Parliamentary Control over the Implementation of Public Policies. The (Small) Contribution of the Congress to the Administrative Efficiency in Latin America

• Published in: Estado, gobierno, gestión pública Vol. 3; no. 8; pp. 80 - 112
• Main Author: Ferraro, Agustin E. Ferraro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: 01.01.2006
• Subjects: Bureaucracy; Control; Hegemony; Legislative Bodies; Policy; Public Administration
• ISSN: 0717-6759

This article deals with the contribution that Congress can make to the good administrative management through its participation in the formulation of public policies and in the operative management of their implementation. The article discusses the very active form in which the U.S. Congress participates in the operative management of Public Administration, to the point where a majority of experts recognize the hegemony of Congress over the federal bureaucracy of this country. In the same way, the participation of Parliament in the management of the bureaucracy has also been considered by the political theory and carried out into practice -- particularly over the last thirty years -- in Germany, under the concept of 'parliamentary co-government'. On the other side, some specific problems that result from the application of the Weberian thesis about the negative or obstructive role of parliament to the Latin American legislatures are discussed The article analyzes the Argentine case to deal with the pertinence of introducing a variable that is proposed-the influence that predominant conceptions have over the legislative work-in the analysis of the control of Congress over bureaucracy. Adapted from the source document.