The important role that technocrats play in Latin America has stimulated a lively theoretical debate about experts’ influence in policy making and their effective independence from other sociopolitical players, especially politicians, international financial institutions and business. Through an in-depth analysis of the role of economic and health technocrats in Colombia from 1958 to 2011 and in Peru from 1980 to 2011, this dissertation demonstrates that technocrats are best conceptualized as autonomous actors in Latin America. This technical autonomy, though, varies in strength from policy sector to policy sector and even within the same policy sector across time. I propose a theory of technocratic autonomy to explain both the bases of experts’ autonomy and the determinants that explain the variation in the degree of autonomy across policy sectors and across time. Fundamentally, technocrats’ higher degree of expertise provides them with considerable leverage over sociopolitical actors and allows them to enhance their influence. x Four factors explain experts’ degree of autonomy and its variation across policy areas. First, a high level of technical complexity in a policy area enhances autonomy by making it more difficult for politicians to counter technocrats’ proposals. Second, the degree of technocratic consensus in a policy area limits the possibility of experts being replaced by other experts with preferences closer to those of politicians. Third, experts are more likely to gain autonomy in state areas where bad policy performance causes high political costs for the incumbent. Finally, a balanced constellation of diverse powerful stakeholders having interests in a policy area also enhances technical autonomy. These stakeholders monitor competing stakeholders and the incumbent, opening a space for technocrats to act with more autonomy. I argue that these four factors explain why economic experts, in general, are more likely to gain autonomy and entrench it over time, whereas health experts remain more vulnerable. These factors also explain the variation in technocratic autonomy over time within the same policy area. / text

Dominant market theories analyze markets as ahistorical entities without the need for professional groups that manage crucial functions within them. This thesis, in contrast, approaches markets as historical systems that develop over time and that can be constituted in many different ways because of different historical trajectories. Different professional groups managing market routines, further, are seen as a crucial part of markets. Two concepts are introduced: “market architecture”, the specific way a market is constituted at a given time; and “market technocrats”, the seemingly disinterested third party functionaries that manage routines in markets and advocate changes in market architecture. The thesis argues that market technocrats exist because of uncertainty and lack of trust between market actors, and that they are an important part of how market architectures develop over time. It presents an analytical framework for understanding market technocrats and how they interact with and develop markets. Four different aspects of market technocrats are explored: the process of establishing market technocrats in market routines; the capture of the authority of market technocrats by other market actors; the expansionistic behavior of market technocrats; and the way changes in economic theory, as an important part of how economists with technocratic authority advocate market change, can help to explain changes in markets. These aspects are explored through four empirical papers: The Market Technocracy of Import Substitution: The Role of Asymmetric Information and The Swedish Seed Association 1880–1935; Limits of Market Technocracy: Swedish Fertilizer Research and the Crisis of Objectivity 1945–1960; Central Banks, and the Pursuit of Influence, Prestige, and Legitimacy: The Creation of the Nobel Memorial Prize; and From Market Engineering to Institutional Engineering: Reform Economics in Sweden 1950–2000. The results of the papers form the basis of a hypothetical narrative of how the role of market technocrats has changed during the 20th century. This provides a roadmap for further research in the development of markets and the role of market technocrats.

To what extent does studying jurisdictional politics need the knowledge of different administrative theories in general and the science of public administration in particular? This small text proposes such reflection and comes to the conclusion that it is impossible to propose a new approximation to this topic without considering the administrative theory, for that the specialists and thinkers will get more with the contact of this discipline from what it is called a multidisciplinary approach. / ¿Hasta qué punto estudiar política jurisdiccional requiere del concurso de distintas teorías administrativas en general y de la ciencia de la administración pública en particular? Este pequeño texto se plantea tal reflexión y llega a la conclusión de que es imposible proponer una aproximación novedosa a esta temática sin contar con la teoría administrativa, por lo que los especialistas y reformadores ganarían mucho con el contacto de esta disciplina dentro de lo que ya resulta, claramente, un enfoque multidisciplinario.

This article analyzes the technocracy emergence in social sector, through the study of the Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion case, created in 2011 in response to one of the essential themes of Ollanta Humala’s electoral campaign: social inclusion. This paper aims to determine which factors led to the establishment of a technocracy linked to social policy in a country where it has been traditionally linked to political usage and patronage. There are three factors that explain the positioning of a technocracy in this ministry addressed throughout the article. On one hand, there was the presence of a consensus about the need for a technical management of this sector in the search of generating legitimacy and autonomy. On the other hand, it happened to be a favorable political environment characterized by a wide political support from the government. Finally, the wide discretion of the technical team in the design of MIDIS and during formation of the first ministerial body of bureaucrats allowed the emergence of a technocratic institution. To this end, this article describes development of the stages of the creation of the institution, design, approval and implementation and shows a corroboration of the technocratic profile of the initial top management team of this ministry. / El presente artículo analiza el surgimiento de una tecnocracia en un sector social, a través del caso del Ministerio de Desarrollo e Inclusión Social, creado en el 2011 en respuesta a uno de los ejes centrales de la campaña electoral de Ollanta Humala: la inclusión social. Este texto busca determinar qué factores permitieron el establecimiento de una tecnocracia vinculada a la política social en un país donde esta ha estado tradicionalmente vinculada a un manejo político y clientelar. A lo largo del artículo, se abordan tres factores que explican el posicionamiento de una tecnocracia en este ministerio. Por un lado, existió un consenso sobre la necesidad del manejo técnico de este sector en la búsqueda de generar legitimidad y autonomía. Por otro lado, se dio un entorno político favorable caracterizado por un vasto respaldo político del gobierno. Por último, el amplio margen de decisión de los técnicos en el diseño del MIDIS y en la conformación del primer cuerpo ministerial permite el surgimiento de una institución de carácter tecnocrático. Para ello, esta investigación describe el desarrollo de las etapas de creación de esta institución, de diseño, aprobación e implementación, así como presenta una corroboración del perfil tecnocrático del equipo inicial de alta dirección de este ministerio.