Politicisation of the public service during democratic backsliding: Alternative perspectives

This Research Note explores the issue of politicisation of the public service against the backdrop of the emergence of populism. A common feature of populist governments is a lack of trust in the civil service and its willingness to implement the populist political project. An important consequence of marginalising the civil service and its expertise in policy making is detrimental to policymaking. Also, increasing politicisation, that is replacing career public servants with people loyal to the populist regime, drains the public service of organisational memory on how to deal with policy issues. However, liberal democracies in many countries, too, have experienced increasing politicisation over the past decade, albeit within the confines of liberal democratic rules and norms. This emerging, more politicised model of the civil service assumes that neutrality can be an impediment to effective governance and that public servants should be committed to the program of the government. The civil service would be expected to support the government of the day actively and energetically, and therefore there would be fewer barriers. Thus, while politicisation in different forms is a feature of both liberal and populist government, the consequences of politicisation are different in the two regimes.

Points for practitioners

• In liberal democracies, the civil service offers expertise to support politicians in the policy-making process. Populist governments, emphasizing loyalty to the regime more than expertise, tend to increase the number of political appointees in the public service.
• Most of the populist leaders elected are political outsiders and do not want to be constrained by what they consider to be entrenched and self-serving elites.
• The most pressing dangers for liberal democracy are when populist governments consider policies that would change political and social rights.
• Liberal democratic government, too, have increased political control of the public service although without altering the rules and norms of democratic governance.