The politics of bureaucracy: A view from Latin America
| Author | Conrado Ramos Larraburu |
| DOI | 10.1177/1369148119844498 |
| Published date | 01 August 2019 |
| Date | 01 August 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Breakthrough Commentaries |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1369148119844498
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2019, Vol. 21(3) 513 –521
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1369148119844498
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The politics of bureaucracy:
A view from Latin America
Conrado Ramos Larraburu
Keywords
comparative analysis, democracy, Latin America, public sector reforms, strengthening the state
An author and a book for a region waiting for them
Now is a good time in history to think about the influence and relevance of The Politics
of Bureaucracy (Peters, 2018a), since the book deals with bureaucracy and its role as a
political actor and as a government institution. In a world that witnesses the revival of
populist regimes (of the right and of the left) that represent a threat to liberal democracy,
thinking about its effects on bureaucracy and what is the role it must play in this context
is pressing. Precisely, the paper submitted by Guy Peters and Jon Pierre (2018) in the
recent American Political Science Association (APSA) Congress is entitled Populism and
Public Administration: Confronting the Administrative State. There, the different sce-
narios that may develop in the relationship between the leaders of populist governments
and their bureaucracies is set forth.
In Latin America, we have observed the turning towards authoritarian populism in
Venezuela, which hit every trace of institutional check and balance (including public
bureaucracy), triggering the current humanitarian crisis the country is undergoing. At the
time of writing, Jair Bolsonaro, an extreme-right populist leader, has just been elected
President of Brazil, representing a serious threat for the future of liberal democracy in this
country. Consequently, many of us have set our eyes on the will and the capacities that the
Brazilian public bureaucracy and the horizontal accountability institutions may have to
contain the concentration of power of an eventual authoritarian populist government.
The Politics of Bureaucracy was translated into Spanish in 1999, at the same time that
the understanding of centrality of bureaucracies in the public policies processes grew.
After the failures of neo-liberal policies in the 1980s and early 1990s, inspired in the
‘Washington Consensus’, at the end of the century many reforms designed to strengthen
public institutions were processed in Latin America. They required revitalising the
bureaucratic system and gaining the support of its officials (Oszlak, 1999). Therefore, it
is not strange that this book has been included by many of our universities in their course
programmes, and Guy Peters has since then been a distinguished visitor of our academic
Department of Political Science, Universidad de la República Uruguay, Montevideo, Uruguay
Corresponding author:
Conrado Ramos Larraburu, Universidad de la República Uruguay, Constituyente 1502, Montevideo 11200,
Uruguay.
Email: conrado.ramos@cienciassociales.edu.uy
844498BPI0010.1177/1369148119844498The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsRamos Larraburu
research-article2019
Breakthrough Commentary
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