Product details
- ISBN 9781032939964
- Weight: 930g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 15 May 2025
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Although the everyday actions of civil servants and the overall performance of government agencies have huge impacts on the lives of Latin America’s citizens, scholars have only recently begun to analyze the region’s bureaucrats and bureaucracies. This book focuses on bureaucratic attitudes and agency behavior in a diverse group of Brazilian states.
The book begins with a survey of state-level bureaucrats, a survey centering on perceptions of political bias and on the networks bureaucrats construct to perform their jobs and advance their careers. In collaboration with Brazilian scholars, the book then analyzes the implementation of nine policies in a diverse set of states. These policies include the construction of a light rail system and a peripheral highway, management of a children’s hospital and a river basin, establishment of a framework for cooperative economic programs, the rolling back of a decentralization program, a reform of secondary education, cleaning a major river, and restructuring a transportation department. The final chapter assesses the implications of the book’s findings for bureaucracy as a whole and for Brazilian politics. This book will be useful for students and scholars of Latin American politics and for policymakers and development practitioners.
Barry Ames is the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Comparative Politics Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Political Survival: Politicians and Public Policy in Latin America and The Deadlock of Democracy in Brazil; coauthor of Persuasive Peers: Social Communication and Voting in Latin America; editor of the Routledge Handbook of Brazilian Politics; and author of articles in many political science journals. He specializes in political economy, electoral systems and legislative behavior, social context and political behavior, and bureaucracy.
João V. Guedes-Neto is Assistant Professor of Public Administration at the Brazilian School of Public and Business Administration at the Getulio Vargas Foundation. His research concentrates on the individual-level dynamics of bureaucratic politics, coordination problems, the politics of policy implementation, and other aspects of intergroup relations. His work has appeared in outlets such as Comparative Political Studies, Party Politics, and Policy & Society.
