Public administration under the Chilean civil military dictatorship (1973−1990)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze the functioning of the public administration of the Chilean dictatorial State between 1973 and 1990. Specifically, based on a methodology based on a series of testimonies of civilian and military officials of the de facto government, the aim is to reconstruct the bureaucracy of the period, especially that of the first lines of command of ministries, undersecretaries and service chiefs. It is proposed that the classic Weberian bureaucratic model that had marked the public administration of the Chilean State had to be related to a new form of public management, coming from the private sphere. Thus, in order to neoliberalize the State, the authorities had to be able to reorient their classic strategic objectives towards the fulfillment of goals by results. Therefore, the new public official that emerged under the dictatorship was a technopolitician who, as a civilian, contributed his organizational culture based on expert knowledge learned in his business and/or academic spheres, as well as the military who, under his authoritarian hierarchical culture, reinforced the traditional way of exercising power within the state institutionality. Both organizational cultures were necessary in order to instrumentalize, through reason and force, the legitimizing principles underpinning neoliberalism.