In Good Government in the Tropics, Judith Tendler argues against widely prevailing views about why governments so often do badly and about what causes them to perform well when they do. This raises questions, she says, about the policy advice proffered today by the mainstream donor community.

Drawing on a set of four cases involving public bureaucracies at work under the direction of an innovative state government in Brazil, Tendler offers findings of significance to the current debates about organization of the public-sector workplace, public service delivery, decentralization, and the interaction between government and civil society.

In providing an understanding of the circumstances under which public servants become truly committed to their work and public service improves dramatically, Tendler shifts the terms of the prevailing debate away from mistrust of government and offers, instead, a constructive basis for policy advice that is grounded in the positive experiences of developing countries themselves.