Bureaucratic Responsiveness under Dynamic Political Settings: Experimental Evidence from Local Governments

Abstract

How do bureaucrats respond to legislators' demands for change in policy implementation? We distinguish between unified and divided government, where the degree of legislative oversight over bureaucratic autonomy is likely to differ, and we argue that how bureaucrats actually respond in varying executive-legislative relations depends on their incentives shaped by greater autonomy in implementation (unified government) versus closer monitoring by legislators (divided government). Analyzing two sets of original data from list and endorsement experiments with local bureaucrats in Korea (n = 4064)—one from the period of legislative auditing and the other from the nonauditing period—we find that bureaucrats are more likely to incorporate legislators' views into their decision-making under unified than under divided government. Furthermore, bureaucrats are more responsive to legislatures when their political ideology is congruent with that of a legislative majority than when it is incongruent, regardless of unified or divided government. Our findings have a clear implication: the importance of bureaucratic autonomy and preferences rather than monitoring as an effective tool to increase bureaucratic responsiveness.