Effects of Politicization on Welfare State Policies: Comparing Polic Impacts of Politically Appointed Officials in 18 Mature Democracies

Abstract

This paper argues that in order to explain policy output, we need to better understand the role of key bureaucrats. It suggests that ministerial advisers are influential in determining the character of policy output and that the way in which ministerial advisers act partly depends on the terms of their employment. It hypotheses that recommendations made by politically appointed advisers differ systematically from recommendations made by non-politically appointed advisers, and that this also affects policy output. In order to test these suggestions, the paper analyses the distribution of welfare state cuts among different social groups. A set of eighteen mature welfare states between 1985 and 2003 are used, and the results indicate that the ministerial adviser’s terms of employment influence the distribution of welfare state cuts.