Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Delegation of policy tasks to single-purpose quasi-independent agencies has been one of the prominent trends in public management, in relation to New Public Management. In many contexts such as the Netherlands and the UK, these agencies enjoy a degree of autonomy, which brings forward the issues of agency control and accountability. Despite the emphasis on autonomy and independence, politicians in government may have incentives to change the level of autonomy the agencies enjoy. One notable mechanism for influencing agency autonomy is political appointments to the executive boards of the agencies. Political appointments in quasi-independent agencies have often been heavily criticized for providing patronage opportunities. If there are less political appointments, this signifies greater credible commitment by increasing agency autonomy. In contrast, more political appointments could serve important purposes of increasing agency control and democratic accountability by reducing agency autonomy.

 Given that political appointments in quasi-independent agencies could potentially serve various purposes for the government, why do some agencies have many appointees and others few? To answer this question, this paper uses a recent data of British quasi-independent agencies and focuses on the number of political appointments in the executive board of each agency. Hypotheses regarding two types of political conflicts are tested – mission implementation conflict (ideological conflict between current government and prior government) and policy domain conflict (ideological conflict between current government and the opposition party). Statistical findings suggest that the political appointments in quasi-independent agencies are not insulated from external political conflicts. The government is more likely to increase the number of political appointments when there is greater mission implementation conflict, for the sake of increasing agency control. In contrast, the government is more likely to decrease the number of political appointments when there is greater policy domain conflict, for the sake of increasing credible commitment. Overall, this paper suggests the importance of politics in the management of quasi-independent agencies, despite the unique feature of quasi-independent agencies working at an arm’s-length from politicians and ministers.