Meritocracy Under Political Arbitration: Cabinet Discussions of Bureaucratic Appointments in Norway 1945-1985

In parliamentary democracies, ministers frequently serve as the ultimate decision-makers on appointments of senior bureaucrats. Research relying on expert surveys and observational data on the characteristics of appointees has shown that this can result in politicization of appointments, however little is known about the actual behavior of ministers in these decisions. Using a novel dataset of confidential minutes from Norwegian cabinet meetings (1945-1985), this paper examines cabinet decision-making on appointments in a country where norms dictate that ministers should not interfere politically in appointments. The paper identifies instances where appointment cases end up on the government's agenda within the corpus of cabinet meetings using an automated approach, annotating these with information of the type of position, nature of deliberations and disagreement among cabinet ministers. The findings reveal that appointments are often on the cabinet's agenda and that discussions of either meritocratic or political criteria are more common than rubber-stamping of the bureaucracy’s recommendation. Even in a context of strong meritocratic norms, the political treatment of appointments resulted in outcomes that run counter to the bureaucracy’s recommendation in 10% of cases.