The Dilemma for the New Administrative Culture in Mexican Public Administration: Esprit de Corps or Individualist Bureaucracy?

Abstract

Using empirical data from the first survey conducted with certified Civil Service Officials at the federal level in Mexico, this article discusses how a new administrative culture is already rising within this bureaucratic group. The Mexican civil service is a young institution; the law creating the sector was passed in 2003, after the dominant party that controlled the executive branch for more than 70 years (the PRI) lost the presidential elections for the first time in 2000. The general objective of the Civil Service Law of 2003 was to eliminate the spoils system, thus inaugurating a new era for Mexican public administration. However, this law seems to assume that a civil service is primarily a problem of “professionalization” of individuals, not recognizing any attempt to view the civil service as a group of persons developing a group morale and ethos. Still, this article argues that an esprit de corps is an inevitable outcome of the maturity of a civil service, and the Mexican case will not be the exception.

Keywords:

• civil service
• Mexico
• esprit de corps
• bureaucracy

Notes

¹This survey was also conducted with members of two other Civil Service systems: Foreign Affairs Service and Electoral Service. In this article, we use only the one conducted with the Federal Civil Service.

²In Mexico, which has a long history of authoritarian management of public service, this level of participation might be considered very high due to the tradition of secrecy and highly vertical hierarchy present in Mexican public administration.

³Curiously, on July 1, 2012, the PRI candidate was victorious in Mexico's presidential election.

⁴The author acted as the director of the research Martínez developed in order to fulfill the requirements and credits for her undergraduate program.

⁵These two other Civil Services would deserve a specific study since the former is quite old and stable and the latter seems to be working pretty well in terms of creating a new esprit de corps. However, to do this is clearly out of reach for the purposes of this article.

⁶Given the short story on using surveys to study Mexican public sector after so many years of authoritarian regimes, we consider this rate of response quite encouraging. Nevertheless, our interpretation should be taken carefully given the rate of response.

⁷It is important to note the high level of “no answers” found. In Mexico the idea of answering academic surveys is still under development. Several public officials were very concerned that their identity might be known, making them open to sanctions from their bosses. This is the reason why some of the respondents avoided answering those questions that might compromise them, regardless the constant assurances offered to them regarding the protection of their personal data.