Populism and Politicization of the Bureaucracy: A Quantitative Analysis of the Effect of Populist Rule in Europe and Latin America

Abstract

Do populist rule lead to more politicization? As populists have had electoral success in many coun-tries in recent years, populism has received much attention both in the public debate and in political science. One aspect of the concept, how populists act once in power and how they relate to the state bureaucracy has however, so far, received only little attention. Populists have been suggested to increase the politicization of the public bureaucracy, i.e. the degree of political involvement in the careers of bureaucrats, as populists are untrusting of the establishment and seek to increase their control of the state. This paper uses time-series cross-section data from Europe and Latin America to test whether populists increase politicization more than others when in power. The results show a positive relationship between populist rule and politicization; however, the effect seems to be driven mainly by a few cases of populists on the fringes of the left-right spectrum. Previous research has found that systems characterized by intense politicization are less resistant to corruption and pre-form worse on good governance indicators. Therefore, these results indicate that the current popu-list wave may have hidden implications for the bureaucratic performance of the effected countries.