outcomes are likely to be poor. Breaking such an equilibrium may be difficult and successful policy reform needs to take these kind of power constraints into consideration. In the first part make the case that public servants – aside from delivering services – may capture rents in a multitude of ways : through the allocation of jobs, through above market wages, and through low performance on the job, including with absenteeism or moonlighting. This research also suggests why public sector reform may be so difficult: if rent-sharing arises as part of a tacit agreement between politicians and public servants in which rents are transferred in exchange for political support, then any reform that tries to make public servants more accountable and reduce their rents will likely be seen as reneging on such an agreement and be met with opposition.In the second part of the paper, we review research that has focused on making public servants more accountable. This, mainly experimental literature, usually takes the political power constraints as given, and highlights the importance of information and the identity of those monitoring the public servant. We discuss to what extent such local reforms can be successful. 2017-03-15T14:48:41Z 2017-03-15T14:48:41Z 2017-01 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/797771489498533549/Clientelism-in-the-public-sector-why-public-service-reforms-may-not-succeed-and-what-to-do-about-it http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26257 English en_US World Development Report Background Paper; CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research :: Working Paper Publications & Research |
| repository_type |
Digital Repository |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
Digital Repositories |
| building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
| collection |
World Bank |
| language |
English en_US |
| topic |
public service reform clientelism governance policy reform power structures |
| spellingShingle |
public service reform clientelism governance policy reform power structures Bold, Tessa Molina, Ezequiel Safir, Abla Clientelism in the Public Sector : Why Public Service Reforms May Not Succeed and What to Do About It |
| relation |
World Development Report Background Paper; |
| description |
The World Development Report 2017
Governance and the Law (World Bank, 2017) highlights the
intimate connection between the effectiveness of policy
reforms and governance. The Report argues that power
asymmetries play an important role in ensuring that policy
reforms are credible and overcome collective action
problems; with one particular manifestation being
clientelism. Further, it notes that in order to expand the
set of implementable policies, there is need to change the
policy arena by: (a) changing incentives; (b) reshaping
preferences; and (c) increasing the contestability of the
decision-making process. In this background paper, The
author focusses on how power structures affect incentives
for policy reforms and ultimately outcomes in the context of
public service delivery. Here, It have a particular power
structure in mind, namely when public servants themselves
hold power. In many developing countries (and beyond),
public servants are not just the agents tasked with
delivering services by the principal (the clients of the
service, usually represented by politicians), they are also
elites, in the sense that they can have direct influence on
policy design and implementation. This has implications for
the quality of public services: if the main purpose of the
relationship between principal and agent is not to deliver
quality public services, but rather to share rents accruing
from public office, then service delivery outcomes are
likely to be poor. Breaking such an equilibrium may be
difficult and successful policy reform needs to take these
kind of power constraints into consideration. In the first
part make the case that public servants – aside from
delivering services – may capture rents in a multitude of
ways : through the allocation of jobs, through above market
wages, and through low performance on the job, including
with absenteeism or moonlighting. This research also
suggests why public sector reform may be so difficult: if
rent-sharing arises as part of a tacit agreement between
politicians and public servants in which rents are
transferred in exchange for political support, then any
reform that tries to make public servants more accountable
and reduce their rents will likely be seen as reneging on
such an agreement and be met with opposition.In the second
part of the paper, we review research that has focused on
making public servants more accountable. This, mainly
experimental literature, usually takes the political power
constraints as given, and highlights the importance of
information and the identity of those monitoring the public
servant. We discuss to what extent such local reforms can be successful. |
| format |
Working Paper |
| author |
Bold, Tessa Molina, Ezequiel Safir, Abla |
| author_facet |
Bold, Tessa Molina, Ezequiel Safir, Abla |
| author_sort |
Bold, Tessa |
| title |
Clientelism in the Public Sector : Why Public Service Reforms May Not Succeed and What to Do About It |
| title_short |
Clientelism in the Public Sector : Why Public Service Reforms May Not Succeed and What to Do About It |
| title_full |
Clientelism in the Public Sector : Why Public Service Reforms May Not Succeed and What to Do About It |
| title_fullStr |
Clientelism in the Public Sector : Why Public Service Reforms May Not Succeed and What to Do About It |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Clientelism in the Public Sector : Why Public Service Reforms May Not Succeed and What to Do About It |
| title_sort |
clientelism in the public sector : why public service reforms may not succeed and what to do about it |
| publisher |
World Bank, Washington, DC |
| publishDate |
2017 |
| url |
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/797771489498533549/Clientelism-in-the-public-sector-why-public-service-reforms-may-not-succeed-and-what-to-do-about-it http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26257 |
| _version_ |
1764461524740472832 |