Federal Bureaucracy and the Administrative Reform Project

Abstract

Mexicans frequently use the term ‘political bureaucracy’ (burocracia politica) to refer to the federal government administration and party bureaucracy that constitute an organic part of the regime that emerged from the Revolution and took form during the late 1930s. The term stands in useful contrast to ‘public’ or ‘civil’ because it stresses the close integration of the bureaucracy with the dominant PRI and the myriad activities designed to keep current elites in power. In a highly centralised presidential system marked by the weakness of the national congress and judiciary, the political bureaucracy is arguably the most significant arena of decision-making taken in the sense of both formulating and implementing programmes.