The article focuses on the question of the limits for the development of new management bureaucracies within the context of contemporary administrative reforms. The central argument is that the management reforms encounter considerable difficulties in establishing the new performance driven institutional models, due to the preponderance of the fiscal adjustment. The construction of the argument is based on two complementary levels of analysis. The first level deals with comparative evidences provided by studies and researches that examined the limits of the implementation of management reforms of public administration in different countries and conditions. The second level focuses on the specific reasons for not implementing the new performance driven bureaucracies in the strategy of management administrative reform pursued by the Brazilian Federal Government in 1995.
State reform; Institutional change; Bureaucracy; New public management; Public policies; Public governance