Civil Servants: Tenure, Incentives and Democracy in the Administrative State in Brazil and Latin America

Abstract

The present paper aims to investigate the incentives posed by the legal regimen that regulates the civil service in several Latin American countries. The case of Brazil is studied most closely. One of the main features of this system is the existence of broad tenure guarantees which directly affect the way incentives are offered to public officials. The paper discusses the origins and the importance of the tenure system to the administrative state, constitutional democracy and the rule of law in these countries and presents six objectively designed proposals to realign the incentives to which civil servants are subject to without, at least for now, dismantling the tenure system.