Populist Institutions: Plebeian Bureaucracies and “Dirty Institutionality

• In Event: Populism, Institutions and Institutionalization

Abstract

This paper aims to theoretically describe and typify the differential nature of populist public administration, particularly in terms of a sharp alternative to the Weberian ideal of bureaucracy. Its empirical referent is that of the Bolivarian governments in South America, but its theoretical ambition is that of cross-regional validity.
Conventional public administration theory presupposes a constitutive separation between bureaucracy and “the public”, between staff and society. It also implies known, formal, public rules, universally applied, as well as accountability to superiors with professional credentials. Max Weber’s classic ideal type of legal-rational bureaucracy has for long been the classical reference point of “good bureaucracy”. The relationship between modern bureaucracy and modern mass democracy, however, is an ambivalent one, and so is, almost exactly in the opposite way, that of populism to democracy. The internal logic of bureaucracy and of populism would, however, seem to be at odds.
While most modern bureaucracies appear to aim to approximate themselves to the Weberian ideal type, the paper argues that populist bureaucracies aim to purposely achieve the opposite of the Weberian logic. The latter’s ethos is to develop and value informality over formal rules; proximity and partiality, over distance and impartiality; warmth and diffuseness, over coldness and precision. Moreover, populist governments pride themselves on having a “porous State”, where the differentiation between the “serving” and the “served” becomes blurred, where the line between government (state) and social movements (the most militant part of society) is purposely blurred.
Not only so, but Weberian-inspired bureaucracies value technical expertise and formal competence in hiring and promotions. Such meritocratic criteria often have a de facto class bias. Populist bureaucracies, in contrast, purposely aim to acquire a plebeian character. The plebeian component of populist institutions, particularly in terms of public administration, can only also affects its form. That is, plebeian bureaucracies are “rougher”, coarser, not always “ethical” in the conventional, rule-abiding way, as well as clearly more “on the ground”. The ways of plebian bureaucracies are paradoxically closer to the public they serve, particularly when it comes to social services. Plebeian bureaucracies are therefore more on what I have called “the low”. In the cases of Evo’s Bolivia and Kirchnerist Argentina, public administrations have incorporated as part of their “staff” and ministries militant, “anti-system” social movements. A praxis of plebeian populist public administration has been the delegation, accompanied by very large budgets, of state functions to locally-rooted social movements, militantly in line with the “project” of the government.
Finally, the paper describes what can only be called the pro and cons of such an alternative model of public administration. Greater closeness to the “public”, porosity, a redemptive spirit, diffuse spheres and roles, an affinity with the popular sectors, are contrasted to “justified” but dubious public accounting practices, hyper politicization of administration, the trumping of faiplay by loyalty, greater opacity, and perhaps a lesser efficiency in measurable results. The paper also does note some similarities (and differences) between such populist plebeian institutions and the old form of machine politics in the United States.
The notion of “dirty institutionality” is developed, in contrast to “transparent,” legal-rational bureaucracies and also as rougher, more “on the ground”, “muddier”, plebeian forms of administration, on what I call “the low” --thus also more personalistic and less formal.


 

Author

• Pierre Ostiguy, Catholic University of Cordoba, Argentina