Top Officials’ Careers and the Relationship Between Politics and Administration

This essay elaborates how the analysis of administrative careers – both as dependent and independent variables – can be leveraged to gain a more systematic understanding of the relationship between politics and administration. It highlights how the analysis of administrative careers can provide answers to pertinent questions about the relationship between politics and administration, including civil service politicization, politicians’ motivations in patronage decisions, the interplay of organizational characteristics and top officials’ careers, and performance effects of administrative careers. It also includes suggestions on how to move forward in terms of research methods and how the systematic analysis of administrative careers can strengthen the comparative analysis of the relationship between politics and administration.