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Can Politicians Control Bureaucrats? Applying Theories of Political Control to Argentina's Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Kent Eaton
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Abstract

In the United States, an important literature shows that legislators use interest groups, courts, and budgets to assert political control over bureaucrats. Similar theories can be applied to study the scores of new democracies that have emerged in recent decades. In Argentina, politicians in the first administration of Carlos Menem (1989-95) rewrote administrative procedures and relied on both “police patrol” and “fire alarm” oversight to realign the behavior of tax bureaucrats in conformance with their own policy preferences. Whereas U.S. legislators generally prefer complex administrative procedures, different electoral incentives led their Argentine counterparts to support reforms that significantly streamlined those procedures. This finding challenges theories that attribute legislators' bureaucratic preferences to the separation or fusion of powers between the executive and legislative branches.

Type
Research
Information
Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 45 , Issue 4 , Winter 2003 , pp. 33 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 2003

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