This article analyzes the relationship between the development of new public administration and the perception of corruption in Brazil under democratic rule. We contend that the reason for the persistently widespread perception of corruption in Brazil is that despite important changes in the institutions with oversight of the Brazilian state, such administrative reforms have assigned limited priority to frontline civil servants. Organizational progress in the new public administration has focused on upper-level public employees, with little impact on the middle and lower echelons, so that practices like graft and bribery between public employees and ordinary citizens are still commonplace. Thus, the management changes have failed to produce a perception of improvement in accountability, and corruption is still seen as common, even within a context of administrative changes.