This article retraces, in broad terms, the trajectory of the Brazilian public administration in the last 20 years. It analyzes the main advances and innovations as well as the mistakes made while conducting the reforms and the management issues that still remain. After assessing a period that covers the New Republic, the Collor era, the Bresser project and the Lula government, the article proposes four strategic axis for modernizing the state, facing the challenges of the 21st century.
state reform; public management; bureaucracy professionalization; efficiency; result-based management; transparency; the reformist trajectory