Conceptualising the ministerial adviser in Latin America: roles and relationships with the bureaucracy

This chapter offers a general overview of the role of ministerial advisers in Latin American bureaucracies. Often recognised as plagued by patrimonialist practices and truncated efforts of ‘civil service modernisation’, Latin American bureaucracies have produced ministerial advisers with different characteristics and roles to those of advanced Weberian democracies. In Latin America, such advisers enjoy a highly mobile role which facilitates their representation of their master’s political mandates but also enables them to construct their own circle of ‘quid pro quo’ networks. These features grant ministerial advisers significant leverage, permitting them to navigate and survive in the highly politicised environment of Latin American bureaucracies, while also securing important reputational capital in the form of connections, experience, and reach at various levels of the bureaucracy. The chapter offers a fourfold typology of ministerial advisers by considering the degree of ‘interest representation’ (i.e. whether advisers are aligned with their principal’s interests or follow their personal and/or coalition’s agenda) and ‘bureaucratic involvement’ (which analyses the range of bureaucratic functions they can undertake). On these bases four types of ministerial advisers in Latin America are proposed: party professionals, cliques or camarillas, programmatic technocrats, and amphibious advisers.