How do the professional backgrounds of senior bureaucrats affect their competence and political responsiveness? This article fills a gap by examining these questions in a meritocratic context that accommodates nuanced but potentially consequential variations in the recruitment of senior bureaucrats. Using a paired survey experiment with citizens, representatives, and administrators in Norway, the article demonstrates that agency heads are perceived as less competent and – to a lesser extent – more politically responsive if their profile deviates from the meritocratic ideal of the career civil servant with mission-specific expertise. The article also compares perceptions between groups of stakeholders, filling another gap in the literature. Treatment effects go in the same direction across groups, but the results reveal a mismatch between popular and insider perceptions of bureaucracy: whereas citizens are practically indifferent, administrators are deeply concerned about the competence of an agency head who is a former politician rather than a career bureaucrat. Perceptions of substantive expertise are more aligned: all stakeholder groups view agency heads with mission-specific expertise as more competent and less politically responsive than generalists. Overall, the results demonstrate that variations in who is recruited to senior bureaucrat positions may either strengthen or undermine stakeholders’ views on good governance.

中文翻译：

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高级官僚的专业形象、能力和响应能力：公民和精英受访者的配对调查实验


高级官僚的专业背景如何影响他们的能力和政治反应能力？本文通过在任人唯贤的背景下研究这些问题来填补空白，该背景考虑了高级官僚招聘中细微但可能产生影响的变化。通过对挪威公民、代表和管理人员的配对调查实验，文章表明，如果机构负责人的形象偏离了具有特定使命专业知识的职业公务员的精英理想，那么他们的能力就会被认为较差，并且在较小程度上更能响应政治。本文还比较了利益相关者群体之间的看法，填补了文献中的另一个空白。治疗效果在各个群体中朝着相同的方向发展，但结果揭示了大众和内部人士对官僚主义的看法不匹配：虽然公民实际上无动于衷，但管理人员则对前政治家而不是职业官僚的机构负责人的能力深感担忧。对实质性专业知识的看法更加一致：所有利益相关者群体都认为，与通才相比，具有特定任务专业知识的机构负责人更有能力，对政治的反应也更少。总体而言，结果表明，被招聘到高级官僚职位的人员的差异可能会加强或破坏利益相关者对良好治理的看法。