Political Influence and Bureaucratic Autonomy

The establishment of autonomous public bodies during the past two decades has created a highly fragmented public sector. Using a dataset with more than 200 Dutch public sector organisations, this article examines three related sets of questions: to what extent a relationship exists between formal and de facto autonomy; the level of influence that interested parties exert upon those organizations; whether a relationship exists between levels of formal and de facto autonomy and the level of influence exercised by these parties. We find that formal autonomy does not reinforce de facto autonomy; organizations with less autonomy report higher levels of political influence when policy autonomy is concerned; and that organizations with more autonomy report higher societal influence on their financial autonomy.

Sandra van ThielEmail:

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Kutsal Yesilkagit   is associate professor of Public Administration at the School of Governance at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands. His research focuses on the institutional design of bureaucracy and political control and bureaucratic responsiveness. He has published in Public Administration, West European Politics and the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. Sandra van Thiel   is associate professor of Public Administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Her research focuses on public management, in particular the rise and use of quasi-autonomous organizations or executive agencies, both in the Netherlands and from a comparative perspective. Publications have appeared in Governance, Journal of Theoretical Politics and International Journal of Public Management.