Patronage Appointments between Politics and Public Governance: a Review

The present work reviews how scholars of different disciplines have examined political appointments in recent years, in particular, those regarding public and semi-public organizations. First of all, I show how political economy research has shed light on several reform processes, arguing how economic and managerial policies have been implemented also considering political rationales, such as, for instance,the preservation of parties' control of privatized firms. This enduring power of political parties primarily results from their preserved appointment authority over semi-public firms (beyond public agencies), one of the tools by which the political class continues to govern the enterprises in question. In particular, this appointment authority has been exploited by parties in order to reward their members and control bureaucracies, among other purposes. The phenomenon naturally resulted in a widespread surviving politicization of the state, which presents several consequences, especially in terms of public- private politically connected firms' performance. In the conclusions, I suggest some further research trajectories which could enhance the literature.