Political advisers in Portugal: Partisanship and loyalty in policy processes

Transcription

1 DOI /padm SYMPOSIUM ARTICLE Political advisers in Portugal: Partisanship and loyalty in policy processes Patrícia Silva Research Unit in Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences, University of Aveiro, Portugal Correspondence Patrícia Silva, Research Unit in Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences, University of Aveiro, Portugal. This article aims to contribute to the current debate regarding the role of political advisers in Portugal. It does so by empirically analysing appointments to positions within ministers private offices, specifying when and why such advice is sought and accepted by ministers. Multivariate analysis is complemented with elite perspectives on the roles of ministerial advisers. Results suggest that parties in government appoint political advisers to ministers private offices as a strategy to legitimize policy choices and instruments, by injecting partisanship, responsiveness and loyalty in the policymaking process. Politicizing these positions is also a valuable asset for politicians given the procedural-oriented, and the inter-sector and inter-service coordination problems within a heavy administrative structure, such as the Portuguese one. The use of this mechanism depends on the capacity of opposition parties to constrain incumbents control over such appointments. 1 INTRODUCTION One of the most repeated dictums in contemporary party government literature is that political parties are in crisis, both in their relationship with civil society and with the government. Contemporary political parties face increased difficulties in controlling the state apparatus, in a scenario characterized by the existence of a large public sector and a range of institutions responsible for providing services. Arguably, this trend weakens parties ability to influence the public policy process, as other actors and interest groups also seek to intervene in these processes (Mair 2008). This perception of crisis is not entirely satisfactory. In order to retain theirprivilegedpositioninthepolicy-makingprocess,political parties reinforce other policy-making mechanisms. One of the most important strategies used pertains to the strengthening of policy advisory systems (PAS). The concept of PAS was first introduced by Halligan (1995), and since then research on the role of political advisers has grown considerably, reflecting their increasing prominence in government and policy-making (Eichbaum and Shaw 2008). However, the extant literature is mainly focused on the Westminster community of countries (vide, inter alia, Eichbaum and Shaw 2007b; Maley 2011) with some sporadic exceptions (Di Mascio and Natalini 2013; Gouglas 2015). Southern European countries remain largely understudied, despite emergent research on the core John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/padm Public Administration. 2017;95:

2 SILVA 379 executive functioning and appointments to the upper echelons of the civil service (see, for example, Jalali et al. 2012; Silva and Jalali 2016). Furthermore, existing research has underspecified the different purposes of political staff and when they are appointed. Research tends to assume that political advisers are instruments of policy advice within government and frequently disregards the potential use of these appointments to reward party loyalties. Although the spectre of politicization is often discussed among researchers, evidence supporting that belief is often subjective, anecdotal, and rather diffuse (Peters and Pierre 2004, p. 1). Also, as Hustedt and Salomonsen (2014) have recently posited, empirical research has yet to systematically demonstrate the extent to which advisory staff appointments reflect party-politicization. This article seeks to address these gaps by empirically examining appointments to ministerial private offices in Portugal. It aims to analyse the extent to which appointments of ministerial advisers are associated with different rationales: as a mechanism to provide policy advice and to allow parties in government to maintain their control over policy-making processes; or as an instrument to reward party loyalists. Overall, it is argued that ministerial private offices tend to be used by political parties as a strategy to control flows of information and to legitimize policy choices. As these are institutionalized advisory structures where ministers have wide formal political discretion, these appointments can be also used to reward the party faithful or to co-opt members. Empirically, this article draws on a quantitative analysis of appointments to these structures in the Portuguese context. In order to minimize the risks of inferential inaccuracies that may arise from using this method alone, this article also reports on elites perspectives on the rationales of these appointments. This article is structured as follows. First, a survey of the extant empirical literature on political advisers is presented. The second section asserts the main features that make the Portuguese case a fertile ground for the expansion of policy advice. It explores the relationship between politics and the bureaucracy; the party system and the legal framework of these appointments. The research hypotheses are then advanced. The fourth section presents the data, the methodology used in this research, and discusses the operationalization of the central variables. Results are presented in the following section. In the concluding remarks, a discussion of the main findings is presented, as well as some avenues for future research. 2 PARTY GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL ADVISERS PAS represent a significant feature of the contemporary executive. They have been defined as the set of actors and organizations that provides recommendations for action to policy-makers (Craft and Halligan 2016, p. 2). Their emergence may have several motivations. First, PAS play an important role in the public policy process, as they combine competence, responsiveness, loyalty and partisanship in the identification of problems and in ministers daily decisions (Eichbaum and Shaw 2008). As Eichbaum and Shaw (2007c, p. 456) highlight, ministerial offices play important roles broadening the advice base, increasing ministers options, testing officials advice, and democratizing processes by providing an additional point of entry for external policy actors. They are accountable to the minister they serve, who is accountable before the legislature and the electorate. These are also argued to be used as mechanisms to foster political legitimacy (Brans et al. 2006). Second, PAS involve duplicating or supplementing the civil service, helping ministers circumvent an apolitical and detached civil service (Shaw and Eichbaum 2012; Connaughton 2015). There are signs of an increasing use of alternative advice sources to bypass the role of public administration in the formulation of public policies across Europe (see, for example, the volume edited by Peters and Pierre 2004), particularly if conventional bureaucracies are not considered to be sufficiently responsive to changes in the priorities of new parties in government. Also, ministers sometimes struggle with departmental rivalries and competing agency perspectives of certain policy issues, which create added pressures to resort to political advisers (Prasser 2006).

3 380 SILVA Third, the emergence of PAS also reflects the efforts of parties in government to strengthen the coordination and policy capacities within the bureaucratic departments (Connaughton 2010). As policy-making processes become more complex and diffuse, characterized by the deepening of the delegation process and the dispersion of decisionmakers (Mair 2008), political advisers can be an extension of the minister s arm in the departments, ensuring vertical (and horizontal) coordination (Maley 2000). Despite extensive research on the potential role and effects of political advisers on the policy-making process, there is a trend in the literature that argues that these appointments may also occur for reasons other than control of policy-making. However, research is still required to address the extent to which PAS may be used as an instrument for mobilizing electoral support, rewarding party faithful or to co-opt members. Naturally, both objectives are interrelated. Appointments to advisory structures may be a means of greasing party structures, while preparing partisan elites for future governmental positions. A trend in the literature argues that these positions can function as stepping-stones to other positions in the hierarchy of the civil service (Brans et al. 2006). Performing these functions may foster individuals political craft (Goetz 1997), which refers to top officials ability to evaluate the political implications of policy proposals; to anticipate, influence or manipulate the reactions of other actors in the policymaking process; and to maximize the likelihood that ministers policy preferences will be put into service. 3 PORTUGAL: A FERTILE GROUND FOR THE EXPANSION OF INTERNAL POLICY ADVICE In a comparative perspective, the Portuguese case is noteworthy in a number of respects, given governments relation with public administration, the party system and the legal framework of these appointments. As to the first, the nature of the democratic transition profoundly shaped how political parties were to act in relation to the inherited civil service. Portuguese ruptura with the authoritarian regime impelled incoming parties to dismantle the former model of administration. As this was a process conducted by actors that were excluded from Salazar-Caetano s political elite, a rupture from the former regime was required. This was highly visible with the cleansing laws (leis de saneamento) (Pinto 2008) that allowed the substitution of the inherited bureaucratic elite structure. The Portuguese new governing elite tended to mistrust civil servants that had served under the former regime, and this was overcome by the appointment of policy advisers to ministers private offices (Portas and Valente 1990). As in other European countries, the emergence and development of PAS was prompted by the growth of public administration. New Public Management-driven reforms sought to rationalize the functioning of the state and restrain the growth of public expenditure, improving the quality of services mainly through the specialization of services (Araújo et al. 2009). These reforms resulted in the break-up of large bureaucracies either through the creation of organizations operating at arm s length from government, or in the delegation of public tasks to private organizations. Autonomous organizational forms were revitalized, in the figure of publicly owned and funded agencies (quangos) structurally separated from, but subject to some formal control of, ministries. This generated a greater degree of bureaucratic uncontrollability (Jalali et al. 2012), potentially circumvented by the use of PAS. The Portuguese party system is also likely to impact on PAS. The very specific process of democratization gave the Portuguese party system unique features. Devoid of solid organizational structures since none of the parties had long-standing organizations inside Portugal (Jalali 2007) parties were willing to use all the resources at their disposal to entrench their position and consolidate their respective party organizations. This pattern was particularly evident in the case of the centre-left party (Socialist Party, PS) and the centre-right party (Social Democratic Party, PSD). The central conflict that emerged in the revolutionary context how Portuguese society should be organized and governed crystallized the cooperation between the two main parties in favour of liberal democracy. While parties remain central actors in the political system, with little party system change since democratization in 1974, they have weak social linkages a pattern that has also been evident since 1974 and

4 SILVA 381 have entrenched their position largely through their access to state resources (Jalali 2007). The electoral system also reinforces the position of these two political parties. The closed-list system of proportional representation, using the Hond t formula, with very different district magnitudes, benefits the two major parties. Smaller parties can only aspire to gain parliamentary seats in the two largest electoral districts (Lisbon and Porto) (Lisi 2015, p. 11). Despite the electoral system, both the PSD and the PS were able to achieve single parliamentary majorities (1987, 1991, 2005). Nevertheless, their capacity to aggregate electoral support has been declining, as is demonstrated by the share of the vote they were able to attain in the 2015 elections. While in 1991, these parties represented approximately 80 per cent of the electorate, since 2009 they have never reached 70 per cent of the electorate. Political parties also used the administrative system to reinforce their position in the political and administrative arenas. The state apparatus had a critical impact on party organizations. In the absence of stable and solid electoral support, reaching voters was carried out through an expansive electoral strategy, to attract as many voters as possible. The PS and PSD abandoned ideological policies in favour of a more consensual and pragmatic approach, thus reinforcing their supremacy as institutional actors (Jalali 2007). Access to state resources and a catch-all appeal, along with the exclusion of the Communist Party from governmental responsibility, helped shape the party system. Competition for government is largely a competition between the two main parties that have alternated in power since Partisan alternation in government tends to be associated with high levels of senior civil service politicization. Like its Southern European counterparts, Portugal has been widely perceived as a country whose appointments reach deep into the administrative hierarchy, largely motivated by partisan considerations (Jalali and Silva 2015, p. 567), potentially leading ministers to distrust civil servants they inherited (Silva and Jalali 2016). It is also characterized by the widespread use of co-optation and personal linkages to recruit civil servants (Nunes, 2003). As to the third dimension, ministerial private offices have long been institutionalized advisory structures. While the first law regarding these appointments dates back to 1974, laws regarding these ministerial cabinets have stabilized since 1992 (Decree-law 45/92) concerning the prime-minister s private office and since 1988 (Decree-law 262/88) for other ministerial offices. Since the transition to democracy, legal rules regarding the composition of ministerial offices (including the prime minister s private office) had been changed 12 times by These rules then remained unchanged until 2012 when Decree-law11/2012 sought to increase transparency in the appointment process. During these 20 years, political efforts were entirely devoted to the appointment process to the upper echelons of the civil service. Thus, political elites at the beginning of the democratic period were concerned with these structures arguably a strategy to circumvent the mistrust of the bureaucratic elites whose inherited power did not suit the political reorientation of the new elite. Unable to substitute the entire ruling elite through multidirectional purges (Carmo 1987), the political elites chose to strengthen the legal framework for ministerial offices that would operate in the shadow of the minister and where selection criteria were widely discretionary. Appointments to ministerial private offices include chiefs of staff, who are responsible for the coordination of the office and act as a liaison with the departments under the minister s authority. Ministers are also free to appoint up to nine political advisers (assessores and adjuntos de gabinete) who provide technical and specialized policy support to the minister. This number increases to 26 in the case of the prime minister s office. Beyond these positions, ministers are able to appoint other individuals to conduct studies and extraordinary missions often considered to be policy advisers, especially in terms of their salaries or to act as technical advisers (conselheiro técnico) who deal with interdepartmental issues. There are no legal limits on the number of individuals appointed to these functions, and the duration and the salary these appointees receive is virtually unlimited. Although these positions are to be held on a temporary basis, existing data suggest that between January 2003 and December per cent of appointed experts remained in office until a change in government (Tribunal de Contas 2007). Within the scope of this article, they are considered to be policy advisers as they are charged with providing information, knowledge and recommendations for action.

5 382 SILVA 4 HYPOTHESES This section aims to present the research hypotheses and discuss their rationale. As mentioned above, this article seeks to understand the rationales for the appointment of policy advisers to ministers private offices. While these can be regarded as crucial structures to reassert the primacy of politics in the policy process, they may also be regarded as a crucial resource for organizational building and entrenchment, particularly as parties social anchoring weakens. It is commonly acknowledged that changes of government lead to reshuffles of ministers private offices. An analysis of political advisers career pathways may suggest a higher saliency of reward or control mechanisms within these advisory structures. Given that ministers are formally unconstrained in their capacity to choose political advisers, they can opt to select individuals who have performed functions in public or quasi-public administration departments. According to Meyer-Sahling (2008), the saliency of this recruitment strategy points to control purposes, as parties tend to resort to existing knowledge in the state machinery, which can be a determinant for political advisers to ensure coordination among policies pursued by different bureaucratic departments. Hence, it can be hypothesized that: H 1 : If control purposes are at stake, then ministers will resort to individuals from within the civil service. Party membership is a frequent indicator of party organizational vitality and social anchoring. Morlino (1998, p. 181) asserts that the growth of party membership follows electoral success, rather than precedes it, a pattern that is reinforced when parties assume a governmental position, reflecting the potential use of appointments as a mechanism to co-opt members. Thus, the following hypothesis can be posited: H 2 : If control purposes are at stake, then party membership is negatively associated with appointments of policy advisers. It is recognized that ministerial advisers can play an important role in ensuring that the policy and political agenda corresponds to manifesto commitments (Eichbaum and Shaw 2007a). Also, research has demonstrated that policy domains such as health, education and social welfare make up the largest part of the budget for advisory bodies (Howlett and Wellstead 2011). Given that these also tend to be the arenas that are highly salient in parties electoral manifestos, it can be hypothesized that: H 3 : If appointments occur for control purposes, then we expect programmatic saliency to be positively associated with higher proportions of appointments. Control over policy objectives should be more pronounced at the beginning of a governing period. As Blondel (1995) asserts, the policy preferences of parties in government have little relevance at the end of their term, making reward purposes potentially more visible at this stage. We can estimate different rationales for political advisers appointments, as put forward in the following hypothesis: H 4 : If appointments are a source of policy advice they will occur at the beginning of a governing period. International research has highlighted the relevance of opposition parties in deterring incumbents control over appointments (Grzymala-Busse 2003). Critical opposition parties combined with the sensitivity of the electorate towards partisan state capture tend to limit the use of policy advisers as a strategy to co-opt members, thus constraining governing parties from abusing their position in power (Grzymala-Busse 2003). The following can then be hypothesized: H 5 : Critical opposition parties constrain the use of policy advisory structures for reward purposes.

6 SILVA 383 In her typology, Maley (2011) stresses the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the policy work carried out by political advisers. The vertical dimension includes interactions with ministers, other political staff and senior civil servants, where political advisers ensure policy development and policy implementation (Eichbaum and Shaw 2011, p. 586). As parties in government seek to maintain their control over the whole policy-making process, it is expected that these political advisers will act as the minister s arm in the bureaucracy, ensuring vertical coordination. The following can, thus, be posited: H 6 : Appointments of political advisers are explained by the increasing number of non-departmental organizations and bureaucratic structures. A final hypothesis relates to the political and strategic nature of these appointments. There appears to be a positive relationship between coalition government and the use of policy advisers (Eichbaum and Shaw 2007b). It can be argued that in single-party governments the need for advice is less than in coalition governments where parties have to seek shared solutions. Hence, it can be posited that: H 7 : Appointments of political advisers are higher during coalition governments. Because of the complexity of the interactions under examination, regression models were estimated to assess the impact of each variable on appointments to positions in ministerial offices. The regression models presented also control for the length of government and the country s economic development, as political advisers are more likely to be appointed when economic conditions are more permissive. 5 DATA AND METHODOLOGY Data for this study were derived from an empirical study of appointments of political advisers in ministers private offices from 1995 to The period under analysis allows us to examine five distinct governing periods, three of which present a wholesale alternation of the parties in government. In 1995, a socialist government (headed by António Guterres) defeated the centre-right party (PSD) that had been in office for ten years. At the end of 2001, António Guterres tendered his resignation, after the Socialist Party suffered a serious defeat in the municipal elections. The PSD and the right-wing popular party (CDS-PP) won the elections in March Durão Barroso headed this coalition government until he resigned in July 2004 to take up his new appointment as the European Commission President. Jorge Sampaio maintained the parliament, and a new PSD-CDS government was appointed with Santana Lopes as prime minister. After 168 days in office, Sampaio announced his intention to dissolve parliament. The unpopularity of the coalition facilitated the change in government in March 2005, and led the Socialist Party to win its first parliamentary majority, headed by José Sócrates. Hence, the data used in this research allow for enough institutional variety with two single-party majority governments, two coalition governments and also two minority governments as depicted in table 1. TABLE 1 Parties in government and type of cabinet, Governing periods Party in government Type of cabinet 31 Oct Oct Social Democratic Party (PSD), Cavaco Silva Majority 28 Oct Oct Socialist Party (PS), António Guterres Minority 25 Oct Apr PS, António Guterres Minority 6 Apr Jul PSD + CDS-PP (Popular Party coalition), Coalition Durão Barroso 17 Jul Mar PSD + CDS-PP coalition, Santana Lopes Coalition 12 Mar Oct PS, José Sócrates Majority

7 384 SILVA TABLE 2 Appointments of policy advisers Ministerial offices Number of days analysed PSD 26 (49) PS 316 (754) PS 617 (1414) PSD/CDS-PP 214 (349) PSD/CDS-PP 192 (334) PS 220 (302) 187 Total 1,585 (3,202) 1,192 The total number of appointments to ministers private offices in parentheses. For each period of government, data collection was organized in order to collect, process and analyse the months around the major changes in government the first and last months of governments, and some months in the middle of a mandate. 1 The empirical data collected are presented in table 2. All appointments to positions in ministerial offices that were approved and published in the Official Gazette were content analysed. Following Veselý (2016), we considered as political advisers all appointments of individuals who performed policy work to aid ministers decision-making by analysing policy problems and proposing solutions. Technical and administrative support were not considered to be political advisers. Overall, within the period analysed, 1,585 political advisers were included in the study (out of the 3,202 total number of appointments examined). The variables outlined in the previous section were operationalized as follows. Party membership number of members of the major party in government in the year when appointments occur 2 (M = 109.5, SD = 27.2). Beginning of a government mandate operationalized through a dichotomous variable, coded as 1 when appointments were made during the first six months of each governing period; and 0 otherwise (67.9 per cent of appointments). End of a government mandate operationalized through a dichotomous variable, coded as 1 when appointments were made during the last six months of each governing period; and 0 otherwise (9.7 per cent of appointments). Programmatic saliency reports to the Manifesto Research on Political Representation s longitudinal data regarding the preferences of parties obtained through the content analysis of election programmes (Budge et al. 2001). The 56 categories used in this project s framework do not specifically relate to policy areas, but to policy themes which, however, can be aggregated into policy areas. For this purpose, we converted the 56 categories into 14 policy areas: education; agriculture; social security; justice; foreign affairs; economy; industry and energy; defence; housing; finances; environment; cultural, religious and recreational services; transportation, communications and public works. The saliency of each policy area is the sum of the percentages of each 1 We collected and analysed all appointments made from June to December 1995; January and February 1996; April, June, October and November 1997; February and March 1998; May, June, August to December 1999; January to April, September and October 2000; March 2001; from March to June 2002; May, October, November, December 2003; January, February, from May to October 2004; from February to June 2005; January and February 2008; and August, September and October Until 2005 data from Jalali (2007); for 2006: José Sócrates interpreta vitória como apoio da militância PS ao Governo, Público, 29/ October/2006 [available at for 2008: Dirigente do PS Marcos Perestrello sugere que partidos com menos de 5 mil militantes passem a associação, Expresso, 4 January 2008 (available at for 2009: PS/Congresso: 73 mil militantes elegem pela terceira vez Sócrates secretário-geral, Expresso, 12 February 2009 (available at for 2007, the average party membership for 2006 and 2008 was used.

8 SILVA 385 TABLE 3 Predicted effects derived by the hypotheses Hypothesis Reward motivations Policy concerns Career patterns (insiders) (H1) + Party membership (H2) + Programmatic saliency (H3) + Beginning of a governing period (H4) + Critical opposition (H5) Non-departmental organizations (H6) + + Bureaucratic structures (H6) + + Coalition government (H7) + programmatic category. When analysing coalition governments, we estimated the saliency attributed by the party responsible for the corresponding ministerial department 3 (M = 9.3, SD = 7.6). Critical opposition the average number of questions by parliamentary deputies in each legislative session. This measure of critical opposition replicates the operationalization performed by Grzymala-Busse (2006, p. 283). Within institutionalized party systems, the major party in opposition tends to be the most credible, which is reflected in partisan alternation in government. Therefore, only measures on the major opposition party were considered. Data are available on the Portuguese Parliament website (M = 8.6, SD = 5.0). Public administration the percentage of public employment (at central, regional and local levels) as a share of the total active population (data from DGAEP 2009) (M = 13.9, SD = 0.9). Quasi-public administration institutions the number of quasi-public institutions (data from Araújo et al. 2009) (M = 302.2, SD = 58.7). Country s economic development measures variations in GDP growth (per capita) from the previous year (per cent). Data are available at PORDATA, the Database of Contemporary Portugal (M = 2.6, SD = 1.6). Type of government dichotomous variable, coded 0 if appointments were made during single-party governments (74.4 per cent); and 1 if appointments were made during coalition governments (25.6 per cent). Parliamentary support of the party in government percentage of seats the party in government holds in parliament (M = 50.6, SD = 1.7). Length of time in office number of days of each governing period (M = 986.1, SD = 461.9). As mentioned, this article seeks to assess the extent to which these variables explain the odds of appointing political advisers to ministerial private offices. The results for each variable indicate the motivations for appointing individuals to these positions (either rewards or policy concerns). Table 3 depicts the predicted effect of each variable. Because of the complexity of the interactions under research, in-depth semi-structured interviews with both top officials and ministers were conducted between June and October 2009 with (former and current) ministers, state secretaries and top civil servants. In addition, several experts on specific policy areas were also interviewed. These interviews aimed to assess the importance of these appointments for policy-making processes and the extent to which these political advisers affect the administration politics relationship. These interviews were conducted based on the expert survey developed by the project Party Patronage in Contemporary Europe (see Kopecký et al. 2016). We added questions to this survey regarding the appointment of political advisers working within ministers private offices. Overall, 51 interviews were conducted. Given that interviewees explicitly asked for 3 During the XV Constitutional Government ( ) the CDS-PP assumed the portfolios of National Defence (Paulo Portas), Labour and Social Security (Bagão Felix) and Justice (Celeste Cardona). During the XVI Constitutional Government ( ), the same party assumed the portfolios of Finance and Public Administration (Bagão Felix); Environment and Spatial Planning (Luís Nobre Guedes) and Defence (Paulo Portas).

9 386 SILVA anonymity, references to their names are kept anonymous. The excerpts of interviews provided refer only to their functions as politicians (P); civil servants (CS); or experts (E). 6 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION In this section, the results are presented and discussed. Before assessing the most significant predictors of appointments to ministers private offices, we provide an account of the career patterns of appointees. This endeavour is performed following Meyer-Sahling s (2008) analytical framework, which assesses career patterns according to three criteria. These include the selection of political advisers from within the bureaucratic structures (insiders); the selection of individuals who held positions in non-political settings (the private sector, academia or non-governmental organizations) and outside the core government institutions (outsiders); or the selection of officials whose career involves experience in political settings such as government, parliament, or political parties (partisans). To analyse these recruitment strategies, we considered the last position of the appointed individual when it is explicitly mentioned in the official appointment. Thus, we do not analyse longitudinal patterns of career appointees. Note that the analysis reported in figure 1 is based on a sample of 730 appointments since not all appointments included information on the previous post of the appointees. The primary source of recruitment is the civil service (71 per cent), which suggests that governments seek to maintain the knowledge and skills of employees who are already familiar with the functioning of the administrative structure of the state, which is congruent with expectations that political advisers ensure coordination and policy capacities within the bureaucratic departments (H 1 ). More than 25 per cent of appointees come from outside the civil service. As existing research has argued, ministers private offices are the main avenues for outsiders to develop their political craft (Goetz 1997; Brans et al. 2006), which is crucial for future government or administrative positions. Arguably, these appointments increase appointees capacity to think politically, allowing them to build extensive networks on which they will be able to rely. Also, as will be detailed later, four interviewees suggested that holding positions in ministerial cabinets may serve as a springboard for other positions. Attracting outsiders can also be regarded as a strategy to co-opt members and potentially ensure future partisan support, a strategy that is not uncommon in new democracies (see, for example, Kopecký 2012). Party affiliation and the exercise of top positions within the party structure are elements that facilitate the assessment of the party loyalty of those appointed, as will be further detailed below. However, it does not seem to emerge as a salient recruitment feature. Potentially, that reflects partisan efforts to avoid the perception of voters that such appointments occur as a strategy to strengthen the party by rewarding party members. By camouflaging Outsiders Insiders Partisans FIGURE 1 Recruitment strategies (per cent)

10 SILVA 387 TABLE 4 Determinants of appointments (logistic regression coefficients) Independent variables Ministerial private offices β SE Party membership.015**.006 (5.782) Type of government n.s..346 Parliamentary support of the party in government.157*** (21.482) Length of office holding.002***.000 (25.059) Beginning of a government mandate.320**.128 (6.267) End of a government mandate n.s..196 Programmatic saliency n.s..005 Critical opposition.071*** (24.591) Public administration.641*** (11.833) Quasi-public administration institutions.011*** (28.755) Country s economic development.180** (5.004) Nagelkerke R N 3202 Notes: Significance levels: ***p 0.01, **p 0.05, *p 0.1. Wald statistic in parentheses this recruitment strategy, parties seek to invert the deeply rooted anti-party sentiment and sustain the erosion of the relationships between parties and citizens. The analysis of recruitment patterns of political advisers in ministers private offices suggests the coexistence of both reward and control purposes. We proceed with a logistic regression model that seeks to assess the effects of different independent variables on political advisers appointments. The dependent variable consists of a dichotomous variable, coded 1 if appointments are to exert functions as political advisers, and 0 otherwise. An analysis of parameter estimates reported in table 4 is consistent with the dual nature of these appointments. Indeed, although these appointments may be used as a strategy to legitimize policy choices and instruments, particularly at the beginning of a governing period, these appointments occur regardless of the saliency of the policy area for governing parties and when opposition parties are less capable of deterring incumbents control over such appointments. We proceed with an inspection of individual coefficients to corroborate these inferences. Employing a 0.05 criterion of statistical significance, we can see that party membership positively impacts on these appointments, although it emerges as one of the least important variables, as confirmed by the Wald statistics. As hypothesized (H 2 ), results tend to suggest that advisory staff appointments reflect party politicization, consistent with the argument that state resources can be used to strengthen party organizations by aggregating individuals with potential networks that can be channelled to support the party. Control purposes cannot, however, be disregarded. On the contrary, according to interviewees the appointment of political advisers is a strategy to guarantee loyalty in the public policy process. Thirteen interviewees considered that partisanship tends to create strong solidarities [between the appointer and the appointee] and create a

11 388 SILVA perception of trust (CS19). Therefore, partisan loyalty is rarely put aside (P7), as choices fall upon trustworthy people who have a strongly-based party experience (CS19). Partisanship of appointees, however, is not always solely dependent upon the minister s choice. As respondents admitted, there are significant partisan pressures over the minister seeking to influence the appointment of specific individuals. This is due to the fact that ministerial private offices are institutionalized advisory structures where ministers have full legal authority over the decisions regarding these appointments. One of the interviewees pointed out that it may be difficult for a minister not to take into account partisan pressures (CS7). This also suggests the importance of these appointments for parties in government, as these are regarded as a mechanism for the distribution of selective incentives to members of the parties, as a reward for their party loyalty (P6). Reward motivations are not always likely to put the effectiveness of party governments at risk for it is possible to fit rewards to technical skills which ensure the ability to solve problems and provide assistance for ministers daily decisions. As a respondent suggested, parties have a clientele to satisfy. Nowadays, that clientele is better informed, technically more competent and even if in many cases the appointee will actually be affiliated to party A or B, they will also be competent in their position (A1). Partisan loyalty is also important for ministers given the need to control the flows of information provided to the mass media, particularly due to the way in which the media are able to define the agenda. As a respondent suggested, becoming the target of media coverage is so dangerous that it is an obstacle. For them [ministers] it is terrible because with this multiplying sources of leaks, anyone can pass a folder to the press which nobody knows how it will be used, and that can cause political damage to the leader (CS2). This perspective reinforces the intertwining objectives of rewards and control purposes, which is also furthered by the analysis of other regression estimates. According to the regression model, appointments to ministerial private offices tend to occur in the early stages of the government s mandate, confirming H 4, and suggesting its importance for policy content control, as programmatic concerns of parties in government tend to be substantially higher at this stage. Nevertheless, despite being a significant positive predictor of this model, this variable also emerges as one of the least explanatory variables of the model. Also, against what was hypothesized above (H 3 ), political advisers are appointed regardless of the programmatic saliency of policy domains in parties electoral manifestos. The perspectives of respondents are useful to understand these coefficients. Accordingly, appointments tend to occur at the beginning of the government mandate, as these structures are primarily involved in the preparation of the government s policy programme that establishes the government s main political guidelines and has to be approved by parliament (P1). Hence, although ministerial advisers can play an important role in ensuring that the policy and political agenda corresponds to manifesto commitments, higher policy saliency does not determine a larger volume of appointments. The end of the governing period does not emerge as a significant predictor of these appointments. Nevertheless, as respondents suggested, it would emerge as a significant estimate of appointments of these individuals to other positions in the hierarchy of the civil service, in line with the conclusions of extant research (Brans et al. 2006). Indeed, respondents tend to accept that in contexts of high portfolio volatility, or when politicians feel it is unlikely that they will control the political process in the future, they will be tempted to appoint their policy advisers to important positions in public administration (CS28; CS31). Transferring these individuals to positions in public or semi-public government institutions may not occur in top management positions (as until 2011 appointments for top management positions were illegal after the call for parliamentary elections and before the parliamentary acceptance of the recently appointed government). Rewarding partisan faithfulness occurs through less visible positions which are not noticeable to the voters and the media, reducing the possibility of a close scrutiny of these appointments but with significant attractive salaries. Two relevant consequences emerge from this strategy. First, such appointments allow parties to maintain a line, a network of information (CS22) in the administrative structure, who potentially keep the party informed about the internal life of government. Second, a vicious circle seems to emerge from this partisan strategy. The

12 SILVA 389 widespread perception that political advisers can be appointed later to positions within the civil service reinforces the incoming ministers perception that bureaucracies might not be sufficiently responsive to changes in the priorities of new parties in government. Hence, ministerial private offices are regarded as a strategy to circumvent such politicized civil service. As a consequence, the number of appointees to ministers private offices tends to increase (CS3), as ministers envisage these structures as a means to overcome the inertia of public administration. As remarked by a former minister, there are ministers to whom the inertia of the machine itself forces them to go beyond what would be seen as rational in a system of sharing of responsibilities between the politician and the administrative level some departments have such a sharp sense of esprit de corps that they have the ability to defend their interests by boycotting the measures adopted by the political power (P6). Against this background, some respondents were critical of the use of policy work provided by ministerial advisers, arguing that civil servants tend to be removed from the early stages of policy-making, especially if they are distrusted by politicians (CS1; P7; D1; CS28). Accordingly, this may create resistance in the implementation of policies. Respondents perception with regard to the distrust-issue of political administrative relationships appears to challenge the results presented on the high saliency of the civil service as the primary source of recruitment of individuals to positions as political advisers. However, in line with Meyer-Sahling s (2008, p. 5) argument, the prevailing mode of politicization can actually be considered to be a strategy to address a potential lack of political responsiveness. Indeed, a closer inspection of appointments, as depicted in figure 2, reveals a high percentage of appointments of returnees individuals that work within administrative structures until the party returns to government, a strategy that is widely used by the two parties in government. On average, 39.7 per cent of political adviser appointments are returnees (629 appointments). A closer inspection of those appointments for which career pathways were accessible reveals that the large majority (35 per cent) of returnees can be considered insiders, as against 11.8 per cent outsiders and 1.1 per cent partisans. Overall, then, as these returnees are dependent on the electoral fortunes of the political party and have a proven record of successfully serving the party, they combine loyalty and expertise, two of the most important characteristics of political advisers as outlined earlier. The growth of public and quasi-public administration increases the odds of appointing political advisers (confirming H 6 ). These appointees become the minister s arm in the bureaucracy, a result that is consistent both with existing international academic research and with respondents perspectives. Indeed, it is argued that ministerial advisers may ensure vertical and horizontal coordination (Maley 2011). As one respondent argued, civil servants are in charge of administrative and organizational aspects within their departments and rarely inform other departments on their activities. This creates a highly compartmentalized bureaucracy which would create added problems if ministers had to discuss, gather and articulate policies and actions with each top civil servant (CS24). Creating these structures, largely composed of civil servants, has the PS FIGURE 2 Returnees (per cent) PSD or PSD/CDS

13 390 SILVA advantage of making decision-making processes faster, circumventing an otherwise heavy and time-consuming administrative structure (CS27). These appointees are also relevant for monitoring the implementation of certain policies or procedures. Respondents agreed that civil servants tend to be highly protective of their departments, which impels them to distort the functioning and impacts of certain procedures or policies (CS27). These appointments are, therefore, required to monitor progress [and] even to avoid the situation of having judges of their own cause (CS10). Parties capacity to use these appointments is not unconstrained it depends, inter alia, on general economic conditions, as well as on the role of opposition parties, as hypothesized (H 5 ). This is one of the most important predictors of appointments to ministers private offices (as suggested by the Wald statistics). When parties in opposition seek to hold the party in government accountable for decisions and policies, it reduces the ability of the party in government to use these appointments as reward mechanisms. It should not be disregarded that the deterrent effect of opposition parties is potentially limited by the variable on the parliamentary support of the party in government. Majoritarian governments are granted greater leeway in appointing political advisers to ministers private offices. Contrary to what we hypothesized (H 7 ), these appointments are not significantly explained by coalition governments. Interviewees largely agreed that such appointments occur because each party seeks to keep tabs on coalition partners, generating more pressures to resort to appointments. The equilibrium between coalition partners is often solved by the creation or duplication of posts so as so satisfy the balance between parties (CS28). However, as depicted in the model, it is unlikely that control of coalition parties occurs through advisory structures. Instead, other positions may serve this purpose. 7 CONCLUDING REMARKS This article sought to empirically assess the extent to which parties in government appoint political advisers to ministers private offices as a means of influencing policy. This research question emerged given the perception of a decline of partisanship both in the electorate and in policy-making that would lead parties to reinforce all the policy-making mechanisms at their disposal. Results demonstrate that control and reward purposes are highly intertwined and can be mutually reinforced. Indeed, the selection of political advisers allows parties in government to maintain their imprint and control over policy-making processes. This is done, however, by injecting partisanship, responsiveness and loyalty in the policy process. These qualities are also a valuable asset for politicians given the procedural-oriented and the inter-sector and inter-service coordination problems within a heavy administrative structure. These characteristics lead politicians to outstrip existing competences within government machinery, and operate with a set of individuals with whom the minister has personal and partisan links. This is, thus, a golden mechanism, as long as its usage does not glitter before the opposition and the electorate. Results suggest the importance of strong and critical opposition parties in deterring the incumbents from rentseeking from the state congruent with existing research (Grzymala-Busse 2003). The consequences for the relationship between politicians and civil servants are noticeable. As Halligan (1995, p. 158) feared, government advisory structures seem to expand at the expense of the internal public service. Political advisers imprint on the policy process is regarded with scepticism by senior civil servants, whose advice tends to be marginalized in policy-making processes, potentially resulting in less compromise in the execution of policy programmes. A vicious cycle can, thus, emerge with enduring negative consequences for policy-making processes and the relationship between politicians and senior civil servants. This is crucial in the Portuguese case, where the political debate on public administration reform has been largely dominated by the reduction of civil servants salaries, with little attention devoted to structural problems that push ministers toward the strengthening of their shadow administration.