Bureaucratic Polarization: Balancing Merit and Trust in the Romanian Senate

Abstract This paper addresses the advisory arrangements within the Chancellery of the President of the Romanian Senate, examining in a comparative manner the profiles and roles of the two types of in-house advisors, tenured parliamentary experts and personal advisors, in designing and influencing the decision-making process. The article uses a complex methodology based on social network analysis, qualitative and content analysis of semi-structured interviews with former Chancellery directors, and quantitative analysis of personnel data in order to present a full picture of the internal relations and interactions between the parliamentary experts and personal advisors over the period from March 10, 2014 until July 29, 2022, covering seven different Romanian Senate president mandates. Our findings show that for tenured civil servants, activity within the Chancellery constitutes one of the most important periods of their professional career, while for personal advisors, the activity within the Chancellery is another window of opportunity to enhance their political network.