correct partisan credentials are held, to what extent are such officials
a different species of bureaucrat as far as the ordinary citizen is concerned?
The bureaucracy could also be central to the career opportunities of the
small middle class, as in Mali where it became the focus of political com-
petition. In the absence of other fully developed institutions political pres-
sure and lobbying was directed towards the bureaucracy which became the
arena in which political conflict was fought out (Meillasoux, 1970).
The high-performing Asian economies have also managed economic
development to varying degrees through bureaucratic and technocratic
means rather than through liberal democratic politics. Government has been
regarded as a technocratic activity, with the state’s technocratic élite operat-
ing autonomously from civil society and seeking ‘bureaucratically deter-
mined goals’ (Jones, 1997, p. 199). The bureaucracy was insulated from
‘growth-compromising pressures’ such as agricultural interests and weak
commercial and industrial classes. A meritocratic bureaucracy provided sta-
bility, a capacity for strategic planning, and competent, coherent adminis-
tration. There was, however, successful ‘collaborative linkaging’ with
economic interests, allowing the bureaucracy to mobilize resources for
developmental aims (Weiss and Hobson, 1995, pp. 162–8).
The bureaucratic–authoritarian state
In Latin America the persistence of military regimes in relatively advanced
societies with long experience of independence led to the formulation of a
‘bureaucratic–authoritarian’ model of politics. Higher levels of industrial-
ization and growing GNP per capita were linked to reversals from demo-
cratic competitive politics and growing inequality. The historical sequence
typified by Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Mexico through the
1960s and 1970s moved from rule by oligarchies of powerful families,
through populist politics and on to bureaucratic-authoritarianism.
Experience in Latin America again runs counter to a certain genre of devel-
opment theorizing which predicted that as countries develop economically,
politics becomes more pluralistic and the state becomes more democratic.
Latin America during the twentieth century should not have become more
authoritarian politically. It is useful to compare the bureaucratic–authoritarian
model with Alavi’s post-colonial state model, because of the argument against
Alavi that as societies develop economically and socially his model becomes
less viable. Latin America seems to present evidence of bureaucratic-
authoritarianism accompanying and even growing as societies become more
economically advanced.
The State in the Third World 121