In recent years, there has been increasing interest in whether and how bureaucratic
effectiveness contributes to development. Just what makes for an effective bureaucracy and …

This article discusses one of the most important institutions in the modern world, namely
public bureaucracies, from a comparative perspective. Bureaucratic organizations can be …

Contemporary public administration reflects its historical roots, as well as contemporary
ideas about how the public bureaucracy should be organized and function. This book …

When and how do governments deliver public goods and services in response to citizen
preferences? We review the current literature on government responsiveness, with a focus …

We study how political turnover in mayoral elections in Brazil affects public service provision
by local governments. Exploiting a regression discontinuity design for close elections, we …

The administrative state is a powerful tool because it can control the population and, in
moments of crisis, help leaders put down popular threats to their rule. But a state does not …

We use newly digitized records from the post office to study the effects of strengthened state
capacity between 1875 and 1901. Exploiting the implementation of the Pendleton Act—a …

There is a broad consensus that state capacity is central to economic and institutional
development. But while the concept originated as a tool for macro-historical and …

The study of street-level bureaucracy has been dominated by research from the Global
North. Mainstream conceptualizations are, therefore, based on observations from …

In countries around the world, politicians distribute patronage jobs to supporters in
exchange for a wide range of political services–such as hel** with campaigns and …