Elections and Reform: The Adoption of Civil Service Systems in the U.S. States∗ Michael M. Tingy Department of Political Science and SIPA Columbia University James M. Snyder, Jr.z Department of Government and NBER Harvard University Shigeo Hiranox Department of Political Science Columbia University Olle Folke{ SIPA Columbia University September 23, 2011 ∗We thank conference participants at Academia Sinica Conference on Positive Political Theory and the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association for helpful comments. yPolitical Science Department, 420 W 118th St., New York NY 10027 (
[email protected]). zDepartment of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge MA 02138 (
[email protected]). xPolitical Science Department, 420 W 118th St., New York NY 10027 (
[email protected]). {SIPA, 420 W 118th St., New York NY 10027 (
[email protected]). 1 Abstract Most government bureaucracies in developed countries use civil service systems. What accounts for their adoption? We develop and test a model of bureaucratic reforms under repeated partisan competition. In the model, two political parties composed of overlapping generations of candidates compete for office. An incumbent politician can either \politicize" the bureaucracy, which allows her to direct benefits to voters in a way that will increase her electoral prospects, or she can \insulate" the bureaucracy, which prevents the subsequent winner from using the bureaucracy for electoral advantage. Our main result is that politicization takes place when incumbents expect to win, and insulation takes place when they expect to lose. We test this hypothesis using data from the adoption of civil service reforms across the U.S. states. The predictions of the model are consistent with preliminary empirical findings.