PALAVRAS-CHAVE: estruturas de governo, administração municipal, megalópolis, América Latina.

Administração Pública

CONTEMPORARY ISSUESIN THEGOVERNMENT ANO AOMINISTRATION

OF LATIN AMERICAN MEGACITIES

Peter M. WardDepartment of Sociology Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson

School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, Austin and Directorof the Mexican Center.

RESUMO: Este artigo é o primeiro a analisar e comparar, de modo sistemático, as estruturas dos governos eadministrações municipais das sete maiores cidades da América Latina: quatro megalópolis (população superior a 10milhões de habitantes) e três capitais nacionais. A análise da estrutura dessas administrações tem como contrapontoas encontradas nos Estados Unidos e Reino Unido. As estruturas governamentais na América Latina apresentamcaracterísticas e tendências importantes: 1. carência de autoridade regional (cruzamento de jurisdições); 2. existênciade prefeitos fortes e vereadores fracos; 3. partidarismo; 4. sobreposição de burocracia ao invés da interligação delas;5. pressões a favor da privatização dos serviços municipais, além da contínua tensão entre a iniciativa privada e opoder público; 6. maior autonomia fiscal; 7. contínua marginalização da participação pública no governo dasmegalópolis. Apesar dessas características, muitas cidades (a despeito de seu tamanho e localização) estãose esforçando para desenvolver estruturas de governo mais eficazes, responsáveis e democráticas.

ABSTRACT: Thispaper is the first to systematical/y analyze and compare the structures of city governance andadministration for seven maior cities in LatinAmerica, four of which are megacities (population of over 10millionJ, andthree others are large national capitais. U.S.and U. K.models of city administration are reviewed as baseline modelsagainst which differences in LatinAmerican may be explored. Structures of Government in LatinAmerica show severalimportant features and trenas: 1) the lack of metropolitan (cross;urisdictional) authority; 2) the existence of strong mayorsand weak councils"; 3) high leveis of partisanship; 4) overlapping rather than interlocking bureaucracies; 5) pressurestowards the privatization of city services. but continuing tension over the desirability of public versus private control;6)greater fiscal responsibility and autonomy; and 7), a continuing marginalization of public participation in megacitygovernance./n spite of these features, many cities throughout the region (regardless of whether they are megacity sizeor national capitais), are actively intensifying their efforts to develop more effedive, accountable and democraticgovernance structures.

A preliminary version of this paper was firstpresented at a meeting on "Latin AmericanMegacities" organized by United NationsUniversity in Mexico City in November 1993.

KEY WORDS: struetures of government, eity governanee, megaeities, Latin Ameriea.

42 RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas São Paulo, v. 36, n. 3, p. 42-53 Jul./ Ago./Set. 1996

CONTEMPORARYISSUESIN THEGOVERNMENTAND ADMINISTRATlON DF LATlN AMERICAN MEGACITIES

One of the aims of this paper is to gosome way to remedy an imbalance thatexists in the current literature onmegacities. SpecificalIy,the focus 1proposeto take is upon how megacities areadministered and govemed. AlI too oftenstructures of city governance are eithertaken as given or are ignored altogether.Scholars who have analyzed megacitieshave usualIy done so through one or moreof several optics. First, they have lookedat the role of a megacity within the globaleconomy, usualIy from the point of viewof its importance as production, control orfinancing centres. Prime examples of thiswork are Friedmann's hypothesis onWorld Cities, and more recently Sassen's'work on New York,London and Tokyo.Asecond approach has been to examine therestructuring of these cities, especially thedevelopment of control functions toreplace their earlier production role".Someauthors have also begun to look at theconsequences of this restructuring uponpoverty and social organization withinthese cities". A third focus has been toconsider the extent to which these cities arebecoming more or less similar over time.Particularly relevant here is whether citiesin less-developed countries, for exampleSao Paulo and Mexico City, are changingphysically and culturally in ways similarto their advanced capitalist counterparts.Finally, the perspective adopted by LatinAmerican researchers during the past twodecades has tended to delve morethoroughly into systematic aspects ofaparticular city's development (housing,health care, environmental problems,socialmovements etc.), generalIy showingless interest in the city' s role in the globaleconomy.

Whichever focus has been used to lookat megacities, insufficient considerationhas been given to the political-administra tive structures through whichsuch cities are govemed and managed. Inthe rush to examine their economic baseand international roles, scholars havefailed to ask fundamental questions abouttheir forms of administration and theirgovernability; almost never have thesebeen examined in a compara tiveperspectiva' .How cities are govemed telIsus much about the nature of power

relations and about the opportunities forcitizen involvement in the management ofthe city. Several important dimensions ofcity govemance should be considered.First, what is the basis of legitimacy of theprincipal govemment officers? Are theyappointed or elected? If elected, is thisaccording to partisan or non-partisancriteria?As Iwill demonstrate below, someLatin American city governments areconstructed on the basis of political partyallegiance and others are based on loyaltyto individual politicians. TheUnited Stateshas a strong tradition of non-partisanshipin local government", particularly since thedemise of traditional "machine politics'".In contrast most voters in the UnitedKingdom choose their councillorsaccording to the political party eachrepresents, and they know or care littleabout the person they are electing. Thus,the legitimacy of govemment varies, asdoes the form of rationality which willgovem an individual's behaviour once inoffice. Whether a person is appointed orelected, and how they are elected, maydetermine how they will perform in office- it will also affect the form of theirexpertise, competence, and even theirhonesty or softness". The point here is thatthe structure of a city administration, andthe terms under which it is expected tooperate, helps to shape the form of citizeninvolvement in city affairs.

A second issue relates to how activitiesand power might best be organised whenthe urban area spreads into the jurisdictionof neighbouring authorities. This is almostuniformly the case for the megacitiesconsidered in this article, and is a featureof most large cities throughout the region.Most metropolitan areas in LatinAmericaembrace a number of differentadministra tive units, each of which isvested with a different local authority.These may include areas with specialfederal jurisdictions (such as the FederalCapital of Buenos Aires and MexicoCity' sFederal District), states and countries (forexample, the Provinces of Buenos Airesand Lima, or the State Governrnent of SaoPaulo), urban authorities (usuallymunicipalities or their equivalent), and soon. The legitimacy and rationale of eachwill vary. Thus, careful ordering and

© 1996, RAE - Revista de Administração de Empresas / EAESP / FGV, São Paulo, Brasil.

1. SASSEN, S. The global city:New York, London, Tokyo.Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1991.

2. O'NEILL, H. and MOSS, M.Reinventing New York: com-peting in the next century'sglobal economy. New York:Urban Research Center, 1991.

3. FATNSTEIN, S., GORDON, I.and HARLOE, M. Dividedcities: New York and Londonin compara tive perspective.Oxford: Blackwell, 1992.

4. One of the exceptions thatprove the rule is ZICCARDI, Ali-cia. Ciudades y gohiemoslocales en America Latina enlos noventa. Mexico: MiguelAngel Pomla, 1991.

5. STANYER, J. Understandinglocal govemment. London:Fontana, 1976.

6. POHLMANN, M. Governingthe postindustrial city.London: Longman, 1993.

7. WADE, R. Politics and graft:recruitment, appointment, andpromotions to public office inIndia, in WARD, P. Corruption,Development and Inequality.London: Routledge, 1989, 73-109.

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clarification of the various "tiers" ofauthority are required if city developmentis to be coordinated in any meaningfulways. Equally important is that the natureof intergovernmental relations betweenone leveIof auhority and another needs tobe properly understood.

Related to the issue of political-administrative organization is a thirdconsideration:what functions should eachtier of administration perform (land-useplanning, infrastructural development,transportation, social services, serviceprovision, security, cleansing etc)?Specifically,how can these functions be"nested" hierarchically so as to maximiseefficiency,equity, access, or whatever thelocal goals happen to be?

A final dimension of analysis is toidentify the opportunities for local selfgovernance.Towhat extent do the citizensofmegacitiesmobilise politically and howfar are they empowered to take genuine

Most metropolitan areas in Latin Americaembrace a number of different administrativeunits, each of which is vested with a differentlocal authority.

B. PATEMAN, C. Participationand Democratic Theory. Cam-bridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1970.

9. PITKIN, H. Representation.New York: Atherton Press,1969.

10. SILVERMAN, J. Publicsector decentralization: eco-nomic policy and sectorinvestment programs. Wa-shington D.C.: World BankTechnica! Paper No. 188, 1988.

11. RODRIGUEZ, V. and WARD,P. The New PRI: Recasting ltsIdentity, in AITKIN, R., ato alii.Dismantling ttie Mexica nState? MacMillan, 1996.

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responsibility for local issues?What is thedominant ideology governing citizenshipin eachcityend how has this ideologybeenconstructed? Drawing upon Pateman",Pitkín? and others' discussion, here twoimportant considerations arise. First, theinstitutional structures through whichcitizens participate in city governance -representational democracy; and second,the structures and channels through whichcitizens participate in city governance -participational democracy.

In short, these key features of cityadministration and governance have beenneglected in the LatinAmerican literatureand have rarely been examined incomparative perspective. Too oftengovernment structures have beenconsidered tohave evolved independently,responding only to local circumstancesand political pressures. Any attempt tochange or restructure these governmental

arrangements are often fiercelyresisted bythose who fear an erosion of their powers.Change, if it occurs, tends to be gradualrather , than dramatic. From the localperspective there seems to be little pointto comparison. Yet, these structuresdemand more systematic study, since theyare at the heart of what determineswhether large cities will be decent placesin which to live. For Latin Americagovernments this means caming to termswith new sets of responsibilities that area11too often alien to them. This is onereason why so many key concepts in thepublic administration field, devolution ofpower, empowerment and accountability,carinot easily be expressed in eitherSpanish or Portuguese.

EMERGING IMPERAllVES FOR lHE 1990s

Recent political changes, both in LatinAmerica and beyond, demand that weexamine structures of urban governanceand administration. First, thedemocratization process in LatinAmericahas required that governrnents take a freshlook at the way in which citie s aremanaged. Also, the growing disen-chantment that some Latin Americanpopulations feel towards their nationalleaders has led to a resurgence of interestin local governmen t and in a newfederalism that shifts the locus of poweraway from central governrnent, towardsgreater state and city autonomy.

A second imperative to emerge is thesignificant shift towards decentralizationand devolution. This can occur eitherwithin the layers of a city administrationorwithin a singlegovemment agency.Thisprocess appears emerging strongly in anumber of less developed countries, andhas found quickening support amonginternational agencies such as the WorldBank'". In Mexico, for example, austeritymeasures introduced during the 1980s,along with economic restructuring andpolitical reform, have intensified the needfor the local authorities to do more withless. A greater willingness to embracedecentralization and administra tivereorganisation has been a direct outcomeof this process 11.

Throughout Latin America, city and

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN THE GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATlON OF LATlN AMERICAN MEGACITIES

metropolitan authorities have had toconfront cuts in public expenditure,declining subsidies, and often growingpressure to privatise a range of publicutilities. As greater fiscal responsibility isbeing placed at the local level, municipaland state govemments are required to raisemore of their own revenues. Notsurprisingly, people have become moreconcerned about how their local taxes arespent.

Third, many countries are experiencinga technocratisation of administra tive andgovernmental procedures which isbringing greater transparency to citybudgeting and increased efficiency to thedelivery of urban services. This takes usback to the concepts of devolution andempowerment, since city administratorstoday recognise the political benefits ofaccounting more openly to those theyserve. Local groups, often poorlyorganised and overtly radical in the past,now demonstra te greater realism andpragmatismo They are seeking fewergrandiose changes and a "qualitativelynew effectin power relations"12.Theynowwant greater opportunities for self-government; so that they can defend theirlocal rights and can participate in theimprovement of their neighbourhoods",New social movements are better led andmore adept at winning favours fromthe bureaucracy. Non-governmentorganizations, too, have demonstratedgreater pragmatism and efficacy in theirrelations with local authorities, and in theirsupport for social movements and localcommunities.

Fourth, as democracy has beenextended to formerly authoritarian or one-party regimes, new governanceinstitutions have been had to be forgedbased upon representational democracy.This has meant experimentation inrecasting traditional state societyrelations, whether these were patrimonial,corporatist, or dominated by partypolitical machines. It has also invoked aneed to consider how civic structures ofparticipation can be created that willchange the political (civic) culture ofdependency; encourage the involvementof heterogenous socio-economicgroups indeveloping greater consensus ingovernment; and where partisan politics

RAE • V. 36 • n. 3· Jul./Ago./Set. 1996

is an important determinant of who getselected, to achieve a balance inaccommodating general citizenneeds witha partisan agenda.

These imperatives should encourage usto reflect analytically upon pastexperiences and to think imaginativelyabout which structures of cityadministration and governance within ademocratic system appear to work best.They also require us to examine howexisting structures might best be modifiedin order to take account of the newexperiences and imperatives that haveemerged during the early 1990s.

STRUCTURES OF CITY GOVERNMENT

Before turning to analyze megacitygovernment structures in LatinAmerica itis interesting to examine the structures oflocal government in the United States andin the United Kingdom. There areimportant differences between the twosystems, particularly in the role partypolitics plays in electoral competition foroffice. In the United States, most cityelections are non-partisan - people electtheir councillors and mayors withoutconsideration of whether they areRepublican or Democrat. In the UnitedKingdom, the opposite is true; voterschoosebetween candidates almost entirelyon the basis of their declared partyaffiliation. This means that nationalpolitical parties dominate localgovernment much more in the UnitedKingdom than in the United States.

City govemment in the United StatesIn the United States, four clear premises

underpin local government. First, thepeople elect their representatives. Second,there is a strong system of checks andbalances which protects city governmentfrom excessive interference by federal andstate administrations. Third, cities haveconsiderable autonomy over many of theirown affairs,administering their own taxes,setting their own utility charges, runningprimary and secondary education,policing themselves and operating theirown planning departments. Finally,mostlocal authorities have relatively smallpopulations and may cover only a part ora suburb of a larger urban tract. Most large

12. CASTELLS, M. The urbanauestion. London: EdwardArnold, 1976.

13. . The cityandthe grassroots. London:Edward Arnold, 1983.

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Figure 1City Govemment Structures in the U.K.

I Voters I.............. ········t·······················:········ ..................co U N C I LI

(pAR1Y 1)I PARTY 2 = MAJORITY I (PARTY3)( Elect leader = Mayer )

•••• Head ~Housing Committee

••• ••• :Staff

..•~ Transport ~Manager

Transport Committee ..•-;. :Staff

•••• Planning -ChiefPlanning ••~ ~Committee

Staff

••~ Cnntroller -ServicesServices Committee •~ ~

Staff

Etc. Etc.

D

E

p

A

R

T

E

N

T

s

NORMATIVE EXECUTIVE(Ongoing Civil Service)(Elective and Partisan- Based)

14. This gives residents in thosesub-areas (also called cities)considerable local autonomy.Its weakness is that it favoursthe creation and maintenance ofaffluent subunits and dis-criminates against those thatare poor. It may lead to a"balkanization" of homone-genous - rich and poor -autonomous sub-áreas of thelarger urban or metropolitanarea.

urban areas contain a number of citygovernments".

Within each city, the administra tivestructure normally fits one of the threebasic models depicted in Figure 1. In eachcase practices vary for the election ofcouncil members: in some cases councilmembers represent individual districts ofa city; elsewhere they may be elected "atlarge", i.e.from across the whole city.Somecities have a mixture of both - with keycouncil positions (the mayor for example)being elected by the whole city electorate.

Strong Mayor-Weak Council: In citiessuch as Denver and Houston, the mayorhas strong powers particularly over theselection of key officials (police chief, city

46

attomey, treasurer, and department headsat city hall). These are important postsbecause they deal with sensitive areas,such as personal security, civil rights andfinancial management, which willdetermine whether the mayor is reelected.The council is highly constrained in theextent to which it can overtum the mayor'sdecisions.

Weak Mayor-Strong Council: InAtlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco,the mayor has much less power. Thecouncil hires and fires officialsby majorityvote and the mayor rarely has the right toveto a council decision. Sometimes, keyofficials are popularly elected, canvassingon the basis of their own manda te,independently of the council or mayor.

The Council City Manager Model:Cities such as Austin or Dallas are runmore like business enterprises. The electedcouncil hires a city manager who appointsthe city' s principal officers and carries fullresponsibility for running the city's affairs.The manager is accountable to the counciland can be dismissed only by majority (orin some places, by a two-thirds majority)vote. The city has a mayor, who oftenpresides over council meetings, but day-to-day decisions are made by the manager.This structure is becoming increasinglycommon in the United States, particularlyin cities with less than 250,000 inhabitantswhere it predominates. Among the largercities around half have council managersand of the largest ten cities, four havecouncil managers.

City govemment in the United KingdomFigure 2 shows that British cities are

administered by councils. Councillors areelected as representatives of politicalparties, the vast majority from theConserva tive, Labour and Liberal-Democratic parties. The largest party in thecouncil determines policy, if there is nooutright majority a coalition betweenparties is necessary. This parliamentarysystem is serviced by a hierarchy of civilservice officers whose role it is toimplement policy.

Professional, non-partisan, officials areappointed by the council and continue inpost even when the council changes. Theseofficialsservice all council committees and

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN THE GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION OF LATIN AMERICAN MEGACITIES

Figure 2Govemment Structures in the U.S.A.

?lo 1'z:'/'-' õ Ó

Ó 6 6 6·· · citv mangerother heads of departments I1111 6...---.--'--.66r---r--6..· ··· ·U U U U heads of departments

Ó Ó Ó 0. .departments

la) The We.kMayor-Council System

run the city on a daily basis. The key powerbroker is not the mayor, who presides overthe council and whose duties are largelyceremonial, but the council leader. Thelatter is elected from among the councillorsof the majority party. Councils exercise arange of powers at the borough or citylevel, but are bound by the nationallawslaid down by Parliament.

Until the 1980s, metropolitan councilsexisted in London and six otherconurbations to manage city-wide issuessuch as strategic planning and publictransport". They were abolished by theThatcher govemment's wish to break theLabour party' s hold over most of thesecouncils, at a time when most metropolitangovernment policies were almostdiametrically opposed to those of thenational government.

The principal weakness of localgovernment in Britain is that it is sodependent on central govemment for itsfinance.Approximately 70per cent of localgovernment funding comes from centralgrants. In addition, the governmentcurrently places a series of controls overspending by local authorities. Withcouncils being elected on the basis ofpolitical party affiliation, local policyhardly differs from area to area. When localpriorities differ from national policy, localgovemment is likely to come under attack.

RAE • v. 36 • n. 3· Jul./Ago./Set. 1996

departments

Ib) The StrongMayor -Council System departments

I ) The Council· Manager System

This description of local govemment inthe United States and Britain offers sixbasic principIes by which large cities inLatin America might be administered.First, urban governments should bedemocratic. Whatever city administrativeand management structure is adopted,those serving in a policy making capacityshould be elected. There is no need for theofficers in charge of implementing policyto be elected, providing that they areresponsible and accountable to the council.Second, city govemment procedures anddecisions should be transparent and allofficers and councillors should be publiclyaccountable. Third, one authority shouldexist with responsibility for the whole ofthe city. Such a body should have powerover certain metropolitan-wide concernssuch as strategic planning, land-usingzoning, transport policy,and responsibilityfor major infrastructures programmes andservices. Fourth, all other responsibilitiesshould be decentralised to lower levelbodies. Fifth, public participation ingovernment decision-making should beexamined and, whenever possible, powershould be devolved to local communitiesand neighbourhoods. Final1y, cityauthorities should have considerable fiscalautonomy. This is important if mandatedauthorities are to act without interferencefrom higher levels of govemment.

15. London, Birmingham,Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester,Sheffield and Tyneside.

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No major city in Latin America has a singleauthority which administers the whole urban area.Most citias are divided belween a number ofpolitical-administrative units, and although onemunicipality may be dominant, none has much 'e

wish or incentive to collaborate.

16. Even administration in Rioused to be divided across twoseparate states, Guanabara andRio de Janeiro.

17. PIRIZ, P. EI municipio y laorganization dei estado en Argen-tina, in: Medio Ambiente yUrbanizacion, 28, 1989.

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STRUCTURES OF GOVERNMENT IN LATlNAMERICA'S MAJOR CITIES

The following discussion examines theprincipal features of govermnent structureand administra tive practice in LatinAmerica's major cities and judges themagainst the above mentioned criteria. Thediscussion focuses on the four existingmegacities, defined as cities with morethan ten million inhabitants, as well asdrawing upon the experience of othercapital citiessuch as Lima,Caracas,Bogotaand Santiago, even though these are notstrictly speaking "megacities".

• The lack of a metropolitan authority.No major city in Latin America has asingle authority which administers thewhole urban area. Most cities aredivided between a number of political-administra tive units, and although onemunicipality may be dominant, nonehas much wish or incentive tocollaborate. This pattem is particularlymarked in the metropolitan area of SaoPaulo, which consists of 39 separa temunicipalities (one of which - themunicipality of Sao Paulo comprisesalmost 63% of the total population ofGreater Sao Paulo), and in greaterSantiago, which is made up of 34separate communes. Whereas SaoPaulodeveloped this structure by chance,failing to reform the administrativestructure as the metropolitan area grewand absorbed one contiguousmunicipality after another, Santiagomade a conscious decision to adopt it.An administrative reform in 1982"balkanised" administration inSantiago, gtvmg considerableresponsibility to local govermnent overa wide range of municipal matters.

li these two cities represent the extremein terms of the number ofmunicipal units,several other citieshave similar structures.Riode Janeiro consists of thirteen separatemunicipalities, Buenos Aires has twentylocal govermnent units and Mexico Cityfalls both under the jurisdiction of the 16delegated areas of the Federal District andtwenty-seven municipalities.

What makes administration particularlycomplicated is that many of thesemunicipalities themselves aremanaged byseparate higher level administra tive units.Mexico City is divided administrativelybetween the Federal District and the StateofMexico.Administration in BuenosAiresis split between the Federal District andthe surrounding state ofBuenosAires; thelatter having its capital based in La PIata.Administration in Bogota is split betweenthe Federal Capital and the Department ofCundinamarca, and local govermnent inCaracas between the Federal District andthe State of Miranda. lndeed, among thelargest eight cities of the region only Lima,Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo fall withinga single second-tier authority .i.e.a state ora province". The exception is Lima whichdoes have the equivalent of a metropolitangovemment because the Province of Limacorresponds broadly with the megacity'sbuiltup area and is located within the asingle state, the Department of Lima.Thedivision of authority between differentsecond-tier authorities often causesconflict. In Mexico City, for example, thegovernar of the State of Mexico may bedrawn from a different political party, orfrom a different faction of the same party,to the presidential nominee who runs theFederal District. As a result, there isminimal integration between agencies inthe State of Mexico (responsible to theCovemor) and those of the Federal District(responsible to the Regente). For example,until recently the metro system operatedonly in the Federal District; transportationin the State ofMexicowas someone else'sproblem! In Buenos Aires, the nationalgovermnent provides electricity,water andgas in the Federal Capital but the Provinceof Buenos Aires is responsible forinfrastructure in the rest of the city".

This multiplicity of municipalgovermnents combined with differentsecond-tier authorities makes coordinatedaction across the metropolitan area very

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difficult. Insofar as there is any form ofcoordination it comes from three sources.The first is that one form of authority inmost of these cities is much more powerfulthan the rest. For example, in BuenosAiresthe administration of the Federal Capital(which contains 27% of the total citypopulation) has far greater influence withcentral government than the individualmunicipalities of the Province of BuenosAires. The Intendente of the FederalCapital holds a national cabinet post andformally runs the municipality on behalfof the central government. Similarly, inMexico, the Regente of the Federal Districtholds a cabinet position and has muchmore political clout than the Governor ofthe State of Mexico, let alone that of themayors of the individual municipalitieswithin the State.

A second source of coordination, at leastin theory, comes from the consulta tivebodies which have been established in allfour megacities to improvecommunication between the differentadministra tive units. In practice, however,these bodies achieve little because theythreaten existing power structures withineach administra tive area. As a result, theyare little more than "letterhead" bodieswith little in the way of effective power.

Finally, specific functions areoccasionally managed at a metropolitanlevel because they are administered bylarger scale government agenciesalthough, as will be described below, theseare often undergoing privatization. Thus,electricity provision for the whole ofMexico City is run by a federal agency. InLima's metropolitan area water andelectricity are provided by a single publicutility (SEDAPAL and ElectroLimarespectively). In Bogota, a differentmechanism operates: water services inneighbouring municipalities are run undercontract by the Bogotawater and seweragecompany. Sometimes, too, utilities may beprovided by a single private company suchas the private monopoly CHILECTRAwhich provides elecricity to Santiago'smetropolitan area. In Buenos Aires twoprivate telephone companies provide theservice.• Strong mayors and weak councíls. A

common feature of local governrnent inmost large Latin American cities is the

RAE • v.36 • n.3· Jul./Ago./Set.1996

power of the executive relative to thelegislature. Much of the problem relatesto the weakness of the councils. Unlikesome of the mayors, who some timeshold national cabinet office and oftenhave considerable personal influence,the councils are very weak. Frequently,councils have only nominal powers. Inthe Federal District ofMexico, althoughrecent reforms have increased the roleof the Assembly ofRepresentatives froma consulta tive to that of a legisla tivebody it remains relatively weak, and inthe Federal Capital of Argentina, theDeliberating Council performs a similarrole. In both cities, the mayor isappointed by the national president andis the dominant actor. Elsewherecouncils have more responsibility buthave few real controls over the powerof the mayor. The mayor appoints thekey department heads, and if the councilhas committees to monitor their actions,they do little more than act as public'watchdogs'. Whether it is a municipalpresident in relation to the cabildo inMexican municipalities in the State ofMexico, the Prefeito in relation to theCamara de Vereadores in Sao Paulo andRio de laneiro, the mayor before theConsejos Deliberantes in themunicipalities of the Province of BuenosAires, the mayor holds most of the reinsofpower.

Only in Santiago de Chile do themunicipal councils wield real power.Administration in the city isdecentralized and each of the 34communes directly elects a council forfour years. A member of the council iselected as mayor, unless a singlecouncillor has managed to obtain morethan 35 per cent of the electoral vote inwhich case he or she is appointedautomatically. The mayor presides overthe council but has limited powers toappoint executive officers.Localofficialsare civil servants, and even departmentheads continue from one administrationto the next. This structure weakens thepower of the mayor relative to thecouncil and to the executive.

• The dominant role of partisanship.Unlike the United States, where it is theindividual rather than any allegiance toa political group that matters, in Latin

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in elections and appointment to publicoffice throughout Latin America, overtpartisanship in the actual practice of citygovemance is likely to be eschewed, andis probably on the demise.

• Overlappings not interlockingbureaucracies. One of the principalimpediments to efetive administrationin LatinAmerican cities is the lack of anoverall planning authority to coordinatethe functions of different sectoragencies". This is particularly importantinsofar as there is sometimes amultiplicity of agencies with competingor parallel responsibilities. This problemis aggravated by the way that theindividual agencies ignore one another' sneeds and programmes and, at worst,actually compete with one another. Attimes, strong rivalries emerge betweendepartments which seek to develop theirprogrammes in maverick fashion.Where decentralised organizations forman important element of national andmunicipal goverment, they tend to actindependently and make little effort tocollaborate". In Bogota, the nationalhousing agency has frequently builthomes in areas that the local planningand servicing agencies did not wantdeveloped. The housing agency hasbeen keen to develop cheap land evenwhere the public utilities were anxiousnot to build infrastructure in distantparts of the city. In one notoriousinstance, a housing estate went withoutwater for three years when themunicipal agency refused to supply it.

• Privatisation or municipalisation? Oneway of cutting through publicinefficiency is to privatise state agencies.Privatisation also has other virtues. Itremoves responsibility for expensivecapital investment in infrastructureprovision and the costly replacementand maintenance of deteriorated servicenetworks. It also offers govemments ameans of cutting their budget deficits bybringing in windfall revenues. For thesereasons, privatisation is flavour of thedecade in LatinAmerica and among theinternational development banks".Privatization may be achieved indegrees, ranging from contracting out,to private supplements, to fullprivatisatíon".Consequently, several megacities have

18. RODRIGUEZ, V. and WARD,P. Op. cit.

19. JACOBI, P.Alcances y limi-tes de los gobiemos localesprogresistas en Brasil. Lasalcaldias petistas, Revista Me-xicana de Sociologia, n.2,1995, p.143-62.

20. LONDONO DE LA CUESTA,I. Problemas, instituciones yfinanzas para el desarrollo deBogota: algunos interrogantes,in: Problemas y Soluciones.Bogota: Departamento dePlaneacion, 1992 pp. 13-38.

21. Idem, ibidem.

22. ROTH, G. The privateprovision of public services.Washington: Oxford UniversityPress and World Bank, 1987.

23. POHLMANN, M. Op. cit.

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America party membership is criticaI. Itis certainly much more important thana candidate's individual qualities or hisor her competence to fulfil the demandsof the job. This is clearly the case wherehigher political authorities appoint thechief executive as in the Federal Districtof Mexico.Of course, such a path is notinevitable. In Brazil, recent electionsseem to have reduced the power of thepolitical parties. Indeed, while somecandidates have won power throughtheir allegiance to a particular party (thecase in 1988ofLuiza Erundina's electionfor the Workers' Party in SaoPaulo beinga good example), individual qualitiesappear to count more. Generally,indeed,party allegiance seems to be fickle andelectors are not surprised to findcandidates switching parties betweenelections, or forming splinter groups inloose coalitions. Leonel Brizola isperhaps the classic case of suchbehaviour. He has twice been electedPrefeito of Rio de Janeiro, is nowgovernor of the State, on each occasionrepresenting a small minority party incoalition with other small parties.Moreover, as local democracy spreadsand electoratesbecome more disceming,political bosses will need to selectcandidates for office who have somepersonal credibility and capacity to carryout the job". AIso, the growing sense ofcitizenship and demands fortransparency and accountability in LatinAmerican cities is likely to intensify theemerging tension between party-mandated policy making and the needto develop sound administra tivepractices that are less coloured bypartisan considerations -as was clearlydemonstrated by the Workers' Partyattempts to influence the direction of theLuiza Erundina administrationv.Aperson's individual qualities, togetherwith a proven capacity to governeffectively and to develop some leveI ofconsensus among hetereogenous social,economic and political groups, will becrucial in getting that individual or partyreselected to power. While politicalparties may be expected to increasinglydevelop specific urban policy platformsand manifestos at election time, andwhile party affiliation is likely tocontinue to be an important determinant

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CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN THE GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATlON OF LATlN AMERICAN MEGACITIES

privatised or are in the process ofprivatising public utilities. In BuenosAires, the gas company has been soldoff, electricity provision and telephonesare in private hands, water andsanitationhave been privatised throughconcessions, and even the metro and thesuburban railways are candidates forsale. In Lima, the teIephone companyhas been sold off and steps are beingtaken to reprivatise the water andelectricity companies supported by amajor loan (US$300 million) from theWorld Bank. In Caracas, the electricity,water and telephone companies arenowalI privately run and, in Santiago,electricity, telephones and cleaning arenow in private hands, although parts ofthe system of water provision and themetro are still run by public companies.By contrast, progress towards theprivatisation of public services has beenmuch slower in Mexico City, Rio delaneiro and Sao Paulo. Indeed, thetendency is almost in the other direction.In Rio de Janeiro the priva te electricityand teIephones companies have recentlyreverted to public ownership. In MexicoCity, despite active privatisation at thenational level, there has been littledivestment of public services. Garbagecollection and cleaning services arebeing opened up to private competitionand the telephone system has beenprivatised, but to date, no moves havebeen made to seUoff the major publicutilities OI the Metro. One of the city'slargest and most importantmunicipalities (Naucalpan) privatizedgarbage collectionin 1993onlYto revokethe concession four months later due topublic dissatisfaction with the privateservice. One of the few major successesof the PT adrninistration in Sao Paulowas the public take over of the transportsystem in 199124.Governmentsin thesethree cities are subcontracting someactivities to the private sector, but theyare reluctant to embrace fullprivatization.

• Fiscal responsibility: doing more withless and more with more. Allmegacitiesdepend heavily upon transfers of fundsfrom central goverrunent and/or fromstate government. Some times, thesetransfers constitute the lion's share ofrecurrent expenditure. In addition,

urban administrations may seek federalgovernment assistance for specialprojects, particularly capital investmentprogrammes for urban infrastructure. Acommonfeature of LatinAmerican localfinance, therefore, is its heavydependence upon central government.In addition, urban governments seekmajor loans from institutions such as theWorld Bank, although this maydramatically raise their indebtednessand can sometimes undermine the citybudget. In Bogota, for example, majorinfrastructural improvements under-taken during the 1980s raised theproportion of recurrent expenditureallocated to debt servicing from 14 percent to 41 per cent between 1980-9025.

In 1990, the city was running adeficit almost half of its annualrecurrent expenditure. The incomingadministration to Sao Paulo in 1988found that it faced a billion doUar debtand a further $300 million in unpaidbills, both of which demanded a totaloverhaul of city finances.Cities have different sources ofindependent local revenues: fees, taxeson production, fines and surcharges,consumption charges, property and titletransfer taxes etc. Usually the mostimportant source of local revenue istaxation of local property. Of course.revenues depend upon the quality,coverage and regular updating of theproperty cadaster and most major citiesare busy improving their cadasters.Often, indeed, they are privatising orsubcontracting property registrationand assessment lev ies, one way ofdepoliticizing its operation.Faced by recurrent deficits andmounting debts, many governmentshave made a concerted effort to increasetheir revenues. While locally generatedincome still represents a smallproportion of total income, many local

24. JACOBI, P. Op. cit,

25. LONDONO DE LA CUESTA,I. Op. cit.

,J:very government in Latin America atserecognises the need to cut expenditure andparticular', to stem the flow of resources spenton subsidies.

RAE • v.36 • n.3· Jul./Ago./Set.1996 51

effect become a local congress in 1997.A similar structure exists in the FederalDistrict of Argentina, where the mayoris appointed by the national presidentand the only vestige of electoraldemocracy is the elected ConsejoDelíberante.lts 60members are electedby proportional representation but againthe council has no legisla tive powers.This lack of representation isincreasingly hard to justify at a timewhen LatinAmerica is celebrating a hightide of electoral democracy and políticalopenness. At least the Mexicangovemment have announced reforms inthe Federal District. From 1997 onwards,the regente will be appointed by thepresident from among the members ofthe majority party in the electedRepresentative Assembly. It is expectedthat there will be a quickening inattempts to address existing anomalíesand inconsistences in terms of thedemocratic representation of citypopulations in LatinAmerican megacitygovemments.

In most other major cities, both theprincipal executive and the legislatureare elected. Even here, however,citizen involvement (participationaldemocracy) is severely constrained bythe limited effectivepowers of local leveladministration. Several cities have somesort of arrangement for local sub-councils but these are weakly linkedto the centre. Residents associationsare weak and have little impact ondecision-making. There is little clearunderstanding about how to move froma structure of active social movementsand non-government organizations toone of citizenparticipation in the processof governrnent. To date, there has beena distinct reluctance to empower citizensin Latin America' s megacities.

26. WARD, P. Op. cit.

authorities have managed to increasetheir local tax yield. They have raisedlocal property taxes, transfers and salestaxes, taxes or charges on regulatorypermissions authorised etc. For the firsttime in many years there are signs of apolítical will to introduce realístic levelsof taxation and an improving capacityto administer tax collection.Every govemment in LatinAmerica alsorecognises the need to cut expenditureand particularly to stem the flow ofresources spent on subsidies.Increasingly govemments are reducingsubsidies on public transport,infrastructure and services. Private buscompanies are receiving fewer subsidiesand even publíc transport companies arebeing forced to raise fares. In Mexico,thecost of travelling on the metro and thecity-run bus system has risenprogressively in recent years, althoughboth still remain heavi1y subsidised.Throughout Latin America charges forwater and electricity are increasingly setto cover the full cost of the service. InSantiago, charges for electricity are sohigh that disconnection for nonpaymentis common in low-income settlements.Elsewhere, poorer households areprotected through subsidies; the incomebeing recovered either through highercharges on the rich (as in Bogota) orthrough general taxation.

• Marginalisation of the public frommegacity govemance. The final featureexplored in this paper is the relativelylow level of public participation inmegacity govemance. The traditionalabsence of public involvement from theplanning process in Latin America, andin the case of Mexico City, the effectivedisenfranchisement of the FederalDistrict population from electing itsexecutive has been described in detailelsewhere". As noted above, the regenteof Mexico City is appointed by thenational president and in tum selects thelocal mayors who head the sixteendelegaciones. Only recently have thecitizens of the Federal District beengiven the right to elect anyrepresentatives; they now vote for theAsamblea de Representantes, formerlya consultative body which now has somelegislative powers, and which will, in

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CONCLUSION

None of the six prínciples of megacityadministration lísted earlíer are met in anyof the LatinAmerican cases analyzed here.The megacity which comes nearest toit is Santiago de Chile which hasdeveloped democratic, decentralizedand autonomous municipal authorities.It lacks a metropolítan tier of authority, but

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this is less problematic given that so manyof the basic utilities are privatised. Itsmainproblem is the lack of resources availableto the communes containing largenumbers of poor people.

Nevertheless, most megacities arewrestling positively with the issues ofmore effective public administration andmore democratic and open govemment.Today, there is greater transparency andaccountability, and more govemments arebeginning to balance their budgets.Invariably, however, they remain saddledwith cumbersome bureaucracies, thedifferent levels and jurisdictions of whichare poorly articulated. Most megacitiesclearly need greater financial and politicalautonomy. They need greater freedomfrom interference by higher levels ofgovemment so that they can get on withdoing the job of running the city. If theparty and executive do not comply withtheir electoral manda te, then they willloseoffice.There is also a need, it would appearfrom this review, to create a metropolitan-level authority with reponsibility forstrategic functions such as physical andeconomic planning, transportation, andprimary service provisiono Such a bodywould resemble the former GreaterLondon Council which oversaw suchfunctions for the London boroughs. TheThatcher government abolished themetropolitan councils in Britain becausethey worked too well: The existence of anelected authority exercisingautonomy andimplementing policy not of its liking wasanathema to conservative centralgovernment. However, in my view it isprecisely that level of vision and controlthat is required if Latin Americanmegacities are to develop in a moreordered and democratic way.

Clearly, the legitimacy of megacitygovernments should be under partypolitical controI. The non-partisan city-manager arrangement, so common in theUnited States, would not work in LatinAmerica. City governments in LatinAmerica will do best if they embrace partypolitics, rather than be excluded fromthem, but once elected, representativesmust demonstrated even handedness inthe disbursement of resources and avoidblatant partisanship'" . A clear separationmust be maintained between party and

RAE • v. 36 • n. 3· Jul./ Ago./Set. 1996

govemment if successful governance onbehalf of the city is to be achieved.

Finally, and almost as postscript, thequestion of city size as an intrinsic variableis questioned. This paper has dealtexclusivelywith seven city cases, only fourof which reach the size threshold ofmegacities. It is necessary to ask whetherthese megacities confront challenges andissues that are fundamentally differentfrom those faced by smaller metropolitanareas or even middle-sized cities? Theshort answer is no. Although megacitiesare more complex and invariablytranscend severa I jurisdictions, thechallenge is in essence the same: how toadminister urban space in a way that isefficient, participatory, accountable anddemocratic. For the reasons outlined at thebeginning of this paper, most cities - largeand small- are beginning to confront thesechallenges. My guess is that because thepolitical stakes are less daunting and theissues are less complex in smaller cities,they will advance more quickly than willthe megacities. Certainly many of the mostimpressive advances I am observingcurrently come not from megacities butfrom smaller cities - often govemed bypolitical parties different from those at thefederal and state levels. Perhaps,megacities will leam best from studyingthose examples, rather than the other wayaround.

Acknowledgement: I am grateful toseveral people for their help in preparingthe case study materials upon which thediscussion is based. Each was asked tocomplete a template about 'their' megacitycovering: political administra tiveorganisation, bases of governmentallegitimacy; government structure;principal activities undertaken by variouslevels of government; trends towardsprivatization; city financial arrangementsand revenue sharing etc. They were: LuisAinstein, Henry Dietz, Oscar Figueroa,Alan Gilbert, Milton Santos, MartimSmolka, Hamilton Tolosaand VilmaFaria.Maria Elena Ducci and Manuel Perlo arealso thanked for kindly providingadditional information about Santiago andMexico City respectively, as is TerrellBlodgett for his insights on the operationof US city governments. O

,

27. A recent (November 1995)experiment in Mexico's FederalDistrict to elect citizencounsellors in each 01 the 16delegaciones lailed badly whenonly 15% 01those registered tovote went to the polls. This highlevei 01 abstentions contrastsmarkedly with the relatively highvoter participation rates lor lo-cai government electionselsewhere in Mexico. It was dueto the government's insistencethat, uniquely in the FederalDistrict, candidates be electedalong civic (citizen) rather thanparty politicallines.

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