Recent Evolution of Public Sector Structure in Latin America: Describing and Explaining Shifts in Autonomy Trends in Colombia and Venezuela
| Date | 01 February 2016 |
| Published date | 01 February 2016 |
| Author | Camilo Ignacio González,Koen Verhoest |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1746 |
RECENT EVOLUTION OF PUBLIC SECTOR STRUCTURE IN LATIN
AMERICA: DESCRIBING AND EXPLAINING SHIFTS IN AUTONOMY
TRENDS IN COLOMBIA AND VENEZUELA
CAMILO IGNACIO GONZÁLEZ
1,2
*AND KOEN VERHOEST
1
1
Antwerp University, Belgium
2
Universidad el Bosque, Colombia
SUMMARY
This article has two objectives. The first objective is to review and assess the recent evolution of agency design in Colombia
and Venezuela. More specifically, we study the agencies’formal autonomy in these two countries since the year 1999 when
Venezuela experienced a major change in government policy towards socialism. Thus, we attempt to explore how this policy
change is reflected in the formal autonomy of agencies. Our second objective is to test if, despite the differences in policy
choices the two countries have taken in the recent years, there are theoretical factors related to the agencies’design that
can explain the level of formal autonomy of the agencies. The results show two main elements: first, even though the patterns
of formal agency autonomy in Colombia and Venezuela differed before Venezuela’s latter policy change, the differences be-
tween these two countries have increased since 2000. This indicates that each country’s policy preferences may account for
the differences. Second, for both countries, we found that, despite the differences, agency level factors such as the primary
tasks that are performed by the agencies and the policy sector in which they are active have had an impact on their level
of formal autonomy. However, the results indicate that these relationships do not follow the predictions that have been made
based on the different theoretical perspectives. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
key words—agencies; formal autonomy; task; policy sector
INTRODUCTION
One of the main characteristics of government reforms in the last few years has been the establishment of disag-
gregated bodies called agencies (Flinders and Smith, 1999; Pollitt et al., 2004). These agencies were created and
designed to perform formerly centrally organized government tasks (Verhoest et al., 2010). This phenomenon
has implied a rearrangement of the relationship between the central government (i.e. the ministers and parent de-
partments) and the agencies (Christensen and Laegreid, 2006). Because of the delegation of tasks, the agencies
have obtained a certain level of autonomy, which partially exempts them from the traditional control and direc-
tion ministries and departments.
In this article, we study a particular characteristic of agency design, which is their formal autonomy, as well as
how it is affected by political preferences regarding design and by agency level characteristics such as the policy
sector in which an agency is located, as well as the tasks they perform. This study focuses on two Latin American
countries, Colombia and Venezuela. We have chosen the previously mentioned factors because they have been
consistently used in the research about agency design and autonomy.
*Correspondence to: C. I. González, Law and Political Sciences Faculty, Universidad el Bosque, Bogotá Colombia. E-mail: Camilo.
gonzalez2011@yahoo.com; ciggonzalez@unbosque.edu.co; Camiloignacio.gonzalez@uantwerpen.be
Both authors contributed to a large part of the paper.
public administration and development
Public Admin. Dev. 36,35–50 (2016)
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pad.1746
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
The article has two objectives. The first objective is to review and assess the recent evolution of agency design in
Colombia and Venezuela. In particular, we study agencies’formal autonomy in these two countries since the year
1999
1
when Venezuelaexperienced a major governmentpolicy change towardssocialism. Thus, we attemptto explore
how this policychange is reflected in the formal autonomyof the agencies. Our second objective is to test if, despitethe
differences in thepolicy choices that the two countries have takenin the last years, there are theoretical factorsthat are
related to agencies’design that can explain the level of formal autonomy of the agencies. Hence, the selection of the
two countries had the purpose of, on the one hand, comparing two countries with very different recent policy choices
and, on the other hand, addressing the explanatory power of certain theoretical factors despite those differences.
Studying the formal autonomy of agencies reflects the political preferences of the elected officials in agency de-
sign. Providing formal autonomy to agencies is a design decision that is made by politicians that reflects the extent
to which they wish to separate agencies’internal decision-making from politics or if they will have direct control
over them (Yesilkagit, 2004). By formal autonomy, we closely follow Verhoest et al. (2004) and their notions of
legal autonomy and structural autonomy. Legal autonomy refers to the situation in which the legal status of an
agency prevents the government from interfering in its decision-making process. Structural autonomy refers to
the existence of a governing board that acts as a protection layer to political interference. Thus, these two dimen-
sions of address the degree to which an agency is capable of functioning, managing its resources, and making
decisions on its own, without the interference from a parent minister or other political actor.
The creation of agencies since the 1990s in Venezuela and Colombia is related by two factors: first, by the adoption of
a neo-liberal economic model at the end of the 1980s, which meant privatization, the deregulation of markets, the creation
of regulatory agencies, and fiscal and tax reforms (Sarmiento, 1994; Jaimes, 1996; Jordana and Levi-Faur, 2005). Second,
new public managementtype of reforms in both countries were discussed and to some degree implemented. The over-
all topics of the reforms werethe simplification of state structures,the disaggregation of organizations (creating agen-
cies), the contracting of services, measurement performance and the shift to an output focus (Garcia, 2008).
That being said, this article is not about delegation as such or agency fever (Pollit et al., 2001), which is more
related to the creation or removal of agencies and the changes in the task and policy sector over time (Yesilkagit
and Christensen, 2009). Therefore, we do not study what happens to a specific agency over time, but rather the
overall levels of formal autonomy, which are related to general design decisions.
The relevance of this research lies in the fact that until this point, the focus of agency research has rarely gone
beyond The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OCDE) OECD member countries. Thus,
we aim to add new insights to the few studies of agencies from a non-OECD perspective (Tavits and Annus, 2006;
Sezen, 2007; Sulle, 2010).
Furthermore, the autonomy of public sector organizations in developing countries has been linked to the capacity
of organizations to reach a high level of efficiency even within hostile environments (Israel, 1987; Wilson, 1989;
Bebbington and McCourt, 2007; (Taliercio, 2004); (Yamamoto, 2006)). The argument is that organizations that
can function with autonomy vis-à-vis political operators and respond to pressures for effectiveness will be more
likely to become what has been named ‘pockets of effectiveness’(Daland, 1981; Leonard, 2010). This means that
agencies with higher levels of autonomy are more insulated from political interference than those with lower levels
of autonomy. Therefore, in the case of countries that have a strong clientelistic practice in their functioning, such as
Colombia and Venezuela (Restrepo, 2003; Nef, 2005), studying the autonomy of agencies is highly relevant.
Finally, because we have chosen Colombia and Venezuela as countries of study because they took a similar re-
form path during the 1990s (Jaimes, 1996; Garcia, 2008), and they have had opposite policies during the last de-
cade, we are able to assess the effect of policy changes in the patterns of agencies’formal autonomy. Additionally,
with the selection of these countries, we aim to explore if the factors that have been important in the explanation of
formal autonomy in agency research also apply to a developing context.
1
For the analysis of this article, we used as a starting point the year 2000 and notthe year 1999 when President Chavez took office, because there
were no data for that year in the case of Venezuela. However, we do not expect major differences to occur between the years 1999 and 2000,
because major public sector reforms need time to show their effects. Actually, the results of this article show that the major differences between
Colombia and Venezuela are seen not at the beginning of the period of study but in the middle of it.
36 C. I. GONZÁLEZ AND K. VERHOEST
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Public Admin. Dev. 36,35–50 (2016)
DOI: 10.1002/pad
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