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Low‐trust bureaucracy: Understanding the Mexican bureaucratic experience
Author(s) -
Peeters Rik,
Trujillo Jiménez Humberto,
O'Connor Elizabeth,
Ogarrio Rojas Pascual,
González Galindo Michele,
Morales Tenorio Daniela
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
public administration and development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.574
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1099-162X
pISSN - 0271-2075
DOI - 10.1002/pad.1824
Subject(s) - bureaucracy , inefficiency , context (archaeology) , neglect , government (linguistics) , politics , public administration , political science , public relations , economics , law , psychology , paleontology , linguistics , philosophy , psychiatry , biology , microeconomics
Summary Latin American bureaucracies are notorious for their inefficiency and opacity, yet there is very little empirical research done on what exactly constitutes the “bureaucratic experience” for citizens and what the costs of bureaucratic dysfunction are. To improve our understanding of this topic, 5 cases of Mexican citizens' encounters with public bureaucracies are used to develop the notion of “low‐trust bureaucracy”: public organisations in which access to services is unreliable and the levels of control towards both citizens and bureaucrats are excessive. This bottom‐up analysis of administrative practices contributes to our understanding of the ineffectiveness of government programmes and services, but also of how bureaucracies in developing countries amplify social inequality rather than function as a social equaliser. Furthermore, this article adds new insights to the existing understanding of administrative burdens as a result of either political tactics or mere benign neglect. The data presented here suggest that structural and intractable characteristics of the broader administrative context, such as authoritarian legacies, can produce behavioural patterns that shift bureaucratic attention away from a fair and efficient service provision.