This article examines relationships between historical administrative systems and civil service politicization across Europe. I argue that to appreciate when and how history matters, we need to consider public service bargains struck between politicians and senior bureaucrats. Doing so complicates the relationship between historical and current administrative systems: a bureaucratic, as opposed to patrimonial, 18th-century state infrastructure is necessary for the depoliticization of ministerial bureaucracies in present-day Western Europe. However, the relationship does not hold in East-Central Europe since administrative histories are tumultuous and fractured. Combining data from across the European continent, I provide evidence in support of these propositions.

Points for practitioners

This article addresses policymakers dealing with reforms of personnel policy regimes at the centre of government. It considers the importance of history for politically attractive reforms, as well as the limits of this importance. I argue that 18th-century state infrastructures shape the extent to which political appointments are politically attractive tools for administrative control. I show that only in countries that feature a bureaucratic, as opposed to patrimonial, 18th-century infrastructure are ministerial top management occupied by a permanent, as opposed to politically appointed, staff. However, in East-Central Europe, a ruptured administrative history ensures that the distant past does not similarly shape the extent of political appointments.