Colombia Internacional

Colomb. int. | eISSN 1900-6004 | ISSN 0121-5612

Exploring Agency Termination in Colombia: Understanding the Impact of Political and Economic Factors on the Survival of Public Organizations

No. 112 (2022-10-01)
  • Luis Bernardo Mejía Guinand
    Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)
  • Isabella Pinzón Caputo
    Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)

Abstract

Objective/Context: This paper analyzes factors related to political incentives for public organizations to cease operations. It suggests that political turnover has a negative effect on the duration of these types of entities. However, this effect differs according to the size of the governing coalition. Methodology: Semi-parametric models and Cox regressions are used to estimate the survival of 415 public organizations in Colombia. Conclusions: The data show that a change in the presidential administration allows the new president to reshape the administration according to their interests. Data analysis also indicates that the larger the size of the government coalition, the lower the probability that a public entity will be eliminated. Originality: The article uses an original database containing longitudinal information on public organizations in Colombia for the period 1958 to 2020. This database contains 415 observations on the organizational characteristics of each entity. This paper contributes to the scarce literature on the termination of public organizations in Latin America.

Keywords: Public organizations, termination of organizations, presidentialism, survival analysis

References

Ballinas Valdés, Cristopher. 2011. Political Struggles and the Forging of Autonomous Government Agencies. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.

Ballinas Valdés, Cristopher. 2009. “The Politics of Agency Design: Politics and the Forging of Autonomous Agencies in Mexico”, PhD dissertation, University of Oxford-Department of Politics and International Relations.

Boin, Arjen, SannekeKuipers, and MarcoSteenbergen. 2010. “The Life and Death of Public Organizations: A Question of Institutional Design?” Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration, and Institutions, 23 (3): 385-410. https://ssrn.com/abstract=2198952

Box-Steffensmeier, Janet, and BradfordJones. 2004. Event History Modeling. A Guide for Social Scientists. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Carpenter, Daniel, and DanielLewis. 2004. “Political Learning from Rare Events: Poisson Inference, Fiscal Constraints, and the Lifetime of Bureaus.” Political Analysis 12 (3): 201-232. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25791773

Cox, David. 1972. “Regression Models and Lifetables.” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B (Methodological) 34 (2): 187-220. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2985181

Cox, David. 1975. “Partial Likelihood.” Biometrika 62 (2): 269-276. https://doi.org/10.1093/biomet/62.2.269

Duque Daza, Javier. 2014. “¿Presidentes legislando?: Las facultades legislativas en el presidencialismo colombiano 1991-2014.” Estudios Socio-Jurídicos 17 (1): 77-123. https://doi: dx.doi.org/10.12804/esj17.01.2014.03

Fergusson, Leopoldo, PabloQuerubin, NelsonRuiz, and Juan F.Vargas. 2021. “The Real Winner’s Curse.” American Journal of Political Science 65 (1): 21-35. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12508

González, Camilo Ignacio, and LuisaFernanda Tanco-Cruz. 2019. “Creación de organizaciones públicas en Colombia: ¿Importan el sector y las funciones?” Innovar 29 (71): 113-126. https://doi.org/10.15446/innovar.v29n71.76399

González, Camilo Ignacio, and KoenVerhoest. 2016. “Recent Evolution of Public Sector Structure in Latin America: describing and explaining shifts in autonomy trends in Colombia and Venezuela.” Public Administration and Development 36 (1): 35-50. https://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1746

Greasley, Stephen, and ChrisHanretty. 2016. “Credibility and Agency Termination under Parliamentarism.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 26 (1): 159-173. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muu050

Hartlyn, Jonathan. 1988. The Politics of Coalitional Rule in Colombia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

James, Oliver, NicolaiPetrovsky, AliceMoseley, and George A.Boyne. 2015. “The Politics of Agency Death: Ministers and the Survival of Government Agencies in a Parliamentary System.” British Journal of Political Science 46 (4): 763-784. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123414000477

Jordana, Jacint, and CarlesRamió. 2010. “Delegation, Presidential Regimes, and Latin American Regulatory Agencies.” Journal of Politics in Latin America 2 (1): 3-30. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:gbv:18-4-2177

Kaplan, Edward, and PaulMeier. 1958. “Nonparametric Estimation from Incomplete Observations.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 53 (282): 457-481. https://doi.org/10.2307/2281868

Kaufman, Herbert. 1976. Are Government Organizations Immortal?Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.

Kuipers, Sanneke, KutsalYesilkagit, and BrendanCarroll. 2018. “Coming to Terms with Termination of Public Organizations”. Public Organization Review 18 (2): 263-278. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11115-017-0376-4

Lewis, David E.2004. “The Adverse Consequences of the Politics of Agency Design for Presidential Management in the United States: The Relative Durability of Insulated Agencies.” British Journal of Political Science 34 (3): 377-404. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123404000109

Lewis, David E.2002. “The Politics of Agency Termination: Confronting the Myth of Agency Immortality.” The Journal of Politics 64 (1): 89-107. https://www. jstor.org/stable/2691666

Lim, Jae Young. 2021. “The Evolution of Research on Organizational Termination.” International Review of Administrative Sciences 87 (1): 191-207. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852319852663

Macey, Jonathan.1993. “Organizational Design and Political Control of Administrative Agencies.” Journal of Law, Economics, & Organization 8 (1): 93-110. https://www.jstor.org/stable/764891

Moe, Terry. 1989. “The Politics of Bureaucratic Structure.” In Can the Government Govern, edited by JohnE. Chubb and PaulE. Peterson, 267-329. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institute.

Park, Sanghee. 2013. “What Causes the Death of Public Sector Organizations? Understanding Structural Changes and Continuities in Korean Quangos.” International Public Management Journal 16 (3): 413-437. https://doi.org/10.1080/10967494.2013.825491

Sanabria-Pulido, Pablo, and SantiagoLeyva. 2022. “A Patchwork Quilt of Public Administration Models Without Early Weberianism? Public Management Reforms in Colombia since the 1980s.” Public Management Review. https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2022.2054227

Sifontes, Domingo. 2005. “Independent Regulatory Agencies in Latin America Telecommunications Sector. A Comparative Study.” Paper presented at the 3rd ECPR General Conference, Budapest, Hungary, September 8-10.

Wood, Dan, and JohnBohte. 2004. “Political Transaction Costs and the Politics of Administrative Design.” The Journal of Politics 66 (1): 176-202. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1468-2508.2004.00147.x

License