Paper short abstract:

How do networks of effectiveness develop and how are politicized bureaucratic appointments used to influence bureaucratic performance? I argue that politicians and bureaucrats ensure enhanced performance by making legal and extra-legal appointments of bureaucrats to key posts at critical junctures.

Paper long abstract:

Bureaucratic performance is a key component of state capacity. However, bureaucratic performance can vary immensely even within a low-capacity state. In fact, politicians and bureaucrats often create pockets or networks of effectiveness that allow some bureaucrats and some departments to perform efficiently, while ignoring others. How do these networks of effectiveness develop and how are politicized bureaucratic appointments used to influence bureaucratic performance? I argue that politicians and bureaucrats ensure enhanced performance by making legal and extra-legal appointments of bureaucrats to key posts at critical junctures. I draw on qualitative fieldwork (including interviews, semi-participant observations, and data collection using newspaper archives) conducted in Punjab, Pakistan to show that the choice of bureaucrat for these posts is made on the basis of carefully curated relationships of patronage between politicians and bureaucrats, and bureaucrats themselves, established through work, training, and old school networks. These ties, and the method by which an appointment is made, are instrumental in determining bureaucratic turnover at times of governance crisis, or when the performance or service delivery of a department or agency needs improvement. As a result, temporary networks of effectiveness are created but are rendered unsustainable by the very patronage relationships that create them. My argument contributes to debates on intra-state capacity and politicization, and emphasises the role of politics in studying bureaucratic performance. More broadly, I show that staffing decisions—namely, appointing the right official to the right post—are a method of governance control that precedes and enables all others.