Introduction: Politicians and Bureaucrats in an Era of Democratic Backsliding

Politicians and bureaucrats’ relationships continue to attract scholarly interest and debate even in this age of democratic governance (DG) and democratic backsliding (DB). This book, which contains 13 chapters (including 11 regional and country cases), contributes to the debate by examining the relationships and rules of engagement of politicians and bureaucrats and the changes and impacts across different DG contexts. It emphasises the bureaucracy’s autonomy, service-orientation, and resilience despite recent global developments in attacking its meritocratic principle because of DB or democratic erosion (DE). It also discusses why and how illiberalism manifests in the behaviour and attitudes of bureaucrats. The book addresses the following questions: (i) Why and how did politician–bureaucrat relationships change during an era of DB, and what strategies were developed to resist authoritarian encroachments? (ii) What are the lessons and their implications for literature? The uniqueness of the volume lies in its reconceptualisation of DB as a contextually embedded and epistemically contingent process. Rather than treating phenomena such as executive aggrandisement, bureaucratic capture, or the politicisation of administrative norms as universally comparable across settings, the book demonstrates that their meanings, manifestations, and consequences are shaped by locally specific worldviews, belief systems, and historically constituted state–society relations. The chapters draw on qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods together with a historical–analytical approach aimed at making an original and significant contribution to existing literature on politicians and bureaucrats’ relationships in DG and DB. Data were derived from documentary, secondary, and internet sources.