How do Supreme Audit Institutions reflect societal change? A Prosopographical Analysis of Top Civil Servants in the German States (1945–2022)

Abstract

Research on top civil servants reveals the increasing heterogeneity within this once rather homogeneous group across many countries in recent decades. While changes in the composition of administrative elites in government departments and agencies in different countries have received considerable attention in existing literature, top civil servants in Supreme Audit Institutions (SAI) have so far hardly been considered. In light of this gap, this article investigates the change of socio-demographic and career backgrounds among SAI presidents in the German states over more than 70 years (1945–2022), utilizing prosopographical data. The results indicate larger changes with regard to gender representation and study background, whereas age, career background, and educational degree have undergone only moderate changes.