Political control over the civil service: the case of the government of Puerto Rico

Abstract

After having a consolidated career civil service system, the government of Puerto Rico has informally reverted to a personnel management system where political-partisan interests predominate through the use and systematic manipulation of the formal structures of the civil service. This study employs a qualitative mixed methods strategy in order to identify the informal structures that operate within government agencies, their instruments, and practices. It also seeks to understand the career of public employees within an incongruous system, which promulgates to be merit-based, but which subjects them to personnel management that is informally dominated by political-partisan criteria. The case of Puerto Rico helps us understand how a merit system can be subdued by the power of political parties through the institutionalization of neo-patrimonial practices that legitimize values linked to patronage, maintaining the civil service mainly as an instrument of coercion for political purposes. This case study reaffirms that legal remedies and penalties are not sufficient to maintain a merit system or reduce the practices of favoritism and discrimination that cons-titute patronage.