215 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 C. Bianchi et al. (eds.), Enabling Collaborative Governance through Systems Modeling Methods, System Dynamics for Performance Management & Governance 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42970-6_10 Chapter 10 Patronage and the Public Service: A Dynamic Performance Governance Perspective B. Guy Peters and Carmine Bianchi Abstract Patronage is one of the enduring issues in public administration. Although the virtues of merit-based recruitment and retention in the public service are extolled widely, patronage of some form persists in many, if not most, countries. By using system dynamics modeling applied to performance governance, this chapter pro- vides an analysis of both the pathological and the eufunctional aspects of patronage appointments in the public sector. It also considers the potential virtues of using patronage appointments. In addition, using a dynamic performance governance model, we examine how patronage may actually improve the performance of public services. Keywords Patronage · Performance · Public services · Public employment 10.1 Introduction The selection and appointment of public servants has been and remains a central issue in the study of the public sector. 1 It is also a central issue for practitioners who want to make government function better. The guiding assumption, everything else being equal, is that the public service will perform better with a permanent career civil service selected based on merit. Going back to the appointment of mandarins in China, and now the standard form of civil service for developed democracies, the 1 In this chapter, we will use “public servants” as an inclusive term meaning individuals employed in the public sector, while “civil servants” will refer to those who are appointed and managed through a merit system. B. G. Peters University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA C. Bianchi (*) Department of Political Sciences, CED4 – System Dynamics Group, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy