Reform and counter-reform: the perverse dynamics of the Brazilian public administration

The history of the Brazilian public administration presents a reform and counter-reform dynamics whose results are far below society's expectations in relation to the performance of the governmental apparatus in reaching goals and achievements. This paper focuses on the struggles between two power systems: in one hand, the formalist bureaucracy, centralizer and impervious to the State's apparatus modernizing trends; in the other, the innovative or modernizers, who often have trouble in putting theory intoaction. To analyze the struggle between these two powers, the paper uses Donald Schon's Beyond the stable State, which adopts the premise that every organization is constituted by three basic elements: its theory, its structure and its technology. And, with this theoretical support, the paper tries to show a strange and not always effective dynamics in the initiatives for reform in the public administration.