The administrator-scientist

José Reis’ Role in Public Administration During the 1940s According to the Press

Abstract

Apart from being a versatile scientist and science communicator, José Reis also worked as a public administrator. During the “Estado Novo”, he was director of the Department of Public Service of São Paulo (DPS), the agency responsible for managing and restructuring the public service in the state of São Paulo, in accordance with the supposedly modernizing and rationalizing principles of the regime. The article aims to understand how Brazilian newspapers portrayed Reis’ time as director of the agency and other activities he carried out in the 1940s as a public administrator. For the study, we consulted the Digital Hemeroteca Digital of the National Library, and the digital collections of the newspapers Folha de São Paulo, O Globo and O Estado de São Paulo. The newspapers were analysed taking into account their historical and political context and their positions during and after the Estado Novo. The analysis of a corpus containing 311 records in 37 newspapers revealed three main aspects. Firstly, the rhetoric of rationality and scientificity that would have been adopted by José Reis in conducting the DPS and in defending the reforms proposed by the regime. Secondly, the existence of two moments in the coverage by the newspapers: a first moment of celebration of Reis, and a second moment of criticism after the fall of the Estado Novo, which resulted in his dismissal. The third aspect shows the dissociation in the public representation made in the newspapers between the scientist at the Biological Institute as an expert in bird diseases and the public administrator.