Why does the ability of political leaders to control the bureaucracy vary? With strong meritocratic recruitment and tenure protections, Brazil appears an ideal case for successful bureaucratic resistance against political control. However, our analysis reveals how Bolsonaro overcame initial resistance by recalibrating strategies, ultimately dominating many key sectors of the bureaucracy. Drawing on over 100 interviews with public officials, we find that strategies of political control and bureaucratic resistance unfold in a dynamic, yet often predictable, pattern based on leaders' previous experiences and their ability to learn, adjust, and tighten their grip on the instruments of the state. The Bolsonaro administration transformed the regulatory framework and targeted individual state employees, reducing arenas of contestation and inducing public sector workers to remain silent, implementing the president’s policy preferences. We examine these control strategies in environmental agencies, their replication, and potential long-term consequences.

为什么政治领导人控制官僚机构的能力各不相同？凭借强大的精英招聘和任期保护，巴西似乎是成功官僚抵制政治控制的理想案例。然而，我们的分析揭示了博尔索纳罗如何通过重新调整战略克服最初的阻力，最终主宰官僚机构的许多关键部门。通过对 100 多名公职人员的采访，我们发现政治控制和官僚抵抗的策略以一种动态但通常可预测的模式展开，这种模式基于领导人以往的经验以及他们学习、调整和加强对工具的控制的能力国家的。博尔索纳罗政府改变了监管框架，并针对个别国家雇员，减少了争论的领域，并诱导公共部门工作人员保持沉默，从而落实了总统的政策偏好。我们研究了环境机构中的这些控制策略、它们的复制以及潜在的长期后果。