How Polarization and Democratic Backsliding Affect Public Sector Recruitment

Some lessons from Israel

What happens to people’s inclination to work in government when they face an administration they see as ideologically extreme, corrupt, undermining democracy, or acting against the public interest?

Albert Hirschman provided a typology that has been widely applied to this situation: exit, voice, and loyalty, which some have expanded to include other categories such as neglect, resistance and sabotage. One problem is that these typologies only consider existing employees, not potential employees – those outside government who are motivated to serve society and to influence public policy.

So, how do potential entrants respond?

This question matters for the government’s ability to recruit new employees during periods of democratic backsliding or sharp polarization. The table below, drawn from a recent article with my colleagues, develops a conceptual framework that extends Hirschman’s typology by comparing the array of possible responses of existing civil servants with those of potential recruits.

Mirror-image typology of actual and potential employees’ explication of their choice to work or forgo work in government amid democratic and bureaucratic decline

Source: Marciano, Shpaizman, and Gilad, 2026.

Academics seldom acknowledge the possibility that individuals’ choice to seek work in government is influenced by their partisan beliefs and perceptions of the trustworthiness of the party and leaders in power. The established understanding is that some people prefer work in the public sector over the private sector due to their motivation to serve society and their preference for secure, stable employment. This calculus is supposedly shaped by a long-term view of one’s career, which discards the question of which party is heading the government at the time of entry to the civil service.

Partisan support for and trust in governing politicians as a factor shaping the choice to pursue government work becomes logical when viewed against the backdrop of three interrelated global phenomena that deter opposition supporters from pursuing government employment:

• First is the increase in “affective polarization,” namely, individuals’ self-identification as members of a partisan camp and animosity towards the leaders and supporters of rival political parties or coalitions. When polarization is high, evaluations of government as an employer and as the place to serve society are more likely to be processed through a partisan lens.

• Second, radical-right populist leaders and parties are assuming positions of government power in some countries and have the potential to do so in others. The animosity that supporters of rival parties harbor toward these leaders and their parties likely deters entry into government.

• Third, polarization and populism are often accompanied by democratic backsliding. That is, political leaders’ subversion of the electoral system, undermining institutional checks and balances on their power, and advancement of illiberal policies.

  Studies across the globe show that democratic backsliding also involves intense politicization of the bureaucracy and the sidelining of career civil servants. Potential recruits who oppose this process are likely to see it as a signal that, if they were to join the government, they would lack influence, might find themselves controlled by unprofessional managers, and would be forced to implement harmful policies.

In a series of studies in Israel, my colleagues and I have been examining the magnitude of the effect of individuals’ partisan support for the governing party and its leaders on their entry to the national civil service, its variation, underlying logic, potential ramifications, and mitigating factors. The findings cast light on what happens to the ability of a government to recruit when society is politically polarized and the bureaucracy becomes more politicized amidst democratic backsliding.

We find that potential employees are mostly disinclined to work under politicians they distrust, with some waiting for a future political turnover while pursuing work in nonprofits, other levels of government or firms that consult the government, and others skipping public service altogether. While exit, voice, loyalty, and resistance are strategies for current employees, potential employees tend to choose between waiting outside and non-entry.

Israel, like the US, is highly polarized, divided between supporters and opponents of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his radical right partners. In addition, the past three and a half years have involved a rapid deterioration of Israeli democracy (which has never been perfect) and its bureaucracy. In January 2023, shortly after the current government’s inauguration, it introduced the Judicial Overhaul plan, which, like other instances of democratic backsliding worldwide, was intended to weaken judicial and legal checks and balances on executive power.

Following Hamas’s October 7^th, 2023, attack, the government officially halted its advancement of the Judicial Overhaul. In practice, however, alongside the war in Gaza and other fronts, it continued its internal attack on the judiciary and the Attorney General’s office, and intensified the politicization of the civil service, the police, and the security forces. The undermining of these institutions further enabled some of the government’s far-right agendas, most notably in the occupied territories.

How do potential recruits respond to this context?

Taking a first stab at this question, together with Raanan Sulitzeanu-Kenan and David Levi- Faur, we conducted a two-wave survey of 21-to-30-year-old Israelis in August and September 2023. We measured respondents’ partisan alignment (or misalignment) with the government coalition, perceptions of the Judicial Overhaul, and attraction to central government work.

We found that when offered a job with objectively equal material conditions, supporters of the opposition were much less likely to consider work in a central government ministry compared with the business sector. Moreover, among the Jewish majority, these partisan differences were fully attributable to opposition supporters’ perception of the Judicial Overhaul as a threat to Israel’s democracy.

Approaching the same respondents shortly after the October 7 attack, we found that opposition supporters’ relative disinterest in working in the central government remained intact. Moreover, as shown in Figure 1, the increase in their motivation to serve society mostly boosted their attraction to the nonprofit sector as a substitute for government work (which attracted supporters of the coalition).

Figure 1: Coalition and opposition supporters’ attraction to work in government (red), business (green), and nonprofits (blue), before and after Oct. 7.

In a subsequent interview-based study, conducted towards the end of 2024, Reut Marciano, Ilana Shpaizman, and I compared the career choices and plans of actual civil servants and potential recruits who recognized and opposed the government’s undermining of democracy and of the quality of the bureaucracy.

We found that very few potential recruits were willing to enter the central government to “fix it.” For most respondents, as reflected in the following quotations, entering government entailed being complicit in an institution taken over by politicians who do not pursue the public interest.

I can’t seem to make myself apply [for positions in the civil service], because there’s not a single government ministry that I would be happy to work in… not a single minister that I can trust that my professional judgment will be used for the good.

[I would be willing to work for] any government..., which is not headed by [Prime Minister] Netanyahu... [any government] ...which has a main aim of serving the public good. It is not about ideological affinity...But it has to be a government, which has the purpose of advancing the public [interest].

However, we unraveled an important variation among those who chose to forgo entry. Whereas some of these respondents sought an alternative career path in the private sector, others conveyed their position as waiting to enter the civil service in the event of political turnover and the election of a trustworthy government.

Waiting involved cultivating skills through education or work that would be valuable for a future civil service career. These respondents argued that one cannot and should not enter now, since politicization is omnipresent and bureaucrats cannot serve the public interest. They explained their outlook as waiting rather than pursuing an alternative career, given their attachment to the nation and commitment to rebuilding Israel’s democracy and the civil service.

Finally, in a recent study (Clareta Treger, Sharon Gilad, and Ilana Shpaizman), we examine whether and how it might be possible to attract recruits who distrust Netanyahu and his coalition government. We examine two potential factors that may offset low trust in elected officials: respondents’ trust in civil servants and the material attributes of government jobs. The study benefited from our collaboration with the Israeli National Student Union, which distributed a survey on our behalf to BA students across higher education institutions.

We found that trust in civil servants is distinct from, and higher than, trust in elected officials, and that both trust in civil servants and the material attributes of government jobs shape attraction to the central government. Yet, neither factor can significantly attenuate the negative effect of low trust in elected officials. In other words, distrust in Netanyahu caused many to avoid entering government service. Instead, those who trust civil servants, yet distrust Netanyahu and his ministers, were attracted to jobs in local government, which they likely perceived as shielded from central political control.

Overall, the above findings, drawn from different samples and methods, suggest that Israeli opposition supporters are shunning central government work.

Underlying the choice of potential Israeli employees not to enter central government is distrust of elected officials and disdain for their attacks on democracy and the bureaucracy, with some further repelled by the Gaza war. If committed to serving society, some of these individuals seek work in sectors and organizations insulated from national political control, such as nonprofits and local government, and, possibly, independent agencies and regional government offices.

One implication of these career choices is gradual partisan homogenization of the public service. The longer the current administration, which opposition supporters view as untrustworthy, remains in office, the more politically homogeneous the civil service becomes, not only due to politicization but also because political opponents choose to avoid government work. Since partisanship in Israel and elsewhere strongly correlates with other demographic factors, such homogenization means the bureaucracy becomes less representative of the public and probably less responsive to its diverse interests and needs.

How relevant are these findings beyond the Israeli case? Recent findings from the US suggest a similar pattern. Studying a sample of American job seekers, Susan Miller and I find that job seekers are less attracted to work for a state government when the Governor has a different party ID from them. We also find that job seekers are less attracted to public sector work under conditions of polarization between political elites and when governors undermine democracy and bureaucratic meritocracy.

Importantly, our findings from Israel suggest that in the event of political turnover, former opposition supporters may be attracted to central government work, provided they believe that democracy and the bureaucracy can be revived. As an Israeli citizen, I long to contribute to the study of such a process if and when it occurs, and look forward to relevant comparisons.

Bio: Sharon Gilad is a full professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the chair of its political science department.

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