How incoming governments abuse public procurement to reward partisan allies

What is it about?

This paper makes theoretical and methodological contributions to the study of clientelism. Theoretically, it identifies three spheres of institutions through which political elites can exert partisan influence over the administrative process of public procurement. Methodologically, it develops a new way of measuring how much incoming governments use public procurement to reward and favour partisan allies. The theory and method are elaborated and tested with reference to two case studies, the UK and Hungary.

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Why is it important?

It provides a framework for assessing how vulnerable a country's institutions are to the abuse of public procurement for partisan gain. It provides a way of measuring the extent to which the system is actually used for partisan favouritism, i.e., how much of the procurement market is subject to this kind of capture rather than being open and competitive.