From the criticism of politics to effective public management: depoliticization as a political strategy

Abstract

The trials of local politicians in the state of Rio Grande do Sul provide us elements to reflect on a larger scale about the political changes and the new definition of politics made by jurists. The hypothesis mobilized is that the enterprise of politics criticism carried out by the Brazilian justice system has reinforced the stigmatization of local politics as archaic and pathological. In addition, it has accredited new agents, endowed with other attributes previously external to the political logic, as electorally legitimized to present better solutions to the crisis of public administrations. This article describes the results found in a case study on mayors trials in Rio Grande do Sul with the objective of discussing the late importation of the doctrine of “new public management” as a model.