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The objective of this chapter is to describe and analyze Brazil's main steps in its long and incomplete process of organizing a professional and responsive public service. During the twentieth century, Brazil had two authoritarian regimes and organized a state-oriented process of industrialization. After 1988, democracy has changed how public administration should be constituted, imposing demands for universal recruitment and accountability. The level of professionalization of the federal public service was improved, with a higher level of education, better wages and the recruitment of public servants to management positions. The challenges ahead are improving governance and executive coordination and raising the responsiveness and quality of public management (such as human resources, planning, budgeting, procurement, information and communication technologies, and organizational modeling) in a context of political instability, slow economic recovery, and substantial public debts at the federal government.

Departing from a so-called “modern civil service” as an ideal type, this chapter evaluates the status of public personnel management in Latin America. Such an ideal model is considered a mix between the organizational principles of the traditional civil service and those of the new public management perspective. First, the chapter presents the different phases that public management practices have undergone in some developed countries. Secondly, following several studies and data provided by the IADB, the level of development of several civil service systems in Latin America is analyzed and several of their construction–destruction–reconstruction patterns are presented. Lastly, the cases that most approach a modern civil service are discussed and some recommendations offered to reformers in this region.