Replication Data for: Contingent Technocracy: Bureaucratic independence in developing countries

This study investigates the effects of formal bureaucratic independence under varying democratic conditions. Conventional accounts predict that greater formal independence of technocratic agencies facilitates policy implementation, but those claims rest on observations of industrialized, high income countries that are also established democracies. Based on research in developing countries, we argue that the effects of agency independence depend on the political context in which the agency operates. Our empirical subjects are privatization agencies and their efforts to privatize state-owned enterprises in Africa. We predict that greater independence leads to more thorough privatization under authoritarian regimes, but that the effect of independence declines as a country becomes more democratic. Using an original dataset, we examine the relationship between formal agency independence and privatization in Africa from 1990-2007. Our results modify the conventional wisdom on bureaucratic independence and culminate in a more nuanced theory of “contingent technocracy.”