Celina Souza
INCT-PPED and IESP-UERJ
Sienna, May 6, 2014
Analyze the process of bureaucratization and the
construction of bureaucratic capacity in Brazil
and Argentina
 Measure the quality of the Brazilian bureaucracy
in agencies in charge of four developmental
policies (environment, infrastructure, industrial
and innovation)
 Creation of an index of bureaucratic capacity in
Brazil (Index of Bureaucratic Capacity - IBC)
 Capture and analyze the perceptions of
bureaucratic and social actors in Argentina about
the quality of their bureaucracy

 The
capacity of the bureaucracy is a
predictor of what is likely to happen to
public policies
 Brazil and Argentina began their
bureaucratization process at the same time
(1930s), their systems were quite similar but
they followed a completely different path
regarding the selection of their civil
servants after redemocratization.
 Literature: State capacity and Evans and
Rauch (1999; 2000).
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The difference between Brazil and Argentina after the end of the
military dictatorships is explained by different political agendas
Brazilians decided to write a new Constitution in 1988 to
inaugurate the new democratic regime. The main goal was to
rebuild democratic institutions. Access to public employment
through competition and meritocratic criteria was part of the
redemocratization agenda to distance the new regime from the
previous one, based mainly on patronage. Furthermore,
meritocratic criteria was seen as a requirement of advanced
democracies
In Argentina no new Constitution was written and in 1994 a
constitutional amendment was approved with no major
institutional change, except the constitutionalization of several
international treaties for the protection of human rights, heavily
violated during the military regime.
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State formation and bureaucratization in Brazil and
Argentina and its relation to state capacity
Data and analysis:
• Index of bureaucratic capacity in Brazil (IBC)
• Perceptions of bureaucratic and social actors in
Argentina about the quality of their bureaucracy
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Discussion
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Tilly x Silberman
And what about Latin America?
Questions:
• What were the differences and similarities in the bureaucratization
processes?
• Do different trajectories explain subsequent decisions about the rules
for civil servants recruitment?
• Both countries adopted a politico-technocratic criteria for recruitment,
but why Brazil has opted for changing it and not Argentina?
• Do similar trajectories alone explain why they distance themselves
from each other?

Hypotheses:
• Similar trajectories in the early 1930s but institutions created in Brazil
survived but not in Argentina
• Politics matter: rational actors (politicians) addressing issues of
different agendas
 Objectives
• To capture the quality of the federal bureaucracy
in four policy areas: environment, industrial,
infrastructure and innovation
• To capture differences among agencies
Dimensions:
 Recruitment I: proportion of the higher officials in the
agencies who entered the civil service via formal
examination and competition
 Recruitment II – proportion of higher officials with
temporary contracts
 Types of professionalization:
• Generalist (English-speaking model)
• Specialist (French model)
Internal promotion: rules for the promotion of civil servants
Accountability: civil servants fired for wrongdoing
Sources:
 Federal government of Brazil: several sites – 18 agencies and
28.578 higher level civil servants
 Survey in Argentina: 18 interviews
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Disaggregation of the index by policy areas – innovation,
environment, infrastructure, industrial
Disaggregation of the index by dimensions of bureaucratic
capacity
Take advantage of the availability of online data
Little knowledge about who is and where is the “new” bureaucracy
recruited by competitive exams
Analyze the bureaucracy in charge of policy formulation and
implementation and not the entire bureaucracy
Proposition of a methodology applicable to other policies
Identify outliers and explain why and what policymakers can do
Different from other studies, we added state companies and
appointed officials to high positions
Different from other studies, we searched for a connection
between bureaucratic capacity and developmental policies and
not economic growth
Policy
IBC
Industrial
0,68
Innovation
0,66
Environment
0,62
Infrastructure
0,59
Dimension
Indicator
Weight
Recruitment I
IR1
0,2
0,504
0,007
0,226
0,039
Recruitment II
IR2
0,2
0,010
0,012
0,039
0,014
Generalist
IF1
0,2
0,011
0,018
0,007
0,005
Specialist
IF2
0,2
0,826
0,591
0,279
0,647
Internal Promotion
IP1
0,1
1,220
1,196
1,588
0,973
Accountability
IA1
0,1
0,018
0,010
0,004
0,000
IBC
Environment
0,624
Industrial
0,677
Infrastructure
0,590
Innovation
0,66
 No
data online or systematic information
available
 Different from Brazil, it is not possible to
construct an index or to analyze specific
policy areas
 Survey (questionnaire) to capture
perception
 Ex-post evaluation - answers were
consistent: bureaucrats, politicians, scholars,
members of think tanks.
18%
82%
Less than 30%
Between 30-60%
36%
46%
18%
Between 30-60%
Between 60-90%
More than 90%
9%
27%
18%
46%
Dependent on the agency
Between 30-60%
Between 60-90%
Don´t know
18%
36%
9%
37%
Don´t know
2 levels
3-4 levels
Several
36%
64%
Between 30-60%
Between 50-90%
0
9%
91%
Don´t know
Seldom
1.
Two main distinct political decisions with consequences for the
political and bureaucratic systems:
1.
2.
2.
3.
The writing up of a new Constitution in Brazil based on broad societal
participation and on several instruments to legitimize the new democracy.
Argentina´s political elites mainly addressed the issue of human rights
Starting in 1994, the federal government in Brazil created thousands of new
jobs in the civil service and officials became to be selected by competition
By any dimension analyzed (recruitment, types of
professionalization, internal promotion and accountability)
Brazil scores better than Argentina, although in Brazil there are
differences between and among agencies and policy areas.
Brazilian policymakers have large information advantage over
Argentinean.
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The research confirms the literature in bureaucratic capacity: its
distribution is not uniform
The concept of path dependency explains only partially why
Brazil followed one path and Argentina another after
redemocratization. To depend only on path dependence
arguments without specifying different political environments and
political agendas does not explain why rational actors took
different decisions at the same critical juncture
Because civil servants in Argentina, in particular higher officials,
are not selected through competition, it does not mean that
patronage alone prevails and that the government is unable to
provide public policies. Its capability is selective, to policies high
on the President´s agenda.
Brazil now fulfills all the requisites of a Weberian bureaucracy
whereas in Argentina public officials still face uncertainty and are
subjected to electoral cycles.
 Different
redemocratization agendas
guided political/rational actors in Brazil
and Argentina
Brazil looked towards the future and
Argentina towards the past