Navigating Delegation: An Empirical Analysis of Government-Administration Dynamics in Portugal

The conventional narrative about public administration in Portugal suggests that changes in public policies are marked by instability in the bureaucratic apparatus of the Public Administration which, in turn, compromise the quality of governance and weaken the capacity of the State to effectively implement public policies. In addition, the relationship between governments and public administration implies the delegation of competences, authority, and power to the entities of the administration, which causes relationships that entail risks inherent in delegation processes that occurs on a democracy. Reorganizations are considered one of the control mechanisms (Huber & Shipan, 2008), often used by political structures as a strategy to control and mitigate the risks of delegation that may arise (Peters, 1992).This study aims to conduct an analysis of the evolution of the Portuguese public administration, with the aim of understanding which are the potential determinants that have influenced or led to changes in the Portuguese public administration since 1976. The research was conducted in a systematic way, using a content analysis of the governmental organic laws, and mapping the patterns verified in the entities of the Public Administration. For this analysis, the entire Portuguese democratic period (1976-2023) was considered. To this end, the dynamics of (dis)continuity, changes in command, creation, fusion, extinction, disaggregation of entities and change of nature are analyzed. Subsequently, its political and conjunctural determinants are identified. Overall, it is possible to conclude that the use of reorganizations as a control mechanism has increased over time, having gained expression in all its modalities since the Pinto Balsemão I Government, and the type of government and ideology (politicization) affect how and how reorganizations are applied.