Administrative autonomy and democratic control in the construction of the Uruguayan State (1919-1933)

Abstract

The article addresses the problem of the administrative autonomy of autonomous entities in Uruguay from an institutionalist perspective. The industrial and commercial domain of the state was the main tool of state intervention in the economy in the first three decades of the twentieth century. Administrative autonomy was intended to separate the administration of complex problems from the political or financial anxieties of governments. This mechanism was supposed to allow rational state intervention in the economy by privileging technical criteria over political criteria. However, administrative autonomy was not provided for in the 1830 Constitution. The solution proposed in Article 100 of the 1919 Constitution leaves the final regulation of the administrative autonomy of each autonomous entity to the law. Government attempts to regulate administrative autonomy during the 1920s met with opposition from the autonomous entities. In the entities, especially in the oldest one which was the Banco de la República Oriental del Uruguay (brou), there was a strong cohesion between boards of directors and main career officials. The governments faced a new actor, the bureaucratic actor, who fought to maintain the situation of autonomy consolidated in the years prior to the implementation of the 1919 Constitution. The review of these conflicts sheds light on the present insofar as many of the current problems related to state intervention have a long history in Uruguay.