Ministerial or Party Roots of Civil Service Patronage? Evidence from a Parliamentary Democracy

Party patronage has been a widespread phenomenon in modern democracies, with parties being the main vehicle of patronage practices. While we know a lot about the extent of patronage practices, little attention has been paid to the internal logics of the "patrons". Existing research suggests that under presidentialism, it may be the individual politicians, and not their parties, who control patronage positions. It is assumed that in parliamentary systems, political parties are in control. We explore this issue by analyzing the nature of patronage at 13 ministries in Slovakia under three different configurations of coalition governments. To account for nature of patronage, we analyze semi-annual data about personnel changes at the top four ministerial levels. These data are supplemented by some 30 semi-structured interviews with top civil servants and former ministers. We show that 1. changes in the first months of ministerial tenure are several times higher than in the subsequent periods, a finding that confirms significance of patronage; 2. specialist and non-party ministers use patronage less than typical "partisan" ministers, 3. external recruitment of top civil servants is more frequent than internal, and 4. significant level of civil servant replacements exist even when ministers are replaced by their fellow party members. Thus, ministers' patronage practice reflects their need to trust their subordinates and confirms significance of individual roots of patronage even in parliamentary systems.