Debasement of Merit: The Method and Experience of Political Discrimination by Public Employees in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico

• Author: Elizabeth Pérez-Chiqués,Ellen V. Rubin
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X211014948
• Published date: 01 December 2022
• Date: 01 December 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X211014948

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2022, Vol. 42(4) 669 –685

© The Author(s) 2021

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X211014948

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Article

Debasement of Merit:

The Method and Experience

of Political Discrimination

by Public Employees in

the Commonwealth

of Puerto Rico

Elizabeth Pérez-Chiqués1 and Ellen V. Rubin2

Abstract

While most democratic governments include some political appointees at the top of

agencies for the sake of bureaucratic accountability, too much patronage decreases

government performance. Puerto Rico has all of the components for a robust

merit system on paper, but it is consistently undermined, with significant negative

consequences for public employees. Based on an inductive analysis of 29 in-depth

interviews with public employees and 50 political discrimination court cases, this

article shows how an informal patronage system is implemented by incorporating

political information into personnel decisions. The pervasiveness of this system

results in employees being categorized as either insiders or outsiders, where outsider

status is accompanied by harassment, ostracizing, and other negative changes in

working conditions. These shifts in status sustain patronage practices by crystalizing

political identity, which increases partisan polarization, and provides a rationale and

justification for future politically discriminatory actions.

Keywords

job patronage, favoritism, political discrimination, civil service, career employees,

merit

1Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Aguascalientes, Mexico

2University at Albany, State University of New York, USA

Corresponding Author:

Elizabeth Pérez-Chiqués, Public Administration Division, Centro de Investigación y Docencia

Económicas, Circuito Tecnopolo Norte 117, Col. Tecnopolo Pocitos II, Delegación Hacienda Nueva,

Aguascalientes 20313, Mexico.

Email: elizabeth.perez@cide.edu

1014948ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X211014948Review of Public Personnel AdministrationPérez-Chiqués and Rubin

research-article2021

670 Review of Public Personnel Administration 42(4)

Introduction

Democratic governments include some portion of patronage positions, and the U.S.

federal government has a larger proportion of political appointees than most central

governments in developed democracies (Lewis, 2008; Maranto, 2005). In democra-

cies, bureaucracies are held accountable by the voters, in part, when elected chief

executives make political appointments, and those appointees then direct agency pri-

orities. From the executive’s point of view appointees are both a tool for controlling

agencies and a patronage reward (Lewis, 2008). While both patronage and merit

appointment have their place, democratic governments require a blended approach.

The challenge is to develop the correct balance that provides both for political respon-

siveness while at the same time leveraging career expertise for effectiveness. Research

in the U.S. states finds that government personnel systems largely dominated by merit-

based appointment and systems largely dominated by political appointments perform

worse than systems with a balance of political executives and career officials (Krause

et al., 2006). Similarly, a study of the U.S. federal government finds that increased

politicization decreases agency performance (Lewis, 2008).

In the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the merit system is off balance. Although

modeled after U.S. federal law and in place for more than 100 years, Puerto Rico’s

civil service system does not uphold merit as officially intended. The tenured work-

force is highly politicized due to informal, long-standing personnel practices in which

public employees are politically-managed according to the perceived or actual politi-

cal affiliation of employees (Colón-González, 2012; Puerto Rico Civil Rights

Commission [PRCRC], 1992). In this context, illegal personnel practices thrive not-

withstanding the numerous laws and constitutional protections that exist to uphold

merit and prevent political discrimination.

The scholarship on patronage spans many disciplines. At the individual level,

patronage is typically described in terms of the relationships for insiders, or those

directly involved in the exchange of political support for public jobs or benefits (e.g.,

Grindle, 1977, 2012; Oliveros, 2013; Panizza et al., 2019). Micro-level explanations

of how patronage is sustained, such as loyalty and reciprocity, monitoring, and interest

alignment (Oliveros, 2013) also derive from insider-based dynamics. These explana-

tions do not consider the simultaneous experience of the outsiders or of the individuals

who do not get the jobs, who lose their jobs, or whose work conditions are negatively

affected because of their perceived or actual political affiliation. These studies also

lack consideration of the cumulative experience of being politically-managed that ten-

ured employees in politicized bureaucracies might experience as political parties cycle

in and out of power. We argue that by not addressing the outsider experience, nor the

shifts in insider-outsider status that employees might experience, the literature is miss-

ing an important account of how patronage systems work, which could contribute to a

greater understanding of the micro-level mechanisms involved in sustaining patronage

practices and making them so intractable.

This study is based on the inductive analysis of 29 in-depth interviews with public

employees and 50 political discrimination court cases in Puerto Rico. We analyze the