Research

Work-in-progress

Personnel appointments in authoritarian bureaucracies

Abstract: Biased hiring by unelected managers undermines state capacity. Recent work focuses on who gets hired, not the conditions under which it takes place. I argue that, under weak rule of law, bureaucratic managers balance the potential rewards of hiring aligned subordinates with the risk of punishment for breaching civil service regulations. First, biased hiring should be most prominent in the early days of a manager’s tenure, when the need to replace unknown staff is most urgent. Second, managers appoint more when they can draw on the protection of a senior patron. Third, unlike political patronage, appointments should be focused on senior roles. With new data on about 7,000 district bureaucrat appointments in Kazakhstan, I use two-way fixed effects designs to show that new managers quickly replace subordinates despite civil service regulations, that appointments decline after the departure of their boss, and that there are no equivalent effects for junior staff. The findings highlight how informal politics sustain biased hiring despite civil service reforms.

  • Presented at PolEcon Almaty 2025
  • Presented at the APSG’s 2025 Summer Conference on Authoritarian Politics

Biased hiring and bureaucrats’ behaviour

Abstract: How do appointment practices affect governance? A growing literature debates the conditions under which discretionary appointments have negative or, less commonly, positive effects on governance, predominantly drawing on evidence from electoral democracies. It is not yet clear whether these findings extend to authoritarian settings, where the threat of political punishment is greater and bureaucrats’ incentives strongly differ. I present new theory on the role of connections in authoritarian bureaucracies, and use novel data from Kazakhstan to test whether bureaucrats’ dependence on their civil service managers influences economic outcome. I construct time-series data on appointments by district managers and use new measures of bureaucratic effectiveness based on millions of public procurement contracts. My findings suggest that, despite claims that biased hiring can have only deleterious effects on service delivery, it is bureaucrats who benefit from discretionary appointments who are responsible for the most and largest procurement projects. The paper provides large-scale bureaucrat-level evidence on the roles of informal connections and personnel politics in shaping state outcomes.

Which merits matter? Political performance, economic meritocracy, and elite loyalty in authoritarian states

Abstract: Which merits do autocrats care about when selecting officials? In some contexts, regimes prioritise economic competence and promote based on growth or unemployment figures. In other cases, political stability is more important. Officials are incentivised to improve turnout and the proregime vote. These effects may be conditional or—in many cases—performance may simply not matter for appointments. Work on autocratic meritocracy, nonetheless, should consider wider operationalisation of political merit, provide stronger evidence of merit not mattering, and study cases beyond China and Russia. I advance the literature using newly collected evidence on governors’ career trajectories in Kazakhstan paired with economic, electoral, and protest data. I use an equivalence testing approach to provide strong evidence that economic merit—even exceptionally good performance—does not matter in this case, while good political performance can somewhat increase a governors’ prospects of promotion. I contribute to work on promotion tournaments and performance incentives under autocracy, while presenting new data from an important but understudied case of hegemonic electoral autocracy.

  • Presented at EPSA 2025

The Governance Effects of Local Elections in Autocracies: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Kazakhstan

With Kirill Melnikov and Eleonora Minaeva

Abstract: This study examines how political decentralization affects local governance in authoritarian settings, focusing on Kazakhstan’s 2021 reform that introduced direct elections of rural executives (akims). We exploit the staggered and quasi-random rollout of the reform to compare municipalities with elected and not-yet-elected akims. Leveraging newly available administrative data, we study local public procurement—a key area of public management where local akims retain discretion despite severe fiscal constraints. We find that elections neither increased the volume of goods and services delivered by akims nor improved the competitiveness of public procurement.

Local Elections and Elite Management in Authoritarian Regimes: Evidence from Kazakhstan

With Kirill Melnikov and Eleonora Minaeva

Abstract: This study examines the introduction of local executive elections in Kazakhstan, where rural executives (akims) were previously appointed through a centralized system. We analyze the impact of these elections on elite turnover and recruitment, leveraging a complete dataset of all subdistrict elections and a pilot study of akim biographies. Elections resulted in frequent leadership replacement. Nevertheless, we show that they did not result in inclusion of a broader group of local or the selection of more locally-embedded officials. The results suggest that elections may serve more to formalize the renewal of the same bureaucratic elite than to co-opt new groups or widen access to power.

Shuffling to co-opt: Subnational governance, patronage, and political careers in Kazakhstan

Abstract: Why do autocrats ‘shuffle’ elites around positions? Existing work suggests this practice aims to boost performance, with underperforming officials more frequently rotated. Yet I show that in Kazakhstan there is no association between performance and rotation. Instead, I explain shuffling as a strategy of co-optation. Shuffling prevents some of the potential downsides of co-opting elites through state office by disrupting network formation and freeing up positions for junior cadre. At the same time, it keeps co-optation credible by reassuring most elites of their long-term seniority. To test this argument, I present a detailed biographic dataset of regional governors (akims) in Kazakhstan between 1997 and 2022. Consistent with my argument, elites holding these posts are frequently shuffled to and from other senior positions. By contrast, there is a robust lack of association between regional socioeconomic measures and when a governor is rotated or dismissed. Sometimes, shuffling aims more at enhancing elites’ loyalty than their performance.

  • Presented at MPSA 2025