Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2019 DOI:10.1111/blar.

13044

The Politics-Administration
Dichotomy: A Case Study of the
Chilean Executive during the
Democratic Post-Transition
BASTIÁN GONZÁLEZ-BUSTAMANTE
University of Oxford, UK

This article presents a case study of the Chilean executive, focusing on the
civil service in the period after the Pinochet dictatorship and the country’s
transition to democracy. It provides synchronic and diachronic analysis
of the organisation of the executive, public employment and the civil ser-
vice. Both the qualitative description and statistical evidence reveal the
establishment of a flexible regime of public employment with low levels
of stability in senior public management positions.

Keywords: Chile, civil service, patronage, senior public management

positions, state, technocracy.

The study of those who rule has been a recurrent theme in the contemporary social
sciences, particularly via the theory of elites framework. Among modern approaches
to the study of political elites, even pluralist approaches appeal to the idea that power
falls to a group which exercises it. In this context, elites exercise power via government
and, depending on the regime, there are boundaries of differing intensity between the
executive and the legislature. It is, therefore, possible to make a distinction between the
government as a decision-making body and the public administration which implements
its decisions. This distinction reflects the political-administration dichotomy as a phe-
nomenon which emphasises the separation that should exist between a government’s
political and administrative spheres and allows us to observe the constant tensions in
which politicians and bureaucrats are entangled.
This research describes a case study of the Chilean executive, focusing on the civil
service during the democratic post-transition period, that is, after the 2005 constitu-
tional reform. This reform was the most important political event of recent decades
in Chile and represented an inflexion point in the transition from the Pinochet dicta-
torship to a democratic regime that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s (Fuentes, 2012).
In this context, the study seeks to describe the organisation of the executive, public
employment and Chile’s Sistema de Alta Dirección Pública (SADP, Senior Public Man-
agement System). This implies exploring how the political-administration dichotomy
is reflected in the organisation of the executive, focusing particularly on the tension
between political trust and merit. This is particularly interesting because the SADP has

© 2019 The Author. Bulletin of Latin American Research © 2019 Society for Latin American Studies.
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA. 1
 Bastián González-Bustamante

been highlighted by international organisations and experts as an outstanding example

of public management reform in Latin America (Iacoviello and Strazza, 2014). Changes
in the country’s ruling coalition have, however, resulted in an increase in the dismissal of
SADP appointees, raising questions about its stability. The results presented here, there-
fore, include nonparametric Kaplan–Meier survival estimations that permit comparison
of the stability of senior public managers with that of political appointees in the exec-
utive. The use of this technique in the case of Chile is innovative and demonstrates its
potential usefulness for other cases.
The article is divided into four parts. First, it offers a theoretical reflection about civil
service models and their historical evolution, focusing on the tension between political
appointments and merit-based systems. This is followed by a methodological section
setting out the characteristics of the case study, the sources used, and data analysis tech-
niques as well as the political and institutional context. Then, in the third part, the
case study is presented, focusing on the structure of the executive, the organisation of
employment in the public sector and the civil service. Finally, the study’s main findings
are discussed.

Civil Service and Government Personnel: Trust vs. Merit

Civil service models operate as systems for managing human resources and public
employment (Echeberría, 2006). Their evolution can be traced through various stages
from feudalism and the late Middle Ages when the concept of public function had yet
to emerge, through to the nineteenth century when it became possible to distinguish
between civil servants and public administration as a part of the modern state separate
from the political sphere (Raadschelders and Rutgers, 1996). It is precisely to this
separation that the political-administration dichotomy, attributed to Woodrow Wilson
(1887), refers. The tension it implies persists today and is reflected in the opposing
alternatives of meritocratic recruitment and appointments based on political trust.
Recruitment on merit is linked to a career as an official which should be more stable
than a political career tied to the electoral cycle. It is, in any case, practically impossible
for one approach to predominate over the other since both tend to coexist in con-
temporary states. In general, systems for hiring public employees combine trust-based
appointments with recruitment on merit, particularly at lower levels of the government
bureaucracy and in the case of ordinary career employees (Peters, 1995).
The dichotomy is accentuated by some elements of the Weberian bureaucratic model.
For example, one of its distinctive features is neutral competence, according to which
officials should be selected based on merit and performance, rather than their charac-
teristics (Peters, 1995). Despite this principle’s importance in the bureaucratic model,
the definition of merit is, in this case, not straightforward because an individual’s beliefs
and characteristics may be conducive to government efficiency (González-Bustamante,
2018). In other words, giving priority to political trust could result in a bureaucracy that
is committed to the political project it is operationalising and, as a result, is more effi-
cient. Conversely, an excessive emphasis on technical criteria could result in technocratic
capture and domination at the expense of democratic ideals (Dávila, 2010).
Civil services are, in addition, linked to systems of patronage and political clien-
telism that date back to the eighteenth century (Grindle, 2012). These systems emerged
as an institutional architecture in which academic credentials were of great relevance
for obtaining high positions in the government and state bureaucracy. In Latin America,
© 2019 The Author. Bulletin of Latin American Research © 2019 Society for Latin American Studies
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 The Politics-Administration Dichotomy

patronage and systems of clientelism existed during the nineteenth and twentieth cen-
turies and, although independence movements eradicated much of the colonial legacy,
patronage persisted as a characteristic of the region’s political culture. The public admin-
istration and the appointment of personnel did not follow the logic of merit and were
frequently used as a means of negotiating political allegiances during the nineteenth and
the beginning of twentieth centuries (Grindle, 2012). However, with the consolidation
of the Weberian bureaucratic model in Latin American countries during the first half of
the twentieth century, the region’s public administrations began to combine its organi-
sational principles with the latent patronage systems (Ramos and Milanesi, 2018).
Subsequently, during the twentieth century, civil service models were gradually con-
solidated and professionalised as a means of efficiently fulfilling the functions of govern-
ment and delivering the required public goods and services (Raadschelders and Rutgers,
1996). In the early twentieth century, civil service models still had a limited capacity
to produce senior public managers, but a differentiation emerged between these more
senior figures and ordinary or career officials (Longo, 2003; Martínez, 2012). In addi-
tion, government bureaucracy began to be geared to the satisfaction of its users, a
trend consolidated by the emergence of the New Public Management (NPM) approach
(Grindle, 2012), which reinforced the logic of separation between the political elite and
public officials under which the responsibility of politicians is to deliver results and that
of bureaucrats is to deliver the products through which these results can be achieved
(Ramos, Scrollini and Solórzano, 2012).
The NPM functioned as a set of administrative doctrines that achieved consolidation
along with the neo-managerial reforms implemented in various countries between the
late 1970s and the beginning of 1980s, including Chile. In one of their key premises,
these doctrines maintained that the organisation and leadership of the state bureaucracy
should follow the lines of private companies and its leaders should have a high level of
autonomy (Christensen and Lægreid, 2011; Llano, 2015).
This approach was further boosted by the first-generation World Bank reforms pro-
moting a reduction of state bureaucracy through the outsourcing of public services, the
privatisation of state-owned companies, the reduction of public spending, the deregula-
tion of markets and the creation of non-conventional markets (Oszlak, 2001; Solimano,
2014). These neo-managerial reforms were linked to the implementation in Latin Amer-
ica of the neoliberal policies advocated by the Washington Consensus, which was consid-
ered key for the progress of the region’s democracies (Pollitt and Bouckaert, 2002). In the
1990s, however, the neo-conservatism of these reforms was offset by a second generation
of reforms in the framework of the expanded Washington Consensus (Santiso, 2001).
In this context, although there was resistance in Latin America to the guiding principles
of the NPM (Rogers and Guzmán, 2015), the reduction of political appointments and
the idea that there should be a body of senior public managers separate from the politi-
cal sphere and ordinary career officials emerged as fundamental to the reform of Latin
American civil services (Ramos and Scrollini, 2013). This was reflected in the Santa Cruz
Consensus of June 2003 when Latin American governments signed the Ibero-American
Public Service Charter, setting out the foundations and guiding principles of a profes-
sional and efficient public administration (González-Bustamante, 2018).
In Latin America, civil service model reform in recent decades has been associated
with state modernisation processes such as the implementation of measures to combat
corruption (Barzelay, 2003). Although the reforms are linked to the specific dynamics
of each country’s modernisation processes, Cortázar, Lafuente and Schuster (2014)
argue that, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, they took three main forms:
© 2019 The Author. Bulletin of Latin American Research © 2019 Society for Latin American Studies
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 Bastián González-Bustamante

(a) professionalisation of the senior public management; (b) guarantees seeking to

reduce politicisation and discretion in the appointment of government personnel; and
(c) reforms in the framework of compensation management.
The reduction of discretion in particular is a sensitive issue, since the highly politi-
cised appointment of government personnel is associated with clientelist practices
and creates a sense that the acceptable limits of the balance between political and
merit-based appointments have been violated (Peters and Pierre, 2004). This could have
consequences for the stability of career officials and, therefore, government efficiency. In
this sense, it is important to note that the appointment of government personnel is con-
ditioned by the government regime and, depending on the hierarchical level, the logic of
patronage. In a presidential regime, the formation of the executive is subject to informal
mechanisms related to the broad discretion that presidents have to make appointments
based on trust, particularly at the highest levels of the executive (Mainwaring, 1993).
Appointments tend to be governed by informal mechanisms for the distribution of
power based on the relative weight of the government parties in the legislative branch
(Chasquetti, 2008; González-Bustamante and Olivares, 2015). In the case of patronage,
this varies with the hierarchical level. At the highest level, it is possible to find both
technocrats and politicians who are in place due to patronage, while at intermediate
and lower levels party operators and members will take up bureaucratic posts (Moya
and Garrido, 2018; Panizza, Peters and Ramos, 2019).
In this context, it is important to differentiate between patronage and clientelism.
While patronage involves the allocation of public sector jobs to people in the circle
of those who have the power to make the appointments, clientelism involves broader
transactions designed to guarantee political support among certain populations (Aguirre,
2012; Moya and Garrido, 2018). Both phenomena can, as a result, have negative effects
on the stability of officials’ careers.

Method and Context of the Case Study

This article presents a descriptive case study in which the primary unit is the Chilean
executive, with a focus on the civil service during the post-transition period. The case
is subjected to synchronous analysis through division into sub-units and diachronic
analysis, which takes temporal variation into account (Gerring, 2004). Consequently,
following Yin (1989), it is a unique case whose unit of analysis is divided into three
sub-units: (a) organisation of the executive; (b) public sector employment; and (c) the
civil service.
In order to ensure the case study’s internal validity, the principle of triangulation is
used, drawing on different sources of information. Official documents of the Chilean
government (2018), the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic (2016) and
the specialised literature are used to address the organisation of the executive. In the
case of public sector employment and the SADP, existing case studies on the system are
used along with data from the Dirección de Presupuestos del Ministerio de Hacienda
(DIPRES, Finance Ministry’s Budget Office), population estimates from the Instituto
Nacional de Estadísticas (INE, National Institute of Statistics), and statistical infor-
mation relating to senior officials at the Dirección Nacional del Servicio Civil (DNSC,
National Service Civil Directorate).
The statistical information is processed and presented descriptively. In addition, non-
parametric survival estimations with Kaplan–Meier curves are used to analyse the tenure
© 2019 The Author. Bulletin of Latin American Research © 2019 Society for Latin American Studies
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 The Politics-Administration Dichotomy

of senior public managers. Survival analysis is a statistical technique that measures the
probability of removal from a specific position and has frequently been used to study
ministerial turnover in different Latin American countries (Martínez-Gallardo, 2014;
Camerlo and Pérez-Liñán, 2015; Quiroz, 2015; González-Bustamante and Olivares,
2016). In this case, two sets of data are used to compare the stability of senior figures in
positions of political trust, specifically ministers and undersecretaries. First, a database of
Chilean cabinets (1990–2010), compiled from public-access sources, is used to evaluate
the survival of ministers and undersecretaries (González-Bustamante and Olivares, 2015,
2016). The database comprises 180 observations for ministers and 290 for undersecre-
taries. Second, a database of senior public managers is used, including both government
services, where appointments are made through the mandatory SADP, and others where
this is not the case (2009–2015). This second database is compiled with information
from the DNSC, specifically data released by Exempt Resolution 43 of 12 January 2017
following a freedom of information request (AE004T0000240) which comprises 391
cases. In order to avoid imbalances, six observations (1.54 percent of cases) are excluded
from the survival estimations. They correspond to appointment decrees issued in Jan-
uary 2016 because the officials took up their positions as a matter of urgency. Using this
data, it is possible to calculate exact exposure to risk by case, factoring in time in the
post. With this, incidence rates for those who leave their position can also be calculated,
considering the population at risk and time: the higher the incidence rate, the larger the
number of officials who leave their position during the period of analysis. This mea-
surement is more accurate than the descriptive statistics on people leaving their position
contained in DNSC reports.

Context and Political and Institutional Background

Chile’s military dictatorship (1973–1990) was not immune to the logic of political
patronage. As many as 44 percent of discretionally appointed posts were nominated
by the armed forces during this period, and informal mechanisms for distributing posi-
tions among the different branches of the armed forces were also used (Remmer, 1991;
Ramos and Scrollini, 2013). It was, moreover, a complex time as regards the public
administration: some 30 percent of government officials were dismissed, and there were
drastic cuts in remunerations (Waissbluth and Inostroza, 2006).
In this context, the Chilean transition was characterised by a series of authoritar-
ian enclaves and constitutional arrangements that conditioned the reconstruction of the
political field at the end of the 1980s (Garretón, 1999; Siavelis, 2009; Huneeus, 2014).
During the early years after the restoration of democracy, the Concertación de Partidos
por la Democracia (Concertation of Parties for Democracy), the centre-left coalition
that governed Chile for four consecutive terms (1990–2010), promoted compensatory
policies and wage increases for public employees. However, these reforms were not
substantial. Strictly speaking, the administrative structure used by the military regime
remained in place and the Concertación introduced a flexible personnel regime that per-
mitted an increase in the staffing of government agencies through non-conventional legal
mechanisms (Waissbluth and Inostroza, 2006).
This meant that, during the 1990s, public administration was recolonised by mem-
bers of the Concertación and its supporters (Delamaza, 2011). In this process, a key
role was played by a network of policymakers with social democratic leanings, formed
by prominent politicians. This enabled the democratic government to mark an ideo-
logical distinction with the Chicago Boys, the technocratic group that led the Pinochet
© 2019 The Author. Bulletin of Latin American Research © 2019 Society for Latin American Studies
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 Bastián González-Bustamante

regime’s structural reforms of the public sector (Rehren, 2002; Ramos and Scrollini,
2013; González-Bustamante et al., 2016). This recolonisation permitted the perpetua-
tion and consolidation of the patronage system since it began to function as a ‘win-win
game’ for all the political forces which distributed positions in the central government,
regional governments and even the para-state sector, based mainly on quotas propor-
tional to their electoral strength (Rehren, 2002; Ramos and Scrollini, 2013).
This political and institutional context conditioned the political elite’s support for
modernisation processes that would not alter patronage and the prevailing informal
logics (González-Bustamante et al., 2016). This was conducive to the implementation
of other types of reforms such as the modernisation of public management in the 1990s
and the first decade of this century. This macro-process was initially coordinated by an
inter-ministerial committee whose executive secretariat reported to the Ministerio Sec-
retaría General de la Presidencia (SEGPRES, Ministry of the General Secretariat of the
Presidency) during the government of President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (1996–2000).
This was followed at the beginning of the 2000s by the State Reform and Modernisation
Project (Pliscoff, 2008). However, the modernisation agenda lost prominence in 2003
during the institutional crisis triggered by growing citizen anger over various corruption
cases which involved influence peddling and the payment of informal wage top-ups (Plis-
coff, 2008). By increasing ministerial turnover, these scandals had a significant impact on
government stability (González-Bustamante and Olivares, 2016). During this political
crisis, the government parties and the opposition reached an agreement to promote more
than 40 modernisation initiatives in a bid to overcome the situation and control the dam-
age caused by the crisis. These initiatives included the regulation of public procurement
and the creation of the SADP (Lambertini and Silva, 2009).

Case Study: The Executive and the Public Administration in Chile

The Organisation of the Executive
In Chile, the executive currently comprises the presidency, ministries, regional govern-
ments, provincial governments, municipal governments, the Office of the Comptroller
General of the Republic, the armed forces, the police service, the Central Bank, the Con-
sejo Nacional de Televisión (CNTV, National Television Council) and a number of state
companies (Avendaño and Dávila, 2018). Although this outline is useful, some clari-
fications are necessary. First, it is important to specify the hierarchical position of the
different bodies in the public administration and whether they are autonomous, cen-
tralised, territorially devolved, or decentralised institutions.
Constitutionally autonomous bodies, such as the Central Bank and the Office of the
Comptroller General, report directly to the presidency without being subordinated to
it while the CNTV, although also constitutionally autonomous, reports to the presi-
dency through the Ministerio Secretaría General de Gobierno (SEGEGOB, Ministry of
the Government General Secretariat). Other bodies, such as the National Council for
Culture and the Arts and the State Defence Council, are decentralised public agencies
that report directly to the President.
The central government is headed by the presidency to which the ministries report.
The Constitutional Organic Law of General Bases of State Administration defines min-
istries as the highest level executive entities, after the President. In Chile, there are 24
ministries which, depending on their workload, are organised internally into divisions,

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 The Politics-Administration Dichotomy

departments, sections and offices. They include the Ministry of Science, Technology,
Knowledge and Innovation which, together with an undersecretariat and a new govern-
ment service, the National Agency for Research and Development, was created under
Law 21.105 of 13 August 2018. Ministries are also territorially devolved through Sec-
retarías Regionales Ministeriales (SEREMI, Regional Ministerial Secretariats), except
in the case of the Finance Ministry, SEGEGOB, the Mining Ministry and the Sports
Ministry, which have a SEREMI only in some regions, and the Interior Ministry, the
Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores (MINREL, Foreign Ministry), the Defence Ministry
and SEGPRES, which have no SEREMI. The ministries are headed by a minister whose
appointment is in the exclusive say of the President.
In the next hierarchical level below the minister, ministries have one or more under-
secretariats. Currently, there are 36 undersecretariats headed by an undersecretary, a
position equivalent to vice-minister in some presidential regimes. Undersecretaries are
responsible for the coordination of government agencies in their sector and the ministry’s
internal administration. They also act as certifying officers and are empowered to subro-
gate ministers. Although their work is more technical, they must, as people who directly
serve the minister, adhere to the policies indicated by them which, in turn, emanate from
the presidency (González-Bustamante and Olivares, 2015).
Depending on the ministry, a number of sector-specific government agencies or pub-
lic services may report to the corresponding undersecretariat. In 2018, it was possible
to identify 156 government services. They can have a direct hierarchical, decentralised
or territorially devolved relationship with the undersecretariat. For example, the Under-
secretariat of the Interior of the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security coordinates
the plain-clothes and uniformed police services, the National Intelligence Agency, the
Interior Government of the Republic Service and the National Office for Emergencies as
well as having hierarchical relations with regional government bodies. Another example
is the Undersecretariat of Finance with a number of decentralised superintendencies, the
National Tax Service, the DNSC, the Directorate of Public Procurement and Hiring,
the Financial Analysis Unit and the National Customs Service. The Finance Ministry
also has a decentralised relationship with the state-owned bank, Banco del Estado de
Chile. Other ministries that relate with public companies are the Defence, Mining, and
Transport and Telecommunications Ministries.
Despite this hierarchical organisation, based on different types of relationships, the
central government tends to operate beyond the scope of its formal structure, and infor-
mal institutions have an important influence on its functioning. Groups of advisors and
the personal cabinets of authorities, for example, provide support in the management
and implementation of public policies (Arana, 2012; Palacios and Jofré, 2016). It is in
this diffuse context, with more or less informal models that have varied over time, that
advice to the President (directly or through commissions), the delivery or centre of gov-
ernment unit, and advice to ministers operate (Palacios and Jofré, 2016; Cisternas and
Vásquez, 2018).
Regional governments have functions that focus on the urban and territorial planning
and the economic and social development of each of the country’s sixteen regions. A
law promulgated in August 2017 creating the new Ñuble Region, between the Maule
and Bío-Bío Regions, came into force in September 2018. Regional governments are
made up of a regional governor and regional councillors. The governor is appointed by
the President while, since 2013, regional councillors have been elected by popular vote
at the same time as municipal elections are held. Although regional governments are
decentralised bodies, with governors linked through decentralised administration with
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 Bastián González-Bustamante

the Undersecretary of the Interior, they are also devolved territorially through provincial
governments headed by a provincial governor appointed by the President.

Public Employment and Government Personnel

Before the 1973 military coup, career public officials had indefinite contracts and were
appointed through a competitive process, giving them excellent job security (Waissbluth
and Inostroza, 2006). In addition, promotion was through a system of grades in which
seniority was a crucial factor. The result was low turnover and a scarcity of vacancies.
Following the restoration of democracy, the Concertación promoted a flexible person-
nel regime that permitted staffing increases through non-conventional legal mechanisms.
This strategy merged structures inherited from the dictatorship and a new regime char-
acterised by more precarious contractual conditions in the form of annually renewable
contracts or non-contractual arrangements whereby employees simply bill the bureau-
cratic agency for their time. In neither case is the employee entitled to compensation for
dismissal. In addition, some government agencies have used the types of contract found
in the private sector, which are governed by the Labour Code (LC), rather than the leg-
islation specific to the public sector. Some of these mechanisms existed under previous
legal systems but were increasingly and improperly used by Concertación governments.
As a result, positions with an indefinite contract coexisted with these other arrange-
ments, which were supposedly temporary and, in the case of annual contracts, should
only have applied to 20 percent of a government body’s workforce, a limit that was,
however, not respected. In fact, in 2007, there were more central public administration
employees with an annual contract than with an indefinite contract. Moreover, between
2006 and 2016, the number of employees on an annual contract increased from 46.48
percent to 65.05 percent (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Employees with an Indefinite Contract, an Annual Contract and an LC Contract in the
Central Public Administration (2006–2016).

Source: Compiled by author using data from DIPRES.

Note: Includes the presidency, ministries and dependent government services. Senior and non-senior per-
sonnel are shown.

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 The Politics-Administration Dichotomy

Figure 2. Government Authorities, Heads of Government Services and Senior Managers in the
Central Public Administration per Million Inhabitants by Gender (2006–2016).

Source: Compiled by author using data from DIPRES and estimates from INE.
Note: Includes the presidency, ministries and dependent government services.

In this context, these supposedly annual contracts, even though they can be easily ter-
minated, have operated de facto as indefinite contracts and their annual renewal has
generally been high. Similarly, although the billing arrangement was initially intended
for use by external advisors and consultants without an obligation to comply with work-
ing hours, that is, people not considered government officials, employees hired under
this arrangement have, since the beginning of the 1990s, been considered de facto as
employees on an annual contract. Interestingly, in recent years, the Chilean courts have
accepted a number of appeals against the early termination of contracts. In April 2015,
for example, the Supreme Court ordered Santiago’s municipal government to pay com-
pensation for dismissal to a person employed under the billing arrangement on the
grounds that it represented a labour relationship.
The evidence of the number of appointments based on trust suggests a reduction in
their politicisation. Among authorities, heads of government services and senior man-
agers in the central public administration (Figure 2), trust-based appointments have not
increased over the past ten years and, indeed, in the case of senior public managers, they
dropped by 24.42 percent between 2006 and 2016. In addition, candidates for many
of these positions are now selected competitively by the SADP. Even so, the number of
heads of government services and senior public managers represented 2.12 percent of
central public administration personnel in 2016, well above the 0.2 percent of senior
public managers immediately below cabinet level in the United Kingdom (Budge et al.,
2006).
The marked and persistent gender gap is striking. In 2016, women accounted for
28.63 percent of civil servants at the top of the bureaucrat hierarchy, down from 35.43
percent in 2006, while, in the case of senior public managers at the intermediate level,
the figure dropped from 38.59 percent to 32.75 percent. This represented a decrease of
19.19 and 15.15 percent respectively in ten years. This is particularly striking because the
number of women ministers and undersecretaries is significantly higher, reaching 45.65
and 38.71 percent, respectively, in the first government of President Michelle Bachelet
(González-Bustamante and Olivares, 2015, 2016), in line with the gender parity policies
she promoted during her first term (Franceschet and Thomas, 2015). The subsequent evi-
dence, however, indicates that these policies did not permeate lower hierarchical levels.
Lastly, although the number of senior managers has decreased in the central public
administration, public employment at other levels has shown a sustained increase, with
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Bulletin of Latin American Research 9
 Bastián González-Bustamante

Figure 3. Employees Other Than Senior Managers in the Central Public Administration by Level
(2006–2016).

Source: Compiled by author using data from DIPRES.

Note: Includes the presidency, ministries and dependent government services.

the exception of office support staff where there has been a decrease of 4.73 percent
(Figure 3). The number of professionals has increased by 84.58 percent, technical per-
sonnel by 46.46 percent and administrative personnel by 17.94 percent. Based on the
INE’s population estimates, employees of the central administration accounted for 1.54
percent of the active population in 2006 and 2 percent in 2016 or, in other words, an
increase of 30.07 percent.

Senior Public Management System (SADP)

In the early 2000s, a consensus began to emerge among experts and academics on a need
to limit positions of political trust and foster the establishment of a merit-based selection
system (Lambertini and Silva, 2009; González-Bustamante et al., 2016). According to
Costa and Waissbluth (2007), the rate of political appointments per million inhabitants
was then running at 250 as compared to 30 in the United States and 1.3 in England
(within the United Kingdom). This consensus was transformed into public policy thanks
to a window of opportunity that appeared as a result of the 2003 political crisis discussed
above. In June 2003, the DNSC and the SADP were established precisely in order to limit
trust-based appointments (González-Bustamante et al., 2016). The DNSC is headed by a
director, appointed directly by the President of the Republic, who heads the Civil Service
Council, an autonomous body with four members appointed by the President subject to
ratification by the Senate. Their six-year appointments are made in alternating pairs,
and they cannot be dismissed.
Initially, the SADP was charged with selecting candidates for the two senior levels of
around 100 government agencies or, in other words, the heads of these services and their
immediate subordinates. The SADP plays no role in the appointment of senior levels of
the executive such as ministers, undersecretaries, regional and provincial governors and
SEREMI.
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10 Bulletin of Latin American Research
 The Politics-Administration Dichotomy

One key aspect of the SADP is that, despite the competitive nature of the selection
process, appointments are still ultimately based on trust. The positions subject to this
system require exclusive full-time dedicated work, have a duration of three years (which
can be renewed for up to two further periods) and carry a special bonus that can be
up to 100 percent of the base salary, as well as a right to compensation for resignation
or non-renewal (Costa and Waissbluth, 2007). The first stage of the selection process
involves advertising the vacancy in the mass media or the use of private headhunters.
On this basis a list is compiled, out of which one or two dozen candidates are inter-
viewed by the Council or, depending on the position’s hierarchical level, a sector-specific
selection committee (Costa and Waissbluth, 2007; González-Bustamante et al., 2016).
Following these interviews, a shortlist of three, four or five names is submitted to the
corresponding authority who makes the final choice at his or her entire discretion. In
addition, the authority may reject the shortlist, in which case the process has to begin
again. In other words, the system guarantees that senior public managers have the neces-
sary technical qualifications whilst also holding positions of political trust. It is important
to note that the number of candidates is quite high. For example, using data from the
DNSC, González-Bustamante et al. (2016) found that, between 2003 and 2013, 6,214
candidates participated in a sample of processes for first-level positions in key ministries
(Interior, Finance, Economy, Defence and MINREL). Out of these candidates, a striking
83.44 percent were men.
Strictly speaking, the SADP depends completely on political trust. Its coverage has
nevertheless expanded significantly. The number of agencies using it increased by more
than 140 percent from 52 in 2006 to 125 in 2016, and the number of positions it is
used to fill has also shown a sustained increase, particularly in the case of the second
hierarchical level. Moreover, since the end of the 2000s, different institutions that are
not obliged to use the system now do so voluntarily.
Given this sustained expansion, the system can be considered an inter-temporal public
policy, due mainly to its capacity for survival (Ramos and Scrollini, 2013). In addi-
tion, during the past decade, it has been recognised in Latin America as an outstand-
ing example that has achieved significant progress, building on the positive evaluation
already enjoyed by the Chilean civil service in the mid-2000s (Iacoviello and Strazza,
2014; González-Bustamante, 2018). More recently, some loopholes that persisted in the
system have been addressed. They include the questionable practice of bypassing the sys-
tem by making temporary appointments and rejecting the shortlists presented in order to
justify successive renewals of the temporary appointment (Lambertini and Silva, 2009;
González-Bustamante et al., 2016). This loophole, which generated costs because the
SADP processes were still being carried out, was addressed by a law passed in October
2016 to modify some aspects of the SADP and strengthen the DNSC. Among its main
provisions, it introduced a system of legal subrogation to replace temporary appoint-
ments. In return for this, it was agreed to allow the President to appoint up to twelve
first-level public managers directly and the obligation to fill vacancies through the SADP
was lifted during a government’s last eight months in office. In addition, the DNSC was
given some powers to supervise the performance agreements of senior public managers,
generating coordination at the central level in matters of public employment.
Despite the increase in the SADP’s coverage and the improvements made in recent
years, there has been no significant impact on the rate of senior public managers per
million inhabitants. In 2016, the system reduced this from 273 to 199 appointments
per million inhabitants, a figure still far above the levels seen in Anglo-Saxon countries.
Moreover, the tenure of senior public managers is short, compared even to ministers and
© 2019 The Author. Bulletin of Latin American Research © 2019 Society for Latin American Studies
Bulletin of Latin American Research 11
 Bastián González-Bustamante

Figure 4. Survival of Ministers, Undersecretaries and Senior Public Managers in Chile.

Source: Compiled by author using database of cabinets and DNSC Exempt Resolution.
Note: Shows survival function with a 95% confidence interval.

undersecretaries (Figure 4). The Kaplan–Meier curves indicate the turnover rate by esti-
mating survival in the position. The curve for senior public managers appointed through
the SADP is quite steep and similar to that for ministers, while those for undersecretaries
and senior managers not appointed through the SADP are less steep, implying greater
stability and longer tenure.
This is also borne out by the incidence rate and exact turnover rate for each posi-
tion (Table 1). Half of ministers remain in their position for a little over two years,
undersecretaries for two and a half years, senior public managers appointed through
the mandatory SADP for almost three years and senior managers appointed through the
voluntary SADP for six years. Although in the medium term undersecretaries appear
to present a higher risk than senior public managers selected through the mandatory
SADP, the situation is reversed when evaluating turnover of positions at 75 percent,
where the tenure of senior public managers selected through the SADP approaches that
of ministers. Paradoxically, stability is greater in institutions that are not obliged to use
the SADP.

Conclusions
This article has presented a descriptive case study of the Chilean executive with a focus
on the civil service during the period of democratic post-transition. It addresses the
organisation of the executive, public employment and the SADP. Examining these aspects
in greater depth implied exploring how the political-administration dichotomy operated
in practice in the Chilean executive organisations, using a framework that identified

© 2019 The Author. Bulletin of Latin American Research © 2019 Society for Latin American Studies
12 Bulletin of Latin American Research
 The Politics-Administration Dichotomy

Table 1. Turnover of Ministers, Undersecretaries and Senior Public Managers in Chile

Turnover
Days Incidence
Position at Risk Rate 25% 50% 75%

Ministers 151,850 0.0010 432 793 1,392

Undersecretaries 249,246 0.0007 490 928 1,670
Senior Public Managers (Mandatory SADP) 237,493 0.0008 704 1,081 1,456
Senior Public Managers (Voluntary SADP) 140,868 0.0002 1,418 2,166 –

Source: Compiled by author using database of cabinets and DNSC Exempt Resolution.

tensions between political trust and merit in senior level civil service appointments. To
this end, the article provided a description of the central government and regional gov-
ernments as well as empirical data concerning the organisation of public employment
and the operation of the Chilean civil service. Using this data, it is possible to identify
three key characteristics that shape the public appointments process in this period.
First, the study examined the organisation of public employment in terms of: the
number of authorities and senior public managers per million inhabitants; gender gaps;
and the increase of the central public administration workforce. A first key point is that,
since 2007, the number of employees on annual contracts in the central public admin-
istration has exceeded those with indefinite contracts, with the former accounting for
65.05 percent of total employees in 2016. Furthermore, the number of senior public
managers at the intermediate level of the bureaucratic hierarchy has decreased by 24.42
percent over the past decade, to which it is necessary to add the impact of the SADP at
the top level. A second key point is the paradox that emerges with respect to the gender
gap. The number of women has increased in the upper levels of public management in
positions based on political trust but has dropped at lower management levels. Finally,
although the number of senior public managers has decreased, there has been a signif-
icant increase in the professional and technical and, to a lesser extent, administrative
levels. In line with this, the number of government officials with respect to the active
population increased by 30.07 percent between 2006 and 2016.
Finally, the description of the operation and evolution of the SADP reveals an expan-
sion of 140 percent between 2006 and 2016, accompanied by its improvement through
the elimination of loopholes such as temporary appointments. However, in a third key
point, the system has not significantly reduced the number of senior public managers per
million inhabitants, and their stability is not significantly different from that of minis-
ters and undersecretaries. Moreover, the system paradoxically generates more stability
in institutions whose use of the SADP is voluntary, which could be associated with latent
patronage logics. A deeper understanding of these aspects is important since, although
the SADP has been hailed as a successful experience in Latin America, its performance
needs to be evaluated with greater precision.

Acknowledgements
This research was possible thanks to financial support from the Department of Pub-
lic Administration and Policy of the Universidad de Santiago de Chile under the 2018
Academic Performance Agreement. I would like to thank M. Astete and B. Orvenes

© 2019 The Author. Bulletin of Latin American Research © 2019 Society for Latin American Studies
Bulletin of Latin American Research 13
 Bastián González-Bustamante

for their help in gathering and validating the data about senior public managers in the
framework of the ‘Survival of Senior Civil Servants in the Chilean Executive Branch’
project (DOI: 10.17605/OSF.IO/WBF6M). I would also like to thank C. Huneeus and
C. Cisternas for their valuable comments.

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