This post is written by Gabriela Lotta, Professor of Public Administration at the Getulio Vargas Foundation.

  • The problem: Many countries have been facing democratic backsliding with the rise of new authoritarian leaders.

  • Why it matters: Democracy can be damaged by authoritarian leaders who wish to dismantle democratic procedures to remain in power.

  • The solution: Protect bureaucratic processes that champion transparency, accountability and can denounce undemocratic efforts.

Over the last few years, many countries worldwide have been facing processes of democratic backsliding with the rise of new authoritarian leaders. Unlike previous authoritarian efforts, these new processes are not based on military coups or revolutions. Instead, they usually start with electoral processes, and, silently, democratic institutions are attacked, checks and balances systems are dismantled, and democracy is ruined from within by authoritarian leaders who want to remain in power, as noted by Levitksy and Ziblat. On different levels, this process has been documented in countries such as Hungry, Turkey, Mexico, the USA under Trump, and Brazil, among others.

Bureaucrats are a barrier to authoritarian rule

Scholars usually analyse democratic backsliding by observing political and democratic institutions, and the legislative and the judiciary. However, these movements of democratic backsliding also require an invisible dismantling that occurs from inside the public administration and affects the administrative procedures and civil servants. Since the work of Max Weber, the importance of civil servants and administrative procedures for democracy is well known. Bureaucracy – composed of procedures and civil servants – is a requirement for democracy, as democracy needs continuity, stability, neutrality, and isonomy. Due to these characteristics, bureaucracy imposes many barriers for authoritarian leaders who want to change institutions. Bureaucracy highlights illegalities, resists changes and sets limits. Bureaucrats try to protect laws and guarantee the continuity and legality of procedures. Therefore, as Paul DuGay proposed, observing the new authoritarian efforts, bureaucrats are a cornerstone of democracy.

This is why it's not surprising that authoritarian leaders need to attack bureaucracy to implement their projects. They have to reinterpret or change the laws and procedures or minimise their imposed barriers. But most of all, they have to gain loyalty or silence bureaucrats who may resist and bring to light any illegalities and misuse of laws and procedures.

A case study from Brazil

Some scholars have recently started to analyse what happens to a public administration under processes of democratic backsliding in different countries (see, for example, the cases documented in the book Bauer et al., 2021; or the discussions made by Bauer and Becker, 2020; Peters and Pierre, 2019; Rockman, 2019). We are also contributing to this discussion by analysing the Brazilian case under Bolsonaro's Presidency.

We can summarise here at least four different strategies authoritarian leaders use to minimise the barriers imposed by bureaucrats – both by gaining their loyalty or silencing them.

The first one is what some authors name as ‘bureaucracy bashing’ (e.g., Caillier), defined as "political messaging aimed at disparaging government, or agencies and bureaucrats in particular, with the hope of weakening confidence or trust citizens place in the entity". In Brazil, for example, the president made many public speeches saying that bureaucrats or some organisations are incompetent, lazy, corrupt, etc. In a speech, the economy ministry named servants as ‘parasites’. These efforts affect bureaucrats' self-confidence and citizens' trust in public organisations.

A second strategy is the persecution and harassment of bureaucrats. In Brazil, for example, the government increased the number of lawsuits against bureaucrats, revised dismissal processes and denounced harassment. These practices create an environment of fear that diminishes bureaucrats' reaction capacity.

The third strategy is to control or erase bureaucrats from decision-making processes. For example, bureaucrats are forbidden to access systems and official information; they are excluded from committees and meetings; their technical knowledge is ignored; politicians control their working time, the people they interact with, their emails, and telephones. In Brazil, for example, the government approved censorship laws in eight different organisations, forbidding bureaucrats to publish on social networks, give interviews, or publish articles or academic papers.

Finally, the last strategy is politicisation, whereby politicians employ those loyal to their cause into positions of influence. Usually, this means substituting a worker with specialised knowledge for someone with political relations. In Brazil, politicisation has been accompanied by the process of militarization of public organisations. In 2022, 30% of political positions (around 6,000) will be occupied by military members. Politicisation increases the control and presence of politicians inside organisations and enables them to implement planned changes.

"From these cases, we can learn how to protect democracy by protecting bureaucracy."

How can civil servants resist?

But how do civil servants deal with these strategies? They have different forms of resistance, categorised by various scholars as sabotage and shirking (Guedes-Neto and Peters 2021; Brehm and Gates 1996), exit, neglect, and voice, and forms of guerrilla and subversive action (Olssom 2016; Ingber, 2018; O'Leary, 2017). However, these practices take time, cost money, and energy, are not always effective and may generate even stronger reactions – such as more lawsuits and dismissals. They also affect workers’ mental and physical health - causing burnout, for example.

Furthermore, the longer authoritarian leaders remain in power, the more they learn from their strategies, learn to manage procedures and bureaucrats, and decrease bureaucracy's resilience. Thus, over time, bureaucracy poses fewer and fewer barriers to authoritarian leaders as democracy becomes more and more dismantled.

What can this pessimistic scenario teach us about public administration and democracy? First, the analysis of current cases shows the importance of looking at what happens within the state in democratic backsliding processes. Considering the impact of democratic backsliding on bureaucracy is important to understand the potentials and limits of our public administration.

Second, from these cases, we can learn how to protect democracy by protecting bureaucracy. These ongoing cases show that bureaucracy's resilience and resistance are related to its ability to impose barriers. Invest in organisations that combine autonomy and accountability and have a more controlled space for occupying political appointments is one of the findings. Another one is to improve transparency in institutionalised procedures which can be controlled by society. And finally, the cases show the importance of investing in stable bureaucracies, with good expertise, that are accountable to citizens, that operate as part of checks and balances, and which have spaces to denounce illegitimate and undemocratic efforts of authoritarian leaders.

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