Philip inherited a medieval tax administration that was inadequate for the new imperial role. All revenue collection was delegated to private individuals and controlled after the fact by powerful royal accountants. These resisted all Philip’s attempts to modernize the procedures.

This chapter examines how conditional tenure as a contract feature shapes bureaucratic behavior, focusing on the distribution of trade compensation by the Department of Labor. The analysis centers on the implementation of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA), a program consistently supported by the Democratic Party to help American workers displaced by international trade. The TAA program is administered by bureaucrats who must demonstrate three years of high-quality service before securing permanent appointments. Using daily TAA petition records from 1975 to 2020, the chapter shows that TAA petitions were less likely to be certified and more likely to face delays under Republican presidencies than under Democratic ones – but only when handled by investigators who had not yet attained tenure. These findings demonstrate that even career bureaucrats, though not directly appointed by the president, can be susceptible to partisan pressure when their job protections are limited.

Bureaucrats in democracies and international organizations are frequently criticized for lacking democratic accountability. Across time and countries, elected officials have expressed frustration over the challenges of controlling behavior of bureaucrats. How do political leaders attempt to exert control over bureaucrats, and how do bureaucrats respond in turn? More importantly, what do these responses mean for the implementation of foreign policy and global governance programs? Taming the Careerists addresses these questions within the context of US foreign policy, emphasizing how job protections embedded in bureaucrats’ employment contracts shape behavior of bureaucrats in foreign affairs. This introductory chapter presents the book’s central argument, explains its significance, and provides an overview of its structure.

This chapter examines how renewal as a contract feature influences bureaucratic behavior, focusing on the decision-making of commissioners at the International Trade Commission in trade remedy cases. It leverages the institutional change created by the Trade Act of 1974, which eliminated the possibility of commissioner reappointment and thus shifted their contracts from renewable to nonrenewable terms. The analysis shows that, after the reform, commissioners were more likely to cast votes that reflected their own judgments rather than aligning with the chairperson's preferences. These individual-level dissenting votes contributed to ITC rulings that were less tied to the orientation of the chairperson’s political party.

This chapter introduces contract design as a mechanism through which presidents can influence bureaucratic behavior, distinguishing it from other established tools of bureaucratic control. It elaborates on the carrot-and-stick framework and explains how removal, renewal, and conditional tenure function within that structure. Drawing on this framework, the chapter derives three empirical expectations and outlines how they will be examined in subsequent chapters. Because Taming the Careerists centers on implementation of foreign policy in trade and immigration, the chapter also explains the rationale behind this case selection. Finally, it describes the data and methodological approaches used to evaluate the empirical expectations.

This chapter examines how removal as a contract feature shapes bureaucratic behavior, focusing on its effects on the adjudication of H-1B visas for high-skilled foreign workers. It centers on unilateral appointees – bureaucrats directly appointed by the president who can be removed at will. The chapter shows that the rise in H-1B visa denials following the Trump Administration’s Buy American and Hire American Executive Order is associated with a higher concentration of unilateral appointees within the Department of Homeland Security. Using internal policy memoranda and computational text analysis, the chapter identifies the mechanisms through which these appointees influenced the processing of H-1B applications.

Chapter 1 introduces the key concepts of the book, lays out the main argument, and discusses the empirical approach and data used in later chapters. It emphasizes that variation in governance outcomes cannot be understood without examining the incentives and interactions of politicians, bureaucrats, and voters. Ultimately, I argue that politicians in developing democracies have incentives to hire competent bureaucrats but will simultaneously retain tools to influence their career progression. Using tools of career control – interference in bureaucrats’ promotions, work locations, and day-to-day work tasks – politicians can extract bureaucratic loyalty. The introduction also situates the book within existing scholarship. The empirical strategy combines qualitative interviews, survey experiments, and observational data, largely drawn from Ghana but supplemented with comparative insights. Ultimately, the chapter frames the book as an inquiry into how the competing incentives of politicians and bureaucrats shape governance.

Chapter 7 reflects on the book’s findings and their broader implications. It underscores that state capacity is not determined solely by formal rules or resources, but by the everyday power relations between politicians and bureaucrats. Investments in infrastructure, personnel, or technology matter, but their effectiveness depends on how politicians and bureaucrats interact. The book highlights the “grey zone” between fully politicized and fully meritocratic systems, arguing that most states fall somewhere in between. Ghana exemplifies this dynamic, but the theory also applies elsewhere. Comparative evidence from India and Indonesia shows similar patterns: politicians exploit career controls to extract loyalty and manipulate bureaucratic action, especially in competitive electoral contexts. These parallels suggest the argument has broad external validity. The chapter also considers how the equilibrium might shift. Reforms that strengthen bureaucratic autonomy, insulate career management, or increase transparency in procurement could reduce partisan manipulation. Yet such reforms are politically difficult, as they challenge the very tools politicians rely on. By situating bureaucratic management at the heart of governance outcomes, the chapter points toward future research on how institutional design can mitigate corruption and enhance equitable service delivery in developing democracies.

Chapter 2 develops the theoretical framework that underpins the book. It argues that politicians in developing democracies face a dual incentive: they need competent bureaucrats who can implement programs effectively, yet they also desire control over those bureaucrats to secure loyalty and political advantage. As a result, politicians often recruit based on merit but retain formal or informal levers of influence, such as control over promotions or geographic transfers. The chapter distinguishes between programmatic and non-programmatic distribution, emphasizing that politicians often require bureaucratic loyalty to engage in non-programmatic distribution. Further, politicians have greater incentives to engage in non-programmatic distribution when local elections are highly competitive. Accordingly, I expect that intense local electoral competition will result in worse governance outcomes, including higher levels of corruption and partisan allocation of public goods. This framework provides the theoretical lens to interpret the empirical evidence presented in subsequent chapters and situates the book’s contribution within broader debates on state capacity, bureaucratic autonomy, clientelism, and democratic accountability.

This chapter examines why Latin America, despite vast resources and reform attempts, remains trapped in economic stagnation. It attributes persistent underdevelopment to cycles of excessive state control, political instability, and weak institutions. Drawing on decades of data, it argues that rent-seeking and bureaucratic inertia undermine innovation and growth. The result is a recurring pattern of short-lived booms followed by deep crises.

This chapter investigates the role of state-level bureaucrats in drafting and promoting legislation. In doing so, it challenges the conventional notion of separation-of-powers by showing that the executive branch often initiates statutory change. Drawing on original data from eleven states and a decades-long survey of administrators across all fifty states, the chapter demonstrates that bureaucrats are deeply involved in legislative affairs: authoring bills, collaborating with legislators, and influencing policy outcomes. Agency-initiated bills are common, pass at higher rates than other bills, and tend to attract bipartisan support. Their prevalence and success vary systematically across states, shaped by institutional capacity and partisan alignment: legislatures with fewer resources and unified partisan control are more likely to pass agency bills. At the individual level, legislators with greater power – such as committee chairs or those in the governor's party – are more likely to sponsor bureaucratic proposals. These findings put bureaucrats as strategic actors, valued by the legislature for expertise and policy-ready proposals. By focusing on the origination of legislation rather than just its implementation, this chapter provides new insight into the blurred boundaries between legislative and executive functions in US state politics and underscores the importance of studying bureaucratic influence at the earliest stages of the policymaking process.

Chapter 8 addresses the implementation stage, where policy decisions and intentions are translated into concrete actions and outcomes. It analyzes the complex interplay among bureaucrats, central agencies, ministries, departments, nongovernmental actors, and street-level bureaucrats. The chapter traces the evolution of implementation studies from top-down and bottom-up perspectives to more nuanced models incorporating organization theory, game theory, and principal–agent theory. It outlines the key administrative tasks (planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, budgeting), and discusses the importance of operational capacity, coordination, and accountability mechanisms. The chapter also examines the challenges of securing compliance among target groups and dealing with environmental turbulence, uncertainty, and limited policy capacity. Emphasizing the political as well as technical nature of implementation, it highlights how organizational structures, actor motivations, and institutional context fundamentally affect policy outcomes.

This chapter introduces and immerses readers in the ‘Brussels Bubble’, a term encapsulating both the geographic heart of the European Union’s political machinery and its distinctive social and professional ecosystem. Through the daily routine of Jack, a mid-level Irish diplomat, the chapter reveals the rhythms, rituals, and jargon that define life in the European Quarter – where EU institutions, diplomats, lobbyists, and journalists converge. The Bubble is a microcosm of multilingual, multinational exchange, shaped by its own language (‘Bubblespeak’), unwritten rules, and digital habits, from Politico’s influential newsletters to the relentless scroll of Twitter.

The chapter situates the Bubble within the EU’s evolution from a post-war coal and steel community to a unique polity, blending functionalist pragmatism with normative ideals. It introduces the book’s dual focus: first, to chronicle the everyday practices and lived experiences that make the Bubble a world unto itself; second, to explore how digital technologies – smartphones, social media, and virtual meetings – reshape diplomacy, governance, and social hierarchies within this space. By treating Brussels as an ethnographic ‘village’, the authors argue for a grounded, practice-based understanding of international politics, where the digital and the material are increasingly entangled, and where the EU’s future is negotiated not only in meeting rooms but also on screens and in real-time feeds.