Replication Data for: Ministries matter: Technocrats and regime loyalty under autocracy

How do technocrat ministers affect governance under autocracy? Autocrats frequently appoint non-partisan actors with technical competencies to bureaucratic leadership roles. Though their competencies might predict positive performance in office, these ministers are also dependent on the regime for their position and should thus demonstrate loyalty to its interests. I test this in the context of horizontal accountability to the legislature, using data on more than 27,000 legislative requests submitted to ministries in Morocco. I use both exact matching and difference-in-differences analyses to show that technocrat ministers are more than 25 percentage points less likely to respond to legislative queries than partisan cabinet members. The results imply that outside (partisan) participation in government strengthens weak institutions of executive oversight. They also cast doubt on the presumption that technocrat participation in government is universally beneficial to governance.

威权体制下，技术官僚部长（technocrat ministers）对治理产生何种影响？威权统治者常任命具备技术专长的无党派人士担任官僚体系的领导职务。尽管这类部长的技术专长或可预示其履职表现优良，但他们的职位依附于执政政权，因此必须展现出对政权核心利益的忠诚。本文以摩洛哥内阁各部收到的2.7万余份立法质询请求为基础，围绕针对立法机构的横向问责（horizontal accountability）场景展开实证检验。本文采用精确匹配法（exact matching）与双重差分分析法（difference-in-differences analyses）开展研究，结果显示：相较于党派内阁成员，技术官僚部长对立法质询的回应概率低25个百分点以上。研究结果表明，政府中的党派（非技术官僚）参与能够强化本就薄弱的行政监督机制。同时，该研究也对“技术官僚参与政府普遍有益于治理”这一预设提出了质疑。