Civil service laws, merit, politicization, and corruption: the perspective of public officials from five East European countries
Research on bureaucracy and corruption tends to concentrate on cross-national research taking countries as the unit of analysis. Yet national-level measures neglect large differences within countries. This paper therefore takes the perspective of individual bureaucrats. It studies how public officia...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
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Wiley-Blackwell
2016
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35755/ |
| _version_ | 1848795154517852160 |
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| author | Meyer-Sahling, Jan-Hinrik Mikkelsen, Kim Sass |
| author_facet | Meyer-Sahling, Jan-Hinrik Mikkelsen, Kim Sass |
| author_sort | Meyer-Sahling, Jan-Hinrik |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Research on bureaucracy and corruption tends to concentrate on cross-national research taking countries as the unit of analysis. Yet national-level measures neglect large differences within countries. This paper therefore takes the perspective of individual bureaucrats. It studies how public officials’ experience with bureaucratic institutions affects corruption within their sphere of work. Based on a survey of central government officials in five post-communist states, the paper examines the impact of civil service laws, the quality of their implementation, merit recruitment and the politicization of appointments on rumors of kickbacks in respondents’ work organization. The analysis shows that merit recruitment is associated with less corruption, while politicization is associated with more corruption. In contrast, civil service laws matter only if they are properly implemented. The findings complement and qualify country-level research, providing micro-foundations of the relation between bureaucracy and corruption. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:27:35Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-35755 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:27:35Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Wiley-Blackwell |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-357552020-05-04T18:27:16Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35755/ Civil service laws, merit, politicization, and corruption: the perspective of public officials from five East European countries Meyer-Sahling, Jan-Hinrik Mikkelsen, Kim Sass Research on bureaucracy and corruption tends to concentrate on cross-national research taking countries as the unit of analysis. Yet national-level measures neglect large differences within countries. This paper therefore takes the perspective of individual bureaucrats. It studies how public officials’ experience with bureaucratic institutions affects corruption within their sphere of work. Based on a survey of central government officials in five post-communist states, the paper examines the impact of civil service laws, the quality of their implementation, merit recruitment and the politicization of appointments on rumors of kickbacks in respondents’ work organization. The analysis shows that merit recruitment is associated with less corruption, while politicization is associated with more corruption. In contrast, civil service laws matter only if they are properly implemented. The findings complement and qualify country-level research, providing micro-foundations of the relation between bureaucracy and corruption. Wiley-Blackwell 2016-12-07 Article PeerReviewed Meyer-Sahling, Jan-Hinrik and Mikkelsen, Kim Sass (2016) Civil service laws, merit, politicization, and corruption: the perspective of public officials from five East European countries. Public Administration, 94 (4). pp. 1105-1123. ISSN 1467-9299 http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/padm.12276/full doi:10.1111/padm.12276 doi:10.1111/padm.12276 |
| spellingShingle | Meyer-Sahling, Jan-Hinrik Mikkelsen, Kim Sass Civil service laws, merit, politicization, and corruption: the perspective of public officials from five East European countries |
| title | Civil service laws, merit, politicization, and corruption: the perspective of public officials from five East European countries |
| title_full | Civil service laws, merit, politicization, and corruption: the perspective of public officials from five East European countries |
| title_fullStr | Civil service laws, merit, politicization, and corruption: the perspective of public officials from five East European countries |
| title_full_unstemmed | Civil service laws, merit, politicization, and corruption: the perspective of public officials from five East European countries |
| title_short | Civil service laws, merit, politicization, and corruption: the perspective of public officials from five East European countries |
| title_sort | civil service laws, merit, politicization, and corruption: the perspective of public officials from five east european countries |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35755/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35755/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/35755/ |