Accountability and patronage in extraordinary administrations: Evidence from Pompeii

• Author: Paolo Ferri,Luca Zan
• Date: 01 February 2019
• Published date: 01 February 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/faam.12184

Received: 28 March 2015 Revised: 15 January 2018 Accepted: 25 April 2018

DOI: 10.1111/faam.12184

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Accountability and patronage in extraordinary

administrations: Evidence from Pompeii

Paolo Ferri Luca Zan

Departmentof Management, University of

Bologna,Via Capo di Lucca 34, 40126, Bologna,

Italy

Correspondence

PaoloFerri, Department of Management,

Universityof Bologna, Via Capo di Lucca 34,

40126Bologna, Italy.

Email:p.ferri@unibo.it

Abstract

Drawingon the concept of an accountability web, this paper analyzes

the 2-year long extraordinary administration of the archaeological

site at Pompeii, where the Italian Prime Minister appointed a special

Commissioner to deal with the alleged decay of the site in July 2008.

Findings shed light on critical issues related to the appointment of

“loyal experts” in terms of strong personalization, short-term think-

ing, and the influence of the media in the administrationof public ser-

vices. Moreover,the paper introduces patronage accountability as a

distinctaccountability dimension that is characterized by a hierarchi-

cal and informal nature, and which cannot be accessed by those who

are not part of the transaction. We add to the literature byidentify-

ing patronage accountability as a separate accountability dimension

that conflicts with more common ones, and examinethe implications

of this practice for public administration.

KEYWORDS

accountability web, Italy, patronage, Pompeii, public sector reform

1INTRODUCTION

In July 2008, the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi declared a 1-year state of emergency at the UNESCO archae-

ological site of Pompeii, appointing a Commissioner with special administrative powers to deal with an alleged crisis.

The “emergency” was not caused bya sudden natural disaster, but by media outcry about lack of visitor services, theft

ofrelics, and broken toilets (Arachi, 2008; Feltri, 2008; see also DPCM 04/07/2008, Camera dei Deputati, 2010a; Corte

dei Conti, 2010). The Commissioner was given part of the ordinary budget of the entity managing the site (€40million),

and the chance to set up his own team and to repeal part of the normative framework to solve the alleged emergency

quickly.

In this article, we reconstruct the experience of the extraordinaryadministration of Pompeii by looking at how the

overallsystem of accountability relationships changed during the extraordinary intervention (2008–2010). Despite its

apparent singularity—an alleged emergency used to centralize powers in the hands of the executive—webelieve that

the case under investigation is relevantfor two interrelated reasons.

First, extraordinary regimes with temporarily appointed commissioners to substitute the ordinary administration

are common in Italy in recent years. There have been 10,000 such regimes, according to the only available estimate,

spanningfrom local government to hospitals and cultural organizations (Cassese, 2012; Moussanet, 2005, refers to it as

a sort of “parallel administration”).Indeed, similar practices involving the delegation of power from politicians to “loyal

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2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/faam FinancialAcc & Man. 2019;35:72–89.

FERRI ANDZAN 73

experts” are also common elsewhere. For instance, Boisot and Child (1988, 1996) illustrate a similar administrative

practice with reference to the economic reforms of the 80s and 90s in China. Studies on Turkey, Greece, and Latin

American countries provideadditional examples of patronage appointments as a key element in the context of growing

of populism (Gordin, 2002; Pappas, 2014; Selçuk, 2016). By looking at Pompeii, we therefore try to understand at the

micro level the functioning and implications of this thus far neglected form of highly personalized administration that

clasheswith the more widespread (somehow idealized?) conception of an instrumentally regulated bureaucracy, where

impersonal logics ratherthan subjective judgments legitimize the action of the government (Mennicken & Miller, 2012;

Rose, 1991).

Second, the study has implications for the notion of accountability. When reconstructing the accountability rela-

tionships that bond keyactors in the Pompeii's emergency, we realized that the accountability types outlined in the lit-

erature (i.e., administrative,professional, political, legal—see Bovens, 2006; Parker & Gould, 1999; Sinclair, 1995) were

only partially useful in explaining the relationship between the Prime Minister and the Commissioner appointed to

solve the emergency.Hence, by drawing on the literature on political science and anthropology, in this paper,we intro-

duce the notion of patronage accountability, defined as an unequal, reciprocal, and vertical relationship, which cannot

be accessed by people who are not part of the face-to-face relationship between patron and client. Hence, the paper

complements and problematizes existing taxonomies of accountability types (Bovens, 2006; Parker& Gould, 1999;

Sinclair,1995). In our view, the lack of attention to patronage accountability shows that, despite their claimed univer-

sality,taxonomies of accountability types are embedded in the context of modernized liberal democracies, where polit-

icalpatronage has been limited in the last century (Flinders, 2009; Porter, 1995). While it would be easy to treat patron-

age accountability as an exception, the existence of patronage appointments worldwide (Kopecký, Mair, & Spirova,

2012) suggests that this notion could be relevant to achieve a more complete picture of accountability pressures in

different contexts.

The paper is structured as follows. In the next section, we position patronage relationships in the accountability

debate. After the methodological section, we provide a longitudinal reconstruction of the whole experience of Pom-

peii's emergency,identifying main phases and turning points. “Discussion” and “Conclusion” sections follow.

2POSITIONING PATRONAGE IN THE ACCOUNTABILITY DEBATE

The underlying rationale of extraordinaryinterventions is that procedural administrative accountability—i.e., account-

ability dealing with legal concepts such as compliance and rule-following (Catasus & Gronlund, 2005; Hood, 1995)—

in certain situations can constrain effective decision making. Thus, waiving procedural accountability and decreasing

the number of administrative levels involved(Fioritto, 2008) is seen as a way to empower decision makers and allow

them to deliver the expectedresults quickly. On the other hand, commentators point out the potentially undemocratic

nature of decision making under special Commissioners (Cassese, 2006; Fioritto, 2008). The image of a “sultanate”or

the metaphor of 18th century absolute rulers havebeen frequently used to depict the Prime Minister's use of states of

emergencies (Chiavello,2010; Salvia, 2006; Violante, 2010). The same authors argue that appointing special Commis-

sioners excludes citizens and lower-tier administrators,and without strong control systems, Commissioners may end

up totally unaccountable, despite their great powers.

However, procedural accountability is just one of the many accountability demands characterizing the adminis-

tration of Pompeii, and the public sector generally. Studies of accountability emphasize that public employees typ-

ically operate in an accountability web, facing multiple sources of legitimate authority, and competing expectations

(Bovens, 2006; Bracci, 2009; Koppel, 2005; Leagreid& Neby, 2016; Luke, 2010; Romzek, 2000). In this sense, there is

no certainty that decreasing accountability for procedures leads to a result-oriented approach, or that this automati-

cally implies the absence of any form of accountability.For instance, the debate on accountability in the public sector

underlines the relevance of professional, political, and legal accountability,in addition to more traditional hierarchical

accountability forms (see Bovens,2006; Parker & Gould, 1999; Sinclair, 1995 for a detailed description of these forms).

Accountability demands may vary in terms of intensity, formality,and direction (Bergsteiner & Avery, 2009; Gelfand,