The Role of Bureaucrats in The Dynamics of

Result of Service
The results of the study will provide greater robustness to the body of knowledge produced on the use of scientific information and evidence by policymakers in Brazil.

Work Location
Brasília

Expected duration
330 Days

**Responsibilities**:
The project "The sources of information for federal public policies: the use and non-use of evidence by the Brazilian federal bureaucracy" began in 2020 with the objective of contributing to the debate about information sources for Brazilian public policies and the level of adherence of public organizations to the paradigm of evidence-based public policy (PPBE).

Up to the moment, the findings of the project point to a plurality of information sources utilized in the daily activities of the federal bureaucracy. Despite the growing presence of PPBE discourse in public debates, especially in the context of Covid-19, scientific sources were not among those most directly utilized by federal bureaucrats, according to the results of two surveys. in 2019 and 2021 within the scope of the project (Koga, Palotti, Gontyjo, Nascimento, Lins, 2020 and Koga, Palotti, Gontyjo, Lins and Nascimento, 2021). The results are similar to those found in research in other countries, including in those where the PPBE movement is strong and established, such as Canada and Australia (Cherney et al, 2015; Weiss, 1979).

The survey results also demonstrate that bureaucrats and federal leaders resort more intensely to sources produced by the State itself, such as regulations, technical notes, administrative records, control recommendations and legal opinions, as well as sources arising from the experience of bureaucrats and their colleagues. On the other hand, survey data referring to the level of education and training indicate a high individual analytical capacity of the federal bureaucracy, understood as an accumulated capacity to identify, produce and use knowledge about and for public policy (Koga et al., 2020; Koga et al., soon to be released).

Furthermore, case studies revealed more diverse and reflexive interactions between the fields of academia and management than the mere demand for scientific evidence and instrumental use to solve pre-defined problems as advocated by the PPBE (Filgueiras, Palotti, Nascimento; Koga, Viana, Marques, Couto and Goellner; Mello; all three soon to be released). They demonstrated, on the contrary, that the contact with scientific knowledge by bureaucrats and federal organizations is not passive, in the sense of mere reception of studies and research and direct transmission to interlocutors, but that there is critical action and joint production of knowledge when interactions between intermediary bureaucrats and researchers occur.

Knowledge about public management also seems to be an element of authority that entitles bureaucrats to debate with researchers and generate new knowledge and new sources of information. This finding makes the case that bureaucrats, in general, essentially use sources produced by the bureaucracy itself or from their own experiences, to be interpreted more carefully. In the cases analyzed, standards, technical notes, seminars, management reports and experiences were produced from interaction with academics and also with other sources of information, such as recommendations from multilateral organizations, perception of users of public services or produced by think tanks and specialized government units.

In other words, differently from what is argued in the Theory of Two Communities (Caplan, 1979; Newman and Head, 2015) about the separation between management and academia, the results gathered so far indicate processes of absorption, production and use of knowledge that appear much more complex. We could see in the analyzed cases movements of opening and dissolution of borders, in which bureaucrats and researchers’ transit through the two spheres, forming a single enlarged epistemic community. Trust between managers and researchers is established in the recurrence of their interactions. Joint knowledge and expertise are generated. And this dialogued accumulation is recognized and used as a means of foundation, legitimation and also conceptualization to boost the creation of new knowledge and forms of interaction with academia.

The next phases of the research raise the following questions:
a) How does knowledge circulate within the Brazilian State? Are academia and management really two separate communities? Do production and use of evidence take place in isolation?
b) Are there layers of bureaucracy or institutional arrangements that act as knowledge brokers (knowledge intermediaries) in the process of knowledge absorption by the State? Who are the public policy analysts? What do they do? How do they do it? What do they do it for?
c) Would the sources of information produced by the State (such as control recommendations) be intermediaries or substitutes for scientific knowledge? And from other sources of knowle