"Understanding Educational Bureaucracies: Technical Staff, Institutional Dynamics, and State Capacities in Latin America"

• In Event: Educational policies and politics

Proposal

In the last thirty years, educational systems around the world, and particularly in Latin America, have undergone a proliferation of reforms. Despite this, the region continues to face enormous challenges related to compulsory schooling and the acquisition of basic learning by students (Veleda, 2023). At the same time, the recent COVID-19 pandemic exposed and even exacerbated the deep educational disparities among students within educational systems, but above all, it highlighted the existing inequality regarding state capacities of different jurisdictions to respond to the crisis.
Analyzing state capacities is crucial, as they ultimately shape the provision of educational services, thereby impacting the potential outcomes to be achieved by students in terms of educational trajectories and learning (Veleda, 2023). However, research has focused more on the what, why, and for what purposes of educational policies, rather than on who and how (Braslavsky and Cosse, 2006).
In this context, this study aims to explore the characteristics of the technical staff of education ministries in Latin America. Specifically, it seeks to understand who comprises these staff, why are they part of them, and what is their training and background. At the same time, it aims to investigate these technicians’ interests and motivations, their modes of action, and the characteristics of their political profile. Lastly, it attempts to understand the institutional arrangements in which these education staff operate and how these arrangements affect their function.

Following a comparative perspective, the study focuses on four cases from two different federal countries in Latin America: two subnational governments from Argentina and two subnational governments from Brazil. To thoroughly study these cases, the research adopts a qualitative empirical methodology. It involves the analysis of news media articles, social media posts and official documents, as well as in-depth interviews with key actors (Lavrakas, 2008).

The aim of exploring these actors, their interests and their modes of action, is rooted in the conviction that major decisions related to education systems, which generally receive greater visibility, are merely a fraction of the tasks that senior public officials perform every day (Heredia and Perelmiter, 2013).

The hypothesis is that these staff and their characteristics make a crucial point of what Balarín (2008) calls “weak states” (bureaucracies with limited ability to implement policies effectively and sustain political stability). This, the study will try to show, is the result of inadequate institutional arrangements, as well as idiosyncratic, patrimonial and clientelistic political dynamics, combined with a low interest articulation and mobilization demanding for better state capacities and service delivery in education.

The study aims to contribute to the theoretical discussion regarding the conception of the state, and more specifically to recent debates focusing on the organizational capacities of state bureaucracies to provide public services and lead socioeconomic development (Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol 1985; Migdal 1992, 2001; Rotberg 2002). In particular, the research will seek to highlight the importance of political processes related to interest articulation and mobilization, as well as the institutional arrangements that influence accountability processes, specifically in Latin America.

Author

• Delfina Campetella, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona