In the last Chilean elections, the reduction of the number of political operators (civil servants appointed on a discretionary basis who use their position to carry out political and partisan activities) in the state was one of the urgent proposals of the different candidates, to be implemented once they took office.
There is a general conception that any discretionary appointment corresponds to a political operator, which would imply “clientelism” or “patronage”.
However, this type of contracting in the state structure is often fundamental, as they perform transcendental democratic functions such as the implementation of public policies or the articulation of relations between different ministries, among others.
Patronage is a phenomenon that has always been present in the world’s democracies.
Max Weber, in his famous text “Politics as a Vocation”, stressed that the aim of political parties in plebiscitary democracies was to gain power through the vote.
Such an achievement, in turn, would give political parties the necessary legitimacy to nominate their members to different levels of the state bureaucracy.
However, it should be noted that this is not the only form of recruitment by state bureaucracies.
On the one hand, there is the professional form, a process that responds to normative standards and, therefore, is formally based on principles of meritocracy and transparency.
On the other hand, there is the form of patronage, a recruitment mechanism in which political parties play a crucial role.
In this, appointments are based on political criteria with the aim, among others, of better controlling the policies that are implemented, since it is assumed that these officials have a greater commitment to the program and the administration of the government.
In practice, the two recruitment modalities overlap.
In the case of Chile, and based on national and local studies that we carried out on this issue at the Catholic University of Temuco, political appointment or patronage cannot be reduced to the simple fact of appointing political operators in the State.
Studies show a heterogeneity of clientelism in the Chilean state bureaucracy: there are differences according to the functions to be performed, the characteristics of the nominee and the hierarchical level at which the nomination is made.
With respect to the functions performed by the nominees, there are three main ones.
First, to obtain electoral gains, which would be a form of patronage that would contain elements and dynamics of political patronage and whose objective is to reward militants and carry out electoral policies.
Second, ensure that the government and its officials act in accordance with the guidelines of the political party or authority in power, articulating and controlling the bureaucracy.
Third, design and implement public policies.
Regarding the characteristics of the person hired, for the first function –focused on electoral matters– political articulators and clients would prevail.
In the second function –oriented to the functioning of the government– the so-called operators, staff and commissioned would prevail.
For the third function –oriented towards public policies– specialists such as technocrats and “technopols” would be appointed.
Regarding the hierarchical level, studies at both the national (Moya and Garrido, 2019) and regional (Moya et al, 2021) levels show that in Chilean public administration, at all levels of the bureaucratic structure, whether national or regional, there are political appointments , but there is no homogeneous type of patronage.
hierarchical levels
In fact, this varies according to the hierarchical level analyzed.
At the higher level, there is sponsorship associated with technocrats and “technopols”, who mobilize managerial resources but who also have the capacity for articulation.
At the middle hierarchical level, clientelism is associated with political operators and mainly mobilizes organizational resources.
At lower levels, sponsorship related to clients and political party activists that mobilize electoral resources is visible.
Previous studies also indicate that political parties are important in nominations, but that they have lost relevance since the return of democracy.
Parliamentarians, NGOs, think tanks and unions are actors who came to dispute the area of influence of political parties in the nominations.
Similarly, at the national level, the presidential figure played a key role in nominations over the period analyzed, and personal trust (rather than partisan trust) appears to be an important criterion for nominations, specifically at the highest level.
At the regional level, the situation is similar with regard to the profile of people who are nominated.
For example, the “technopol” figure is highly regarded as a person with both technical and political skills.
However, party leaders and activists who previously worked in electoral periods are often favored to ensure the connection between the party and the electorate.
The nominees are based primarily on personal trust rather than politics, especially from the region’s parliamentarians.
Although political parties appoint people to secure power, such appointments require the consent of parliamentarians rather than the political party, specifically on behalf of senators or deputies.
This practice, in turn, serves the purpose of protecting the interests of parliamentarians, guaranteeing them electoral support.
What’s the problem with patronage? Not that it exists, but that patronage is poorly controlled.
In this sense, its lack of control would directly affect public management, as it could impede the professionalization of employees, with repercussions on the efficiency and effectiveness of the State’s work.
The problem, therefore, arises when appointed officials do not necessarily have the skills and competencies to fulfill the public function for which they are responsible.
When this happens, distrust of citizens grows and the perception of corruption in political appointments in the state grows.
We are grateful for the work of the former students of the Catholic University of Temuco who participated in the survey: Victor Garrido, Damaris Parada, Nathalie Jaramillo e Nicol Cereceda.
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