Why do Brazil's governments clash with bureaucracy, regardless of ideology?

Brazilian governments, whether led by figures like Jair Bolsonaro or Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, often find themselves at odds with the state's own bureaucracies. Bolsonaro accused agencies like Ibama of hindering development and clashed with Anvisa during the pandemic, frequently blaming career civil servants for resisting his policies. Similarly, Lula has criticized the Central Bank's monetary policy, contested technical opinions from the economic team, and faced friction with environmental and regulatory bodies over government priority projects.

The common explanation for these clashes is ideological differences. However, this view is insufficient. An institutional reason underlies why governments with distinct political leanings encounter resistance from the same bureaucratic actors. In recent decades, democratic systems have increasingly required public decisions to be supported by technical studies, impact analyses, public consultations, and expert opinions. This emphasis on technical justification has inadvertently strengthened the position of those who produce such knowledge.

While politicians retain the final decision-making authority, the civil servants who prepare technical opinions or impact analyses significantly influence which alternatives are considered, which evidence is deemed relevant, and which risks must be addressed. Research indicates that when these professionals perceive a decision as threatening their agency's "institutional mission," they tend to use administrative procedures to bolster their arguments. They rarely resort to public confrontations or leaks, preferring to operate within the established rules to produce more robust analyses and detailed justifications that are difficult to ignore.

This dynamic explains the discomfort many governments feel with professional bureaucracy. The power of these civil servants does not stem from electoral mandates or formal decision-making authority. Instead, it arises from their capacity to generate the knowledge that legitimizes public decisions. Paradoxically, the very rules designed to control the bureaucracy have amplified its influence. This is not a distortion of democracy but a natural consequence of societies demanding decisions grounded in evidence. In the modern state, those who produce technical justifications may not govern directly, but they increasingly define the terms of conflict and the methods by which governments operate.