Loyal Leaders, Affluent Agencies: The Budgetary Implications of Political Appointments in the Executive Branch

Abstract

A central issue in democratic theory concerns whether and how politicians can maximize their policy returns from bureaucratic delegation. In this article, we propose that politicians assure favorable delegation outcomes in part by strategically matching responsive personnel and prioritized resources across policy issues and over time. We substantiate our analysis with four decades’ worth of data from the Swedish executive bureaucracy, taking particular advantage of the fact that the cabinet ministers generally appoint their agency heads on tenure-protected fixed terms. Using a within-agency research design, we show that the governing parties award more funds to agencies appointed by their ideological allies than to agencies appointed by their ideological opponents. Our findings underscore that political decisions about bureaucratic appointments and appropriations are both part of the same general delegation process but also highlight how political competition can undermine democratic control of bureaucratic policy making.