Introduction

One of the great challenges for those who dedicate themselves to the study, analysis, and teaching of public policy is how to contribute to the resolution of public problems, mainly in the state sphere, and, consequently, what knowledge, skills, and tools are needed to be able to do so. This is not a new concern and even less easy to answer in contexts of increasing complexity of public affairs; societies with a diversity of actors and interests that demand higher levels of participation and technological advances that challenge us to think and project management in a different way.

In Latin America we find governmental administrations where, many times, more open, flexible, and innovative schemes are opposed to the verticalism and rigidity of the more traditional structures. The validity of Weberian paradigms of the 20th century is evident in the resolution of new public problems (Subirats, 2021). This hinders the search for equity based on the recognition of the diversity of citizens who are part of a society. In addition, decision-making processes, in contexts of uncertainty, are often characterized by improvisation, weak control mechanisms, and the lack of delimitation and interaction between spaces corresponding to politics and administration. For this reason, it is necessary to recover the role of the state and of those who work in it, in their capacity for intervention and control; achieving this requires education and training.

In the Argentine case, which could be extended to the rest of Latin America, the analysis of training and capacity building of techno-political cadres – following Matus’ (2008) concept – has not been a priority in the academic field. The studies carried out are scarce and partial since they deal with very limited periods, focusing on the analysis of the problem during a government administration (Sampay, 1951; Larriqueta, 2000; Pinto, 2003; Camou, 2006; Golden, 2010); or they do so transversally and/or secondarily in studies on the development and institutionalization of Argentine political science (Fernández et al, 2002; Bulcourf and D’ Alessandro, 2003; Guardamagna, 2011; Bulcourf et al, 2019) and of the region (Bulcourf et al, 2017; Bulcourf and Cardozo in Freidenberg, 2017; Bulcourf, 2021). These fruitful investigations around the disciplinary fields of political science and public administration evidence the consolidation of a field of study that transcends the national and even regional scope.