Schenoni, Luis L; (2023) Reinvented Governments in Latin America: Reform Waves and Diverging Outcomes. In: Centeno, Miguel A and Ferraro, Agustin E, (eds.) State and Nation Making in Latin America and Spain The Neoliberal State and Beyond. (pp. 243-268). Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK.

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Abstract

This chapter provides a historical institutionalist interpretation of first- and second-generation administrative reforms in Latin America during the 1990s, building on the experiences of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Peru. Although path dependence partly explains why Brazil and Chile were able to secure bureaucratic autonomy during the first wave and retain the administrative capacity to implement the second wave of reforms successfully, the contrasting experiences of Argentina and Brazil illustrate how similarly profound critical junctures led to different outcomes depending on a contingent constellation of political factors. The chapter also illustrates how the concept of sequencing is key to explain the success of second-generation reforms. In Argentina and Peru, where first-generation reforms were profound, administrative autonomy was undermined, and the capacity to implement the recommendations of the second wave was severely hampered. Overall, the chapter illustrates how the field of public administration could benefit from the incorporation of concepts such as bureaucratic autonomy and capacity and theoretical constructs such as path dependence, critical junctures, contingency, forking, sequencing, and others, which are central to the study of the state in the historical institutionalist tradition.

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