How State Bureaucracies Become Effective

David Delfs Erbo Andersen

dandersen@ps.au.dk
Kim Sass Mikkelsen
ksm@ps.au.dk

Abstract
The effectiveness of bureaucracy is increasingly acknowledged as important
for democratic stability. The dominating presumption in the literature is
that what underlies administrative effectiveness of bureaucracy is the bureaucracys autonomy in hiring and firing its own staff. We point to an
important omission in this framework: We argue that bureaucratic autonomy only contributes to administrative effectiveness if bureaucrats are loyal
to the political executive (or government) of the day. Furthermore, we argue
that if such executive loyalty is not established prior to bureaucratic autonomy, the government faces a serious problem of political control that may
not be solved without conflict. Empirically, we illustrate these propositions
by analyzing bureaucratic developments from the Peace of Westphalia to the
interwar period in Spain, Germany, Denmark, and England. We show that
administrative effectiveness in Denmark and England was secured by autonomy and executive loyalty, and because loyalty preceded autonomy. By
contrast, implementation by the state administration of Spain was highly
imprecise and slow because the bureaucracy featured neither executive loyalty nor autonomy. Most importantly, the German case illustrates that an
autonomous but politically disloyal bureaucracy may obstruct government
policies, and even demands a special place in policy making. The resulting
dissonance with political demands may, in times of severe social conflict,
delegitimize and destabilize democratic regimes. Thus, our analysis suggests that studies of administrative effectiveness should not only consider
whether bureaucracies are autonomous in employment matters but increase
their scope of inquiry to include how bureaucrats handle their freedom from
political pressure.

Early draft. Please do not quote, cite or redistribute.

Department of Political Science and Government, Aarhus University

Dear Colleagues,
Thank you for reading. This paper is still in the somewhat early stages of
its development. As it stands, we give an introduction and a theoretical
perspective on the problem we are interested in but the case analyses might
still be a good deal away from being finalized. They need to be sharpened
and some of them shortened. The overall lines of the argument and how the
cases fit into it should be clear, however.
As the comparisons between our cases are not yet as focused as it will become, it is worth noting what our cases are meant to achieve. First, the
cases are selected with a view to diversity without a bounded population of
interest. Second, as always we use the cases to control for alternative explanations. This will be done both through comparisons and thought pointing
to inconsistencies in existing analyses of each case.
To guide the discussion concerning alternative explanations we should point
out what an alternative explanation would be. We do not propose an account
of democratic breakdown or survival in interwar Europe. Instead we build
on existing work arguing that administrative effectiveness is important for
these outcomes and explore the origins of administrative effectiveness. That
said, alternative explanations ought to be alternative accounts of administrative effectiveness, not democratic stability. In particular, we are interested
in alternative accounts which open backdoor paths around our key variables,
bureaucratic autonomy and executive loyalty. We are not concerned that
our variables have causes of their own. Instead, we are interested in alternative explanations of how administrative effectiveness could be generated
around the specific sequencing of the two that we propose, i.e. loyalty before
autonomy.
Thanks again for reading, we look forward to your comments.
David and Kim

Recapitulating administrative effectiveness

In studies of democratization and democratic stability, the need for a better
understanding of the effectiveness of state administrations is all-encompassing:
it applies to the conceptual, theoretical, and empirical levels alike.1 At the
most basic level, there is simply no agreement on what the core features
of an effective state administration are, and how we comprehend such administrative effectiveness in a context of modern mass democracy. These
disagreements inhibit clear theorization of the relationship between administrative effectiveness and democracy and thus robust empirical analysis.2
Since a universal theory of administrative effectiveness in mass democracies demands in-depth empirical analyses across time and space, this paper
limits its empirical scope to the perhaps most powerful setup for comparative inference, namely that of the trajectory of mass democracy in Interwar
West-Central Europe. For this case sample, it has been forcefully shown that
administrative effectiveness was one among many, mostly party-political, factors that explain the initiation of socioeconomic measures to combat the
extremities of the Great Depression and, consequently, the pattern of democratic breakdown and survival.3 While we acknowledge the crucial importance of states implementation ability, we disagree with the current tendency
to equate administrative effectiveness with bureaucracys autonomy in hiring and firing its own personnel (henceforth, bureaucratic autonomy). In
turn, we show that a conceptual and theoretical recapitulation of the basis
of modern state administration helps explaining administrative effectiveness
in Interwar West-Central Europe.4
1

Berman, 2014; Munck, 2011.

Fukuyama, 2013.
3
Berman, 2014; Rothstein, 2011, Ch.6.
4
As we prioritize the theoretical argument in this format, a congruency of facts fitting
our theory suffices but more rigorous causal process tracing will be needed to verify our
claim.
2

As pointed out by a number of analyses by Quality of Government scholars in particular5 , a dominance of political hiring and firing in the central
and upper ranks of the state administration politicizes the implementation as
large groups of bureaucrats are replaced by party or politically biased ones.
In such a situation, administrative effectiveness is undermined because ongoing implementation projects are ceased and implementation becomes partial,
or even particularistic. This increases the stakes at play in elections, in turn
creating a centrifugal pattern of political competition in which parties and
voters are exponentially antagonized, particularly in a context of social conflict. Eventually, democracy risks succumbing to a coup led by established
elites who are willing to take extra-constitutional action against radical oppositional forces. In contrast, bureaucratic autonomy makes implementation
more impartial thereby increasing incentives for competing parties to compromise on social or other emerging policy concerns. This puts the brakes
on radicalization.
We argue that bureaucratic autonomy is neither the sole criterion of administrative effectiveness nor a one-sided blessing for democratic stability.
We base this on the paradigmatic case of Interwar Germany6 about which we
emphasize two points: First, the administrative effectiveness of the Weimar
Republic was undermined, rather than strengthened, by bureaucratic autonomy because autonomy enabled a continuance of poor relationships between government and administration. Unsuccessful administrative reform
attempts antagonized key ministries that already longed for their pre-WWI
hegemonic status. Ultimately, this led to the support for NSDAP in the
transition to dictatorship in 1933.
Second, by undermining the social and economic policies of various, mostly
social democratic but also bourgeois-republic, governments during the 1920s,
5

Cornell, 2014; Cornell and Lapuente, 2012, 2014; Dahlstrom, Lapuente, and Teorell, 2011;
Lapuente and Rothstein, 2014.
6
cf. Weber, 1978, 956-958.

the autonomous bureaucracy was partly responsible for the gradual disillusionment of the electorate and the decisive electoral victories of the Nazis
from 1928-1932.7
The German case thus questions what the different features of and roads
to administrative ineffectiveness in Interwar West-Central Europe were. As
comparative lessons are vital in answering such a question, we have chosen
four cases in which we will analyze how administrative effectiveness came
about: The democratic breakdown cases of Spain and Germany and the
survival cases of Denmark and England. These cases are fruitful as they represent both cases of democratic breakdown and survival and, as we will argue,
the extremities in the variation of administrative effectiveness in the interwar
period. Why did Denmark and UK enjoy administrative effectiveness while
Spain and Germany did not when the social crises hit in the 1930s?
In studying these cases, we make systematic historical comparisons.8 To
account for the different historical paths, such an analysis must begin at
a point in time when the cases were fairly similar on the variable of interest, that is, the states administrative effectiveness9 . This takes us back to
the mid-17th century when the Peace of Westphalia marked what has been
termed the crucial phase 2of modern state-building in which centralization of government and administration, that is, absolutist bureaucratization,
was introduced.10 The state administrations that gradually emerged in WestCentral Europe during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries were qualitatively different much bigger, more powerful, and functionally differentiated
from the pre-Westphalian ones. But, as we show, these administrations
ended up being highly different from each other when they each introduced
democracy.11
7

Caplan, 1988, 30-31; Mommsen, 1991, Ch.5; McElligott, 2014.

cf. Slater and Ziblatt, 2013.
9
cf. Slater and Simmons, 2010.
10
Braun, 1975, 268.
11
We define and base our measurement of democracy on the data set of Boix, Miller,
8

We proceed in four steps: First, we present our basic distinctions pertaining to the dimensions of administrative effectiveness. Second, we present
three propositions. The argument is that while administrative ineffectiveness
rises from a tradition of political hiring and firing, it also results from a bureaucratically dominated system in the absence of what we term executive
loyalty. Only when executive loyalty is present was bureaucratic autonomy
beneficial for administrative effectiveness. Additionally, we theorize that sequencing matters in the establishment of administrative effectiveness in the
sense that executive loyalty must be established before bureaucratic autonomy. If the political executive attempts to install executive loyalty when
they are already protected by the laws and procedures of an autonomous
bureaucracy, conflicts between political and administrative levels thrive and,
consequently, administrative ineffectiveness is likely to continue or escalate.
In the third and fourth steps, we present empirical analyses of, first, the
breakdown precursors of Spain and Germany and then the survival precursors
of Denmark and England. Next, we discuss to what extent our propositions
can be generalized to current problems of building effective state administrations in new democracies. Finally, we conclude.

Distinctions
In this section, we present our key conceptual distinctions. This involves disentangling what is typically meant by bureaucratic autonomy. We analyze
some critical assumptions underlying the concept of bureaucratic autonomy
as the recipe for administrative effectiveness and democratic stability. Accordingly, we argue for a more encompassing, two-dimensional understanding
and Rosato, 2012 stressing that the government is chosen in a free and fair election
with multiple parties/candidates and, at the minimum, universal male suffrage. By
that measurement, the first instances of democracy were: Spain 1931, Germany 1919,
Denmark 1901, and England 1885.

of administrative effectiveness.
The idea of bureaucratic autonomy as paramount for effective public policy delivery and thus democratic stability originates in theories of good governance and public administration as well as some concrete empirical analyses.
Bureaucratic autonomy here entails that civil servants (not ministers) are
recruited via systematic civil service procedures.12
Among other contributions, the bureaucratic-autonomy view is based on
Rauch and Evans13 analysis, showing the superiority of autonomous, meritbased bureaucracies in lowering corruption and minimizing delays in implementation, as well as analyses of the positive effect of administrative capacity
and impartiality on the survival of democratic governments.14 Brought to a
head, administrative effectiveness is understood as the ability of the state
bureaucracy to implement decisions throughout the state territory without
political interference.15 We believe this understanding overlooks central elements of effectiveness. Specifically, we challenge four core assumptions in
the theory of bureaucratic autonomy.
First, if bureaucratic autonomy leads to impartial administration, civil
servants must be assumed politically neutral. However, as is evident from
both the American and North-European debate, civil servants can never
clearly separate administration and politics since they inevitably engage in
politics every day when applying policy principles to individual cases. Implementing policies means acting politically. In modern bureaucracies, which
12

In this way, it is usually equated with meritocracy. Yet, we hold that bureaucratic
autonomy does not necessarily imply meritocracy as bureaucracies can be autonomous
of political pressure yet recruit on the basis of non-merit based criteria. However, for
the purpose of this analysis we equate bureaucratic autonomy and meritocracy because
they have tended to cluster together in the time period at hand, see Raadschelders and
Rutgers, 1996a, 71-89.
13
Rauch and Evans, 2000.
14
Linz and Stepan, 1996; Rothstein, 2011.
15
Despite a general lack of clarity, similar definitions dominate debates on measurement,
see Bureaucracy Quality in the International Country Risk Guide PRS, 2014, September 22, 7 and Government Effectiveness in the World Banks Governance Matters
project Kaufmann, Kraay, and Mastruzzi, 2009, 6.

exhibit strong career incentives, civil servants are typically highly attentive
to political intentions (this attention likely increases with the servants closeness to the political level) because they need these intentions for applying
legislation in the manner intended.16 In this sense, there is no such thing as
an neutral standard applied neutrally.17
Moreover, as the demand for states infrastructural capacity has increased
through time and exploded with globalization, civil servants have increasingly engaged as experts and political advisors in policy-making inhibiting
neutrality in the first place.18 Despite the apparent trade-off between responsiveness and competence, civil servants need to, and in reality often manage
to, balance attention to the wishes of their political executive and their own
professional expertise.19
Second, as bureaucratic autonomy is a theory of effective policy implementation, it must assume that employees in the bureaucracy are responsive
to the political executive of the day. Otherwise, they are more than sheer administrators. However, bureaucrats are rational, strategic, and self-interested
agents. Despite being hired as neutral servants in an ultimately political hierarchy, they may engage in slack generation, shirking or sabotage to obstruct
government policies that conflict with their interests, or they deliberately
try to influence the content of policies to favor their own position by, for
instance, maximizing budgets.20 Narrow self-interest is not the only possible
reason for unresponsiveness. Bureaucrats can be motivated by a range of
goals, including pursuance of large societally beneficial ones.21
Ultimately, bureaucrats can harbor convictions that they know better
than the government what is good for policy, state, nation, or society. Such
16

e.g. Christensen, 1991, 307.

Aberbach and Rockman, 1994, 462.
18
Soifer and Hau, 2008.
19
Dogan, 1975, 4; Christensen, 1991, 315.
20
Brehm and Gates, 1997; Niskanen, 1971.
21
Downs, 1967.
17

convictions do not have to constitute a large problem. But they generate unresponsiveness and unstable situations when bureaucrats disagree with the
government and cannot be brought into line. Bureaucrats able and willing to
circumvent the wishes of their political executives are perhaps mostly associated with corrupt, neo-patrimonial administrations in developing countries
but may in fact be more significant in developed countries where bureaucracies are older and more institutionalized.22 These inspections reveal that
in assessing administrative effectiveness one cannot rely solely on knowledge
of employment procedures but must include day-to-day interactions between
civil servants and politicians.
Below the two assumptions we have discussed lie two more general assumptions, namely that political control is necessarily negative and that bureaucratic autonomy is necessarily positive for administrative effectiveness
and democratic stability. In the next section, we engage with these assumptions more formally but at this point, some distinctions should prepare the
reader.
Apart from running the risk of ineffectiveness, a bureaucracy that is completely autonomous of political (that is, government) control is fundamentally
undemocratic because it then implements policies that do not originate in
parliament.23 Concretely, political control, or more precisely bureaucratic responsiveness, is necessary for cooptation in a democratic system that allows
and breeds political opposition and competition.24 This does not mean that
parties or governments should have direct control over hirings and firings in
their bureaucracies. But they should have control of and hold civil servants
accountable to their daily implementation decisions. However, excessive political control limits the display of professional expertise and may thus lead
to immediate, unintended or unproductive results in implementation. The
22

Nordlinger, 1981.
Held, 2006, 87.
24
Finer, 1941; Fukuyama, 2013, 11.
23

future relationship between professional civil servants and their political executives may also be severely harmed if professional norms are repeatedly
undermined.25
Thus, bureaucratic autonomy is not necessarily positive for administrative effectiveness, though politicization is not either. And democracy and
political control is not necessarily negative, though it can be if it is too wideranging. This poses the dilemma of how to balance the need for bureaucratic
autonomy which conditions expertise, consistency, and the rule of law in
the policy implementation process with political control which conditions
accountability and a focus on public goods delivery.
What is the solution to this dilemma? The above discussion has highlighted the need for a definition of administrative effectiveness that more
explicitly relates the administration to the political level. Fundamentally, in
the nomenclature of agency theory, attention must be directed towards identifying civil servants as agents and the government as political principal. We
thus define administrative effectiveness as the capacity of the bureaucracy to
construct and implement government policies regarding public services and
regulations accurately and swiftly throughout the territory. This ensures that
bureaucratic skills only make sense if they are directed at implementing the
policies of incumbent governments. But it also makes clear that the capacity
to construct and implement is a bureaucratic prerogative that, along with
attention to political intentions, involves the autonomy of the professional
expertise of civil servants. Furthermore, it is sufficiently broad to capture
variations of modern bureaucracies across time and space.26
Hereby, we argue that the current literature on administrative effectiveness in comparative politics conflates what we believe are two conceptually
separate yet empirically interacting dimensions of state administrative effec25
26

Gruber, 2007, Ch. 3.

see, e.g., Fukuyama, 2013; Greif, 2007, 4-5.

10

tiveness: Bureaucratic autonomy (in hiring and firing) and executive loyalty
of agents (to political principals across shifting governments).
The first dimension deals exclusively with the staffing of the state administration as indicated. The contradistinctions are bureaucratic vis-`a-vis
political hirings and firings. From medieval times, state bureaucracies have
gradually gained more discretion in hirings and firings but still today, many
bureaucracies are dominated by political appointments and even where bureaucracies are basically autonomous do we find some degree of political
interference at the top levels.27
The contradistinctions of the second dimension are executive vis-`a-vis
broken agent loyalty. They stem directly from the insights of principal-agent
models and, as opposed to the first dimension, deals exclusively with dayto-day interactions. By executive loyalty, we mean the willingness of civil
servants to implement the proposed policies of shifting governments no matter the content. Note that this safeguards against tautological reasoning as
executive loyalty could involve obedience of policies that would, by intension or not, lead to democratic breakdown, which has been the case in, for
instance, contemporary Venezuela and Russia where democratically elected
governments have deliberately and gradually brought democracy to an end.
Executive loyalty is thus not loyalty to a specific political order but loyalty
to any government at any time.
Broken loyalty, by contrast, is the willingness of civil servants to serve
their own private or third-party interests when they conflict with serving
those of the government. Bureaucracies with no executive loyalty at all are
rare but broken loyalty thrives in regimes with weak government institutions. Broken loyalty may also dominate in patrimonial and neo-patrimonial
bureaucracies if patronage is scarce (complicating the maintenance of loy27

Dahlstr
om, Lapuente, and Teorell, 2011.

11

alty)28 , and in charismatic regimes because loyalty through affection must be

reestablished with every new political leader.29 However, as we show in the
next section, the lack of executive loyalty need not reach extremes like these
to create problems for administrative effectiveness.
Summing up, administrative effectiveness in mass democracies may be
fruitfully conceived as the intersection of bureaucratic autonomy and executive loyalty, each necessary and jointly sufficient for administrative effectiveness. The next section proposes how the establishment of administrative
effectiveness unfolds.

Propositions
Next we put our distinctions to work. Given the importance of administrative effectiveness in the determination of interwar outcomes, what would we
expect of the precursors of breakdown and survival in terms of their state
administrations? As we show in this subsection, the precursors to breakdown are equifinal. While the survival cases we examine fundamentally look
alike, we argue that breakdowns occur through two qualitatively distinct
paths. Briefly, survival cases developed administrations that featured both
executive loyalty and bureaucratic autonomy prior to the interwar period
whereas breakdown occurred in different ways and for different reasons when
either executive loyalty or bureaucratic autonomy was lacking. Moreover,
we stress that, to achieve both executive loyalty and bureaucratic autonomy,
politicians had to ensure the former before the latter. Sequencing mattered.
We begin with the question of autonomy. Lapuente and Rothstein30 argue that bureaucratic autonomy is important because absent the possibility
to politicize public administration incumbents can credibly commit to not
28

Silberman, 1993, 34.

Rudolph and Rudolph, 1979, 224.
30
Lapuente and Rothstein, 2014.
29

12

BU

PL

Figure 1: The basic problem

use the state against their political opponents or to politicize implementation. By contrast, when extensive politicization is possible, the state is used
for political gain at the expense of the opposition. The following partial
implementation radicalizes existing political conflicts and paves the way to
democratic breakdown.
We see no need to disagree on these points. However, this focus diverts
attention from an important motivation for politicization: Political control.31
Beyond blunt clientelism, politicization serves the purpose of ensuring that
bureaucracies implement the policies they are meant to implement in the way
they are meant to implement them. Correct, this may lead to commitment
problems vis-`a-vis the political opposition. But politicization is directed at
solving a different problem.
To see this, let us consider an abstract case where two actors interact in a
hierarchical relationship. One actor, the political leadership or government,
wants to direct the other actor, the bureaucracy, to faithfully implement its
policy. To keep matters simple, we consider only an instance where policies
are located on one dimension A as shown in Figure 1.32 On our policy dimension, both the government and the bureaucrats have zones of acceptance,
illustrated in Figure 1 as boxes covering subsets of A and denoted P L and
BU , respectively.
Herbert Simon33 introduces zones of acceptance in his discussion of au31

Kopeck
y, Mair, and Spirova, 2012; Peters and Pierre, 2004, e.g.
For a multi-dimensional analysis of similar ideas, see e.g.Hammond and Knott, 1999.
33
Simon, 1976, 11-12.
32

13

thority. In authority relations, administrators let their behavior be guided

by superiors decisions without examining the quality of that decision independently. Obedience thus occurs where there is an intersection between the
governments zone of acceptance (P L ) and the bureaucracys ditto (BU ).34
But if a policy is too far removed from an administrators preferences, if it
is outside her zone of acceptance as it is depicted in Figure 1, disobedience
results. That is, the government policy will not be effectively implemented
as bureaucrats shirk or sabotage it. Figure 1, then, presents a problem for
the political leadership.
Politicization is one possible remedy to this problem: If an agent is not
working to produce the outcome the government wants her to, she can be
replaced with a more co-operative agent. We show this in the upper panel of
Figure 2 where the bureaucratic agent has been replaced by a different bureaucratic agent whose zone of acceptance (BU ) does include policies that
the government will accept. In a less stylized line of thinking, of course, the
government does not replace the whole bureaucracy but replaces managers,
department or agency heads, or other key employees.
But for achieving administrative effectiveness, politicization is not an
optimal strategy for several reasons (beyond those mentioned by Lapuente
and Rothstein). First, politicization tends to lead to politicization. We show
why in the lower panel of Figure 2. This panel illustrates what can happen
when the government is replaced (e.g. through elections). Given that the
new governments policies are different from the former government, there
will be no intersection of the new governments zone of acceptance (P L )
and the old bureaucracys (BU ). Thus, the new government faces the
same problem as its predecessor for which politicization is a solution. If
Lapuente and Rothstein are correct that particularistic uses of the state
34

As we assume agents to be bounded rational and thus satisfize rather than optimize
when making their decisions, any intersection results in obedience. Both actors will see
outcomes within the overlapping region as good enough.

14

PL

BU*

BU*

PL*

Figure 2: Politicization
polarizes existing conflicts, a vicious circle of administrative ineffectiveness
begins where incoming and outgoing political leaders are driven towards the
extremes of A making overlaps between theirs and the bureaucracys zones
of acceptance increasingly unlikely.
But there are even more insidious aspects of politicization for administrative effectiveness. In fact, even when the zones of acceptance of government
and bureaucracy intersect, politicization harms administrative effectiveness.
In Figure 2, we have illustrated this by making the height of BU , denoting
the effort of implementation demanded, smaller than that of BU in Figure
1.
The point is not obvious. Indeed, hiring politically loyal agents may decrease the amount of shirking and sabotaging of policies. But paradoxically,
politicization increase the risk that the administration becomes corrupt35 ; it
blocks career advancement opportunities and hence makes entry into public
office less attractive to careerists36 ; it demotivates civil servants from investing in the acquisition of field specific knowledge in the course of their
35
36

Dahlstr
om, Lapuente, and Teorell, 2012.
Lewis, 2008, 143-145.

15

service37 ; and it permits the government or related interest groups to pursue

rents through the administration at the cost of the pursuit of its more general
duties.38 Additionally, because bureaucrats job situation is particularly insecure in a condition of politicization, incoming bureaucrats have less incentive
to commit to the implementation of ongoing policies.39
In sum, politicization is a solution to a problem of loyalty but politicization creates its own set of problems related to competence and performance
which go beyond the chiefly political consequences Lapuente and Rothstein
correctly point to. We expect politicization to be one path to ineffective
state administration. Specifically we expect the following to hold in politicized cases:
1. The government staffs the administration with political/party loyalists.
2. The administration is loyal to their appointing government.
3. Implementation is poor, and the administration is used for political or
personal purposes.
The numerous negative consequences of politicization taken aside, we now
show that bureaucratic autonomy may harm administrative effectiveness as
well. If politicization is the problem, insulation of the bureaucracy from
politics is the solution. The government can use the improved performance
of a de-politicized bureaucracy to bolster its position, when its existence is
threatened by external war, popular resentment, or coup plotters.40
However, granting autonomy in itself does not solve the problem of achieving political control: As indicated, faced with having to implement unacceptable policies an autonomous bureaucracy might become unresponsive, shirk
37

Gailmard and Patty, 2007.

Miller, 2000.
39
Cornell, 2014.
40
Ertman, 1997.
38

16

and sabotage these policies because it then has the motivation and opportunity to do so. Thus, autonomy only makes the problem of political control
worse as the government is cut off from the politicization solution. As Weber
famously saw, the expertise of professional bureaucrats may divert policy
further away from politicians: The power position of a fully developed bureaucracy is always great, under normal conditions overtowering.41 Even if
disciplinary tools are in the hands of politicians, bureaucratic expertise makes
control through disciplinary measures less preferable. Thus, expertise only
adds to the problem of bureaucratic autonomy.
In bureaucracies, there will likely always be some shirking, some budget
maximization, and some policy zealotry not intended by the government.
Much of this will not be relevant for our purposes. But unresponsiveness
can become a threat to political stability in the extreme where bureaucracies shirk, sabotage, and ignore political direction on a very large scale,
and cannot be controlled. In the politically polarized environment of interwar Europe, bureaucratic autonomy would likely be a significant problem
as politicians and bureaucrats zones of acceptance would likely be divergent. Consequently, political leaders facing an autonomous bureaucracy can
become stuck in a situation like that depicted in Figure 1. If this happens
on a large enough scale, popular dissatisfaction can become acute as government promises of social, educational, labor market and other reforms never
hit the ground as they are supposed to. Ultimately, voters may become
attracted to extreme political groupings promising better performance and
remove the overly bureaucratic order. In sum, we see autonomous, unresponsive bureaucracies as a second route to ineffective administration and
democratic breakdown. Specifically, we expect the following:
1. The administration staffs itself.
41

Weber, 1978, 991.

17

2. The interest of the administration diverts from that of at least some

governments.
3. The administration resists implementing government policies.
If there is no intersection between the bureaucratic and political zones
of acceptance and the bureaucratic agents cannot be removed, how can the
government get its policies implemented without resistance? Our answer,
and Herbert Simons, is that the width of the zone of acceptance is not fixed
but can be enlarged by enticements broadly understood.42 Enticements may
serve to induce executive loyalty. As conceptualized earlier, executive loyalty
widens the bureaucratic zone of acceptance in the sense that it accepts a wider
range of policies simply because their source is the government of the day.
We argue that, in the interwar context, what distinguished administrations
in being executively (dis)loyal was an ethos of government service based on
the notion that service to the government was service to the wider community
of the national state.
We show how executive loyalty works in Figure 3. In the upper panel,
the situation we depicted in Figure 1 has been adjusted to capture the idea
that bureaucrats are executive loyalists. In contrast to Figure 2 bureaucrats
are not replaced. Instead, their executive loyalty permits them to accept a
wider range of policies. Consequently, BU now covers a much wider span
of policies on A including policies that are acceptable to the government.
Notice also that the height of BU remains the same as in Figure 1 to signify
that the performance-damaging effects of politicization are avoided. The
upper panel in Figure 3 illustrates a bureaucracy that is both willing to and
capable of implementing government policies effectively. Moreover, because
the bureaucratic zone of acceptance is widened, it rarely creates problems
when governments are replaced as we show in the lower panel of Figure
42

cf. Simon, 1976, 115-117, 130-134.

18

BU

PL

PL* BU

Figure 3: Executive loyalty

3. The left-over bureaucrats will be as willing to implement the policies of
(most) incoming governments as those of its predecessors. This is the key of
executive loyalty.
It is worth cautioning against misunderstanding at this point. Executive
loyalty is not a characteristic of bureaucracies as wholes; it is a characteristic
of individuals. But this neither entails that each individual administrator
engages in interactions with the government; nor that all administrators or
supervisors agree on what policies are acceptable; nor does each administrator determine her loyalty in isolation. Most interactions do not involve the
government but the heads of agencies, departments, and other organizations
on the one hand and their subordinates on the other, and administrative
behavior is determined not only by the interplay between subordinate and
superior but equally in interactions between subordinates.43 In the aggregate,
executive loyalty is emergent from these interactions when they produce superiors who accept the directions of the government and subordinates who
accept the directives of their superiors. Executive loyaltys opposite is emer43

Brehm and Gates, 1997; Simon, 1976.

19

gent from the dysfunction of either of these hierarchical relationships. Modelling this emergence would be interesting but would take us too far afield
from the purpose of this paper.
The question of how bureaucrats become executive loyalists is interesting
but not a prime concern here since our paper focuses on loyaltys relation
to administrative effectiveness. Stated bluntly, bureaucrats must have something to gain from becoming executive loyalists. Therefore, the government
may fruitfully use disciplinary tools, financial controls, and financial dependence on being publically employed to work bureaucrats incentives in the
direction of executive loyalty. It is more relevant to ask how the two components of administrative effectiveness, bureaucratic autonomy and executive
loyalty, condition each other. We propose that administrative effectiveness
only emerged in administrations which became executively loyal prior to the
granting of its autonomy from political hiring and firing.
To see this, note that if the bureaucracy is made autonomous when executive loyalty is not present, politically discretionary hiring and firing is
limited to an extent that makes forcing loyalty on the bureaucracy harder.
Protection and permanent tenure protects bureaucrats from the possibility
of quick mass layoffs. Competent bureaucracies often unite in its insulation
to defend their established privileges.44
However, even if executive loyalty is in place when bureaucracy becomes
autonomous in employment matters, the question rises how the executive
loyalty can at all preserve its credibility. How can autonomy be granted
when the government must realize that bureaucrats have all the reason in
the world to defect on their loyalty once autonomy is granted? The answer
lies in professional interactions. One might argue that professionalism is the
stuff of executive loyalty in public organizations via professionals influence
44

Shefter, 1994.

20

on and monitoring of each other.45 However, it would be presumptuous to

argue that professionalism alone ensures executive loyalty. A professional
administrator might very well induce discipline on her fellow administrators.
But her susceptibility to discipline from a political (non-professional) superior
is much less clear-cut. In gist, without executive loyalty there is no guarantee
that she will discipline her colleagues to adhere to government policy.
However, if the bureaucrats are already executively loyal, their professionalism works to punish shirkers and saboteurs and those who were supposed
to but neglected such punishment in the first place. In turn, bounded rational agents adhere to goals through imitation of colleagues.46 Essentially,
loyalty is credible, or at least credible up to a point, because it is enforced
within the bureaucracy itself. Notice, however, that this internal enforcement
could go in any direction. Executive loyalty must be established before professionalism can propel it and make it credible in a context of bureaucratic
autonomy.
Hence, we view effective administrations as the result of the combination
of both executive loyalty and autonomy, and we see this combination most
feasibly achieved if the former is secured before the latter. In other words,
we expect the following of our survivor cases:
1. The administration staffs itself.
2. The administration is loyal to the government of the day.
3. The administration did not become autonomous before executive loyalty was established.
We now move on to the case studies. We begin with and analyze at
greatest length the German case as it is the litmus test of our theory. As
the second breakdown precursor, we next confine ourselves to Lapuente and
45
46

cf. Miller, 2000, 320-322.

Axelrod, 1986, see also Brehm and Gates, 1997; Simon, 1976.

21

Rothsteins analysis of Spain but go deeper to assess executive loyalty and

its effects on administrative effectiveness. Finally, we assess executive loyalty
and autonomy developments in first Denmark and then England.

Germany
The origins of the Weimar administration lie in late 17th century Prussia.
Known as the Great Elector, Frederick William was the first in the series of
Hohenzollern kings who centralized, refined, and empowered an administration combining revenue collection with militay functional-hierarchical practice. Prussias central government branches became very effective in terms
of public goods provision and tax collection.47 Neither bureaucratic autonomy nor executive loyalty as conceptualized here but some premature forms
of them formed this administrative effectiveness compared with the rest of
contemporary Europe: Bureaucracy was far from autonomous since hirings
and firings were managed politically, by Frederick William personally and
under the next three Hohenzollern kings increasingly by commissions under
royal supervision. Frederick William, and his successors including Frederick II the Great, effectively rooted out patrimonial tendencies at the central
levels of administration by recruiting middle-class people on the basis of merits and in-job performance. It was no genuine meritocracy, however, since
higher-level civil servants were restricted to noble families and non-noble but
wealthy men.48
It is fruitful to distinguish between the central and local levels when assessing autonomy and loyalty. Civil servant loyalty at central level was more
directed to the nearest superior officer than to the royal, political level. The
bureaucracy was unified and obedient of royal policies because of its militarily
47
48

Fischer and Lundgreen, 1975, 510-517.

Fischer and Lundgreen, 1975, 521-522; Ertman, 1997, 248, 253-254.

22

organized hierarchy, transparent and stable career paths.49 As many servants

were educated in the military and shared the royal ambition of national defense and military conquest, one might say there was a certain overlap in the
kings and servants zones of acceptance at the time. Yet, as this militarist
bureaucracy excelled in revenue collection and were moneyed and equipped,
it developed a self-sufficient attitude very well aware that any Prussian king
was completely dependent upon its effort and expertise in tax collection.50
One litmus test of executive loyalty is how well policies are implemented
before and after the reign of a certain political principal if the bureaucrats
and the contents of the policies stay the same. Such a test is provided
by Kiser and Schneider51 in their analysis of tax collection in 18th century
Prussia. Interestingly, they find that taxation efficiency worsened dramatically when the energetic Frederick the Great was succeeded by the indolent
and pleasure-loving Frederick William II. Demands for raising taxes were
the same but the degree of control of tax officials conducted by the king
and his commissars decreased sharply.52 This example confirms the general
impression among scholars that the admiration of each king in person and
disciplinary measures of royal oversight and the threat of arbitrary firings
were the keys to administrative effectiveness in the 18th century.53 These
measures and union in military ambition constituted only a temporary and
fragile alignment of bureaucrats and politicians zone of acceptance not
genuine executive loyalty.
The greatest correction to the Weberian description of Prussian bureaucracy stems from the decentralized levels of administration and an understanding of the role of the Junkers. Although the Hohenzollern kings managed to decrease the fused economic and administrative powers of the Junker
49

Braun, 1975, 276-277.

Fischer and Lundgreen, 1975, 510-517.
51
Kiser and Schneider, 1994.
52
Kiser and Schneider, 1994, 194, 196.
53
Rudolph and Rudolph, 1979, 207.
50

23

estates in East Elbia during the 17th and 18th centuries, the Junkers preserved their local-administrative authority and right to nominate candidates
for the main office of local administration, that is, county commissioner in
the Landrats.54 In matters of land, agriculture, and taxation, the Junkers
zone of acceptance differed substantially from that of the king and, given
the Junkers economic power and position as controller of peasants, firing
of Junkers was not an option and no sensible Prussian king would intervene
in the daily decisions of Junkers without compromise. Consequently, the
Junkers and the king negotiated a separate tax system for land and towns.
Being autonomous and questionably loyal, the Junkers had to be heavily
monitored in taxation55 , which, as indicated, was a flawed system. However,
they never got a stake in the executive power by becoming co-legislators during the 18th century as landed elites had become in Sweden and England.56
In effect, even though the Junkers were gradually brought in line with the
basic monarchic interests of military conquest as their sons were enrolled into
the Prussian army, Junker loyalty to the king was fragile and more personal
than executive.57
As the above trajectory makes clear, the Prussian administration was fit
for autonomy but not for executive loyalty when entering the 19th century.
In 1794, a code established the class of professional civil servants, Beamtenstand, which formalized the centralized meritocratic bureaucracy with the
purpose of replacing hereditary servants when they did not fulfill their duties
to the state. Only a decade later, in 1807, and thus coinciding with similar
reforms in other Western European countries aimed at dealing more effectively with increasing socioeconomic complexity, all state offices were opened
to competition on the basis of merits. Even though this system, along with
54

Braun, 1975, 273.

Braun, 1975, 270, 300-301.
56
Ertman, 1997, 241.
57
Muncy, 1944, 13-15.
55

24

increased social mobility in education and income, put pressure on the bureaucratic unilateralism of the wealthiest and the aristocracy, recruitment
still favored these groups because of general inequalities.58
This marked the codification of genuine bureaucratic autonomy but also
that loyalty was given to the nation state rather than the government of
the day. The weakness of Frederick William III (1797-1840) gave increased
influence in government activities, including legislation, for the Beamten.
Symptomatically, Gillis59 refers to them as Platos Guardian Class, deeply
engaged and sure of their prerogative in policy-making by virtue of their
power of knowledge and organization despite adhering strictly to a principle
of neutrality beyond politics. This exact feature was the main point of criticism by the liberals during the 1840s but when revolution finally approached
in 1848, the bureaucratic class managed to preserve its power at the center
of political decision-making by gradually reforming itself without altering
its basic identity. Despite notable reforms aimed at politicizing bureaucracy
during the 1840s and 1850s (for instance, political access to firing if continued
violation of public duty, tightened disciplinary measures, and reduced access
to political participation60 ), the bureaucratic class managed to preserve its
powers as an autonomous and politically important group finally, it was
consolidated by Bismarck when he assumed the chancellorship in 1871.61
Important for our purpose is the way Beamten used their political power
and what that shows about their loyalty to the political leadership. With the
establishment of a ministerial system in 1848, bureaucrats only strengthened
their power vis-a-vis politicians and preserved the Standestaat. Ministers
were to countersign all decrees by the king62 . Did this phenomenon extend
beyond the Prussian context to the whole of Germany after the unification
58

Gillis, 1971, 6-7, 11.

Gillis, 1971, 16.
60
Gillis, 1971, 45-46, 125-126, 140, 151.
61
Gillis, 1971, 172; Mommsen, 1991, 79.
62
Friedrich, 1933, 188-189.
59

25

of 1871? Yes. In his extensive study of the 19th century federalization of

Germany, Daniel Ziblatt63 finds that the federalization process was relatively
easy because Prussias and the other Germanic states had relatively similar
state capacity and types of bureaucratic organization based on concentration,
specialization, and professionalism. The now German Beamten continued its
political influence as issue experts in the National Council, (Reichsrat), an
executive body that was unaccountable to the parliament, Reichstag.64
As several accounts confirm65 , the bureaucracy was extremely influential
in German politics but its zone of acceptance never equaled that of the political leadership for long periods of time. Under Bismarck, a common concern
for the welfare of the nation state and the means to this end between the bureaucracy, Bismarck, and the emperor secured administrative effectiveness.
However, after Bismarcks withdrawal from power various different German
governments experienced problems with governing through bureaucracy because bureaucracy ran its own course.66 Bureaucracy was loyal to the nation
state and the king above all and saw circumvention of parliamentary and government policies to the protection of the nation state and king as its primary
entitlement.67 From early 19th century when SPD entered parliamentary
politics and later in 1912 became Germanys most popular party, bureaucracy was increasingly conflicting with governments, and the public esteem
of civil servants, which was traditionally unusually high, deteriorated with
the rise of socialism.68 As this reveals, competence rather than autonomy
gave bureaucrats access to political decision-making but autonomy blocked
the government and parliament from chucking out disloyal bureaucrats.
At the brink of revolution in 1918-1919, what were the prospects of bu63

Ziblatt, 2006, 113-115.

Friedrich, 1933, 195.
65
e.g. Friedrich, 1933, 201; Mann, 1985, 85-86; Mommsen, 1991, 79.
66
Mann, 1985, 85.
67
Mann, 1985, 85-86; Gillis, 1971, 33.
68
Mommsen, 1991, 79.
64

26

reaucratic loyalty to the coming democratic-republican system? And were

these prospects not just a function of the infiltration of bureaucracy by conservative classes? Remember here that executive loyalty means that the
bureaucracy ultimately acts in accordance with the wishes of the government in place. By implication, any fundamental political reservations on the
part of the bureaucracy can hinder executive loyalty. Whether such reservations occur because bureaucracy is infiltrated by outside interests does not
undermine the independent, negative effect of administrative ineffectiveness
and bureaucratic autonomy. In fact, the German case shows that bureaucratic autonomy may underlie the fusion, preservation, and strengthening of
bureaucratic-conservatives elites who greatly oppose a democratic regime.
From 1815, a split in bureaucracy widened between moderates (typically Beamten) agitating industrialization and, mostly, Junkers opposing it.69
Gradually, the Beamten got the upper hand as the number and influence of
Junkers in the administration decreased in the second half of the 19th century. The Junkers loyalty turned decisively to the king (and Bismarck) from
1871 but they kept challenging administrative oversight and regulations from
the central levels. As their influence on political direction was challenged,
they grew more materialistic, self-centered, and hostile to parliament (whom
they saw as responsible for the development).70 Despite decreasing influence
at ministerial levels, the courts and local level were still the locus of administrative power and here, Junkers retained their vital influence after 1914 as de
facto leaders in Landratsamt, Regierungs-Praesident, and Ober-Praesident.71
Conversely, the political and bureaucratic Beamten increasingly engaged
with SPD, but on a mutually beneficial interest in furthering social stability
and industrialization.72 and the interaction was still weak.73 Gary Bonham
69

Ziblatt, 2006, 38.

Muncy, 1944, 31-32.
71
Muncy, 1944, 191, 209.
72
Mommsen, 1991, 80.
73
Caplan, 1988, 8-9.
70

27

has reviewed the many competing interpretations of these inter-bureaucratic

conflict lines and the German bureaucracys general autonomy of society.
Along the lines of the above sketch, he finds that while Junkers (and conservatives more generally) opposed democracy and socialism, even the Beamten
who opposed Junker conservatism opposed democracy because of a distaste
of parliamentary politics.74 That is, however heterogeneous, there was a genuine, coherent bureaucratic zone of acceptance that did not include truly
democratic regime types.
For our purposes of assessing administrative effectiveness in the interwar
period, it seems fit to focus on how bureaucrats interacted with politicians
and reacted to reform proposals.75 We here zoom in on the constitutional
negotiations around 1918-1919, the cut-backs and reforms of administration
in the 1920s, and the presidential cabinets from 1930 to Hitlers takeover in
1933.
Constitutional negotiation of 1918-1919 in many ways was a replay of
former political-bureaucratic interaction despite the unusual circumstances
of democratization and war defeat. SPD was moderate in contrast to the
communists but still opted for a radical break with the past by installing
genuine, social democracy. However, SPD was considerably constrained by
the Beamten bureaucrats because of their expertise, popularity in the population, and sheer size that necessitated their support an additional yet
important reason was that their protected status made firings impossible.76
Thus, the constitution recognized civil servants protected status, privileges,
and the power of ministries in policy-making. Also, the peculiar eligibility
for parliament amidst a strong assertion of neutrality beyond party politics
was explicitly codified and maintained in practice as Beamten quickly became active members of parties in parliament and formed strong civil service
74

Bonham, 1983, 650.

cf. Caplan, 1988, 13.
76
B
ockenf
orde, 1985, 15-16.
75

28

trade unions.77 From the start of the Weimar republic, bureaucracy was thus
not changed in its personnel composition. Instead, the legacies of a strong
professional organization whose internal disciplinary measures were aimed at
forging care for bureaucratic management of the nation state rather than
implementation of government programs remained dominant.78 In turn, the
most radical socialist reforms were either redirected in the ministries or simply never put to a vote because of the bargaining power of high-level civil
servants.79 Even the labor ministry, which was highly influenced by social
democratic ideas in the first years, eventually was taken over by conservative civil servants from 1924 sidelining trade unions.80 Bureaucracy generally
guided social change towards pre-WWI economic policies benefitting heavy
industry as opposed to workers and farmers which continued across economic
cycles.81 Again, this shows the pointlessness in speaking of administrative effectiveness in an otherwise competent, law-abiding, and efficient bureaucracy
when the zones of acceptance of the bureaucrats and political executives do
not overlap.
Some reforms in the start of the 1920s cut back on salary and strengthened
meritocracy by rooting out remaining social privileges within medium- and
low-level bureaucratic ranks but as these groups fiercely protested no larger
reform was initiated. From late 1920s and under Br
uning from 1930, cutbacks and rationalization grew more substantial.82 This served to break down
the confidence between these lower-level (especially street-level) bureaucrats
and the government institution but the more and more open outcries and
political attitudes of the civil servants only led to a dramatic decrease in the
public esteem of bureaucracy.83 Bureaucracys traditional legitimacy van77

Frank, 1966, 736; Mommsen, 1991, 80.

Frank, 1966, 730-734.
79
M
ading, 1985, 96.
80
Liu, 1997, 363.
81
Petzina, 1985, 46, 55-56.
82
Caplan, 1988, 76-77.
83
Caplan, 1988, 94-95.
78

29

ished.
From 1930, German democracy entered the face of rule by presidential
emergency decree. This phase, which eventually led to Hitlers takeover in
1933, was a tumultuous time where forces in the world economy, parliament,
and among voters changed dramatically. Historical accounts have clearly
established that the Reichstag functioned poorly in terms of forming lasting governments throughout the Weimar period but, as recent statistical
analyses shows84 , this was less an internal party systemic problem as it was
determined by outside factors such as unemployment. As NSDAP attracted
voters who were angry with the management of unemployment, the elections
from 1930-1932 produced no possibility of a viable coalition excluding the
anti-democrats of NSDAP, KPD, and DNVP. But what role did the state
administration play in paving the way for extremist voting?
Even though constant in its character and membership, the state administration was far from any stabilizing force. In fact, severe administrative
problems enfeebled functioning parliamentary politics and government formation and radicalized a broad spectrum of people to join NSDAP or the
Communist Party (KPD). Through the 1920s and early 1930s, high-level bureaucrats in the ministries persuaded governments to withdraw certain rights
from the Reichstag by giving the President the right to nominate his own
personal candidates and increasing the use of civil servants as ministers. In
this sense, emergency rule was a gradual result of developments from within
the parliament-bureaucracy relationship starting before NSDAPs first electoral triumph in 1928.85 In effect, bureaucracy became the most important
governmental force to the disposal of Br
uning, and, by giving high-level bureaucrats discretion in financial matters, Br
uning unleashed the deflationary politics and cut-backs on social services and unemployment insurances
84
85

Lehmann, 2010; St
ogbauer, 2001.
Mommsen, 1991, 82.

30

that radicalized the unemployed and public sector middle classes into voting
Nazi86 That is, the professional bureaucrats of Germany implemented policies
swiftly and precisely but even though Br
uning agreed on the policies, these
policies origins were more bureaucratic than political. High-level bureaucrats circumvented the zones of acceptance of SPD and the liberal parties,
which were paralyzed by the parliamentary dead-lock. Moreover, the legacy
of bureaucratic autonomy amidst executive disloyalty drove lower-level civil
servants into supporting NSDAP at elections as Br
unings cut-backs starting
hitting them.87
To come full circle in the administration, the Junkers contributed to the
delegitimization of democracy by implementing cut-backs in the Lander On
numerous occasions, judgments were in favor of the institutions of Wilhelmine
Germany: Junkers, the Reichswehr, big business, and monarchist supporters.
This caused an alienation of the workers from their own project: the Weimar
democracy. Workers were driven in the arms of Hitler who promised them
more fair government and a revitalization of the German nation which the
current decentral and central administrations seemed unable to.88
Summing up, bureaucratic autonomy amidst executive disloyalty caused
government-bureaucratic conflicts which enfeebled administrative effectiveness and eroded the legitimacy of Weimar democracy eventually making
Hitlers rise to executive power hardly unavoidable.

Spain
[The following is the preliminary conclusions on the Spanish case. . . ] We
show that our two-dimensional understanding of administrative effectiveness
provides important additions to Lapuente and Rothsteins account of the
86

Mommsen, 1991, 83, 86, 90, 100, 111-112.

Caplan, 1988, 94-95.
88
Petzina, 1985, 63; McElligott, 2014, 111, 118.
87

31

role of the Spanish state administration in the demise of democracy leading

to its breakdown in October 1936. Thus, we show that the Spanish monarchys traditional (from the 11th century) reliance on patronage payment of
landed elites for decentralized administration; the continued use of wealthy
financially non-dependents as civil servants in the ministries through the
19th century; and the ongoing regional conflicts and weak central authority
caused massive disloyalty to Crown policies at the decentral and central levels of administration. Lapuente and Rothstein point to the introduction of
a spoils system (Liberals and Conservatives alternated in power and staffed
bureaucracy with party loyalists), Turno Pacifico, under the Restoration system from 1874 as the cause of politicization and polarization which led to
democratic breakdown. However, we add that the political motivation for
the spoils system was the lack of political control of the administration historically culminating in the revolutionary years from 1823-1874. Liberals
and conservatives wanted to bring the bureaucrats zone of acceptance to
intersect with their own but chose the path of politicization instead of meritrecruitment from lower classes.
In need of better administrative performance, bureaucratic autonomy was
formally established in 1918 with the Civil Act but in practice, the spoils system dominated administrative staffing through Riveras dictatorship and the
Second Republic (1931-1936). In turn, as argued by Lapuente and Rothstein,
the socialist government from 1931-1933, the center-right government from
1934-1936, and another socialist government functioning through the spring
of 1936 politicized administrations which then implemented anti-extremist
legislation and agricultural reform in biased ways antagonizing workers and
peasants. Interestingly, this was not a problem of administrative ineffectiveness quite the contrary. But our framework highlights additional features
that contributed to administrative ineffectiveness and democratic breakdown.
First, hiring of party loyalists drained bureaucracy for competent ca-

32

reerists. Despite ideological unity between bureaucracy and government, the

performance of bureaucrats was limited, that is, the discrepancy between
the actual and demanded performance of bureaucrats grew larger. Thus,
implementation of the greatly wanted agrarian reform (demanded by the socialist governments and the majority of people) was stalled, inconsistent, and
resource-drained by corruption. Second, the system of governmental hirings
and firings was far from coherent or dominating in all ministries and levels of
administration. Even during the socialist government from 1931 which was
backed by a clear majority of parties in the proposal for an agrarian reform,
implementation of the agrarian reform was never close to fulfillment and differed considerably in quality between regions. This was primarily because of
the resistance of local bosses, Caciques, who managed local implementation
but whose loyalty had traditionally resided with their own local influence
rather than any notion of government service; and because of the general
slack and shirking in the administrative system that was a consistent feature
of Spanish state administration from before the 19th century.
In drawing the full picture of Spains administrative ineffectiveness, we
thus need to move beyond employment matters: The introduction of the
spoils system was caused by centuries of problems of bureaucratic disloyalty
and lack of political control, and further, the spoils system cannot explain
why the agrarian reform was never implemented during the periods of socialist government, which could have given the socialists electoral support for a
new incumbency in 1933 and hindered radicalization.

Denmark
The Danish case gives us the more gradual path to administrative effectiveness of the two survival-precursor cases. With military defeat and economic
disaster in the late 1650s, the long powerful Danish nobility was forced, in

33

a coup detat in 1660, to give up its power to the King. A very extensive
form of absolutism resulted in which the King was the hereditary sovereign
and, according to the Kings law of 1665, had unrestricted and absolute
power.89 On this background, the King sought to establish an administration
that would be loyal to him personally and more effective in terms of raising
money and armies for state protection. He largely succeeded by assuming full
control of appointments to all public positions. He made the final decision on
all appointments in principle and used discretionary dismissal as a means to
punish disloyal administrators.90 As laid down in the Kings Law, the administration at this point was far from an autonomous, politically disinterested
meritocracy.
The unrestricted use of appointments served to establish loyalty beyond
one king but on to the next. Office was bestowed on those who had the
Kings support. This meant in particular that the Crown pursued a deliberate
strategy of employing officials of non-noble decent as these officials were more
dependent on their royal employer and less resistant to his policies.91 As Frisk
Jensen writes: [B]y deliberately replacing administrators from the noble
families with the sons of the bourgeoisie the King sought to ensure that no
real aristocratic power alternative to absolutist Royal power could arise92 .
We see here a major contrast to the German case. When absolutism was
established in 1660, 40 per cent of the small Royal administrations personnel
were of noble decent. But as the King sought to build loyal military and civil
services, the share of notables dropped. By the beginning of the 19th century,
15 per cent of the royal servants had a noble background93
Professional qualifications became increasingly important in the Kings
89

Lind, 2000.
Lind, 2000.
91
Knudsen and Rothstein, 1994, 205,Frisk Jensen, 2013b, 64.
92
Frisk Jensen, 2013a, 44.
93
Frisk Jensen, 2013a, 42-44,Knudsen and Rothstein, 1994, 208-209.
90

34

choice of appointment.94 The increased recruitment of legal graduates of

bourgeois decent only accelerated the decreasing trend of administration by
notables. Eventually, in 1821 recruitment came to formally require legal
training.95 By the mid-19th century, legal graduates had acquired a virtual
monopoly in the central administration.96
With meritocracy firmly established, there was little political parties
could afford to do in practice to politicize the administration when the democratic constitution of 1849 entered into force.97 Over time, bureaucrats became protected from discretionary dismissal as well. Thus, the administration could avoid the slack, sleaze, particularism, and corruption associated
with politicized administration.98 . As we show next, party governments successfully relied on executive loyalty, which was in place by the 19th century,
to ensure bureaucratic responsiveness.
Early absolutist monarchs pursued a deliberate strategy to secure the
loyalty of the administration. Royal servants swore an oath to consciously
serve Royal demands, and were in the central administration at least
given status and comparatively high wages in return.99 The employment of
bourgeois administrators meant that wages tied the individual bureaucrat
to the Crown in what Mungiu-Pippidi100 refers to as a form of interdependence. As we have said, loyalty is more easily achieved through financial
94

The sale of nominations for office was used in brief interim periods in the early 18th
century to finance wars and infrastructure investments. But the sold offices were not the
officials property and buying a nomination did not mean circumventing the increasing
merit requirement Frisk Jensen, 2013b.
95
Frisk Jensen, 2013a, 43-44.
96
Feldbk, 2000, 318-325.
97
Mungiu-Pippidi, 2011 The qualification in practice is important. The Danish central
bureaucracy became very much controlled by ministers, and politicization of appointments was not prevented by legal statutes. But as actual replacement of personnel can
be both financially and politically costly, governments have consistently refrained from
pursuing it Bischoff, 2012.
98
Dahlstr
om, Lapuente, and Teorell, 2012; Lapuente and Rothstein, 2014.
99
Frisk Jensen, 2013a, 45, 58-60.
100
Mungiu-Pippidi, 2011.

35

dependence. Additionally, regulations and financial oversight and auditing

of local and regional administrations helped rooting out slackers, plotters,
and the corrupt throughout the administration and contributed to marking
how loyalty was to be directed upwards to the King.101
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, incoming legal-trained administrators developed a professional sense of community. Increasingly, they
saw themselves as loyal servants of the state rather than of the person of
the King.102 Even when new Kings disrupted state organization, they met
with little bureaucratic resistance. For instance, prince Frederik VIs drastic change to the structure of government by reinstating the old Council of
the Realm was rapidly accepted by the old administrative elite as they saw
Frederik as the rightful heir to the Throne.103 Equally illustrative, when the
mentally ill Christian VII proved incapable of reliable decision-making, the
old administrative elite continued implementation and policy-making for the
state unabated.104 These examples illustrate that the administration at this
point had become loyal to the monarchy rather than the Kings person. The
contrast with changes on the Throne in Prussia is clear.
The Danish bureaucracy rarely resisted dictates from governments, either under absolutism or after the democratic constitutional change in 1849
whereas parts of the German bureaucracy fought democratic government
tooth and nail. Danish bureaucrats did not have a special, democratic ethos.
Rather, the bureaucratic locus of power in the chancellery fought alongside
the kings of the 1830s and 1840s to preserve the monarchy by extending
political rights to peasants. Thus, bureaucrats helped pushing for the 1849
constitutional change and agreed with the incoming parliamentary government led by the Right.105
101

Frisk Jensen, 2013a,b.

Frisk Jensen, 2013a.
103
Feldbk, 2000, 285.
104
Knudsen, 1995, 121-122.
105
Jrgensen, 2000, 397-400; Knudsen, 2000, 489-495.
102

36

The true test of executive loyalty came in 1901 when governments led by
liberals, social liberals, and social democrats started to form. The principle
that parliament needed to approve of appointed ministers was introduced
and as a consequence, new ministers were different from their predecessors,
who had been selected on their status and experience rather than their political backing.106 But when the Liberals entered government, ministers did
not purge bureaucracy and the servants of absolutism proved willing to serve
the new political system loyally and, relatively, effectively.107 . The new ministers and their administrators initially mistrusted each other but they cooperated rather than clashed and what mistrust there was faded with time
and successful cooperation. Loyalty to the ministers of the day became the
way of serving the constitution and the public will. In our terms, executive loyalty made bureaucrats zones of acceptance wide enough for them
to accept governments of changing political convictions, including those who
disagreed with the Right, which made politicization generally unattractive.
As we would expect from an autonomous bureaucracy, however, loyalty did
not extend to political uses of the administration against the parliamentary
opposition.108
The resulting effective administration played an important role in facilitating political consensus and the inclusion of organizations in the nascent
corporatist system and welfare state.109 . When the Great Depression hit, the
ground was already laid for political moderation, compromise, and stability.
The economic recovery policies agreed in the Kanslergade Agreement of 1933
which involved both an expansion of state employment and of state tasks
was facilitated politically and implemented effectively by the administration.
The Danish path to social democracy in the interwar period, as Luebbert110
106

Knudsen, 2000, 7-8.

Knudsen, 1995, chapters 10-11; Knudsen and Jensen, 1999, 229-230.
108
Knudsen, 2000, 8-15, 76-82.
109
Knudsen, 1995, ch. 11.
110
Luebbert, 1991, 267-272.
107

37

argues, was paved here with the reforms that secured the support of workers and peasants for the established democratic order. Denmark was not a
priori safe from democratic breakdown, nor was its effective administration
the sole source for democratic stability. But the bureaucracy helped facilitate and make possible the reforms needed for a stable democratic outcome
throughout the crisis years.
As Lapuente and Rothstein111 conclude, it was meritocratic autonomous
bureaucratic elites established in late 19th century that preconditioned the
compromise of Saltsjobaden; the equivalent of Denmarks Kanslergade Agreement in form and function. Given the similarities in state-building between
Denmark and Sweden, how do we explain this? In fact, even though Swedens
aristocracy remained a stronghold as in Prussia but opposed to Denmark,
Swedish historical accounts confirm that stable rule of law was forged much
sooner through the 17th and 18th centuries by the establishment of a civil
service organization who served the kings decrees.112 Furthermore, the inclusion of nobilities in local and national parliaments and balance of power
to the king ensured a system of mutual loyalty between kings and nobles
despite formal absolutism and the widespread access to purchase of public
offices.113 As the contrast with Spain reveals, without this knowledge it is
hard to explain why Swedish politicians would give bureaucracy autonomy
and why Saltsjobaden was effectuated.

England
With the end of the Glorious Revolution in 1688 in England, a system rose in
which the King in Parliament was the central figure of an administration that
was neither autonomous nor staffed with executive loyalists. There was little
111

Lapuente and Rothstein, 2014.

Nilsson, 1993, 31-32, 56, 61.
113
Asker, 1993, 69.
112

38

by way of formal requirements for posts and officials were Crown appointments.114 Pressured by the expense of war, the Crown appointed officials to
positions in return for payment. These officials did not receive salaries but
took their payment from the expenses of the offices they held. Though this
system was certainly widespread and damaging to administrative effectiveness, it was not all pervasive. In key departments and agencies not least
those related to finance professional administration developed relatively
soon after 1688. But even these parts of the administration were clearly not
yet autonomous. Purges followed political crises until the 18th century.115
In sum, the English bureaucracy in the late 18th century was a patchwork of
relatively professional organizations, politicized organizations, and outright
proprietary office holding.116
From the late 18th to the mid-19th century, drastic changes occurred in
English administration. Many of these appear to have been part of strategic parliamentary attempts to limit the influence of the Crown which had
resulted from the settlement of 1688.117 The first priority was securing a
loyal and diligent administration. But unlike in Denmark, English executive
loyalty developed from the struggle between the Crown and Parliament. In
fact, the sequencing of loyalty and autonomy was an explicit strategic concern of 19th century civil service reformers. By 1780, patronage and Crown
appointments had come to be seen as large problems in Parliament. With
the governments of Lord North and Pitt the Younger began an attempt to
bring the administration under more strict fiscal control, end the Old Corruption, and tighten political control.118 These reforms started to form the
idea of public service and public accountability119 which led the ground for
114

Silberman, 1993, 297-317.

Brewer, 1989, 12-20, 53-66; Parris, 1968, 148-149; OGorman, 2001, 58.
116
e.g. Parris, 1968, Harling, 1996, Ch. 1, Brewer, 1989, 58-59.
117
Foord, 1947.
118
Harling, 1996, 42-55; OGorman, 2001.
119
OGorman, 2001, 60.
115

39

executive loyalty.
When Pitt left office in 1801, reforms had not yet gone far.120 But reforms continued. In 1816, public service salaries became the responsibility
of Parliament rather than the departments; by the late 1830s, promotion
was increasingly based on merit rather than seniority; and over time, the
Treasury department overtook control of all spending and initiated oversight
and inspections.121 Administrators increasingly faced the choice between diligently working towards policy aims or suffering consequences to their careers.
Their executive loyalty was increased by force and their zones of acceptance
widened accordingly.
Loyalty was not yet fully secured, however. The reason was partly the
remaining system of patronage appointments. In the 1840s, Prime Minister
Peels close political ally, Sir Thomas Fremantle, complained that appointments were frequently given to persons in direct hostility to the Administration on the recommendation of opposition members of Parliament122 However, when Northcote and Trevelyan published their famous reform recommendations in 1853, an important emphasis was placed on how civil servants
could be controlled after their appointment.123 . In the subsequent Parliamentary debates, it was clear that controlling hirings and firings of bureaucrats
presented just one of a range of issues that the reforms needed to deal with
for which political control was of primary concern.124 Following this, controls
on the administration continued to tighten. Notably, from 1857 administrators pensions were made conditional on a certificate from the Civil Service
Commission (established in 1855). By 1870, there was not much room for
disloyalty for those who valued their career, or their pension.
Concurrently, as in Denmark, a university degree became increasingly im120

Harling, 1996; OGorman, 2001.

OGorman, 2001, 62-63.
122
Hughes, 1942, 58.
123
Silberman, 1993, 350-354.
124
Hughes, 1942.
121

40

portant for prospective public employees. For our purpose, we need not agree
with Gladden in his assessment that education made the English bureaucracy
into full blown executive loyalists.125 We need only agree that from the educated recruits entry into public office, the spirit of the service continued
and was even strengthened .126
Only the final push for executive loyalty occurred alongside reform of
the system of hiring and firing of bureaucrats. The revolution in public
service in 1780-1853127 helped bring the administration under the control of
the government, and to form the idea of public, as opposed to Royal or party
government, service. With the abolition of the last patronage appointments
in the ministries after 1853, executive loyalty became entrenched. From the
sequencing perspective, this was just in time. A build-up of meritocracy had
occurred for a while in English administration. In the wave of Economical
Reform in the late 18th century, the remainders of proprietary office holding
in England were abolished128 and the number of posts compatible with a seat
in the House of Commons was deliberately diminished as a means to lessen
the influence of the Crown.129 Only once executive loyalty was established
did Gladstones Order of Council of 1870 make examinations mandatory
and concentrate appointments and career management in the Civil Service
Commission and the Treasury.130 .
With both autonomy and loyalty in place, the path was set for administrative effectiveness in the early 20th century. As in Denmark, civil servants
remained in office and worked diligently. The civil service had become large,
permanent, and its personnel an elite group intent on a public service career
and service to changing governments. This included personnel stability at
125

Shefter, 1994, see also.

Gladden, 1967, 146-148.
127
Finer, 1952, 345.
128
Silberman, 1993, 324-326.
129
Parris, 1968.
130
Raadschelders and Rutgers, 1996b, 71-89; Silberman, 1993.
126

41

the very top. Increasingly, the administration took on the task of advising
their government131 but its role in policy-making never became obstructive
as in Prussia-Germany.
Between the wars, the English political system did not break down.
But this was not a bygone conclusion. As the contemporary scholar, Carl
Friedrich, wrote: It is well-known that even in England the future of representative democracy is threatened by class antagonism132 As in Denmark,
the state administration eventually played at supporting role in restoring the
economy, facilitating class compromise, and secure democratic survival. The
autonomous executive loyalists in the bureaucracy, notably in the Treasury,
did not pursue their own interests in the way the Junkers did in Germany.
Instead, Chancellors and their personnel pursued a mixture of expansionary
and budget balancing monetary and fiscal policies as well as regulation and
industrial policy. Unlike in Denmark, this postwar settlement133 was born
in political conflict rather than consensus. But tellingly, the inconsistent policy directions and implementation of the late 1920s, which were especially
clear in the crisis years of 1929-1931, were more problems of conflicting priorities in parliament alongside its decreasing ability to form strong majority
governments than any isolated bureaucratic problem.134135
So, when parliament installed an emergency government in 1931, which
came to last until WWII, a revived program of battling unemployment with
fiscal and monetary recovery policies were initiated alongside a closer cooperation of between the Bank of England and the Treasury department.
This program was not only diligently implemented but the idea of a National Government compromising Conservative, Liberal, and Labour inter131

Horton, 2006, 35-36.

Friedrich, 1933, 194.
133
Booth, 1987, 517.
134
Williamson, 1992, Ch. 7.
135
For a recount of administrative effectiveness and stability and government ineffectiveness, see the personal views of the 1916-1938 Cabinet Secretary, Sir HankeyNaylor,
1984.
132

42

ests was on numerous occasions forwarded by ministry departments, notably

the Treasury. In effect, the popularity of the National Government was huge
and brought back public confidence in parliamentary government.136

Discussion
Hitherto, our paper has mainly been a historical corrective to the theory of
bureaucratic autonomy. We now briefly treat the relevant question of the
extent to which our propositions and findings can be generalized to current
problems of administrative effectiveness in new democracies.
We first like to point out that across the globe today executive loyalty
probably coincides highly with bureaucratic autonomy. As Dahlstrom, Lapuente, and Teorell find137 , administrations in Europe, America, Asia, and
Africa cluster in two distinct groups according to professionalism vis-`a-vis
politicization for which the most professional bureaucracies, primarily in
Western Europe and North America, perform better. On the basis of our
theory and analyses, we might interpret this as saying that the effective administrations of Western Europe and North America could only fruitfully
be given autonomy because the executive loyalty of bureaucratic agents was
already firmly established. This links rather well with the large literature
arguing that legitimate national states managed by bureaucratic organizations have the longest, successful history in exactly these regions.138 In this
pattern, Germany might very well be an outlier, which makes our theory a
mere historical corrective.
However, quite to the contrary, we find this pattern intriguing in the
light of our theory because it shows that we need to understand the role for
administrative effectiveness and democratic stability played by bureaucratic
136

Williamson, 1992, 232, 481, 495-498.

Dahlstr
om, Lapuente, and Teorell, 2011, 28.
138
Tilly, 1975, see e.g.
137

43

agents and their loyalties in cases which have not had such long history
of state-building, namely in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Eastern
Europe, and Asia. As the Spanish case illustrates, there might be much
more to administrative ineffectiveness than politicization, and the works of
Linz and Stepan139 and Diamond et al.140 highlight the importance of state
legitimacy in developing countries for the forging of loyalty of key agents in
the political system, including the bureaucracy. In many places, politicization
may indeed be a central problem. But it is not the only problem. Moreover,
as the Spanish case shows, politicization is not the solution. It creates its
own problems.
As a more critical note, a sole focus on bureaucratic autonomy might thus
still leave us blind to one of the most important drivers of administrative effectiveness and democratic stability, namely political control via loyalty of
bureaucratic agents. After all, the German case tells us that granting autonomy to a bureaucracy whose interests largely diverge from those of the
political executives may lead to shirking and sabotage in implementation in
turn delegitimizing and destabilizing democracy. But even todays scholars
of democratic governance argue along these lines by not only asserting the
importance of state capacity and bureaucratic organization; they see vibrant
civil societies and competitive party systems capable of producing strong governments as vital checks on state power in short, because they strengthen
the capacity for political control.141
It should be clear that a two-dimensional understanding of administrative effectiveness is preferable for analyzing cases of today and the more
recent past. But how can we then examine empirically the impact of executive loyalty? The one-dimensional focus on bureaucratic autonomy vis-`a-vis
politicization is attractive as it is fairly easily quantifiable by counting the
139

Linz and Stepan, 1996, 7-24.

Diamond et al., 1997, xxiii.
141
Lipset, 1994, 3-5; Fukuyama, 2013, 11-12.
140

44

relative number of political appointments in state administrations worldwide.

We have no magic recipe for measuring executive loyalty however, as it is basically subjective of the bureaucrats employed. Unfortunately, Rauch and
Evans142 finding that competitive salaries do not increase bureaucratic performance only indicates that executive loyalty might be less instrumentally
manipulable than one could hope.
These precautions aside, any, at least rough, indicator of executive loyalty
may reveal whether the scaling administrative effectiveness on one dimension is a viable solution in causal analysis of its relationship with democracy.
And yet, the English case suggests a potential issue. When evaluating the
Northcote-Trevelyan report, policy makers were clearly aware that loyalty
ought to be secured before the bureaucracy was granted autonomy. This
indicates that an eventual scaling of autonomy and loyalty on a single dimension could be due not to the redundancy of the latter but to a causal
process. The German case obviously shows that autonomy is sometimes established without executive loyalty. But if these cases are rare, a statistical
evaluation of loyaltys relevance ought to go beyond blunt scaling analyses.
We are forced to leave these debates for further research.

Conclusions
In this paper, we have sought to expand the view of the literature on administrative effectiveness. We have argued that the contemporary focus on autonomous recruitment and politicization, while largely correct, overlooks how
autonomous bureaucracies use their freedom from political influence. True,
autonomous bureaucracies perform better and are less easily corrupted. But
autonomy can bring its own set of problems if the circumstances are wrong.
In particular, we emphasize that administrative effectiveness requires not just
142

Rauch and Evans, 2000, 68.

45

bureaucratic autonomy but also what we have termed executive loyalty.

Where bureaucrats are not executive loyalists, de-politicized recruitment
does not secure administrative effectiveness. Instead, bureaucracies become
incalcitrant and unwilling to implement the directives of their political leadership. By contrast, where bureaucrats are executive loyalists government
directives are faithfully implemented as the bureaucracy accepts most, if not
quite all, policies coming from changing political leaders.
In addition, we emphasize that executive loyalty is more easily established
if it is ensured before bureaucratic autonomy is implemented in full. In particular, the tools used to reinforce executive loyalty in England and Denmark
pecuniary and non-pecuniary gains and disciplinary tools, audits, and oversight were less available to reformers facing the politically powerful Weimar
German bureaucracy. Our argument is thus twofold: Administrative effectiveness needed both autonomy and loyalty and the sequencing in which the
two were established mattered.
Our empirical study of the origins of administrative effectiveness in interwar England, Denmark, Spain and Germany support our propositions.
In Spain, the politicized cadres of bureaucracy fuelled political polarization
while the disloyal cadres caused ineffective administration of the agrarian
reform. Both cadres paved the way for democratic breakdown by alienating workers and peasants. Here we concur with Lapuente and Rothsteins143
perspective, though we add depth to it by expanding the scope of inquiry to
include loyalty.
In Germany, autonomy was gained rapidly by the Prussian bureaucracy
before it was loyal to anyone but itself and, occasionally, the Kaiser. Consequently, the bureaucracy reacted with resistance to policies of changing
governments and reform attempts. Finally, this resistance in the interwar
era propelled popular discontent and ultimately the Nazi electoral victory.
143

Lapuente and Rothstein, 2014.

46

Thus, in Germany autonomy came before executive loyalty and hamstrung

its development.
By contrast, the Danish and English cases illustrate a qualitatively similar
path to administrative effectiveness. In both cases, the bureaucracy acquired
autonomy but did so rather late. Executive loyalty was established earlier
in both cases. In Denmark, the gradually increasing impartiality after 1660
went hand in hand with administrators developing belief that adherence to
the decrees of first King then (after 1849) Parliament was their best course
of action. Consequently, even when the government alternation in 1901 put
strains on the system, the bureaucrats kept working faithfully to implement
the policies of changing governments.
Our exposition of the English case is similar but reflects better than the
Danish case the awareness of policy makers that loyalty ought to precede
autonomy. In the decades preceding the Northcote-Trevelyan report, loyalty
was consciously fostered before autonomy could become politically viable.
Loyalty was secured because reforms dating back to the 1780s continued to
increase government control over the bureaucracy; and because the concerns
of the policy makers postponed the establishment of autonomy until 1870.
As we have shown, the result was similar to the Danish though its origins
were rather different.
Our analysis points to executive loyalty as an important precondition
for administrative effectiveness, not least in interwar Europe. True, politicization may be the more frequent problem for administrative effectiveness
today. But in many places, including in the contemporary developing world,
nurturing bureaucratic autonomy may create its own set of problems if the
bureaucracy is disloyal. And, as our English case shows, a lack of loyalty may
even be a reason why policy makers prefer a lack of autonomy despite the
many problems that follow. Thus, the interwar cases we have examined pose
new questions and suggest new conceptual and theoretical perspectives for

47

future research far beyond the spatial and temporal scope we have covered.

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