ID: 15762
Authors:
Andres Caso Lombardo, Alejandro Carrillo Castro.
Source:
Revista de Administração Pública, v. 8, n. 2, p. 77-90, April-June, 1974. 14 page(s).
Document type: Article (Portuguese)
Show Abstract
This essay tries to give an overview of the governmental efforts in order to evolve and to implant an administra tive reform in Mexico, approaching the conceivable aspects of the adopted reforms, the context to be dealt with, its historical evolution and the present configuration. Alluding to other South American countries' experience, the authors emphasize that the administratiye reform must not only be considered as a problem of technical capacity, but above all as a problem of political opportunity and decisions made at the highest level of public administration. The evolution of administratiye reform in Mexico is analyzed with the aim of verifying the existence of participatory institutional mechanisms which would secure co-responsibility at all levels of public administration in such a reformist effort, The analysis also intended to verify whether the highest political levels have been sensitive enough to the idea of administrative reform so that its continuity could be preserved. In analyzing the contextual factors which gave greater relevance to the problem of administrative reform, the authors emphasize, beyond the aspects related to the need for a more and more complex development policy, the institutional aspects as a result of the specific history of Mexico. They also distinguish along this evolution two parallel processes of growth experienced by the administrative institutions: a) the growth by disaggregation which caused the proliferation of State Secretariats administrative departments, state attorney offices and federal territories government. Legal constraints were imposed on this process due to the fact that the establishment of new administrative units within the central Government is the sole responsibility of the Legislative; b) the growth by aggregation, i. e. the establishment of public enterprises to perform the new and diversified functions undertaken by the Mexican State. This process proves to be more relevant as the created units escape Legislative control. Meanwhile it demanded the adoption of several coordination and control mechanisms; thus it reinforced the preoccupation with a more comprehensive administrative reform. From a historical perspective, the reformal attempts in the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century generally resulted in sporadic movements lacking any long-term comprehensive model. Most of the time, they were no more than formal legal dispositions. After the 1917 Constitution it was possible to notice a more definite concern with the reformistic problem, based on the need to face the new social requirements through modern action tools. The institutional repercussion of this preoccupation was the establishment of the Presidential cabinet, in 1958, and the Public Administration Committee, in 1965. The continuity of the reform process has not only been uninterrupted, but even strengthened by the governmental change in 1971. In the meantime the process of administrative reform, beyond establishing a sufficiently pliable juridical framework, has been made institutional, from the operational viewpoint, by developing a wide basis consensus and team work not only among the public officials, but also between them and the organized sectors of the population. After pointing out that this process was accompanied by increase, in the number, of administrative specialists and in improvement in their quality, the authors conclude that the process of administrative reform in Mexico has proved to be solid enough to guarantee its continuity, even if changes at the governmental level occur. They also stress the realism entailed by the concern with participatory mechanisms and the need for motivating the political echelons, as the validity, the opportunity and the scope of the administratiw reform's theoretical principles must be strongly supported by facts.
