Southern European public bureaucracies in comparative perspective.

Perhaps paradoxically, the comparative study of modern bureaucracies has been less advanced in European countries associated with negative stereotypes of administrative performance. Such is the case of the countries of Southern Europe (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain). Comparative studies of models of government or traditions of governance usually do not include Southern Europe (e.g., Ziller 2001; Bevir et al. 2003). Bureaucratic structures in the four countries during the post-authoritarian period have not been systematically studied, even though after the mid-1970s the political science literature on Southern Europe burgeoned, focusing on successful transitions to democracy (Pridham 1984; O' Donnel et al. 1986). There has also been a separate literature on the integration of Southern Europe into the EU (Tsoukalis 1981; Featherstone and Kazamias 2001). In most of the above research, emphasis was put on the comparison of processes (transition, consolidation, integration) rather than structures, such as bureaucratic institutions. Exceptions have been studies looking at the state structures of Southern Europe indirectly, i.e., in regard to specific policy areas (e.g., Pridham 1996; Bermeo 1999). There is a general understanding that the four bureaucracies share some empirical parallels or similarities (Goetz 2001: 1042-43) and even that one may speak of the 'state in Southern Europe' (Giner 1985; Pagoulatos 2003).

The traits of South European bureaucracies have not been clearly formulated either in the literature on democratic consolidation in Southern Europe (Pridham 1990; Linz et al. 1995; Morlino 1998; Diamandouros and Gunther 2001; Magone 2003) or in the literature on the common features of South European welfare states (Ferrera 1996). On the other hand, research based on induction from empirical data is inconclusive: research on comparative public policy for the period 1960-95 assigns Greece, Portugal and Spain (but not Italy) to a southern family (Castles 1999). Other research on the same period shows that Greece, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain fall into the same 'family of nations' in regard to social and economic policy (Obinger and Wagschal 2001: 103, 107).

In view of the above, a deductive approach may be worth exploring. Since the early nineteenth century Greece, Portugal, Italy and Spain have followed a comparable, long road to socio-economic modernisation and democratisation (Malefakis 1995). Accepting that 'the sphere of modern public administration is an integral part of the consolidation of democracy' (Goetz 2001: 1033), we may deduce that the particular South European pattern of democratic consolidation in the twentieth century, involving social mobilisation and ideological polarisation after transition from authoritarian rule, fits with a distinct type of administration.

Research on non-compliance in the European Union (Borzel 2001: 818) shows that until the early 1990s Italy, Greece and Portugal led the other EU member states in the share of formal letters from the Commission, reasoned opinions and referrals to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). It is possible to claim that there is no 'Mediterranean syndrome' (Borzel 2001: 820), since France and Belgium also belonged to the same group of laggards (behind the above three South European states), while Spain was close to the EU average. However, one cannot help noting that in 1978-92 the aforementioned three South European states accounted for a little less than half of all referrals to the ECJ (with the addition of Spain, the share of Southern Europe surpassed 55 per cent of all referrals; Borzel 2001: Table 4). It is reasonable to deduce that a particular model of public administration hides behind such a difficulty or reluctance to implement European law.

It is equally plausible to assume that the 'southern model of welfare' corresponds to a distinct set of bureaucratic institutions. The policies which have characterised the South European welfare model could probably have not emanated from a state apparatus associated with different models of welfare, such as the social democratic, Scandinavian or the conservative-corporatist West European welfare models.

Observers of Southern Europe may associate bureaucracies of the region with corruption or inefficiency. However, these are behavioural patterns rather than structural characteristics. In addition, corruption is notoriously difficult to evaluate in a comparative perspective. Thus, in this article we do not list debatable stereotypes, but discuss structural characteristics of South European bureaucracies, which are inter-related and may constitute a 'model'. The purpose of this exercise is to obtain a starting base, i.e., an ideal type against which relatively recent changes in South European bureaucracies can be described. Some of the changes have originated at the international level. Given that domestic bureaucratic structures mediate the influences of globalisation and European integration, neither convergence among EU member states nor the outcomes of externally driven pressures to reform can be assessed without knowledge of the original state of affairs in individual national bureaucracies or sets of bureaucracies.

Similarities between the bureaucracies of North, Western and Southern Europe, owed to the diffuse of the Napoleonic model of administration, may be deceptive because they hide informal patterns which characterised South European bureaucracies until the end the twentieth century. In the following sections of this article we will first put South European bureaucracies in the context of South European political economy. We will then distinguish between two patterns of clientelism and discuss three more distinguishing characteristics of South European bureaucracies, which stem from clientelism. We will end with a note on new trends, indicating the variable distance from the original model which the four bureaucracies have travelled.