Governance, reciprocity and political dynamics in Brazil: auditorship as an ethnographic field

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to immerse in the routine of the governance institutions having as an investigative field the direct and contracted management of public health units in a federal state in Brazil where the actions of public agents-intertwined in the dynamics of power built and maintained by governmental and political elites-were problematized. The investigation field had as methodological perspective the participant observation during the period of thirteen months and which required a look directed to the normative approach that endows the administrative routine of formal rules, and another look directed to informal and/or parallel conducts that cross the governmental routine imposing its rules. This double view was a necessary condition to learn how governmental power works from within the movement of its elites. The results of the study show the plots that lead to the appropriation of the public sector for private purposes and the conclusive analyses affirm that patrimonialism is still present in the way of governing institutions and conducting politics in Brazil.