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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
The régime of Getulio Vargas has in the past fourteen years wrought a major transformation in the national government of Brazil. A vast centralization has taken place whereby the states' rights direction of the post-Empire period—1889–1930—was reversed and both the states and the municipalities were brought under control. New ministries and other national organs were created. A merit system was established and a public service organized. The national administration has been integrated both structurally and by means of central management agencies.
These sweeping changes have come rapidly, mostly in the past five years. There is added interest for people in the United States of America because the precedents have been taken from the theory and practice of this country. It will not be possible to present in this brief paper more than a summary of the Brazilian administrative reforms.
1 Brazilian “statutes,” i.e., decree-laws and decrees, are published in the Diário Official (Brazilian equivalent of the United States Federal Register) generally the day after the date of enactment.
2 See W. F. Willoughby, Principles of Public Administration, Chap. iv.
3 “Code of the Functionary,” Decree-law 1713, 1939; “Code of the Supernumerary,” Decree-law 5176, 1943. These are recommended reading for students of public administration.
4 As of November, 1943, there were in round numbers 55,000 functionaries and more than twice as many extra-numerários, i.e., supernumeraries, divided as follows: 40,000 mensalistas, monthly paid workers; 45,000 diaristas, day workers; 6,000 tareféiros, piece-workers; and 600 contratados employed by individual contract. See report by the D.A.S.P., Reajustamento dos Vencimentos do Pessoal Civil e do Pessoal Militar (D.A.S.P., Rio de Janeiro, 1943.) In justice, it should be added that the day-and piece-workers are almost all laborers and that the others, the employees paid by the month, are under the merit system, retirement and disability benefits, and central personnel supervision, and also are protected from indiscriminate dismissal by tradition if not by legal status.
5 The equivalent of the United States Government Manual in Brazil is the Indicador, published by the D.A.S.P. The data given here are from the edition of December 31, 1943, printed during 1944.
6 Because of concerted resistance by the newspapers themselves, the censorship functions of the D.I.P. broke down late in February, 1945, and the government subsequently moved to limit its activity to cultural functions.
7 The only national organ with which it does not share jurisdiction to a greater or lesser extent is the Tribunal de Contas, the audit and settlement tribunal, each of whose seven members has the title of minister and the tenure of a supreme court judge. See provisions in Brazilian constitution of 1937.
8 Budgeting had been, since the early nineteenth century, a traditional function of the Ministry of Finance. There is great similarity between United States and Brazilian administrative history in the tug-of-war between the Treasury Department and the President's office as to control of budgeting.
9 See my Report on a Mission to the D.A.S.P., pp. 34–35. (Office of the Coördinator of Inter-American Affairs, Washington, D. C., April 29, 1944. Mimeographed.)
10 D.A.S.P., Divisão de Aperfeiçoamento, Cursos de Administração em 1943 (Rio de Janeiro, 1944).Google Scholar
11 For a general description, see D.A.S.P., A Récita Pública. (Imprensa Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, 1942.)Google Scholar
12 See the report by the D.A.S.P., Resultado de um Inquérito (Imprensa Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, 1942).Google Scholar
13 Entirely apart from this centralization, there has been a movement to take over certain territory directly. The Indicador printed in 1944 listed seven such federal territories: (1) Territorio do Acre, (2) Territorio Federal do Amapá, (3) Territorio de Fernando de Noronha, (4) Territorio do Guaporé, (5) Territorio do Iquassú, (6) Territorio de Ponto Porá, (7) Territorio do Rio Branco. Almost no comment can be found in print as to the significance of this development.
