Charismatic State Building in Peru: Institutional Values and the Reform of SUNAT in the Early 1990s
Abstract
Charismatic State Building in Peru: Institutional Values and the Reform of SUNAT in the Early 1990s
Abstract
This article examines how public institutions are rebuilt through a case study of the reform of Peru’s tax authority, SUNAT, in the early 1990s. Under the leadership of a career civil servant with a religious background, an agency marked by corruption and low morale became a model of public-service administration. Peru’s severe socioeconomic crisis opened a window for reform, and management policies helped create a workforce receptive to change. The analysis focuses on how reformers displaced entrenched institutional values and established new ones.
The article argues that the reform leader and his task force presented the overhaul as part of an effort to rescue the nation. Their charismatic leadership convinced employees that change was possible and encouraged them to adopt new public-service values. The case thus reveals a paradox: personal authority helped build an agency committed to the impersonal rules and professional norms of a Weberian bureaucracy. Subsequent developments suggest limits to charismatic state building.
Keywords — Charismatic leadership, state building, institutional change, Weberian bureaucracy, tax administration, SUNAT, Peru.
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