In 2010, 20 years after the end of Augusto Pinochet’s military regime, Chile transformed its defense sector by restructuring the Ministry of National Defense, stripping military leaders of responsibility for planning and strategy and placing that authority in the hands of civilians. The event marked a sea change in the relationship between the armed forces and the government. Civilians at the ministry previously had provided the military with scant guidance regarding the country’s strategic goals—in part because they lacked the training and experience required to anticipate threats to the country or to determine what capabilities the armed forces required to confront such threats. The enabling law, enacted after years of debate, also gave new powers to a chief of Joint Staff, an officer whose job was to promote cooperation among the army, navy, and air force—three military branches that jealously protected their independence and were wary of any attempt to diminish the authority of their powerful commanders in chief. Sebastián Piñera, who became president in March 2010 just as the law took effect, faced the task of implementing the massive shift in expectations, norms, culture, and the chain of command. His administration restructured the ministry and hired civilians to manage tasks long controlled by military officers, and by the end of his term in 2014, the Ministry of National Defense had taken the lead in developing Chile’s defense policies.

Tristan Dreisbach drafted this case based on interviews conducted in Santiago, Chile during July and August 2015. Case published November 2015.

In 1994, Costa Rica's new minister of the environment, René Castro, faced a difficult task. The finance ministry was planning to cut the funding of a subsidy program that had started to reverse decades of forest loss, and Castro urgently needed a new policy that would sustain the program's progress. First, Castro built a broad-based coalition to press for a revamped national forestry law. The coalition persuaded the legislature to ban the conversion of forested land to other uses and to create incentives for landholder compliance. In 1997, Costa Rica implemented the world's first countrywide payments for environmental services program, which recognized the continuing economic contribution of forests in terms of greenhouse gas mitigation, biodiversity conservation, water protection, and scenic beauty. Funded by a new fossil fuel tax, carbon credit sales, and money from companies that benefited from the forests, the program offered landowners financial incentives to preserve and expand tree cover on their properties. The program helped reduce the destruction of primary forest and encouraged reforestation of degraded land. From 1997 to 2005 Costa Rica's forest cover increased to 51% of total land area from 42%.

Blair Cameron drafted this case study based on interviews conducted in Costa Rica in December 2014. The case was funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation in collaboration with the Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy program of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Case published July 2015.

Between 1999 and 2001, the powerful Directorate of Public Service Management in Botswana decentralized personnel authority to line ministries.  This process was critical in enabling ministries to be more efficient while also allowing the directorate to focus on more substantive issues concerning the public service.  The Botswana case demonstrates three components that contributed to the successful devolving of responsibility from a central public service ministry: 1) the training for and establishment of new human resource mechanisms within the line ministries, 2) the creation of new accountability mechanisms to ensure that new powers were not abused, and 3) the creation of a new role and identity for the relatively disenfranchised central public service ministry.

Daniel Scher drafted this case study on the basis of interviews conducted in Gaborone, Botswana, in July 2009. 

Associated Interview(s):  Taboka Nkhwa, Rose Seretse

Following the peaceful Rose Revolution in November 2003, Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili and State Minister for Reform Coordination Kakha Bendukidze sought to overhaul the country’s Soviet-style bureaucracy, which had become the target of public anger. Borrowing ideas from libertarian, free-market think tanks and the New Public Management model, Bendukidze recruited a staff, eliminated redundant functions in the executive arm of government, consolidated ministries and slashed the size of the civil service. Bendukidze’s vision of limited government complemented Saakashvili’s goal of eliminating corruption by reducing opportunities for bribe taking. Although Bendukidze was instrumental in developing many of the reform policies, his office left the implementation of reforms to individual ministries. This case chronicles the steps that the Georgian government took to reorganize and consolidate its operations, capitalizing on public support in order to make rapid and bold changes.