Natalia Orellana

Public Administration Student

Public management in Chile

The public policies that govern us and that are implemented correspond to a strategy
that is used by public administrators who develop them from a critical triangle of
political management in which the beginnings of the project are expressed with the
public problem, which show objective deficiencies of society and becomes public
policies when they are visible by actors with power , who have the authority to highlight
the issues as problems, then ideally lead to good public management to concrete. All
these concepts may sound common in a political context, although every act we perform
on a daily basis has a political tendency, many of these issues are invisible to a large
part of the Chilean population.

Public management in Chile has its beginnings in the colonial era in the beginnings of
independent life of the country, is implemented for the first time around 1818, where
the first features of administrative development are established. A structure was
established that was delegated to the colonial period that remained for a long time,
because the construction of the state in Chile required a process of centralization of
power. Over time management had varied reforms which focused on generating changes
in the socio-economic structure, implementing various services and making progress in
centralizing management in specific areas of management.

With the fall of liberalism, Ibañez promoted a process of change in the role of the State,
generating greater intervention in different social spheres, a centralization of power in
the President and management based on technical knowledge, leaving efficiency as a
central objective in its new strategic plan. Then in the arrival of the '90s and Patricio
Aylwin's government, the problem of the modernization of public management became
politically relevant and the Pilot Modernization Plan was created that sought to advance
in six areas, which are evident in the public management of today, which are strategic
management, transparency and probity, citizen participation, human resources and
institutionality of the State that was gradually developing.
 Natalia Orellana
Public Administration Student

He began the government of Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006) who sought a redesign

and reorganization of the state structure. In 2001, a series of corruption scandals were
released that led to the worst crisis in the governments of the Concertación, in the face
of this situation a new reform of public management was necessary. Unlike the previous
reform, this occurred due to the window of opportunity generated by the corruption
crisis and was formulated from solutions proposed by actors outside the government
(Navarrete and Gómez, 2009; Waissbluth, 2006). The new policy of personal
development had as its objectives the professionalization of the civil service, the
improvement of the remuneration policy and the provision of an institutionality
(creation of the National Directorate of the Civil Service).

Thus, arises the New Public Management which is the paradigm that has inspired the
reforms of modernization of the State worldwide to improve the results achieved by the
administration. In 2004, a system of selection of senior public managers was created,
which would allow public services to have a leadership of people with appropriate
professional skills to carry out their positions. The introduction of competence in the
process of selecting these positions meant an improvement in the skills and abilities of
senior managers (Hood and Lodge,2004), the high public management system has
contributed positively to the efficiency of public spending and the incorporation of
performance remuneration aimed at reducing the existence of corrupt behaviors is not
yet evidenced by the constant corruption cases we see in everyday life.

The New Public Management currently defines its mission and field of action by
legislation or by an external body of a political nature, has a monopoly on the
sanctioning power of the state, coercive and coercive, even though in practice it must go
to negotiation and partnerships; it develops in a complex environment, being pressured
by governmental, political or social bodies and has difficulties in planning in the long
term, and that it must accommodate a wide variety of values and interests where the
objectives and policies of public management are multiple and complex given the social
relevance of the issues addressed. It tends to search for security that has led to the
privileges of centralized and hierarchical structures.

Public management in the country has been part of important development processes
that have happened to the Chilean state, generating changes to advance the search for a
 Natalia Orellana
Public Administration Student

government that delivers and implements stable and functional policies with the
greatest possible transparency and probity in order to bring citizens closer to
management. The solutions must be concrete and must meet all the objectives and
measures of the newly established public management, which currently presents great
progress and points in favour as an administrative model, although administrative
discretion can sometimes lead to mistakes and present slight deficiencies in areas that
are not as visible on the part of the government. Knowing the whole history, progress
and deficiencies Is it necessary to continue in the search for a better management
model?

Article 5 of Law 20.285 on Access to Public Information provides that all "acts and
decisions of the bodies of the State Administration, their foundations, the documents
that serve as their support or direct and essential completion, and the procedures used
for their dictation, are public, exceptfor the exceptions provided for in this law and those
provided for in other quorum laws c alified. In addition, information prepared on a
public budget is public and other information held by the bodies of the Administration
is public, whateveritsformat, support, date of creation, origin, classification or
processing, unless itis subject to the exceptions indicated". This means that from 2008
people have the right to know all information collected or produced by public
organizations, except for duly well-founded exceptions.

As we saw in the talk, the main preocation in the early years of implementation of the
right of access to public information was toincrease awareness of this right, focusing on
people who neededaccess to public information but were unaware thatthey had noright
of access to it and also did not know how to make that right effective (how to make a
request for information, howto make acomplaint in case of denialof information, etc.).
Over the years, thanks to the work of the Council for Transparencia, the level of
knowledge of this right and its mechanisms of exercise has been increasing. However,
the level of claims and legalizations in the face of infringement remains very low. Thus,
we could hypothesize that there is an important group of people who, whileue they
know their right of access to information and know how to exercise it, still do not go
totherespective circumstances when it is infringed in this right.
 Natalia Orellana
Public Administration Student

Bibliography

● Armijo, M. 2002. Administrative modernization and Public Management in

Chile. "Reform and Modernization of the State. Experiences and Challenges,
267-297.
● Waissbluth, M. 2006. State reform in Chile. 12-15, 38-46.
● Barría, D. 2009. To reform a colonial public administration, 31-39.
● Harmon and Mayer, 1999. Organization Theory for Public Administration, 35-
42.