Paper prepared for the special issue of the International Journal of Political Studies, edited by

In this paper I will evaluate public sector reform in Latin America, and particularly the two basic reforms the state apparatus historically experienced in some advanced countries – civil service or bureaucratic reform, in the nineteenth century, and managerial or new public management reform, since the last quarter of the twentieth century. In the first section, I will define briefly what I understand by political development or better governance and relate it to public management reform. In the second, I will show how insistent and frustrating attempts have been inLatin America attempts to bring about civil service reform. In the third section, the processes of decentralization and citizens ’ participation will be briefly discussed. In the forth, I will shortly describe the advances in public management reform in Chile and Brazil, in the latter case with my direct participation and the attempt to develop a general theoretical framework for a reform consistent with Brazil ’ social and political reality. In the conclusion I will mention how, through the restructuration of CLAD (Centro Latinoamericano de Administración para el Desarrollo) 1, and the realization of yearl