Why Bureaucratic Stability Matters for theImplementation of DemocraticGovernance Programs

AGNES CORNELL*

The theoretical framework developed in this article suggests that highturnover rates in the public administrations of aid-recipient countriespresent a challenge to the implementation of democratic governance (DG)aid. If high turnover rates are due to individuals’ search for better oppor-tunities, it will affect the implementation primarily through lack of expe-rience and shorter time horizons among civil servants. However, if highturnover rates are due to political appointment of personnel, there is anadditional negative factor that will affect the implementation: the reluc-tance to engage in old projects. Hence, high turnover rates affect theimplementation of DG programs negatively, especially if caused by politicalappointment. These mechanisms are shown to be at work in interviews withdonors and recipients of a broad range of DG programs in Peru and Bolivia.

Introduction

Aid to strengthen public sector institutions has become an important partof development cooperation programs (Grindle 1997, 2004, 2011a; Kim2009). Strengthening state capacity is important to improving the channel-ing of political demands and the implementation of politically takendecisions in incipient democracies (Bermeo 2009). Moreover, the publicadministrations of aid-recipient countries face massive challenges, par-ticularly in terms of high levels of corruption and low rates of execution(e.g., Gibson et al. 2005). These challenges are part of the general complexof problems that democratic governance (DG) programs are meant toaddress.

DG programs are aid programs of particular importance since they aredirected at bolstering the state infrastructure of the recipient country. First,the strengthening of the state is vital for these countries’ development.Second, the state infrastructure is also important for the implementationof other types of aid programs (e.g., Bräutigam 2000; Grindle 1997). Third,in terms of DG programs, it is not a viable option for internationalcooperation agencies to choose nongovernmental organizations for the

*University of Gothenburg

Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, Vol. 27, No. 2,April 2014 (pp. 191–214).© 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.doi:10.1111/gove.12037

implementation, or to simply create parallel implementing units, as thosechannels will not be able to alter the basic modus operandi of the publicsector functions.

However, the literature on aggregate aid effectiveness often presents arather disappointing view of the results of aid—particularly when itcomes to improving democratic institutions and governance (Bräutigamand Knack 2004; Djankov, Montalvo, and Reynal-Querol 2008; Knack2004). Aid is even accused of deteriorating political institutions and gov-ernance, although it should be noted that two studies show positive effectsof U.S. democracy aid on democracy levels (Finkel, Pérez-Liñán, andSeligson 2007; Scott and Steele 2011).

So the question is: What impedes successful aid implementation? Whilemost research to date has focused primarily on how aid programs becomeless effective when donors alter the incentive structure of the recipients(e.g., Bräutigam 2000; Gibson et al. 2005; Knack and Rahman 2007), thereare exceptions that focus more on factors on the recipient side (e.g.,Grindle 1997).

This article contributes to the understanding of aid implementation bytheoretically and empirically studying how certain microlevel features ofthe recipient public administration affect the implementation of DG pro-grams in state institutions, in contrast to the earlier focus on the donor. Inparticular, this article develops a theoretical argument for how the insta-bility of human resources in aid-recipient state institutions obstructs theimplementation of DG programs. It is suggested that high turnover ratesaffect implementation differently, depending on the cause of the turnover.If high turnover rates are due to individuals’ search for better opportuni-ties, it will affect the implementation of aid programs through a lack ofexperience and shorter time horizons among the civil servants. However,if high turnover rates are due to political appointment of the personnel,there is an additional negative factor that will affect implementation: thereluctance to engage in “old” projects because loyalty and commitmentare perceived to lie primarily with the appointing party or person, ratherthan with the public institution. Hence, in all of these cases, high turn-over rates affect implementation negatively by creating an unstablebureaucracy—but this is especially true if the turnover is the result ofpolitical appointment.

Another important contribution of this article is to link the institutionalenvironment of the political administration to the political situation of therecipient country (cf. Grindle 2006). The effectiveness of the implementa-tion of DG programs is impacted not only by political changes after elec-tions but also by how the rotation of staff within the public administrationis affected by these political changes—changes that, particularly in anunstable political environment, may occur even more often than elections.

This article describes how these mechanisms work in practice usingexamples of DG aid implementation in Peru and Bolivia. In interviews ofimplementers of DG programs and personnel engaged in the overall

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planning of the implementation, on both the donor and the recipient side,the instability of human resources, and in particular turnover caused bypolitical appointments, in the state institutions that are responsible forimplementing these programs, were identified as being major challengesto the success of the aid programs. This article shows how staff turnovermay in fact be an important piece in the puzzle of aid ineffectiveness andthus contributes to the understanding of the macrolevel results found inprevious research (e.g., Bräutigam and Knack 2004).

Previous Research on Aid Programs to the Public Sector

In its effort to explain why some aid programs fail, previous research hasprimarily focused on the incentives created by donors. There are studiesthat show quantitatively that aid tends to have a negative effect on gover-nance (Bräutigam and Knack 2004; Busse and Gröning 2009). According tothis view, aid allocation creates a number of “perverse” incentives, forexample, the so-called poaching when aid agencies and other aid imple-menting nonstate organizations attract skilled staff that would otherwisehave worked in the public sector (Bräutigam 2000). Salaries are oftenhigher for these aid jobs than they are in the public sector, which makesthem more attractive to public sector employees (Knack and Rahman2007).

According to some researchers, aid dependence itself is also an impedi-ment to development. For example, technical assistance may reduce incen-tives to build up the personnel capacity of the bureaucracy (Bräutigam2000).

Aid can also have a negative impact on effective governance if it goeshand in hand with some negative donor behaviors, like lack of coordina-tion among donors, donor fragmentation (Knack and Rahman 2007), lackof sustainable aid programs, aid volatility (Bulír and Hamann 2008;Chauvet and Guillaumont 2009), and transaction costs created by donors(Easterly 2002).

While donors can have a negative impact on how smoothly their aid isimplemented, recipient bureaucracies often create their own challenges.“Implementation, [even] under the best circumstances, is exceedingly dif-ficult” (Pressman and Wildavsky 1974, xiii), and therefore it comes as nosurprise that problems appear when implementing aid projects in difficultcircumstances. In fact, the problems of implementation are sometimes sosevere that aid donors actively choose to create parallel organizationalstructures outside the bureaucracy of the recipient country (El Baradei2011; Grindle 2004). Donors may choose to bypass the recipient govern-ment by implementing their programs outside of the public sector, simplybecause they think it works better (Bräutigam 2000; Dietrich Forthcoming;Pressman and Wildavsky 1974, 137). However, bypassing is not a viablestrategy for programs aimed at improving state structures. In fact, the

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bypassing of government institutions by donors could be a severe impedi-ment to improving the bureaucratic bodies of the recipient countries(Knack and Rahman 2007).

Certain recipient factors have been found to be of importance in termsof the effective implementation of aid. For instance, for the aid to posi-tively impact on economic growth, there must first be a good (economic)policy environment in the recipient country (Burnside and Dollar 2000).Gibson et al. (2005) suggest that the policy environment makes a differ-ence on aid’s effects, although they do not specify what a good policyenvironment is. More specifically, Gray (1997) argues that once capacitybuilding ends, organizational capacity is likely to deteriorate due to factorsthat are out of the reach of the donors, such as political control androtation.

While the main focus of previous research has been on donor-createdincentives, this article suggests that DG programs should also be exam-ined in light of how microlevel aspects of the recipient’s public adminis-tration might affect the implementation of aid programs. On the basis ofthe literature on public administration, the next section presents a theo-retical argument about how one such microlevel aspect of the recipient’spublic administration, high staff turnover rates, may affect the implemen-tation of aid programs depending on the cause of the turnover.

Why Staff Turnover Matters for the Implementation of DG Programs

A modest turnover can be good for an organization, as new people bringnew ideas and share their experiences from other workplaces with the oldstaff. However, in most cases, frequent renewal of personnel generatesinstability that delays implementation. The loss of personnel and therecruitment of new workers to fill the posts bring a loss of experience andthe need to train new personnel. This is the case even when very compe-tent, experienced, and educated workers are recruited. Hence, there isalways a certain cost related to the loss of old personnel and the recruit-ment of new staff (Kellough and Osuna 1995; Selden and Moynihan 2000).

A high turnover rate among the staff at the implementing state agencyis assumed to bring particular challenges to the implementation of aidprograms. The donor agency naturally has no right to interfere in therecruitment of new personnel but must adjust to the new reality of thepublic agency (e.g., Gray 1997). For example, renewal of personnel oftenimplies that trust building between the development cooperation partnersmust start over again.

Because DG programs are often implemented through the publicadministration by the staff working there, the constant change of person-nel in the public sector implies that the aid projects have to be started overand over again. When there is high turnover, the old personnel that par-ticipated in the project are often exchanged for new, inexperienced, anduntrained personnel, which creates a lack of experience. This implies that

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the new personnel have to start basically from scratch, especially in con-texts of scarce institutional learning. The constant change of peopleworking with the implementation therefore delays execution.

High staff turnover also contributes to time horizons being very short.It has often been argued that development cooperation is short sightedand that aid volatility on the donors’ part is a large hindrance to aid havingany enduring positive effects (e.g., Chauvet and Guillaumont 2009).However, short time horizons are also created by the institutional struc-tures of the public sectors of the aid recipients themselves, and the timehorizons on the recipient side might be shorter than they are on the donorside. After all, the implementation duties could have changed handsseveral times during the duration of an aid program. The incentives of thebureaucrats in office at the time are driven by short time horizons, and itbecomes less attractive for bureaucrats to invest in long-term efforts thatmight only pay off once they are out of office (Rauch 1995; cf. Bräutigam2000; cf. Wright 2008).

The implications of high turnover rates for the implementation of DGprograms are related not only to the quantity of this turnover but also tothe recruitment patterns and the causes of the turnover. In turn, therecruitment patterns also affect the frequency of staff turnover: If the termsof employment in the public sector are worse than those in the privatesector, public sector staff might look for better opportunities (e.g., higherwages) elsewhere. In this article, this turnover will be referred to as labormarket turnover. Labor market turnover is more likely to occur in agenciescharacterized by a high degree of meritocratic recruitment (and thus witha high proportion of career bureaucrats) as opposed to agencies charac-terized by a high degree of political appointments. Turnover caused bypolitical appointments, on the other hand, is hypothesized to occur mostfrequently under certain conditions, such as a change in government afterelections or times of political instability.

These differences in patterns of recruitment are also some of the mostimportant characteristics of the two different types of administrativestructures, as defined in the comparative public administration literature:patronage-based administration versus meritocratic bureaucracy (Horn1995, 97). Supposedly, these different types of administrative structuresalso create different types of incentive structures (Dahlström, Lapuente,and Teorell 2012; Rauch and Evans 2000), which in turn impact the effec-tive implementation of aid programs.

High Turnover Rates Due to Labor Market Conditions

As mentioned previously, labor market turnover results from civil ser-vants searching for better individual opportunities, like higher salaries inother sectors (Bräutigam 2000). There is often a lack of well-educatedpersonnel in developing countries, and workers in the public sector tendto be less well paid than their counterparts in the private sector

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(Hilderbrand and Grindle 1997). It is therefore hard for the public sectorto keep its employees, and the public sector often even competes withother development aid organizations (Bräutigam 2000).

Turnover rates caused by a highly competitive labor market may bringsome positive consequences, such as recruitment of the best personnel(Kellough and Osuna 1995). However, under some circumstances, labormarket turnover rates may be so pervasive that they actually become animpediment to the implementation of DG programs through two mecha-nisms mentioned previously: lack of experience and short time horizons.

High Turnover Rates Due to Political/Personalistic Appointments

The other factor that explains why there is such a high alternation of staffin the public administration of many aid-receiving nations is the highdegree of politicized and/or personalistic appointments, which is afeature of the patronage-based type of public administration (Horn 1995,97). A politicized bureaucracy (which has a high degree of politicallyappointed civil servants as opposed to meritocratic recruitments) maylead to a more unstable bureaucracy—that is, to higher rates of staffturnover—because staff in a politicized bureaucracy turns over due tochanges in the political management of the institution. Furthermore, afterelections and other changes in the political landscape, a large number ofcivil servants tend to be replaced to reflect the new political leadership.Generally, the new government appoints its own political supporters.Appointments of these types in public administrations can also be madeon the basis of personalistic ties between the manager and his/her newstaff that do not necessarily follow party membership.

The new leadership might be eager to achieve policy change and maygive special consideration to political/personal appointees as opposed totheir apolitical or unfamiliar counterparts as a way to accomplish that.And, in fact, political appointment has been proven to be a very importanttool for political control of the executive over the public administration(Geddes 1994; Wood and Waterman 1991). However, it comes at the risk ofdecreased expertise and knowledge on the part of the personnel (cf.Geddes 1994; Lewis 2008, 205) and therefore delayed implementation.

The increased rate of staff turnover spurred by political appointmentsdoes indeed delay aid implementation owing to the general impedimentsdiscussed previously. It also makes it harder for politicized agencies torecruit and maintain competent nonpolitical civil servants (Lewis 2008,143). According to a study of American public sector agencies, programsadministered by politically appointed staff perform worse than programsadministered by nonpolitically appointed careerists (Lewis 2008, 182–184). There are also examples of this in the developing world (Tendler1997, 28–33).

Even though politically appointed staff might be as competent andexperienced as career bureaucrats, there is an important difference

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between politically appointed and career bureaucrats in that “[political]appointees are less likely to see the world through the bureau’s eyes, butrather through those of elected officials” (Lewis 2008, 142). In other words,meritocratically recruited staffs are considered to be more committed totheir agencies and less devoted to political leaders (Hilderbrand andGrindle 1997).

The actors involved in the aid implementation process are veryimportant to the outcome of the entire program. Their attitudes towardthe program’s implementation will strongly affect the likelihood ofdelay in terms of the implementation (Pressman and Wildavsky 1974,116–120).

We can assume that politically appointed civil servants are likely tohave intense preferences either for or against a particular program (cf.Frant 1996). The implementers may be responsible for only minimal delaysif their attitudes are positive. On the other hand, if the implementers feelthat a program is not to their taste or belongs to the former management,we can expect that politically appointed staff would have a negative atti-tude toward the program and hence cause maximal delays to its imple-mentation. Nonpolitically appointed staff may also harbor negativeattitudes toward the program, but they are probably less likely to havesuch intense preferences against it.

If recruitment is based on an individual’s loyalty to a political party ora person rather than the employing agency, changes in personnel couldbring particular impediments for the implementation of DG programsbecause the implementation timeline might not necessarily correspond tothe term of office of the elected politicians appointing the personnel. Aiddonors have to take time to engage in rebuilding personal confidence withthe new leadership and its personnel after the old leadership and its staffare replaced. Indeed, when there is a change in government, foreign aidprograms suffer from setbacks in implementation, for it is not “possible toguarantee that the government in power at the time the arrangement wasmade will still be there when the money is spent, or that the new govern-ment will honor the arrangements of the old” (Pressman and Wildavsky1974, 138).

Amid a backdrop of personal and political appointees implementingaid programs, the “old” commitments of the agency are not worth muchbecause their loyalty is attached more to the political group or personleading the agency than to the agency itself. After an election, the newmanager may not wish to follow the same path as the previouslyappointed leader and may instead prefer to break new ground. We wouldtherefore expect stronger implications for aid implementation when turn-over occurs at the management level, among high-ranking bureaucrats,compared to when turnover occurs among rank-and-file public servantswho probably have less influence over decisions made at the institutionbut could, as seen previously, nevertheless influence the implementationprocess by other means.

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Hence, in addition to the generally negative effects of high turnoverrates, the implication of high turnover rates caused specifically by newpolitical appointments is that aid programs might also encounter addi-tional resistance within the agency due to newly appointed civil servantsand in particular the manager being reluctant to engage in “old” aidprograms that were the responsibility of the “old” people.

Turnover caused by political appointment is not necessary relatedexclusively to elections and newly elected governments. Rather, politicalstability is nearly as important a factor as elections for turnover causedby political appointments and in turn the effective implementationof DG programs (cf. Grindle 2006). When considering the impact ofpolitical appointments on agency turnover rates, it is thereforealso important to consider the relative stability of higher level politicalappointees, such as ministers and vice-ministers. For example, inChile in the 1990s, ministers tended to hold onto their positionsbetween elections; this lack of turnover at the upper levels of govern-ment led to a stable political situation and therefore contributed to thestability of the public sector agencies (Reid and Scott 1994). Thus, thesehigh-ranked officials are important both for the acceptance of theaid projects and the incidence of turnover at the lower implementinglevels.

The difficulties that high turnover rates create for the implementationof DG programs can thus be grouped into three types of problems:(1) lack of experience, (2) short time horizons, and (3) reluctanceto engage in “old” projects. Two of the problems caused by high turn-over rates—lack of experience and short time horizons—would beproblematic regardless of the cause of the turnover, while the thirdproblem—reluctance to engage in “old” projects—would be more per-vasive when turnover is due to a political/personalistic appointmentof staff. The reason for the turnover is thus important in terms ofwhat effects high turnover rates have on the implementation of DGprograms. Table 1 summarizes the theoretical argument developedpreviously.

TABLE 1How High Turnover Rates Affect the Implementation of DG Programs

Factors AffectingImplementation

High TurnoverRates Due toLabor Market

Conditions

High Turnover RatesDue to Political/

PersonalisticAppointment

Lack of experience Negative NegativeShort time horizons Negative NegativeReluctance to engage

in old projectsNo effect Negative

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Research Design

The primarily aim of this research is to explore the challenges facing theimplementation of DG projects as perceived by receivers and donors ofaid. To meet this objective, the author conducted more than 30 interviewsin Lima and La Paz between the beginning of November 2010 and the endof January 2011.1 These interviews are used in the following to show howthe theoretical mechanisms discussed previously play out in practice.

The interview protocol was designed to reveal the challenges to theimplementation of DG programs that receivers and donors of aid perceive.The interviewees were asked what the main challenges were, in relationboth to the implementing state institutions and to the cooperation agen-cies. These general questions were followed up with more specific ques-tions about the challenges and the particular programs, according to theinterviewee’s area of responsibility.

Selection of Peru and Bolivia

It is important to consider how the chosen cases differ or are similar to thepopulation of aid-receiving countries in order to determine how well theyserve their purpose of showing how the mechanisms work, even thoughthis material is not used to test the theoretical framework. Two types ofcomparisons are made: first between the two chosen countries and secondbetween the state institutions included in the study.

Peru and Bolivia make good comparison countries because they aresimilar in many key ways; for example, they are neighboring countries inthe Andean region that adopted democracy during the same wave ofdemocratization in the early 1980s. Still, both countries have undergonesevere democratic challenges after their transition to democracy(Arredondo 2005a, 2005b). Neither country is very aid dependent on anaggregate level from a global perspective; Bolivia received aid at 4% of itsgross national income (GNI) in 2009, and Peru received aid at 0.4% of itsGNI (World Bank 2012), although both countries do have state agenciesthat are highly dependent on aid (e.g., I:23:D).2 However, Bolivia was thelargest receiver of DG aid in Latin America over the period from 1990 to2009, while Peru was in the middle range (Figure 1).3

For these countries, it was possible to study the same set of institutionsreceiving development aid from, to a large extent, the same donors. Thechoice of these two nations for a case study is particularly good because,while they are relatively similar and score similarly in relation to oneimportant aspect of labor market conditions, differences in salariesbetween the public and the private sectors, they score differently in rela-tion to one other aspect relevant to this research: political appointments.

One indication that it will be hard to keep staff in the public sector is thefact that much higher salaries are paid by the private sector than the publicone (Reid and Scott 1994). It could therefore be assumed that labor market

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turnover is higher in public sectors where differences in salaries betweenthe public and private sectors are more pronounced.

Data from the Quality of Government (QoG) expert survey4 indicatethat differences in salaries between the public and the private sector arehuge in both Peru and Bolivia from a Latin American perspective. Thesedifferences are at approximately the same level for the two countries(Figure 2). We should therefore expect high turnover due to labor marketconditions in both countries.

Figure 2 also shows the degree of political appointments according tothe QoG expert survey. Peru is close to the Latin American average, whileBolivia is one of the countries with the highest degree of politicizedrecruitment.

In sum, the public administrations in Bolivia and Peru make a goodcomparison. As we saw previously, the two countries have similar pros-pects of high labor market turnover. However, according to the same data,Bolivia has one of the most politicized public administrations in LatinAmerica while Peru is rather close to the Latin American average and isthus a more representative Latin American aid recipient.

According to the theoretical argument, we could therefore expect thateven though staff turnover is high in both countries, it should have moresevere consequences for the implementation of DG programs in Bolivia

FIGURE 1Total DG Aid to Latin America, 1990–2009

Note: The horizontal black line indicates the mean for the countries included (USD346.8433 million). The author’s calculations of DG aid. Constant 2009 prices.Source: OECD.stat 2012.

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than in Peru, because the high turnover rates in Bolivia should be expectedto be caused by a higher degree of political appointments.

Selection of Donors and DG Programs

The four biggest DG aid donors to Peru during the period from 1990 to2009 were Spain, the United States, Germany, and Canada. All four donorswere included in this study (Table 2). For comparative purposes, the samedonors were included for Bolivia. Because the donor profiles are differentfor Bolivia and Peru, with Bolivia receiving much more DG aid froma broader spectrum of donors, three additional bilateral donors (the

FIGURE 2Salaries and Political Appointment in Latin America

Note: Based on two questions: Q2_b: When recruiting public sector employees, thepolitical connections of the applicants decide who gets the job: 1 = Hardly ever to7 = Almost always. The black horizontal line shows the average for the includedcountries (5.4). Q2_j: Senior officials have salaries that are comparable tothe salaries of private sector managers with roughly similar training andresponsibilities: 1 = Hardly ever to 7 = Almost always. The black vertical lineshows the average for the countries included (3.1). All Latin American countrieswith three or more expert respondents are included. The following countries areexcluded: Cuba, Panama, Haiti, Guyana, and Suriname.Source: QoG expert survey data set (Dahlström, Lapuente, and Teorell 2011).

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Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark, which rank fourth, fifth and seventhin DG aid to Bolivia, respectively)5 were included for this country(Table 2).6

The choice of types of DG programs to include in this research wasbased on two criteria. The first was the author’s motivation to include abroad range of programs in order to avoid exclusively studying either badperformers or pockets of efficiency within the bureaucracies (cf. Rauchand Evans 2000). Second, the programs were chosen to highlight the sametypes of programs in both countries. This selection would also make itpossible to compare programs directed to different state institutions thatcould be assumed to show variation in their degree of turnover caused bypolitical appointments. On the basis of these criteria, interviews wereconducted with recipients and donors in both countries who wereengaged in the implementation of programs aimed at fostering decentrali-zation, strengthening the public administration in general and supportingthe ombudsman’s office.7 Interviews were also conducted with recipientsand donors responsible for the overall planning of the DG programs inboth nations.

High Turnover Rates as an Impediment to the Implementation ofDG Programs: Evidence in Peru and Bolivia

It became clear in the interviews that the implementers of aid—on boththe donor and the recipient side—claim that the lack of bureaucraticstability caused by the constant renewal of personnel creates a significantimpediment to the implementation of DG programs.

TABLE 2The Ten Biggest Donors of DG Aid, 1990–2009

Peru Bolivia

DonorTotal Amount(USD Million) Donor

Total Amount(USD Million)

Spain 100.10 IDA (World Bank) 180.61United States 91.58 Spain 116.88Germany 60.45 Germany 110.87Canada 46.49 The Netherlands 103.31Sweden 26.14 Sweden 89.68Belgium 25.92 United States 84.49EU (European Union) 24.53 Denmark 77.32Switzerland 17.18 Switzerland 35.44United Kingdom 13.90 Canada 34.41Norway 9.24 IDB (Inter-American

Development Bank)27.16

Note: Constant 2009 prices. The author’s calculations of DG aid.Source: OECD.stat 2012.

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The interviewees refer to turnover that occurs simultaneously at alllevels of the organization or at higher positions at the implementingagencies. Occasionally they refer to turnover of rank-and-file bureaucratsonly.

High Turnover Rates Affecting DG Implementation in Peru

According to donors and recipients, there is a constant shift of personnelin the public sector in Peru that is claimed to negatively affect the capacityof the implementing agencies (I:11:D, I:10:D, I:3:R, I:5:R):

Author: What obstacles do you encounter with your work?

Interviewee: . . . There are many obstacles because the state authorities change alot. There is a lot of rotation of persons. When new authorities enter, they changethe minister, they change from above to the last, and then there are problems,they don’t know. (1:5:R, author’s translation)

The ombudsman’s office stands out as being more successful in imple-menting DG programs than the other state institutions (I:10:D). Moreover,it is interesting to note that there seems to be fewer turnovers caused bypolitical appointments at this institution. An interviewee even mentionsexplicitly that changes in government are not followed by changes at theombudsman’s office (I:17:D). Rather, the complaints put forward by theimplementers at the ombudsman’s office are about turnover at other stateinstitutions (I:5:R, I:7:R). However, at the ombudsman’s office as well,there is some concern about what will happen when a new ombudsman isappointed (I:10:D, I:17:D).

High Turnover Rates Due to Labor Market Conditions. In the Peruviancase, one of the important causes of the high turnover rates is labor marketconditions. Salaries are higher in other sectors, which also include otherdevelopment agencies (I:13:D). The wage differences are sometimes verysubstantial, which leads to frequent turnover:

Interviewee: For example, this year I’ve had four [workers] leave. Not becausethey are bad, but because they are good. And since what I paid them was verylittle, they went to other entities were they could get paid more.

Author: And where did they go?

Interviewee: One of them went to OAS. [He] is an expert there now. Here he waspaid 8,000 soles, and there he is given US$8,000. The difference is eight timesmore. Then I had another person who was a specialist and also earned 8,000soles. [He] went to the vice ministry of justice to earn 15,000—double. (I:3:R,author’s translation)

High Turnover Rates Due to Political/Personalistic Appointments. Thechallenge that the programs face in Peru as a result of political appoint-ments seems to be primarily related to the changes that occur as a result ofthe transitions from one government to another after general elections

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take place (I:10:D, I:3:R). As one respondent asserted, “after the electionsthere will come other persons” (I:17:D, author’s translation). Electionsimply that there will be new staff in many positions at the implementingagencies (I:13:D).

How High Turnover Rates Impede DG Program Implementation. In Peru,aid projects have to be started all over again every time there are changes inthe composition of the staff working at the implementing agency. Theinterviewees give this as one explanation for why the constant turnoverrates obstruct the implementation of DG programs. The changes in person-nel that occur as a result of a shift in government are claimed to be especiallyproblematic for the DG programs as compared to other types of aidprograms, because these programs mostly deal with the state institutionswhere these changes occur (I:13:D). The new staff lacks knowledge aboutthe projects, for “with a general secretary or a line secretary, just when theyunderstand the project, they are replaced. Then we have to start over again,explaining it from the beginning . . .” (I:20:D, author’s translation).

Furthermore, the donors have to establish new relationships withtheir “new” cooperation partners every time staff shifts after an election(I:13:D). Indeed, after elections, “many times the [donor] cooperation[agencies] make a severe mistake; they do a lot of capacity building, butafter the elections other people come along and they have to start all overagain. This is why I think that the theme of state employees is a key themefor the future” (I:17:D, author’s translation).

In other words, high staff turnover rates impede implementation by alack of experience among newly recruited staff. This lack of experience notonly impedes the coordination between the donor cooperation agenciesand the implementing units (I:14:D) but also affects the coordinationbetween different authorities on the recipient side (I:5:R, I:7:R): “Latelythere have been changes among the secretaries; it weakens the functioningof the agency because when we felt that there was an advancement withthem, there was another restructuring, and then there was a retrogression,then there was another [restructuring]. This weakens how much we canadvance [in our work]” (I:7:R, author’s translation).

Interviewees also mentioned high turnover rates to be an impediment tocontinuity (I:13:D, I:34:D), which implies that the implementers have veryshort time horizons. There is uncertainty as to whether the new governmentor the new leadership of an institution will maintain the programs andprojects that are being executed (I:3:R), and this shortens the time horizons.

It is clear from the following quote that when there are changes due topolitical appointments (e.g., new ministers), it is far from certain that thenew management will embrace the agency’s “old” projects:

What will happen with the new government? Will it assume this as a new policyof the state? I think that what we have to try is to work with state policies morethan policies of the government, because with the policies of the government Iclose down the whole shop, and that is a very important aspect to overcome, not

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only at the government-to-government level, but also, for example, when thereare changes of ministers because sometimes the minister is changed and for thenew minister, the past is not worth anything, but instead it all starts over withhim. (I:3:R, author’s translation)

Moreover, politically appointed civil servants are dependent on their man-agers and are therefore afraid of making decisions. The threat of being firedby their managers impedes public servants from making decisions (I:11:D),which is another obstacle to effective implementation of the aid programs.

Even though the reluctance to participate in “old” projects in Peru ismainly caused by politically appointed turnover, there are also examplesin the interviews where new personnel at the implementing agencies arereluctant to engage in “old” projects regardless of whether they are politi-cally appointed. For example, “what happens often is that they have notdesigned the project, and when they come, these functionaries find it doneand it does not necessarily follow the same priorities that they want to becharacteristic of their administration” (I:20:D, author’s translation).

High Turnover Rates Affecting DG Aid Implementation in Bolivia

There is evidence in the interviews held in Bolivia that high turnover ratesaffect the aid programs:

Author: What are the main challenges to the programs and projects of [name ofdonor country]?

Interviewee: I think that generally a big problem in all the sectors in Bolivia isthe discontinuity. There is discontinuity in the leadership because there is arotation of ministers, of vice-ministers, of governors, et cetera, et cetera. Andwith every change of vice-minister, his/her team is also replaced. (I:23:D,author’s translation)

The two causes of high rotation, labor market conditions, and political/personal appointments impact simultaneously upon the same institutions,one affecting the politically appointed personnel and the other affectingthe nonpolitically recruited technocrats:

Rotation is an endemic illness in the case of Bolivia because it is a governmentthat comes from the social movements, and the social movements reclaim theirspace for power. There is also a very reduced level of technocrats in the publicsector, which is badly protected by the norms in force. Another factor is the lowlevels of remuneration in the public sector, which contributes to a search foremployment in the private sector, and in the development cooperation [agen-cies]. . . . (I:15:R, author’s translation)

Similar to the Peruvian case, the Bolivian ombudsman’s office stands outas the best working among the state institutions that the DG programs areinvolved with (I:16:D, I:23:D), and also the one with the least problemswith turnover due to political appointments. Turnover is not mentioned asone of the main challenges. Instead, the challenge of turnover is discussedin relation to the ombudsman’s work with other state institutions (I:8:R).

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A major challenge in the ombudsman’s office is its financial dependenceon aid. Another concern is to maintain the institution’s autonomy vis-à-visthe MAS government (I:6:R, I:8:R, I:16:D, I:23:D, I:30:D).

High Turnover Rates Due to Labor Market Conditions. There is evidencein the interviews that in Bolivia, poorly paid public officers leave theirpublic sector work for the private sector or for cooperation agencies(I:12:D, I:31:D, 1:15:R). For instance, “they are very very poorly paid in theadministration, and therefore there are a lot of very good people who goto the private sector, abroad, or to the [international] cooperation sector”(I:31:D, author’s translation).

High Turnover Rates Due to Political/Personalistic Appointments.Clearly, there are differences between the political appointments in theBolivian cases and those found in the Peruvian interview material. Asmentioned previously, the implementers of DG aid in Peru were mainlyconcerned with the changes of staff occurring as a result of generalelections.

Certainly, in Bolivia, there was massive turnover in 2006 as a result ofthe 2005 elections and the inauguration of the new government led byPresident Evo Morales (Gingerich 2010). Still, the concern most commonlyvoiced in the interviews in Bolivia was that the changes of staff occur notonly after elections, but much more often.

Bolivia is more politically stable now than it was in the beginning of the2000s. Morales was elected president with 53% of the votes in 2005, whichwas the first time in Bolivia in which a president obtained the majority ofvotes in the first round. The ruling party “Movimiento al Socialismo” (MAS)received an absolute majority in the chamber of deputies; in the 2009elections, it also obtained a majority in the senate (Anria et al. 2010). If thepolitical appointments occurred only after changes in political majoritiesas a result of the elections, the staff composition in Bolivia would be muchmore stable. Apparently, however, this is not the case. Paradoxically, andas an interviewed donor representative describes, there are more staffchanges now than there were in previous governments (I:31:D). Eventhough MAS has a solid majority, there are a lot of political changes inMAS and among the people in the government, which also implies thatthe DG programs are affected by high turnover due to political/personalistic appointments (e.g., I:8:R, I:30:D).

This high degree of political appointment is ascribed to the particularcharacteristics of the MAS government. A number of different social move-ments are assembled in the MAS organization (Gamarra 2008), and thegovernment wants these to have an influence over the public administra-tion (Anria et al. 2010). As one interviewee states, there is “a high rotation ofthe public functionaries at all levels and this is mainly due to the fact thatthis is a government of social movements. Therefore, all the public sectorshave to get room in the public apparatus” (I:23:D, author’s translation).

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Before Morales’ government was elected, during the so-called democra-cia pactada, there was also a high degree of politicization in the publicadministration—but this politicization was limited to a smaller ruling elite(Gingerich 2010). The politicization occurring as a result of the Moralesgovernment’s eagerness to influence the social movements is described byone scholar as an “attack on the meritocratic appointment of state officials”(Barrios Suvelza 2008, 130). This tendency is also manifested in theinterviews:

Author: Which one of the results that you have achieved in these two areas[institutionalization and debureaucratization] has been the most difficult toachieve?

Interviewee: Institutionalization, because of the high turnover of personnel thatexists in the Bolivian public sector and the political interference by the actors.We have had a four-year constitutional mandate and a continuation of presidentEvo Morales’ mandate, but this has not implied continuity in the administrationamong the entities, implying that we need to start all over again. (I:15:R, author’stranslation)

Every time there is a shift among the chiefs, it is very likely to impactthe personal de confianza (staff of confidence) of that particular manager.Furthermore, a change of vice-minister implies a total change in his/herworkforce (e.g., I:23:D). One Bolivian donor representative describes thepoliticization of public sector appointments like this: “What happensin Bolivia a lot is that when somebody new comes in, they fire everybodyand bring in their friends. . . . It is also a part of the way [the public service]is linked, how the public administration is done. You will bring in peoplewho are trusted confidants” (I:9:D, author’s translation).

How High Turnover Rates Impede DG Program Implementation. Theinterviews show that staff turnover due to political appointments delaysthe implementation of programs in Bolivia because of a lack of experienceamong the newly appointed staff (e.g., I:28:D). As one recipient describes,“there are people who are responsible for a theme; then they change thepersonnel and another person comes in who does not know the processes,and until he/she knows the processes, it takes time—one month, maybetwo months—and during this time there is no advancement. This is theproblem with rotation” (I:2:R, author’s translation). These continuingchanges also imply that the cooperation agency has to start over and overagain in terms of capacity building and trust building (I:23:D, I:25:D,I:28:D, 1:31:D).

Furthermore, time horizons at the implementing agencies in Boliviatend to be very short, which for example induces implementers to startshort-term projects without considering their longer term consequences(I:28:D). The lack of continuity in staff is an often cited problem for theimplementation of the DG programs. There are difficulties with continu-ing projects due to political appointments as a result of frequent changes

BUREAUCRATIC STABILITY AND GOVERNANCE AID 207

in the government. Even when the cooperation agency has capacitated anumber of workers, these very same workers may have to soon leavebecause a new management is in place (I:23:D, I:29:D). For instance,

But you don’t know whether after March they will dismiss them [the techni-cians capacitated by the international cooperation] anyway. So what you do isnot sustainable. We have had cases where we have had to start all over again. Atthe end we are wasting money . . . and you cannot say that we have done thesame thing four times, because each time they have replaced the personnel. Wehave a discontinuity that can damage our work, or at least make the processmuch slower. There have even been cases when we have had to close down [theproject]. (I:31:D, author’s translation)

Indeed, high staff turnovers frequently delay the execution of aid pro-grams in Bolivia. As one interviewee shared, “In the meantime we hadthese problems with replacements of authorities . . . that made theprogram work very slowly” (I:26:R, author’s translation).

It was claimed in the interviews that there is also a reluctance to engagein the “old” projects that belonged to the “old” team (e.g., I:33:R), whichimplies that the DG programs have to start from scratch whenever therehave been replacements in the implementing state agencies:

There is also a tradition here in Bolivia that if there is a new team it won’t acceptthe work of the old team. There is a tendency that each time you have to restartalmost from zero. (I:23:D, author’s translation)

Moreover, there is widespread concern in Bolivia about the lack of edu-cation and specialization among the politically recruited personnel (e.g.,I:33:R). This lack of expertise is often blamed for delaying the work of theimplementing agencies. For example,

One challenge of the ministry is to maintain a specialized team, because as youknow, this is a very political government that prioritizes the human resourceswho have had experience in social organizations. But sometimes the technicalpart fails. So if we are speaking about challenges, [one of the biggest challenges]is to maintain a team with specialized human resources. The minister is workingwith this task now that they have ratified it. [He] is rearming his organizationalstructure. We are examining where people are most useful; this is our challengenow—to maintain the team, to balance the political and the technical. (I:4:R,author’s translation)

It is interesting for this particular case that it was argued that the stateagency had become better at managing its human resources: “In 2010 wemanaged to get good results, and the very same people were convincedthat they do not work only with the right, but also with the left. Now thereare technicians in every area that know their work” (I:4:R, author’stranslation).

Conclusions

The theoretical argument developed here, including the effort made todisentangle the different effects of high turnover rates together with

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empirical examples presented, deepen our understanding of the chal-lenges on the recipient side that often get in the way of implementing DGaid (cf. Grindle 2011b).

A high rate of turnover was argued to be an impediment to aid imple-mentation through three mechanisms: lack of experience, short time hori-zons, and reluctance to engage in “old” projects. Furthermore, it wasstipulated that if the turnover rates were caused by political appointmentsas opposed to labor market conditions, the implementation of DG pro-grams would be more severely impacted, as it would be more likely thatthe newly recruited staff, and in particular a new manager, would bereluctant to engage in projects that belonged to the “old” management.

The second part of the article presented examples from Peru andBolivia of how these mechanisms work in practice. As expected, it wasfound that high turnover rates among the staff at implementing stateagencies, and especially rates caused by political appointments, are amajor concern among recipients and donors in both countries.

These turnovers seem often to take place simultaneously at all levels.The challenge that high turnover rates pose for aid implementation seemsto be that all the personnel are replaced as a consequence of changes athigher levels, which in turn causes implementation problems on bothhigher and lower levels.

Moreover, informants cited all three mechanisms as being importantexplanations for how high turnover rates affect the implementation of DGprograms. Some additional negative features of the constant change ofstaff were also mentioned, however, mainly in relation to the changescaused by political appointments. These additional features included thefact that the new politically appointed staff lacks the right education tocomplete the tasks assigned to them (Bolivia) and that politicallyappointed workers are hesitant to make decisions (Peru).

Turnover caused by political appointment seems to be more pervasivein Bolivia than in Peru, probably because of the political changes thatoccurred between elections in Bolivia as part of a shift in political power.The main concern in Peru was that DG programs could not be continuedafter new governments were elected. In Bolivia, the main concern wasmore imminent changes of staff composition due to the sudden changesthat occur in the same government and between the different ministriesand vice-ministries. It is thus important to also take a country’s politicalstability into account when examining the effects of different types ofrecruitment on public administration and its implications for aid imple-mentation (cf. Grindle 2006).

There seems also to be some variation among the state institutions in thesame political context, that is, between the ombudsman’s office and otherstate institutions. The institutions with the least problems with turnoverdue to political appointments in both Bolivia and Peru, the ombudsman’soffices, also seem to be the ones where the implementation of DG pro-grams has been most successful.

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Theoretically, we can assume that the implementation problems thatDG programs have to deal with are general problems shared by all aidprograms implemented through the public sector. However, as men-tioned previously, in contrast to other types of aid programs for whichparallel units may work, in the context of DG programs aimed at reform-ing state institutions, the strategy of bypassing state structures by creatingparallel organizations is at best a short-term strategy. DG programs needto be implemented through the state institutions of the recipient country.In fact, the ombudsman’s offices could be considered examples whereother state institutions are bypassed by the donors in the pursuit ofimproving human rights from the “outside” by using another state author-ity with a better record. However, it is questionable whether theseombudsman’s offices have much influence on the rest of the state appara-tus. Furthermore, the idea of ownership manifested in the Paris Declara-tion on Aid Effectiveness (OECD 2005) and in the Accra Agenda for Action(OECD 2008) that partnering countries should “exercise effective leader-ship over their development policies and strategies and co-ordinate devel-opment actions” (OECD 2005, 3), means that it becomes harder for donorbodies to circumvent the aid-recipient institutions if the donor agencyprofesses to take the idea of ownership seriously. It is also clear thatworking exclusively with the technical staff in these contexts will not havean influence on the reform of state institutions.

The high staff turnover rates that exist in the public administrations ofmany aid-receiving countries seem to be problematic for the executionof aid programs financed by development cooperation. The prospects ofimplementing future development cooperation projects with public sectorinstitutions may depend on the extent to which donors and recipients areable to address these high turnover rates and their causes.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank two anonymous reviewers, Stefan Dahl-berg, Marcia Grimes, Bert Hoffman, Sofia Jonsson, Birgitta Niklasson, JonPierre, Bo Rothstein, Martin Sjöstedt, Jan Teorell, and Lena Wängnerud fortheir helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. An earlier versionof this article was presented at the 6th European Consortium for PoliticalResearch (ECPR) general conference, Reykjavik, 2011.

Notes

1. Six interviews were not recorded, but notes were taken. The rest of theinterviews were digitally recorded and transcribed by the author.

2. The interviews are referred to with the following code: I = interview;No. = number of interview, R = recipient/D = donor.

3. The following purpose codes from the Creditor Reporting System areincluded in the calculation of DG aid: 15110 (Public sector policy andadministrative management), 15111 (Public finance management), 15112

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(Decentralization and support to subnational government), 15113 (Anti-corruption organizations and institutions), 15130 (Legal and judicialdevelopment), 15150 (Democratic participation and civil society), 15151(Elections), 15152 (Legislatures and political parties), 15153 (Media and freeflow of information), 15160 (Human rights), and 15170 (Women’s equalityorganizations and institutions) (OECD/DAC 2011a).

4. The QoG expert survey is a “dataset on the structure and behavior of publicadministration” based on a web survey with experts conducted by the QoGinstitute (Dahlström, Lapuente, and Teorell 2011).

5. The biggest donor to Bolivia from 1990 to 2009 was a multilateral donor:International Development Association (IDA; the World Bank) (OECD.stat2012).

6. The Netherlands and Denmark are now phasing out aid to Bolivia(Danish MFA 2012; OECD/DAC 2011b). In 2009, the United States hadto close its DG programs in Bolivia at the request of the Bolivian govern-ment (Wolff 2012). However, the U.S. Agency for International Develop-mentis still present in the country. Sweden, Denmark, and The Netherlandswere no longer bilateral cooperation partners to Peru at the time of thefieldwork.

7. In Peru, the author also conducted interviews with implementers ofprograms directed to the strengthening of the parliament.

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Interviews

I:2:R, January 17, 2011, La PazI:3:R, December 17, 2010, LimaI:4:R, January, 26, 2011, La PazI:5:R, December, 16, 2010, LimaI:6:R, January, 18, 2011, La PazI:7:R, December, 17, 2010, LimaI:8:R, January 25, 2011, La PazI:9:D, January 13, 2011, La PazI:10:D, December 3, 2010, LimaI:11:D, December 16, 2010, LimaI:12:D, January 21, 2011, La PazI:13:D, November 25, 2010, LimaI:14:D, December 7, 2010, LimaI:15:R, January 18, 2011, La PazI:16:D, January 11, 2011, La PazI:17:D, December 8, 2010, LimaI:20:D, December 14, 2010, LimaI:23:D, January 12, 2011, La PazI:25:D, January 14, 2011, La PazI:26:R, January 19, 2011, La PazI:28:D, January 21, 2011, La PazI:29:D, January 20, 2011, La PazI:30:D, January 21, 2011, La PazI:31:D, January 24, 2011, La PazI:33:R, January 27, 2011, La PazI:34:D, December 1, 2010, Lima

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