Appendix I: Case Discussions

FRANCE (1918-1957)

The administration was ineffective from 1918 to 1945. From 1946 until consolidation in 1957, the administration was effective. Territorial penetration of French state institutions was achieved with Napoleon’s rationalization reforms in the late 18^th century which tied local nobles to the semi-monarchical executive office of Napoleon (Ertman 1997: 139, 151). After subsequent periods of civic unrest, the now famous étatisme - that is, the central state’s dominance over regional and local affairs - was consolidated in the period from 1870 to WWI when ‘peasants became Frenchmen’ or, of more particular relevance here, localities were submerged by the Paris-based state force via systems of taxation, roads, and communication tools (Weber 1976: 9).

Regarding both meritocracy and responsiveness, France is one of the most clear-cut borderline cases. Indeed, the French civil service is usually considered ‘exceptional’ as a generic kind of Napoleonic system absent all other forms of administration worldwide (Stevens 2004: 76). Thus, the judgment should be particularly sensitive to threshold ambiguities and the criteria I employ for solving them (see Appendix II). First, I code meritocracy as absent until 1946 and present from that moment. France was historically part of the group of patrimonial administrations in Europe but with the revolution in 1789 and Napoleon Bonaparte’s arrival, proprietary office-holding was abolished and substituted by a professional, salaried bureaucracy and a stringent tax administration (Ertman 1997: 139-151). Authority was centralized and coherence in civil service education was secured through the grandes écoles system (Rouban 1989). Following this, the larger part of scholars on French administrative history has traditionally contended that the French bureaucracy became autonomous and meritocratic with the advent of the Third Republic or during its first decades (e.g. Suleiman 1974: 13; Silberman 1993: 91-92; Stevens 2004: 76) (Silberman sets the crucial year at 1895 from when he ensures that no significant changes in the bureaucratic structure occurred).

However, my judgment is based on the absolute levels of meritocracy during the interwar period – not levels relative to other periods or in a developmental pattern. Therefore, the guiding empirical facts are as follows. From the start of the Third Republic legislation securing bureaucratic autonomy was still weak. Only in 1945 did a political settlement for true bureaucratic autonomy, including in hiring and firing, establish. This is a point that the typical scholarship fully acknowledges (see Suleiman 1974: 50-63; Silberman 1993: 91). In effect, personal criteria and social contacts remained important in appointments of civil servants at all levels (Bezes and Jeannot 2011: 191). In addition, and partly as a consequence of these remnants of patrimonialism, a pattern of party politicization of the central ministries was established when political parties entered executive political power from 1870 (Kuisel 1981: 3; Warner 2001: 127). Politicization thus remained a possibility throughout the interwar period as well (Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens 1992: 88). As Warner (2001: 127) shows, bureaucracy could be used by politicians to favor their clients by giving them public works and jobs at the expense of the employment of other civil servants. This patronage system whereby elections decided public jobs systematically in several ministries continued and thrived further under the Vichy regime in WWII. In the final conclusion, Warner (2001: 127) states that “It is the sense of a mission for the state, not the specific state structure, which distinguishes the ‘strong’ French state from the ‘weak’ Italian state.” In any case, the degree of meritocracy differed from ministry to ministry and even between offices inside ministries, some being widely politicized while others being almost completely autonomous in employment matters. Despite reform debates in the 1920s and 1930s, this pattern remained intact until 1945 (Bezes and Jeannot 2011: 192-193).

In turn, the decisive juncture in French administration was 1945. The literature wholly agrees that 1945, alongside 1789, was the most important year in French administrative development since WWII brought about a strong constituency for bureaucratic autonomy with real effect. In 1945, the École National d’Administration was created to make an explicit education for public service from which civil servants in the Fourth and Fifth Republics were and have been dominantly recruited (Silberman 1993: 91; Warner 2001: 127-128, 135) (despite the prevailing dominance of certain elite families, Suleiman 1974: 50-63). The 1946 ordinances clarified the role and career rules for civil servants and thus by law precluded the access to politicization for the parties. Not all politicization problems were solved but meritocracy and bureaucratic autonomy was ‘institutionalized’ and ‘systematized’ (Silberman 1993: 192-193; Bezes and Jeannot 2011: 193-194).

The same type of judgment applies to responsiveness. First, despite the effects of the grandes écoles of providing a more unified, stringent administration loyal to the state (Silberman 1993: 114-117) the differences in professionalism and disciplinary rules across ministries and offices created a fragmented and segmented administration whose bodies would concentrate on fighting each other as opposed to coordinating a unified implementation of policies (Silberman 1993: 93; Bezes and Jeannot 2011: 192-193). The 1945 and 1946 reforms served to unify the administration under one banner of rules (Bezes and Jeannot 2011: 194). Second, Napoleon’s reforms meant that servants had to succumb to the will of the state political executive (Suleiman 1974: 13). This is of course true relative to the preceding system of proprietary office-holding empowering local nobilities. Yet, the advent of masses in political decision-making from the middle of the 19^th century was a whole new challenge to bureaucratic autonomy. The problem of defining the authority of the political executive and a system for government turnover in the 19^th centuries’ constitutional revisions (1814, 1830, 1848, and 1875) along with the institutionalization of the grandes écoles gradually ingrained in civil servants an ethos of responsibility to the state but not as representatives of any public interest as defined by shifting governments (Silberman 1993: 106). In this sense, the strong étatisme of the civil service transformed the state bureaucracy into a political party that made it fundamentally unaccountable to public interests (Silberman 1993: 128).

Tellingly, this étatism of the state servants was what political parties across the board reacted against in the debates during the Fourth and early Fifth Republics. It was remarked that hitherto, state bureaucracies had tended to thrive under success, failure, criticism, and praise alike (Suleiman 1974: 30-31). In fact, there was much truth to this description. Suleiman (1974: 17-18) notes that French bureaucratic elites had historically – that is, until 1974 at least – largely rejected any large changes in society as part of a statist, state-centered ideology. While lower-level servants had to align completely with state corporate interests, this only unified the upper-level servants against any radical reform attempts. Major reform attempts at privatization of state sectors immediately after WWI were hindered by the civil service unions (supported by the left wing parties). Similarly, the franc crisis in the 1920s suffered from a complete lack of policy coherence because the Treasury was in conflict with the political parties and ministers in which the departments eventually repudiated ministerial orders (Kuisel 1981: 65, 73-74).

This second problem of responsiveness thus stemmed from a weakly empowered executive confronted by a strong bureaucracy. Even though continuously a matter of political discussion, this was basically solved with the WWII-reforms which transferred decision-making powers from the parliament and committees to the government and administration giving “the administration more chance to function and the government more chance to govern” (Kuisel 1981: 254).

GERMANY (1919-1933)

The German administration was ineffective throughout the period and the ineffectiveness in many ways mirrored that of the security forces. The origins of the Weimar administration lie in late 17^th century Prussia when the Hohenzollern kings centralized and refined the military organization and empowered the administration (Fischer and Lundgreen 1975: 510-517; Braun 1975: 276-277). Even though hiring and firing of bureaucrats was managed politically, by the kings personally or by commissions under royal supervision, this process effectively rooted out patrimonial tendencies at the central levels of administration by recruiting middle-class people on the basis of merits and in-job performance (Fischer and Lundgreen 1975: 521-522; Ertman 1997: 248, 253-254). In 1794, a code established the class of professional civil servants, the Beamtenstand. Only a decade later, in 1807, all state offices were opened to competition on the basis of merit, and the king’s personal advisory board was dissolved and replaced by ministries. The Prussian bureaucracy here gained the meritocratic features that are famous of most analyses of Germany after unification in 1871 (Gillis 1971: 6-7, 11). At the same time, Prussia’s particular power position during the revolutionary period from 1848 to 1871 ensured the penetration of its administrative structures across the now German imperial territory (Ziblatt 2006: 113-115).

To analyze administrative effectiveness in the democratic period from 1919, we must acknowledge the interaction between meritocracy, and notably the accompanying attribute of bureaucratic autonomy, and bureaucratic responsiveness. This is rarely shown in comparative analyses focused on state capacity (see e.g. Ertman 1997; Kurtz 2013: 238), but most historical accounts (see e.g. Muncy 1947; Bracher 1970: 72; Jeserich, Pohl, and von Unruh 1985; Caplan 1988; Mommsen 1991; McElligott 2014) of the development of German bureaucracy, including Max Weber’s (1978: 224), draw a much more complex picture of political-bureaucratic conflict and at least a questionable responsiveness.

From the 18^th century, the bureaucracy excelled in revenue collection, was financed and equipped, and thus developed a self-sufficient attitude very well aware that any Prussian king was completely dependent upon its effort and expertise (Fischer and Lundgreen 1975: 510-517). This provoked the king to tie and discipline the bureaucracy via the Calvinist revolution (Sheehan 1989: 63; Gorski 2003: 80) but, somewhat ironically, it was also a primary reason for the further strengthening of bureaucratic autonomy by the civil service acts of 1794 and 1807, in which university-educated bureaucratic elites eroded royal power (for the king’s dilemmas in this regard, see Rosenberg 1958: Ch. 9; Sheehan 1989: 142).

While the responsiveness of the administration of the early 19^th century was substantially strengthened at the central levels, the Junkers at the decentralized level retained their local-administrative authority and right to nominate candidates for the main office of local administration, that is, county commissioner in the Landrat (Braun 1975: 273). In matters of land, agriculture, and taxation, the Junkers’ interests differed substantially from those of the king. This reliance on traditional patrimonial institutions worried the kings continuously but, given the Junkers’ economic power and position as controllers of peasants, purging of Junkers was not an option (Sheehan 1989: 40). Based on Heinrich Stein’s reforms in 1807, the Beamten came to see themselves as ‘Plato’s Guardian Class’ and achieved the means to drive out the legislative power of the royal household (Rosenberg 1958: Ch. 9; Gillis 1971: 16, 172; Mommsen 1991:79). The bureaucracy was deeply engaged and sure of its prerogative in policy-making by virtue of its power of knowledge and organization. Through the constitutional process in 1848-1851, it circumvented some of the king’s desires to survive as an independent political force and class (Sheehan 1989: 719-720). A bureaucratic authoritarian system had taken hold (Rosenberg 1958).

Bismarck managed to align bureaucracy by strict enforcement of disciplinary laws and by presenting a conservative-nationalist program that appealed to the bureaucracy (Caplan 1979: 206). But tellingly, as several accounts (e.g. Friedrich 1933: 201; Mann 1985: 85-86; Mommsen 1991: 79) confirm, after Bismarck’s withdrawal from power, various different governments experienced implementation problems because bureaucracy ran its own course. Because Bismarck rarely had reliable control of the Reichstag, he ordered his assistant, Puttkammer, to reform the civil service in the 1880s with the effect of making it completely autonomous in relation to the Reichstag – even purges of civil servants with allegedly working class or liberal preferences occurred (Craig 1978: 157-158). The bureaucracy saw circumvention of parliamentary and government policies to the protection of the nation state as its primary entitlement (Gillis 1971: 33; Mann 1985: 85-86), notably when the Social Democratic Party dominated parliament (Mommsen 1991: 79). The opposition to social democrats and parliamentarism united the high-level bureaucracy and the Junkers in the estates (Bonham 1983: 650). Politics thus stalemated until 1914 as it was organized in two halves: one in the Reichstag and a separate one in the civil service that pursued its own agendas (Craig 1978: 251).

Because of Germany’s peculiar situation in the interwar period of parliamentary inaction, responsiveness is particularly difficult to assess. Let us look at three of the most salient issues in Weimar Germany: civil service reform, socioeconomics, and law and order. First, constitutional negotiation in 1918-1919 was in many ways a replay of earlier political-administrative interaction despite the unusual circumstance of military defeat. SPD and DDP opted for a radical break with the past by democratizing the civil service. They did not trust the old monarchical elite servants and sought to purge them but they met considerable resistance from the Beamten bureaucrats, who were supported by the politische Beamten in the conservative party, DVP, and higher-level servants in the ministries (Runge 1965: 36-38). Reforms eventually stalled as SDP and DDP quickly realized that a rebuilding of Germany demanded the old bureaucracy’s expertise and sheer size (Böckenförde 1985: 15-16). The bureaucracy organized a trade union, DBB, with the clear purpose of protecting civil service interests against parliamentary politics and the working class ideology (Caplan 1988: 59-61). Throughout the 1920s, this union and unorganized lower civil servants simply circumvented reforms that, for instance, would change criteria for career advancement. Otherwise, department heads used their intimate connection with conservative parliamentarians to stall further reform policies (Runge 1965: 119).

From the late 1920s and under Chancellor Heinrich Brüning from 1930, cutbacks and rationalization grew more substantial and were enforced (Caplan 1988: 76-77). As a result, the bureaucracy retained its autonomy from political pressures (Craig 1978: 420). This broke the confidence between these lower-level bureaucrats and the government institution – policy-making between the governments and the ministerial departments was often a knot in the dynamic of parliamentary stalemate (Caplan 1988: 94-95).

Second, fiscal and monetary management was generally very effective despite the difficult economic circumstances, and economic policies were generally closely in line with the political executive (Müller 2014). However, the most radical socialist reforms were often redirected in the ministries (Mäding 1985: 96). An example is the implementation of the 8-hour working day, which was effective at first, but employers quickly led hours increase to the traditionally high levels while the responsible ministries gave their tacit support (McElligott 2014: 79). Not all ministries were opposed to socialist or Keynesian policies as shown in Müller’s (2014) analysis of the ministry of economics. Nonetheless, even the labor ministry, which was dominated by socialists and trade unions, was taken over by conservative civil servants from 1924 (Liu 1997: 363).

Third, judges were among the oldest, most conservative civil servants. They saw the shifting governments inherent in a democracy as a threat to the integrity of their call. Specifically, they saw social democratic governments as a threat to law and order. Therefore, their court rulings became increasingly biased towards conservative values (McElligott 2014: 100-103). This situation was even more characteristic in the Länder where Junkers still dominated and practiced regular breaches of administrative protocols (McElligott 2014: 172). Generally, it is noted that judges via their rulings and public deliberations sought to undermine the symbols of the republic (Craig 1978: 420).

The professional and meritocratic features of the German administration thus contributed to unresponsiveness in many key respects, most notably on the issue of civil service reform and in court rulings but also to some extent in socioeconomic affairs. Unresponsiveness reached far into the high-level and central ranks but was most severe in local matters. An indication of the unresponsiveness is that civil servants were overrepresented among voters of NSDAP as their “rightism probably blended a very broad sense of occupational self-interest with a more ideological nation-statism” (Mann 2004: 165).

GREECE (1926-1936)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. Territorial penetration was achieved when the Greek state found its current state with the defeat in Asia Minor in 1922 although the general infrastructure of transport and communication remained weak (see e.g. Nikolaidis and Sakellaropoulos 2012: 8-9). In other ways, the development of the Greek state administration paralleled that of the military. King Otto’s reforms to install a German-style bureaucracy was met with fierce resistance or simply stalled when extended to the rural outskirts of the country (Dakin 1977: 41). Patrons and client groups prevailed and penetrated the central bureaucracy and subordinates undermined official actions (Legg 1969: 53; Clogg 1986: 84). In 1852, the new King George I introduced the Napoleonic administrative system of districts and ministerial centralization. The melting of this otherwise rational system with the existing clientelist system was surprisingly smooth but did not alter administrative ineffectiveness (Koliopoulos and Veremis 2010: 30). As Legg (1969: 33-34) and Sotiropoulos (2015: 230) diagnoses the Greek administration of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the lower levels were staffed based on patronage as it was affected by family ties and communal affairs whereas the higher levels were extensively politicized in an incomplete yet significant spoils system.

Thus, neither meritocracy not responsiveness was strong in the interwar period. Again, Trikoupis’ attempted reforms of bureaucratic autonomy, tenure, and qualification requirements were arrested by Deliyannis while Venizelos’ official abandonment of the spoils system and his creation of a permanent bureaucracy recruited via competitive examinations were partly withdrawn by the electoral victory of the anti-Venizelists and Gounaris in 1915 and the National Schism which caused a pattern of purges of civil servants with every new government until 1936 (Dakin 1977: 56-58; Clogg 1986: 111). Even after the establishment of the School of Public Service after WWII, patrimonialism prevailed in administrative appointments (Legg 1969: 156). The system of politicization did not dominate top down. Corruption at the lower levels was widespread and rival factions of bureaucrats connected with particular politicians sabotaged each other (Clogg 1986: 84). Bureaucracy was thus largely unresponsive including a limited concern for deadlines or schedules (Legg 1969: 35).
IRELAND (1922-1945)

The administration was effective from 1927. Territorial penetration was secured centuries before the inauguration of democracy in 1922 – under British rule from the 17^th century (Foster 1988: 226). By the end of the 19^th century, the civil service of Ireland was updated in the image of Britain. A system of departmental centralized control and local administration via elected officials was installed making administration more stringent and integrated (Chubb 1992: 212-213). In consequence, Ireland inherited a fully-fledged civil service system making it “capable of self-government” (Chubb 1992: 7). This ensured the continuation of bureaucratic structural force through various state crises in the interwar period (Foster 1988: 540-541).

Ireland very directly benefitted from the Northcote-Trevelyan reforms of 1870 Britain which were transferred to the outskirts of the Union. This involved installation of a basic meritocratic system, notably for appointment and careers in the departments, and the successful dissemination of an ethos of impartiality and public service in a democratic polity among civil servants (Zink 2000b: 281; Connaughton 2010: 7). Problems ensued, however, in 1922 in local administration. Locally, the British committee system enabled politicization as the elected representatives achieved administrative authority in the committees. In turn, cases of corruption and political nepotism were frequent (Chubb 1992: 270, 275). In reaction, the Irish politicians, notably driven by the ambitious Cosgrave, set up the Civil Service Commission in 1923 which led to two rounds of reform: The Ministers and Secretaries Act of 1924 confirmed the British legacy of departments and ministerial responsibility but it also installed competitive examinations for local administrator positions while absolving the political committees from administrative management (Chubb 1992: 227-228). At the same time, a new judicial system (which had been unreformed since 1877) made the courts more stringently placed in an administrative hierarchy of district courts and a Supreme Court as well as specified the relationship to the political level (Bartholomew 1969: 561). The 1926 Local Appointments Commission further ensured meritocracy at the local levels while the courts were further systematized (Garvin 1996: 168-169).

From this point, meritocracy was in place. Recruitment and promotions functioned through competitive examinations and only a few top-level departmental jobs were open for government appointments (Pyne 1974: 16-18; Zink 2000b: 281; Connaughton 2010: 8). Throughout the spell, politicization of judge appointments was available formally, from 1922-1937 via the Executive Council advise to the Governor-General’s appointment of judges and the President in the 1937 constitution (Bartholomew 1969: 563). However, as Adshead and Tonge (2009: 82-83) assure us: “In the Republic of Ireland, it is perhaps more apt to refer to the ‘judicialization of politics’ rather than the ‘politicization of the judiciary’.” Politicization in appointment and promotion was not very frequently used and when used, the judges’ ethos of standing ‘above politics’ ensured impartial rulings (Adshead and Tonge 2009: 82-83).

Responsiveness followed meritocracy as problems of corruption at the local levels were sharply diminished. As with meritocracy, the 1924 and 1926 reforms merely confirmed and reinforced pre-democratic traits – in this case, the particular British ethos of impartiality and public service to which a campaign for anti-corruption behavior was added (Lee 1989: 93, 107; Connaughton 2010: 8). Reports on the civil service in the early 1930s concluded that it had functioned effectively and responsively to shifting governments in the 1920s (Chubb 1992: 219, 228). This continued through the next decades of increased pressure on state intervention in the economy and society amidst a political imperative of market liberalism (Pyne 1974: 16-18; Chubb 1992: 230-231).
ITALY (1919-1922)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. Unification established the territorial penetration of the Italian state. However, the ensuing corruption and patronage of the Italian administration is famous and stemmed from the conditions for the establishment of a centralized and autonomous bureaucracy around Risorgimento. As Shefter (1977: 442-443) notes, since the landowners of the south were not part of the state bureaucracy at unification, the administration there had to be politicized to ensure their support for unification. This installed the blocco storico, dominating Italian politics the next century at least, in which governments survived by payment of patronage. An additional challenge of the unification that was not solved before Mussolini’s regime was the establishment of administrative links between the administration and civil society, and a centralized bureaucracy was hard to establish (Riall 1994: 27). This further strengthened the use of patronage. Specifically, prefects were elected by the ministry of the interior, but often chosen among personal friends of the king, with the purpose of controlling local administrations and thus had the ability to dismiss mayors and local administrators (Salvemini 1973: 78; Duggan 1994: 140-141; Lyttelton 2004: 8). A pork-barrel kind of politics called trasformismo, where large shares of ministerial and local civil servants were substituted by party loyalists after elections, was installed in the 1870s and remained vibrant until at least the end of Mussolini’s reign (Warner 2001: 129; Elazar 2001: 34).

Reforms of the administration in the pre-WWI period were attempted but without success. It should be recognized that meritocracy became relatively well entrenched in the ministries with the establishment of the Napoleonic ministerial system where a commission of the ministry managed hiring and firing procedures (Warner 2001: 131). However, this central state building largely stagnated because it failed to integrate local subnational elites and landowners (Hopkin and Mastropaolo 2001: 153). Instead, the lack of competent personnel in the south introduced a system of employment by political criteria rather than competence. Nepotism and clientelism became everyday phenomena of state affairs, despite a growing number of professionals in society in general and improvement in education (Putnam 1993: 136; Duggan 1994: 141; Hopkin and Mastropaolo 2001: 153). Reform proposals for ensuring unionization of civil servants were effectively hindered by Giolitti in 1907 whereby he proposed a low for the disciplining of servants to make them uncritical instruments of the executive power (De Grand 2001: 138). As a result, there was no unified law regulating matters between the state and civil service and only weakly independent courts at the brink of Mussolini’s dictatorship (Cole 1938: 1144-1145).

However, trasformismo was less systematic than in Spain and Uruguay (Hopkin and Mastropaolo 2001: 153), and Giolitti’s efforts at establishing a completely loyal administration were not successful. Thus, there was not only ’politicization from above’ but also ’politicization from below’ owing to civil servants, including notably local administrators and judges, who were traditionally susceptible to grand partitions to and rule in favor of local business elites and aquatints without the authority of centrally planned laws – what has been known as ‘political corruption’ (see e.g. Della Porta 2001). It thus remained hard to establish stable and strong lines of command from the ministries to the provinces causing a thriving of petty corruption and favoritism of local elites (Putnam 1993: 136; Riall 1994: 33). Particularly, the mafias remained the leviathans of the south putting pressure on local administrators (Putnam 1993: 147). Besides such ‘politicization from below’, the Italian civil service was generally a slowly working body. Continuing from the restoration period, the twin problem of recruiting loyal and competent personnel made bureaucratic procedures inefficient and caused insufficient information flows (Riall 1994: 24). This led to a generally disorganized implementation process, with irregular and ineffective applications of laws and political orders (Gregor 1979: 56). On an overall level, despite the intentions of ’politicization from above’ unresponsiveness thrived on the local level in particular because of the incompetence of civil servants and their lack of autonomy from societal pressure groups.

LATVIA (1920-1934)

The administration was ineffective throughout the entire period. Again, the status and development of the administration is remarkably similar to Estonia. Despite significant success in the codification and organization of the administration in the first years of independence, including a very important abolishment of patronage by the nobility via reforms in the 1918-1920 period (Plakans 1995: 123, 130), the Russian imperial tradition of politicized administration dominated during the interwar period (Palidauskaite, Pevkur, and Reinholde 2010: 46). Affected by both German and Russian tendencies before WWI, the Russian ones prevailed as in Estonia (see Aarebrot and Berglund 1995: 215, 218; Meyer-Sahling 2009: 521; Møller and Skaaning 2010: 340).

If anything, the pattern of politicization and corruption was even stronger in Latvia which, in addition, neither had a strong formal insurance of meritocracy in contrast to Estonia, and judges were still rather unresponsive to democratic laws given their Russian education (Graham 1927: 342). Political interference in hiring and firing was also regular but in contrast to Estonia, the provision of minority rights was to some degree circumvented by a systematic ‘politicization from below’. As is noted by Purs (2002: 61-62, 67-68), an extra-legal committee secret set up by and consisting of bureaucrats from the ministry of the interior systematically circumvented provision of minority rights in alliance with members of the nationalist parties – this continued through the 1920s and across different governments despite attempts in 1927 by the social democrats of breaking the coalition. Thus, neither meritocracy nor responsiveness was present during the democratic spell. A second difference to Estonia was the penetration of the territory by the administration. Despite de facto independence in 1920, the constitution was not formally enforced until November 1922. However, territorial penetration was achieved by 1921 (Graham 1927: 344).

LITHUANIA (1920-1926)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. Territorial penetration was never accomplished because of the occupation of Vilnius which remained under Polish administrative (as well as military) command (Graham 1927: 374-375). The status and development of the administration resemble those of Estonia and Latvia. However, Lithuania achieved some autonomy in administrative affairs earlier than WWI. German reforms of the administration were codified in the 19^th century but the Russian annexation led to a purge of Germans from the administration and larger organizational Russification. The 1905 revolution in Russia only left reforms of the Russian Duma (Raun 1991: 85, 87). In any case, legacies were lost in 1918 since the short period of German administration never materialized with problems of efficiency and impartiality remaining (Urbanovic and Garcia-Zamor 2011: 179). As in Latvia and Estonia, the Lithuanian governments achieved significant success in the organization of the local and central administrations, including implementation of legal codes (Graham 1927: 402). However, even the official ideology of administration was German there was never a civil service law until the Russian annexation in 1940 (Urbanovic and Garcia-Zamor 2011: 182), and the same problems with Russian organized, educated, and loyal courts prevailed (Graham 1927: 405-406). According to Rothschild (1974: 378), most of the bureaucracy was inexperienced while significant amounts of servants were corrupt, abused their authority, and were guilty of irregularities in tax extraction. Notably, Lithuania’s administration is placed as Russian-influenced similar to, and sometimes worse than, Latvia’s and Estonia’s (see Aarebrot and Berglund 1995: 215, 218; Verheijen and Rabrenovic 1999: 10; Meyer-Sahling 2009: 521; Møller and Skaaning 2010: 340).

POLAND (1918-1926)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. It was the partition of Poland in 1815 that dominated the administrative qualities as it had washed away earlier traditions of constitutionalism and rational ministerial administration under Napoleonic influence (Brzezinski 1998: 48). As in the Baltics, the administrative legacy of Poland at the end of WWI was a plethora of very different legal codes and traditions, particularly the Austrian, German, and Russian (Majcherkiewicz 2008: 141-142; Møller and Skaaning 2010: 333). Consequently, regions differed markedly in legal codes and administrative organization making it almost practically impossible to unify them under a central Polish administration (Brzezinski 1998: 48). Although great advances were made in administrative consolidation across the territory (Graham 1927: 492-493; Bernhard 1999: 44), a streamlined administration from Warsaw to the border regions remained challenged (Brzezinski 1998: 48; Aldcroft 2006: 108).

Importantly, the more backward Russian model of politicized administration prevailed, as opposed to in Czechoslovakia, as the political capital was placed in Russian dominated Warsaw (Møller and Skaaning 2010: 333). Thus, the typical Polish civil servant, except in Austrian Galicia, was inexperienced and untrained, lacking in integrity and efficiency which consolidated earlier decades of excessive corruption (Watt 1979: 184-185). In turn, the administration of the post-WWI Polish state was easily politicized, swelled with persons employed via political connections to the Sejm parties but also constantly manipulated by societal interest groups, notably large landowners (Graham 1927: 478-479; Watt 1979: 184-185). Formally, the judiciary and the administration were politically independent and legal codes laid out two categories of civil servants resembling Western European practices (state officials with job security and lower-level public employees with less security) but job security never materialized (Graham 1927: 478-479; Majcherkiewicz 2008: 142). Tellingly, a civil service act was first amended by law in 1998 (Majcherkiewicz 2008: 143). As a result of this pattern of politicization of the administration from above and below, both day-to-day responsiveness of civil servants and meritocracy remained very problematic.
PORTUGAL (1918-1926)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. Given that Portugal was one of the oldest nation states in Europe whose borders had virtually not been changed since the late Middle Ages (Pinto 2000a: 354) and that the country had been one of the imperial super power of Europe in centuries (Wheeler 1978: 3-11), the problems of communication and infrastructure from Lisbon and Porto to the outskirts which certainly plagued the policy-makers of the republic (see Marques 1972: 124; Gallagher 1983: 27) are best analyzed as beyond basic territorial penetration.

The system of administrative appointments centrally and locally reminded of Spain’s. Traditionally, local administration was dominated by aristocratic appointments while the monarch’s centrally placed civil service was weakly competent and strongly politicized (Payne 1973: 404). Even though centralization reforms occurred from the 18^th century, these were always interrupted by political changes, sometimes nearing state collapse, and financial insufficiencies (see Payne 1973: 405, 413). Despite recurring reforms, caciques’ power in local affairs remained intact (Magone 2003: 323). But during the 19^th century centralization and rationalization reforms achieved a momentum. In turn, there was a considerable unification of legal codes, the administration was organized on Napoleonic principles of ministries and centralized rule, public schools were improved to provide scholars for juridical positions, and professional corpses created (Payne 1973: 518-527; Kickert 2011: 807). However, the restoration period from 1875 to 1910 established the administrative traditions that dominated long after the revolution and even today (Kickert 2011: 813-814). The Regenerator and Historical/Progressive Parties established rotativismo by which they followed each other’s governmental period by a near complete substitution in the ranks of the civil service (Payne 1973: 530-531; Wheeler 1978: 27; Pinto 2000a: 360). During the republic, the politicization by republican parties was heavy while not complete since monarchist administrators of questionable competence were rolled in to fill vacant offices (Payne 1973: 563; Wheeler 1978: 84). Thus, a double problem of incompetence and politicization ensued. Additionally, as franchise was opened in 1918, clientelism strengthened resulting in widespread employment of party supporters in government jobs with every major change in government in 1919, 1921, and 1922 (Wheeler 1978: 161).

As in Spain, clientelism and politicization of the upper ranks against the intensions created an enormous problem of unresponsiveness. Bureaucracy expanded in an uncontrollable manner along with wages, corruption and inefficiency rose because of this, and what should have been a Napoleonic administration for the general interest became heavily engaged in pork-barreling and cronyism (Wheeler 1978: 161; Kickert 2011: 807).

SPAIN (1931-1937)

The story of administrative effectiveness is very similar to that of monopoly on violence: encompassing problems of politicization and a lack of professionalism deeming the administration ineffective throughout the period. Although overlapping jurisdictions and contradictory legislations and hostility between regional administrations allowed considerable local deviations (Irigoin and Grafe 2008: 179), territorial penetration was paradoxically achieved with the 1898 war of independence against Cuba, which established with greater clarity the territory of Spain exclusively to the Iberian Peninsula. Taking territorial penetration as a condition of minimum broadening of administrative orders to the outskirts of the country, much of the administrative dispute with Catalonia was solved by giving Catalonia its own government despite great political conflicts and institutional differences (Linz 1978b: 156; Payne 2006: 21).

Like many other state administrations in Southern Europe at the time, the implementation of meritocratic procedures in Spain was either absent or clustered in certain sectors and regions (Blakeley 2001). This left pockets of relative efficiency and effectiveness, which make it difficult to assess net effectiveness. But at least in the most central economic sector, agricultural production, and the judicial system patronage and politicization dominated as the politically elected civil governors backed the local party bosses, caciques, in the distribution of public jobs and judges (Lapuente and Rothstein 2014: 14). This was an old system from before the 19^th century when Spanish monarchs relied on patronage payment of landed elites for decentralized administration but ran dry of administrative compliance whenever patronage became scarce or regional conflicts escalated (Blakeley 2001: 78). As Irigoin and Grafe (2008: 179) note: “Author after author suggests that that the traditional phrase by which officials and subjects could choose ‘to obey but not comply with’ […] royal orders was not an empty formula. Fragmented and overlapping jurisdictions allowed for legal challenges, negotiation, pleading, or outright refusal of royal demands”.

The introduction of the spoils system (Turno Pacifico) in the 19^th century obviously consolidated politicization, now as cycles of party patronage dominating appointment to the civil service. It was refined under the Restoration system from 1874 and reintroduced in 1931 to complete a cleaner democratic transition (Moreno-Luzon 2007: 417-418). Despite the intension to obtain greater control of civil servants and reforms to increase regional uniformity and meritocracy, reforms stalled and corruption lingered on (Carr 1982: 64; Irigoin and Grafe 2008: 180). Similarly, meritocracy was formally established in 1918 with the Civil Act but in practice, the spoils system dominated administrative staffing. Some ministerial positions were protected against political hiring and firing when governments changed during the Second Republic but many, including in local administrations, were politicized (Moreno-Luzon 2007: 417-418).

Implementation consequently stalled and was inconsistent and drained by corruption in central areas such as agrarian reform where politicians, quite to the contrary, seemed steadfast on change (Malefakis 1971: 169, 242; Blakeley 2001: 86). The control of implementation orchestrated by the local party bosses (caciques), the manipulated Jurados Mixtos, and the heavily skewed influence of landowners (latifundistas) formed a typical triangle of administrative politicization (Malefakis 1971: 169; Moreno-Luzon 2007: 418). Similar to this conservation of agricultural interests by patronage elites, the spoils system had the effect of biasing certain sectors of the administration, notably the judicial system and civil governors who applied the law in biased ways as they were hired party loyalists of either left or right governments (Lapuente and Rothstein 2014: 15-16).
URUGUAY (1919-1934; 1942-)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. In a narrow understanding focused on capacity and autonomy of societal interests (territorial penetration), Uruguay’s administrative effectiveness was strong beginning with the establishment of a judicial system, civil registry, and property rights regime, a unified criminal code and law and order in the late 19^th century and their refinement in the governments of Batlle (1903-1915). In comparative context, Uruguay had an unusually penetrating state (Kurtz 2013: 117, 129, 203-204). Yet, all ministries, including the significant ones managing the economy, finance, and interior and foreign affairs, were heavily politicized in the same way as the police. Even though the central administration has been praised for its relative impartiality and the increasing employment of the middle class in the civil service (Kurtz 2013: 179, 181), the fact that Uruguayan politics were intensely and almost exclusively organized around the distribution of administrative posts proportional to the election results indicates the domination of politicization in the character of bureaucracy (Lindahl 1962: 94, 114). This was a general characteristic of the two democratic spells but even more from 1930 with the pork-barrel pact which strengthened the principle of coparticipación (Lindahl 1962: 167). As a result, the same weaknesses pertained to the civil service as to the police: an obvious lack of professionalism but also unresponsiveness in net terms (only responsiveness of certain civil servants to policy proposals initiated by certain politicians) (Bergara with Pereyra et al. 2004: 14; Calderón and Chong 2007: 593).

YUGOSLAVIA (1921-1929)

Administrative ineffectiveness prevailed throughout the period. As in military affairs, the Serbs managed to secure their physical appearance and dominance in administrative matters throughout the new territories of Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Hercegovina (Banac 1984: 118; Møller and Skaaning 2010: 333). Resistance from administrative personnel did occur, particularly in Croatia (Dragnich 1983: 27; Banac 1984: 138), but by and large the offices were occupied by Serbs, or, as in Slovenia, Serbian dominance integrated relatively peacefully with existing bureaucratic structures (Rothschild 1974: 208; Banac 1984: 142; Ramet 2006: 52). Acts of desertion or mutiny were not possible for civil servants so, although challenged, territorial penetration was obtained in 1918.

Resistance to the Serbian hegemony was expressed otherwise in an increase in petty corruption and poor working relationships between the ethnic groups. The entire scholarship records how Yugoslavia’s administration in the interwar period was immensely corrupt due to the Ottoman legacy which came to dominate through the Serbs (Seton-Watson 1945: 146-147; Mendelski 2008: 3; Møller and Skaaning 2010: 333). Resentfulness from Croatian and other regional administrators over forced firings and appointments by the monarch as well as general Serbian chauvinism caused a very problematic responsiveness from Belgrade and out. But unresponsiveness was also nurtured by the failed coordination of six different legal codes (Muslim, Hungarian, Austrian, Serbian, and Slavic) which caused confusion and weak cohesion in even the most basic judicial operations (Cohen 1985: 313-315). This was only partially improved in 1925 when Croatia achieved control over its own administration in the northern areas (see Rothschild 1974: 225).

Regarding its degree of meritocracy, Rothschild (1974: 207) reports of the Serbs’ relative comprehensiveness and experience in state craft but this is not to say that bureaucracy was autonomous in appointments and competent in its rulings. Slovenes inherited Austrian efficiency but Croats were obstructive by nature of their resistance against any bureaucratic rule (Rothschild 1974: 208-209), and the Serbs themselves brought in the Ottoman administrative traditions described by Seton-Watson (1945: 146) as ‘arbitrary’, ‘dictatorial’, ‘inefficient’, and ‘corrupt’ constantly interrupted by politicization from above which continued through the 1920s (Cohen 1985: 316-317; Ramet 2006: 52).

The Cold War Period (1946-1990)
ARGENTINA (1958-1962; 1963-1966; 1973-1976)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. There were no changes to territorial penetration from the interwar period. If anything, the degree of state intervention only grew in the aftermath of WWII although the quality of tax extraction remained relatively poor (see Kurtz 2013). There was no comprehensive legal system of civil service recruitment and promotion rules until 1992 (Ferraro 2004: 4-5; Spiller and Tommasi with Bambaci 2007: 159). Heavy use of party patronage continued under civilian as well as military leaderships during the Cold War. Tellingly, a civil service career system was established by law in 1973 but quickly dismantled by warring factions among the main parties (Grindle 2010: 12-13). The politicization covered the entire ministerial system, including notably the ministry of justice and the economic ministries (Kurtz 2013: 191-195). Even more poignantly, the 1930s marked the beginning of extensive political interference in the judiciary with impeachments and forced resignations of judges and courts which grew according to the logic of political competition (Spiller and Tommasi with Iaryczower 2007: 123-124).

Politicization helped create an obstructive culture of non-performance in the bureaucracy where civil servants cared more for their own well-being and survival in job than public service provision (Spiller and Tommasi with Bambaci 2007: 157). No administrative reforms were possible without severe intra-bureaucratic and politica-bureaucratic infighting. The weakness of the Nationalists in the 1930s illustrates how weak parties had difficulties working their power on the entire state apparatus because of its diverse and shifting loyalties (Rock 1993: 87). Low wages led to corruption and dysfunctional and inefficient tax agencies (Bergman 2003: 613; Spiller and Tommasi with Bambaci 2007: 159).
BOLIVIA (1979-1980)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. The efforts of state-building in the 1950s generally failed because local strongholds could not be dismantled or co-opted effectively. Instead, what emerged was a ‘state with holes’ (Molina 2008: 110). It was only the campaign against the paramilitary units in 1982 by President Siles that improved territorial penetration (Klein 2003: 240).

The failure of state-building in the 1952 also covers the fact that there was a systemic refusal to insulate state sectors from the influence of democratic constituencies and political dynamics (Suvelza 2008: 125). In terms of personnel and organizational appearance, the state was weak and highly unstable across the next three decades (Molina 2008: 109). The state was captured by regional elites and clientelistic networks between parties and civil servants (Malloy 1991: 46-47; Dove 2002: 47-48). This was the general picture despite the emergence of some technocratic agencies in the 1970s (Klein 2003: 229).

The capture by regional elites also had another dimension of ineffectiveness to it: it led to widespread unresponsiveness to political orders and excessive corruption (Malloy 1991: 46-47). Administrations were plagued by inertia and mismanagement (Morales 2004: 220). There was a remarkable lack of transparency in administration control of implementation processes was poor (de Lozada 1999: 71-72).

BRAZIL (1946-1964)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. The state in Brazil was already well established as a social fact in the late 19^th century and further developed under Vargas in the 1930s. The militias of the old oligarchs had been defeated and the challenge was how to bureaucratize the state administration to a greater extent (Cingolani 2014: 134). As Geddes (1994: 44) asserts us, Varges did much to improve the tax extraction capacity of the state.

The Brazilian civil service system is the oldest one in Latin America. Meritocracy was installed in some limited areas of the civil service already under Vargas in the 1930s as he established the Administrative Department of Public Service and introduced technocratic management in the national banks and public companies like Petrobras (Geddes 1994: 51-52; Cingolani 2014: 134). A school for public administration was founded in 1952 (Cingolani 2014: 134). After Vargas was ousted from power, the Department of Public Service lost decisive influence over administrative appointments. Modernization projects reconnected the oligarchic elites with the state once again and politicization reemerged (Evans 1995: 61-63). While judges remained relatively neutral and protected against political interference (Nunes 2010: 315), presidents’ ambition of building more competent administrations was powerfully circumvented by the sudden pressure for mobilizing electoral support from 1946 (Geddes 1994: 43). As a consequence, there were only pockets of efficiency in a sea of inefficiency (Geddes 1994: 61; Evans 1995: 61). Major reforms in the 1950s and 1960s failed under the presidencies of Kubitschek, Quadros, and Goulart (Geddes 1994: 58-59).

Outside the pockets of efficiency, the swiftness and accuracy of implementation typically was weaker because public servants were more diversely recruited and motivated. Yet, also at an overall level the discrepancy between agencies made implementation highly dependent on the issue and attached agencies at hand. Similarly, the growth of the public sector itself was only weakly controlled by the government in the cross pressure for technocratic as well as patronage-driven agencies (Geddes 1994: 51-52; Evans 1995: 64). As Evans (1995: 61) asserts us, bureaucracy changed by addition rather than transformation.

CHILE (-1973)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. Territorial penetration was obtained in the 19^th century and was never threatened during or after WWII. Regarding meritocracy, stability was also the case but to the disadvantage of administrative effectieveness. The judiciary was independent with new judges chosen by the existing judges (Sigmund 1977: 17). Grindle’s (2010: 5-7, 17-18) study of civil service reforms in Latin America shows, however, that Chile only obtained a systematic procedure for the hiring and firing of civil servants in 1989 (see also Marcel 1999: 304). Despite reforms in the 1930s, considerable patronage and politicization remained in recruitment to the upper levels of the civil service and the public sector at large. A few state agencies such as the CORFO from 1939 were insulated from political pressure (Silva 1994: 289). Silva (2008: 72-74) even asserts us that the entire bureaucracy underwent a sharp turn towards meritocracy in the 1930s. However, as he also contends, the meritocratic wave was never law-bound and reversed equally sharply in the 1950s under Alessandri who replaced the old entrepreneurial civil servants with new ones in massive purges (Silva 2008: 106-107).

The peculiar combination of less than perfect politicization amidst generally high levels of administrative responsiveness continued. Responsiveness was strongest in the more technocratic agencies which worked in close tandem with the governments to forge modernization and industrialization in the economic sector (Silva 1994: 286-287) – much like in developmental states. The reforms of the 1930s under Pablo Ramirez got rid of overlapping agencies and rooted out corruption embracing a strong commitment to public service and technocratic rule (Silva 2008: 70-74). There are no signs that the renewal of politicization under Alessandri weakened this responsiveness. By contrast, under Alessandri the effectiveness in policy implementation only strengthened with taxation becoming more efficient and management of social services and education becoming more rational (Marcel 1999: 284; Kurtz 2013: 151).
COLOMBIA (1937-1948)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. Along the lines of the lack of resource supremacy, territorial penetration was never established firmly before La Violencia. Despite the intention of political centralization in the constitution of 1886, regions and local communities remained outside the administration of the state as also reflected in a very weak capability of tax extraction and weak infrastructural systems (Posada-Carbó 1996: 222; McDougall 2009: 328). State administrative rule was only established in an axis of the regions of Bogota, Antioquia, and Caldas (Abel and Palacios 1991: 591). Next, there was never a civil system of meritocratic recruitment in place in Colombia. Instead, the Spanish colonial patrimonialism dominated, and as middle and working classes were incorporated into the political system, a spoils system between the conservative and liberal parties was refined (Peeler 1985: 46; Roldán 2002: 16). This system is famous for an almost complete turnover of public employees at high and low levels every time governments shifted (Osterling 1989: 114; Roldán 2002: 16). From the 19^th century, the rivalry between the Liberal and the Conservative Parties established a pact of contestation whereby they managed to mobilize the rural population to become absolutely loyal clients, and sometimes more as active participants, and thus building an unusually strong party hegemony (Peeler 1985: 47-48; Roldán 2002: 16). Implementation was thus highly biased against the opposition, and when irregularities occurred outside the control of the government such as in the judiciary sometimes, this was more because of the lack of territorial penetration than political control (Taylor 2009a: 31).

Most cases of implementation irregularities occurred due to a lack of penetration and professionalism of the civil servants. However, the Colombian administration also proved basic unresponsiveness despite the comparatively extremely powerful and all-encompassing mechanism of political appointments. As Martz (1997: 40), the caciques and caudillos remained powerful administrative agents in the 1940s and the regional and municipal administrations were basically left to administer rules themselves outside the control of the central government. Where the state did penetrate the territory, it was only weakly autonomous of regional interests and bureaucratic corruption was rampant (Hernandez 2015: 90).
CUBA (1940-1953)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. With independence from Spain, territorial penetration was achieved as is noted by the American ability of ruling through existing Cuban institutions (Pérez 1995: 194; Whitney 2001: 17). The Cuban case is notorious for its staggering rates of corruption by public officials at all levels throughout the first half of the 20^th century (Dominguez 1978; Pérez 1995; Lutjens 2001; Whitney 2001). Despite several reforms, notably in the 1920s and 1930s, the basically patrimonial system of government and administration inherited from the Spanish remained firmly in place until at least 1960 (Lutjens 2001: 620-621), and it was nurtured by the US involvement of the early 20^th century and the crisis-ridden Cuban economy which transformed public office into the object of rent-seeking behavior from the emerging Cuban middle classes (Pérez 1995: 214-216). The administration was characterized by a spoils system in which most of the administration would be substituted when the political executive shifted, but it also involved a hugely dominant culture of corruption whereby public services, jobs, and contracts were sold or bribed by business interests or landowners or simply acquired by the servants themselves. This was largely outside the control of the executive (Dominguez 1978: 12, 35; Pérez 1995: 217; Lutjens 2001: 620-621). Neither the judiciary was independent of societal and was often manipulated by the landowners (Whitney 2001: 70). In effect, meritocracy was almost completely absent while responsiveness was highly fragmented to specific sectors at specific points in time.

Batista’s corporatist policies of the late 1930s and early 1940s intended to integrate the working classes to a greater extent and in a fairer manner. As the state expanded, it manifested its presence everywhere in Cuban society thus consolidating territorial penetration even through the rural estates but since the systems of administration remained the same, the practice of corruption and politicization from societal forces only increased (Whitney 2001: 128). Dominguez (1978: 93) notes that political corruption after 1933 only took new forms because of the extended suffrage. Still in the late 1940s, corruption was prevalent. In fact, according to Pérez (1995: 284) and Stokes (1949: 355-356) it was as dominant as ever under the Auténtico (the Cuban Revolutionary Party) governments from 1944 to 1952 since the Auténtico politicians, which surprisingly gained Presidential power in 1944, from years of repression saw government power as an opportunity of enriching themselves.
CZECHOSLOVAKIA (1945-1947)

The administration was effective throughout the period. The basic administrative structures remained in place to be used after 1945 despite the destructions of the war. To provide for greater unity, the administration was centralized. Otherwise, Benes sought to maintain traditions of judicial independence and a professional civil service (Bradley 1991: 5; Hendrych 1993: 43). As there are no other indications of change in the administration, I assume that territorial penetration, meritocracy, and responsiveness continued.

ECUADOR (1948-1963)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. In the early 20^th century, the state expanded into the Amazon regions breaking the centuries’ old separation of the coast from the highland and forests. Smaller pockets of indigenous land in the jungle remained basically untouched but surrounding it were a state capable of intervening if necessary. Fundamental infrastructures were built that lasted throughout the period (Bowen 2015: 91-92).

Reforms toward meritocracy were initiated in the 1940s and early 1950s but were abandoned by President Velasco before they reached any degree of institutionalization (Mangelsdorf and Reeves 1989: 194). External influence from the US only put pressure on the government to install meritocracy after the breakdown of democracy in 1963 (Mangelsdorf and Reeves 1989: 194). A major political-administrative overlap remained and personnel management in the civil service was unclear in a confusing political environment (Ruiz-Giraldo 2004).

Problems of responsiveness were enormous and their legendary status today partly stems from the first episode of democratic rule in the country. Corruption at the central levels of the civil service was excessive and governance was generally in a poor state with a lack of responsibility and effectiveness on the part of the public officials (Seligson and Recanatini 2003: 411). The state is described historically as weak and incohesive with no effective set of institutions to govern and implement (see Bowen 2015: 85).

GHANA (1970-1972; 1979-1981)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. Decentralization of administration began with indirect rule in 1878. Local government councils were reformed in 1952 to strengthen decentralization. Paramount chiefs became presidents of councils. Nkrumah was quite successful in co-opting these chiefs and benefitted from existing administrative structures from the British colonial regime (Ayee 2003: 46-48). By 1979, however, after years of severe economic crisis nad government mismanagement, the road system had deteriorated so much that it was almost impossible to transport goods to the market; the rail system was also close to destruction (Gocking 2005: 185). Thus, I code territorial penetration as present from 1970 to 1972 but absent from 1979.

In the first decades of independence, merit was a dominating principle of recruitment until the 1970s when increasingly dictatorial rule brought about politicization (Ayee 2001: 2). The judiciary was also dominated by the executive in the early years until 1992 (Quashigah 2016: 227-237). The civil service under Nkrumah and the democratic regimes of the Cold War was British in formality but patrimonial in reality. Any working British structures were dismantled by Nkrumah’s personalist campaigns of the 1960s (Apter 1972: 336-337, 362-364; Gocking 2005: 125). Politicization ensured dominance of the Busia ethnicity in bureaucracy (Apter 1972: 369). According to Ayee (2001: 1), meritocracy was only decisively dismantled by the mid-1970s but since more than 500 officials were fired in 1970 legalized by the constitution (Gocking 2005: 158), this assessment is hard to maintain. Thus, meritocracy was weak throughout the period.

Unresponsiveness was rife. Corruption flourished in the administration and wasonly exacerbated by Nkrumah’s personalist rule (Pinkney 1997: 69; Gocking 2005: 149). From the mid-1970s, bureaucracies suffered from overstaffing and immense inefficiency with a low morale and productivity in implementation projects (Ayee 2001: 2-3).

GREECE (1944-1967; 1974-1980)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. Territorial penetration resumed in 1944 as borders stayed the same and occupying troops had withdrawn. The weaknesses in terms of meritocracy and responsiveness also continued throughout the period.

Immediately after WWII, a School of Public Administration was founded which provided qualified personnel to the civil service at an increasing rate. However, promotions were still at least partly based on political affiliation (Legg 1969: 156). Bureaucracy was still dominated by the parties (Sotiropoulos 1993: 47). From 1974, a reform movement slowly emerged but only under the PASOK governments in the 1980s were comprehensiuve meritocratic reforms implemented (Sotiropoulos 1993: 43; Spanou 2012: 174).

The usual Greek administrative problems of waste, inefficiency, and occasional corruption also continued from 1944 and the next many decades ahead. Some obstructionary ministries also hindered implementation although most implementation problems stemmed from labor unions (Sotiropoulos 1993: 46-48). Sluggish and inflexible as it was, the bureaucracy remained virtually unreformed through the 1970s (Sotiropoulos 1993: 47; Spanou 2012: 174).

GUATEMALA (1945-1954; 1958-1963; 1966-1982)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. The literature on issues related with infrastructure and territorial penetration generally is scarce. I assume that territorial penetration was not obtained at any point. Indeed, the inhospitable environment of rain forests and mountains made state-building a flawed exercise and remained geographical constants in the post-WWII period. As I have no indications otherwise, I stick to the post-Cold War studies focusing on criminal gangs excluding the state from ruling (see Brands 2010: 10).

Information on meritocracy and responsiveness of the administration during the Cold War is also scarce. However, I have good indications that neither component was particularly strong before 1982. So, one of the aims of the peace accord of the 1990s was to establish judicial independence (Sieder 2003: 141) – that is, this probably did not exist during the civil war at least. Similarly, it was important to establish a motivated and well-trained civil service with less pretence to engage in corruption (Sieder 2003: 141, 146-147). Since there was extreme political instability including 30 years of civil war during the entire Cold War, I find it highly unlikely that administrative management and performance would have been any better or more stable. Therefore, I code meritocracy and responsiveness as absent.
HONDURAS (1957-1963; 1971-1972)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. The Spanish conquest of the mountains in Honduras took many years but from 1933, central government control over the territories took a decisive turn (Bulmer-Thomas 1991: 198). Improved communications centered on the banana economy took off (Bulmer-Thomas 1991: 205; Euraque 1996: 65).

Over the Cold War years, Honduras tried to move closer to the ideal of neighboring Costa Rica. Bureaucratization and modernization of the administration occurred from the 1950s but personalismo still prevailed in politics and administration (Bulmer-Thomas 1991: 204; Euraque 1996: 65). The literature is generally scarce on meritocracy and responsiveness in Honduras. However, some indications from studies based on later periods may be used. So, Boussard (2003: 184-185) asserts that a spoils system was deeply ingrained in Honduran politics. Similarly, Morris (1984: 67) notes that the judiciary was most often packed by presidents or otherwise politicized. Thus, the lack of strong indications to the contrary it seems resonable to assume that meritocracy did not exist during the Cold War.

Regarding responsiveness, state capture, nepotism, and corruption were seen as ‘routine traits’ in Honduran administration (see Boussard 2003: 183; Sousa 2007: 97). Additionally, personalism, what one might term neo-patrimonialism here, often combines top-down and bottom-up politicization in extensive patron-client ties which involves a sizeable measure of unresponsiveness alongside breaches of meritocratic recruitment. In turn, I assume unresponsiveness to have prevailed throughout the period.

INDONESIA (1955-1957)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. There are few explicit analyses of the state infrastructure at independence. However, the most explicit analysis points out that infrastructure was limited (see Kingsbury 2005: 47). In addition, one may raise the point that the highly exploitative history colonialism with a strong focus on the island of Java and the regional autonomies and rebellions that developed in the 1950s would hinder any meaningful state penetration from the center out (see Aspinall and Berger 2001: 1005-1006; Vickers 2005: 41).

Sukarno, the first leader of independent Indonesia, undermined the weak institutional and administrative structures that held Indonesia together by his own personalist rule. By patronage, he managed politico-administrative relations and job distribution in a still very crude system with virtually no rules of recruitment or promotion (Alatas 1997: 123; Vickers 2005: 41). Until the New Order of Suharto was established, bureaucracy remained weak and vulnerable to political interference (Vu 2007: 44).

Responsiveness also suffered under Sukarno. His personalism filtered down through the admninistrative organization. Much nepotism prevailed which ensured the status of a small business elite. The administration was also highly inefficient in allocating resources and implementing policies supposed to quell regional opposition (Alatas 1997: 123). In addition, the problem of fragmented administations across different regional and local contexts made central coordination very difficult (Vu 2007: 42).

ITALY (1946-1981)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. The infrastructure such as railroads, public buildings, schools, and hospitals was badly damaged during the war. Reconstruction was urgent but largely finished during 1948 due to huge inflows of cash from foreign funds (Mammarella 1966: 121, 133). Thus, territorial penetration was established from 1949.

Meritocracy remained problematic. The judiciary immediately claimed autonomy from political pressure (Della Porta 2001: 4). While meritocratic recruitment at first may have been relatively well etsbalished in the judiciary, it was soon circumvented when in 1959 the government reduced the power of the judiciary to politicize it. This also explains the political divisions inside the judiciary which were rife in the 1970s (Della Porta 2001: 4-6; Foot 2014: 107). The patron-client system that characterized Italian politics from the Risorgimento continued under Christian-Democratic leadership throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s (Shefter 1977: 444-445; Warner 2001: 130, 138). This was not just a practice connected with this party but a part of the political settlement of the postwar period as such (Duggan 2014: 262-263).

Responsiveness was similarly weak. According to Della Porta (2001: 6), the recruitment may to some extent have been meritocratic but politicization in daily interactions between party representatives, ministers, and judges was in any case widespread. While this was not in principle problematic for responsiveness, it marked the ability of political forces of the opposition to interfere in the administration of courts and rulings (Foot 2014: 119). Often, judges held no secrets about their political convictions and were endebted to political patrons for future favors (Foot 2014: 107). After WWII, the remaining civil service grew and as patronage was preserved and agencies added, a complex and uncorrdinated network of state agencies emerged with different lines of command (Warner 2001: 130). In these early postwar years, the failure of purging the civil servants and prefects of the former regime left a pool of officials with fascist inclinations (Duggan 2014: 248). In the 1970s, clientelism and corruption still remained widespread (Pasquino 2000: 74).

LAOS (1954-1959)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. In the 1950s, regionally based rebels hindered a firm penetration of the entire territory by the Lao government. They were sure to be out of sight of the state in more remote areas (Stuart-Fox 1982: 221). More generally, the territory was de facto divided during the civil war from 1954 to 1973 between the American-occupied regions, those controlled by Chinese in the north, and by the Vietnamese to the east (Stuart-Fox 1982: 221). The lack of roads, transportation, and communication was a major challenge outside city areas (Stuart-Fox 1982: 221; Rust 2012: 133).

Public services were expanded in the 1950s but the civil service did not follow suit. Civil servant classes never developed but remained at the hands of personalist leaders leading to unfair and arbitrary promotions (Stuart-Fox 1982: 77). The legacy of royal patronage still dominated politics (Stuart-Fox 1997: 59). Whereas meritocracy was undercut by patronage, responsiveness was also undermined. Much corruption in the administration ensued with favors granted to private actors (Stuart-Fox 1982: 77). More generally, public servants lacked behind in salary and motivation (Stuart-Fox 1997: 64). Among the few studies of the administration, unresponsiveness and non-meritocracy thus seem fairly clear.
LEBANON (1971-1976)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. Territorial penetration was problematic throughout. As a telling description, Traboulsi (2007: 138) contends that the Lebanese state existed merely as a fiscal paradise. This at least indicates a severe lack of taxation authorities which may often be symptomatic of a more general lack of administrative infrastructure. Prewar Lebanon was described as weakly penetrating of society. The administration simply neglected certain Shia-Muslim and Christian-dominated areas including those mountaneous regions with traditional communities (el Khazen 2000: 57, 92).

In 1973, Salem (1973: 75) reflected on decades of attempts to reform the administration to become more effective, including the conduct of bureaucratization. A civil service council was established with responsibility for recruitment and promotion policies. But whereas the upper-most levels of the administration were permanent, the lower levels were interfered with politically so as to ensure the equal representation of all ethnic communities (Salem 1973: 80, 88, 96). More precisely, in 1958 the government contributed to building a state that was in one sense a parallel structure being an independent service autonomous of political feudalists (Traboulsi 2007: 140). But the decision to serve representation also made appointments a political bargaining based more on sect than merit (Gordon 1980: 104-105). In more negative assessments, the administration is described as mired in patron-client relations at all levels and being the subject of a confessional system of political power that undermines competence and professionalism (Gordon 1980: 106; Najem 2012: 14-15).

Responsiveness was also weak. As Salem (1973: 85), administrative structures could be much more effective and employees were generally not capable of spearheading the modernization policies that were initiated. Sources of ineffectiveness in implementation were rife: Bribery, nepotism, and confessionalism had deep roots in society which undermined the authority of the secular political order and the administration (Salem 1973: 88). While the Civil Service and Central Inspection Councils served to reduce corruption in administration (Traboulsi 2007: 140), this only characterized some agencies (Gordon 1980: 106). In most agencies and departments, bribery was prevalent and bureaucracy was often so clumsily organized and complex that corruption was the only solution to get some things done yet often against the policies of the executive and to the benefit of rich elites most generally (Gordon 1980: 106).

MYANMAR (1948-1958; 1960-1962)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. After WWII, the existing but weak administrative structures that were scattered around from colonialism in a diverse manner across the new Myanmar territory soon collapsed due to regional skirmishes (Slater 2010: 71). Historically, this situation had roots in the 1920s and 1930s when the British attempts to build bureaucratic structures largely failed because local courts undercut central-level rulings (Taylor 2009b:150, 195).

While literature on the Cold War Myanmar administration is scarce, authors such as Englehart (2005: 623) contend that the civil service has been crippled by rounds of politicization and purges throughout itsmodern history. The British managed to build a relatively effective central administration, local administrations were traditional, patrimonial (Taylor 2009b: 150; Slater 2010: 71). More generally, despite the British attempts of the opposite, the traditional personalism by the Burmese king hiring his own personal servants became prevalent again after the British withdrawal. This hindered the establishment of any strong state autonomy (Steinberg 2001: 37; Taylor 2009b: 154). More clearly, the judiciary remained politically controlled from 1947 to the 1974 constitution (Zan 2000: 17).

Responsiveness also never took off despite the British legacy. After WWII, the tax collection, census taking, criminal investigation, disease inoculation, and customs inspection were run by bureaucrats who had worked under the British colonial regime (Slater 2010: 71). Yet, as Englehart (2005: 623) asserts us in his analysis, low wages contributed to an uncontrolled corruption exacerbated by the legacy of state capture by private groups and persisting patron-client relations (Steinberg 2001: 48; Taylor 2009b: 154). In turn, a virtual predatory state emerged (Steinberg 2001: 48).

NIGERIA (1960-1966; 1979-1983)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. Territorial penetration of the state was secured from the start. The legacies of colonialism ensured firmly established administrative structures through the territory and around the borders as well as a physical and economic infrastructure (Bah 2005: 29).

Meritocracy was initially a realistic way of organizing the administration relying on the British administrative structures and the Public Service Commission which had worked to protect civil servants from arbitrary firings (Cole 1960: 324). Yet, this commission and meritocracy generally did not receive a strong role under democracy. Politicization to ensure ethnic dominance was widespread. This exemplified that the administration was generally neopatrimonial: Offices of the state were distributed by the elected (Joseph 1987: 170-171; Vaughan 2000: 156). This was the main trait of the two democratic episodes (Ikpe 2009: 686). Most appointments to the ministries were agreed informally outside the influence of the commission (Cole 1960: 324).

Corruption in the administration was pervasive on all levels during the 1960s and developed into a virtual kleptocracy in subsequent decades (Aina 1982: 70; Osoba 1996: 375, 379). Also, in judiciary dishonesty and favoritism dominated the administration of laws (Islam 2005: 1011). Regional politics and communal tensions also grew at the level of administration which marked the breakdown of the federal system in which central government proposals rarely were effectively implemented (Vaughan 2000: 156). In turn, unresponsiveness was severe.

PAKISTAN (INCL. BANGLADESH) (1950-1956)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. Relying on the British colonial administrative structure, territorial penetration was obtained from the beginning of the new republic. Tellingly, the problems that emerged in the 2000s stemmed from Islamism causing parallel jurisdictions (see BTI 2010: 5-6).

Pakistan inherited a powerful bureaucracy from the British Raj. The judiciary was separate and independent and a Public Service Commission oversaw that recruitment was based on merit (Malik 1997: 57-60). In many ways, the Pakistani administration that emerged was more autonomous in recruitment and promotion than other postcolonial administrations (see e.g. Binder 1986: 261). However, already in 1949 a quota system was established as part of the more general governance solution for the country. In an effort to cope with ethnic diversities via recruitment based on ethnic representation, merit was thus structurally undercut as a criterion from the very beginning (Malik 1997: 66). The problem was in fact more general – the dominance of certain castes and classes was prevalent already under colonialism but only exacerbated afterwards by the need for institutional stability (Jones 1997: 325).

The British colonial servants of Pakistani descent remained in office after the transition to independence. The civil service was, however, completely in favor of a strong executive which made warry of democratic rule (Malik 1997: 59). This legacy might not have been debilitating for responsiveness. Yet, bureaucracy constantly overstepped, bypassed, dismissed, and denigrated the mass verdict via the political parties by opting for authoritarianism and circumventing proposed policies. Most bureaucrats deeply resented politicians in their populism and bid for political office (Malik 1997: 60-61). The civil service in many ways succeeded in retaining its power in policy-making and implementation from the colonial period. The mostly Punjabi bureaucracy was alien to the political leadership of the Muslim League from 1947. Instead, the bureaucracy increasingly aligned with the military in making an autonomous center of the parliamentary level (Binder 1986: 260-261). In this way, the relatively low levels of administrative corruption in 1947 at least and the alleged high morale of the Punjabi servants (see Jones 1997: 337) cannot be used as sufficient evidence of responsiveness. Responsiveness was fundamentally undermined by genuine bureaucratic resistance to democracy.

PAKISTAN (1972-1977)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. The literature does not indicate any changes to territorial penetration. If anything, the abstention of Bangladesh in 1971 (Cohen 1986: 303) would make the territory more homogenous and geographically clustered and thus easen territorial control.

Bureaucracy became vulnerable to the political disputes over centralism and federalism in the 1970s. Bhutto started controlling the bureaucracy through purges and reshuffles (Malik 1997: 57). This marked how the Public Service Commission lost its autonomy (Jones 1997: 331). Bhutto in addition introduced a new system of regional representation which at the same time exacerbated the quota system logic and made recruitment more susceptible to benefitting relatives and important associates of cabinet ministers (Jones 1997: 340).

The Punjabi bureaucracy remained dominant in policy-making despite the new rounds of politicization by Bhutto (Malik 1997: 57; see also Binder 1986: 261). But bureaucratic corruption had increased enormously and was now widespread (Jones 1997: 337). The regional representation system also created a new cadre of regionally recruited servants disloyal of the central government in governing for their own region and, sometimes, ethnic group (Cohen 1986: 313).

PANAMA (1950-1951; 1952-1968)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. From 1931 to 1968, the state apparatus gradually strengthened. Just after WWII, an indigenous Panamanian bureaucracy developed as the US withdrew (Ropp 1992: 216; Calderon 2000: 98-99; Kalmanovitz 2015). New agencies were created and the bureaucracy achieved some measure of autonomy from society (Ropp 1992: 217). Yet, given the lack of precision in information about territorial penetration, I adhere to the assessment of BTI (2006: 3) based on the status of the 2000s which asserts that state agencies did not reach all segments of the population. It seems reasonable to assume a lack of territorial penetration since the building of an indigenous administration took shape as late as the 1950s.

Kalmanovitz (2015) analyzes developments in the Panama administration and notes that patronage determined governance, that administrative instability was rife, and that corruption was widespread. The bureaucracy that developed from the early 1940s assumed greater levels of autonomy than ever before but was also captured by oligarchic elites using it to extract resources and increase repressin of labor (Ropp 1992: 217). Thus, the few studies avaiblable relatively clearly indicate unresponsiveness and a lack of meritocracy.
PERU (1956-1962; 1963-1968; 1980-1990)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. Territorial penetration was never obtained. The expansion of the state apparatus into the countryside was, as indicated, late - occurring in the late 19^th century (Nugent 1994: 337). Velasco attempted to create state sectors that would expand the reach of the state through the countryside. Even though, the policy succeeded to some extent, it also affected substantial resistance (Burt 2007: 26-27). One account (Mauceri 1995; see also Kurtz 2013: 157) even contends that the state’s ability to penetrate society and extract resources form it declined in the 1970s and 1980s. In any case, it seems reasonable that the strengthening and radicalization of indigenous organizations in the 1970s did not exactly improve the state’s territorial penetration.

Regarding meritocracy and responsiveness, studies are few but from other sources, Peru is clustered alongside Ecuador with an excessive history of politicization and corruption of judges and civil servants (see Sousa 2007: 107; Echebarria and Cortazar 2007: 131, 139). Meritocracy was never established. No bureaucratic stratum ever emerged in Peru as the oligarchy could not be defeated. In consequence, personalist oligarchs politicized the state administration alongside the existence of a spoils system distributing state jobs controlled by different oligarchs. The major expansion in public employment only exacerbated these traits (Kurtz 2013: 69-70, 80-81). This hindered institution-building inside the state after WWII, at least until Fujimori’s takeover (Kurtz 2013: 136-138). In the 1980s, politicization and party clientelism even increased (Mauceri 1995).

Responsiveness was equally hampered. Corruption and state capture by oligarchic elites outside the formal political system hindered an effective administration throughout the period. For instance, the tax administration suffered tremendously under the low capacities of the civil servants (Kurtz 2013: 69-70, 80-81).

PHILIPPINES (1946-1965)

The administration was ineffective throughout the period. Territorial penetration was weak. According to Slater (2010: 96-97), mass mobilization in the immediate postwar years was responded to not by building administrative infrastructure. The countryside was not only beyond coercive but also administrative control. Some islands of strong state presence existed at independence but generally, state-building was limited (Abinales and Amoroso 2005: 167-168). The abolishment of private militias served to strengthen state control as local caciques were weakened. Yet, administrative infrastructure demanded investments that do not seem to have been made (see Abinales and Amoroso 2005: 167-168; Slater 2010: 99-100).

As Slater (2010: 93) asserts us, the state in the Philippines at independence was barely worth its name. The bureaucracy was manipulated by provincial elites. Political clans and family networks managed to interfere and reserve offices in the state (Abinales and Amoroso 2005: 169, 181). While Americans dominated the bureaucratic ranks until 1946, no Philippine bureaucratic stratum was ready to take over. A strong interdependence between the administrative and political spheres for jobs and goods thus developed (Endriga 2001: 212-215, 227). It then became a classic case of patronage in which the executive, the president, dominated appointments. Examinations of civil servants were scarcely used (Kang 2002: 75-77). It was only under Marcos that a Career Executive Service for managing the interests of the civil service was established (Gonzalez 2013: 134).

The bureaucratic agents were weak in the sense of being highly manipulable by the power of provincial elites, family networks, and clans (Slater 2010: 93). The literature agrees that the administration was a virtual anarchy of managing the affairs of crony capitalists and traditional classes (McCoy 2009; Slater 2010: 93; Goh 2015: 165). Corruption was rife and dominated in these patron-client networks (Kang 2002: 75-77). The state was overall highly ineffective under subsequent governments as policies were captured by private interests (Abinales and Amoroso 2005: 183). In turn, responsiveness was highly problematic.

PORTUGAL (1976-1981)

The administration was effective from 1979. Portugal in the 1970s had a firm administrative infrastructure. While it was less plagued by destructions during WWII, Salazar also sought to modernize the administration and broaden the state’s presence (Corte-Real 2008: 206-209; see also Marques 1972: 124). Thus, territorial penetration existed throughout the period.

Establishing a career civil service system based on meritocratic recruitment was a major ambition of Salazar as part of the building of a corporatist state. In some sectors, job security was high and careers and promitions clearly mapped out. Yet, in other sectors patronage appointments prevailed (Ongaro 2008: 113; Corte-Real 2008: 209). Other accounts point out more unambiguously that meritocracy was largely a superficial disclaimer. In reality, Salazar manipulated with his own system by politicizing appointments. He demanded absolute loyalty of his servants.Thus, the most important agency of the National Union was designed to screen public servants so as to make for a vast patron-client network of public servants dispensing favors in exchange for fidelity to Salazar (Opello Jr. 1991: 69). Selective purges and day-to-day intimidations of civil servants solidified the executive’s hold on power and the almost complete taming of the civil service (Marques 1972: 189).

However, the transition to democracy also set in motion a process leading towards Weberian reforms of the administration. After years of part neglect, part political disagreement, a career system (Magone 2011: 767), which valued stable jobs and careers and merit in recruitment, was institutionalized by law in 1979 (Rocha and Araujo 2007: 587). Thus, I assume meritocracy as established from 1979.

Salazar largely succeeded in politicizing the meritocracy to such an extent that he commanded a fully loyal bureaucracy (see Marques 1972: 181, 189). In addition, he established a number of agencies through which he commanded the economy from above. The National Union further provided a monitoring instrument for Salazar (Opello Jr. 1991: 69). Salazar’s transformation of the state was similarly remarkable as that of modernizing projects in 19^th century Western Europe with the creation of a bureaucracy capable of providing much more efficient industrialization and general management of the economy (Magone 1997: 54). In 1974, several high-level officials were purged to ensure peaceful relations with the executive (Corte-Real 2008: 213