When Politics Matters: The Impact of Politicians' and Bureaucrats' Preferences on Salient and Nonsalient Policy Areas

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Baekgaard, Martin; Blom-Hansen, Jens; Serritzlew, Soren
• 署名单位: Aarhus University
• 刊物名称: GOVERNANCE-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POLICY ADMINISTRATION AND INSTITUTIONS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0952-1895
• DOI: 10.1111/gove.12104
• 发表日期: 2015
• 关键词: parties matter; committee structure; GOVERNMENT; performance; GROWTH

摘要

For three decades, the politics matters literature has found that political ideology is an important explanation of public policy. However, this literature systematically fails to include the influence of the bureaucracy. In fact, it is almost impossible to identify a single study in this literature that controls for the influence of the permanent bureaucracy. In this article, we investigate whether politics still matters when bureaucratic preferences are taken into account. We do this in a simultaneous test of political and bureaucratic influences on public budgets, a policy measure often studied in the politics matters literature. We find that political preferences trump bureaucratic ones in policy areas salient to the public but not in less salient areas. This might be comforting news from a democratic perspective. However, as public budgets represent an easy case for political influence, it is food for thought that political preferences do not always prevail.