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This article addresses the potential of national policy councils to contribute to the inclusion of a multidimensional perspective in the promotion of child development. To investigate this possibility, research was conducted to verify  whether the early childhood intersectoral program “Brasil Carinhoso” has been discussed within the policy councils to which it is related (health, education, social welfare and women's policy) and, if so, how this discussion occurred.  An analysis of the legal framework and of the minutes of the council meetings from 2012 to 2015 was carried out and little     evidence was found of discussions related to the program within the councils. It was concluded that the deliberations did not follow a cross-sectoral approach and that the actions of each council were limited to their own sectors of intervention.

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Economic globalization and the breakthrough of neoliberal policies in the world, together with the privatization of healthcare services and the conflict between available resources and spending, has led to further questioning about the maintenance of the welfare state. The objectives of the research have been: to identify the consequences that have resulted from the international economic crisis, triggered in 2007-2008, and neoliberal policies in the Spanish healthcare system from 2013 to date; to know its existing situation; and, to make a proposal for improvements. It was assumed that the budget cut applied as a result of the global and national economic crisis could have been decisive to deconstruct the system and increase the number of private healthcare services. A documentary analysis of the studies and reports carried out by prestigious analysts was used, as well as those prepared by different public and private organizations related to the sector. The results highlight the good healthcare status of the SNS, although it is necessary to address a series of reforms (financing, planning, professional, medication policy or information systems, among others), and the inexorable need for a State Pact for the Healthcare.

This paper is the result of a case study on the experience of Volta Redonda / RJ, assuming the Urban Development Council (CMDU) as an empirical object. The goal is to analyze the meanings of social participation and their implications for the CMDU's performance as a council capable of restricting or favoring the construction of a democratic-participatory model. The CMDU integrated a set of civil society efforts dedicated to rethinking the city after the privatization of Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) in 1993, and to overcome historical divergences between sectors of local civil society, such as social movements and businessmen. As a methodological procedure, a predominantly qualitative approach was used based on semi-structured interviews, documentary research and non-participant observation. For data treatment, critical discourse analysis was used. When analyzing the CMDU experience, it is inferred that, despite the subjects' involvement in a participatory management model, this, ambivalently, can assume characteristics contrary to democratic deepening. The speeches collected reveal that the overlapping and ambiguities of different types of political projects are reflected in the CMDU's performance, attributing multiple directions to the sense of participation in the construction of a democratic-participatory model.

This essay aims to propose some hypotheses on economic and social behavior in a health crisis situation. These hypotheses are pertinent to the study of public policy formulation. The health crisis treated is that caused by covid-19. The narrated story takes place in Spain, in particular in Madrid. The method used is that of subjective oral history in the form of a script or partial application of storytelling. The analytical framework used is microeconomic models that deal with the tragedy of the commons, expanded economic behavior with altruism or limited self-interest. The summarized conclusions are the suggestions of hypotheses to be tested by experimental, statistical or ethnographic empirical methods.

This study aimed to identify the level of contribution of public policies adopted by the Brazilian government to promote sustainable consumption. Consumption levels and patterns in contemporary society are considered unsustainable, causing damage to society and the environment, which requires the adoption of actions and strategies that can promote sustainable consumption. In this process, governments are fundamental due to their strategic position and their ability to influence producers and consumers, balancing the relationship between them, adopting structuring policies capable of institutionalizing a national agenda focused on sustainability and creating a favorable context for changes in consumption practices. In methodological terms, we opted for conducting a qualitative exploratory and descriptive research, through documentary research. The results show that, despite the existence of public policies that contribute to the promotion of sustainable consumption, their lack of continuity may compromise possible positive effects in the long run; and that there is a big gap between the current scientific understanding of sustainable consumption and how this field is being articulated in policies implemented by the Brazilian Government.

A governança ambiental diz respeito aos processos e às instituições por meio dos quais os atores sociais – estatais e não estatais – se organizam e tomam decisões a respeito das questões ambientais (Moura, 2016; World Resources Institute, 2003). A complexidade e o caráter multiescalar dos problemas socioambientais colocam desafios que demandam ações coordenadas entre o Estado e a sociedade, para que caminhemos em direção a um desenvolvimento sustentável e socialmente justo. A partir da Constituição Federal de 1988 e da Conferência da Rio-92 (Camargo, Capobianco & Puppim, 2004), o processo de criação de estruturas político-institucionais (Little, 2003) para viabilizar a implementação das políticas ambientais ganhou impulso no Brasil e, a despeito das lacunas e dificuldades (Moura 2016, World Resources Institute, 2003), apresentou avanços notáveis tanto no nível federal, quanto nos Estados. Além disso, novos arranjos de governança ambiental foram sendo experimentados e aperfeiçoados a partir do envolvimento de múltiplos atores sociais na criação de institucionalidades, para lidarem com as incertezas e complexidades das questões socioambientais (Castro & Futemma, 2015).

Research on participatory institutions consolidates institutional design and context as determining factors for the outputs and outcomes of participatory processes in the political sphere. This theoretical discussion adds the perspective of the agents' action, through discourse, to the traditional rationalist and sociological approaches as another determinant in the search for the effectiveness of participatory institutions. Finally, the Critical Discourse Analysis method is deepened as a possible tool for the application of the Discursive Neoinstitutionalist approach. A series of categories and subcategories has been structured that enable an analysis of the determinants of context, institutional design and discourse to reach four perspectives of effectiveness of participatory institutions. At last, some possible research fields relating determinants and effectiveness are presented. With the results presented, it is expected that a promising research agenda will be possible when considering the action of agents through discourse in the scope of participatory institutions.

The work aims at demonstrating the critical juncture in which Brazil has immersed since 2013 with street protests, including the 2014 election, Operation Car Wash, President Dilma's Impeachment, which culminated in the election of Bolsonaro. The elements of this situation are more related to a dispute between right- and left-wing positions, to a characterized way of life and centered on social networks, where politics and social life have been enthroned. In this sense, the idea of judicialized politics and institutions as elements that guarantee freedom of expression and the rule of law has been confusing and misinforming everyone.

This article aims to analyze the democratic innovations created during the candidacies and the collective mandates of the movement “Muitas pela cidade que queremos” (many for the city we want – in free translation) in Belo Horizonte. The “Muitas” movement emerged in the capital of Minas Gerais in 2015, with the aim of gathering actors from different social movements in order to build collective candidacies to compete in the 2016 municipal elections. With the campaign slogan “voted for one, voted for all”, twelve candidacies were launched, marked by progressive guidelines and by the representativeness of gender, race and sexual orientation. Two councilors were elected, who proposed a series of democratic innovations with the aim of sharing decision-making and carrying out an open and participatory mandate. Considering democracy, social participation and representation, as well as the concept of democratic innovations, this paper seeks to understand which and how such democratic innovations were built along the trajectory of the “Muitas” movement, as well as their democratizing potentials. For this, semi-structured interviews were made with a parliamentarian and activists, in addition to documentary research related to the experience. The article found that the proposed innovations contributed, despite their limitations, to oxygenate political representation and democratic institutions within the municipal legislative.

The State Participation Fund (FPE) has undergone a number of changes to its legislation, which have essentially sought to change the volume of resources making up the fund (vertical distribution) or to change the distribution rule for these resources (distribution horizontal). In the first case, the political context of greater or lesser centralization of power in the Union is decisive. In the second case, the explanation for the pattern of FPE sharing lies in the disproportionality of the political representation of the different regions in the National Congress and in the regionalist and non-cooperative sentiment that prevails in the federative relations in the country. This scenario helps to understand why attempts to change the system are blocked, even when the change starts from a judicial determination. The result is the construction of a skewed fund, which passes off a tax equalization system, as observable in the most advanced federations.

The analysis of the state capacities is central to comprehend policy implementation and its outcomes. Even though there is a great debate on the concept of state capacities, some studies show that two dimensions of state capacity should be considered: technical-administrative and political-relational. However, few studies seek to better grasp these two dimensions at local level, as this literature was more focused on the analysis of the federal government. This paper aims to fill this gap by analyzing the state capacity of Brazilian municipalities through a study on education policy and municipal education departments in eight municipalities. A qualitative and comparative analysis of data collected through in-depth interviews and observation points out that both dimensions - technical-bureaucratic and political-relational - are fragile at municipal level. Nevertheless, the departments' autonomy and the leadership of managers, as well as the relationship between departments and schools, explain the differences in the implementation and outcomes of the educational policy in the municipalities analyzed.

Nesta edição, temos o prazer de compartilhar trabalhos que trazem autores iberoamericanos, dentro do processo de internacionalização da Cadernos Gestão Pública e Cidadania. E o embrião deste trabalho iniciou no fim de 2019, quando fui convidado (ou convocado) pela nossa querida editora-chefe, professora Andréa Leite Rodrigues, para organizar um Fórum Especial GIGAPP, dada a minha participação como membro, coordenador de grupo de trabalho e frequentador assíduo de seus congressos desde o ano de 2014.

In the context of a pandemic caused by the new Coronavirus, governments have adopted measures to prevent and combat Covid-19. In this scenario, several social actors made contributions to the fight against the disease. Among these actions, the measures adopted by Brazilian public universities can be highlighted. The various internal and external actions carried out by higher education institutions demonstrate the importance of universities in crisis management, since the scientific knowledge produced has become the main foundation for the coping strategies implemented by state and municipal governments in Brazil. Given the above, the present study aimed to understand the performance of public universities in Brazil in the context of a pandemic caused by Covid-19, with emphasis on the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), due to its intense performance, support and, mainly, partnerships established with the state government. Methodologically, bibliographic research procedures and the survey and systematization of actions by federal public universities and, specifically, UFRN, were adopted. The results show that, based on the relationship established between the state government of Rio Grande do Norte and UFRN, there are indications of elements that can contribute to the establishment of collaborative governance. 

The present study sought to identify the performance of the sustainability dimensions that make up the triple bottom line, comparing the municipalities with the best position in the Sanitation Ranking 2018, elaborated by the Trata Brasil Institute, with the municipalities that occupy the last positions of this ranking. The study allowed the analysis and comparison of results from the perspective of the three dimensions of sustainable development: social, economic and environmental. The research used the documentary method, which can be characterized as descriptive, with a qualitative approach. The most significant results were observed in the social and economic dimensions: the better the situation in the universalization of treated water, sewage collection and treatment, the better the results in terms of health, education and economic development. Regarding the environmental dimension, in all the municipalities studied the theme was incorporated into the institutional structure of the public entity, with the creation of an administrative structure and specific legislation.

The aim of this article is to analyze the Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) 32/2020, both quantitatively and qualitatively. To undertake the analysis, first we review the literature on Public Administration reforms, while contextualizing the proposal accordingly in the Brazilian history of administrative reforms. Second, we undertake a two-step analysis of PEC 32/2020’s contents: the first consists in a systematic content analysis based on word counting, according to categories of public management policies and design of programmatic organizations. The second step consists of the qualitative analysis of the proposed changes to the constitutional principles of Public Administration and human resources management (competition, stability, commission charges, and performance). The results of the analysis show that, by dedicating more than half (53%) of the total content and 74% of its effective content (substantive provisions) to work issues of public servants, the proposal (PEC 32/2020) would be better labelled as a “civil service reform,” and not as an “administrative reform.” Regarding the new proposed constitutional principles, there is redundancy between them, especially linked to the fundamental right to good governance. Finally, we reiterate the timeliness and relevance of the discussion about the hiring process of public employees, tenure and stability for employees, appointed positions, and performance evaluation, as long as they are aligned with the ethical and constitutional principles of public service as a societal value, institutionalized to the legal system and continuously responding to the population’s welfare needs.

This article uses the Newcomb-Benford(NB-Law), or Law of Anomalous Numbers, to analyze the values of Electronic Bidding Processes that occurred in the Purchasing Portal of the Brazilian Federal Government and contained in the newly created website "DadosAbertos.gov.br". In the analysis, all services contracted in the period from 2014 to 2018 were considered. The objective of the research was to analyze the conformity of the Electronic Auction referred to the NB-Law, aiming to verify anomalies, which represent signs of fraud. It can be said that there was a statistically significant anomaly in the analysis of the first digit of the values bid in the Electronic Bidding Tenders. It is also noted that the trading sessions with the first digit of numbers 4, 8 and 9 are those with the largest differences between expected and observed values, strengthening the hypothesis that these represent the trading sessions with the highest incidence / probability of deviations, to be tested in future studies. The study, pioneer in this type of analysis in the Brazilian data source, aims to contribute to the literature focused on the detection of accounting or financial fraud in the public sector. The results collected here can also contribute to the practice of inspection in public management. It is recommended to deepen the studies based on the Economics of Corruption, on issues that involve the detection of fraud, so that corruption becomes unviable or inopportune.

This article aims to analyze and describe the existing Local Integrity System (LIS) in a sample of Brazilian’ small cities, emphasizing the internal actors of the executive power, and the practical operation of the checks and balances mechanisms coordinated by them (activities and outputs), from an institutional perspective with five dimensions: the existence and enforcement of the rules, and the existence, capacity and autonomy of the institutions. Three actors were selected: the internal control and audit sector, the ombudsman, and the internal affairs and administrative sanction sector. Statistical analysis was applied on data from 282 municipalities with up to 100,000 inhabitants of the State of Santa Catarina. The findings have confirmed recent studies, that LIS in little cities has extremely fragile internal institutions, if not nonexistent. Where there is, the actors have no enforcement, autonomy or capacity to implement the mechanisms necessary for the anti-corruption cycle. Integrity systems can be imposed on local governments by the central government, or by external pressure, such as from the OECD, in which Brazil has tried to be accepted as a member, which may be a path for the Brazilian case.

This article aims to synthesize the results of an exploratory and descriptive analysis of social observatories. This research was conducted to support a social observatory of inequalities, created in a Brazilian public university. We understand social observatories as mechanisms that produce, diffuse, and “translate” information, contributing to social participation and control. Therefore, they are also able to contribute to improving public action, including those towards inequalities. Drawing on articles and document analysis, the research embraced two stages. Firstly, we built an overview of scientific production on social observatories in Brazil, based on a systematic review of 23 scientific articles, indexed to SciELO and Spell (2010-2020). Secondly, we researched 56 observatories, mainly Brazilians. As main results, first, the inexistence or incipience of a research agenda on the theme was identified. Through the analysis of experiences, we described the following structural elements: 1) themes and types; 2) origin, partnerships, and financing; 3) objectives, expected results, and products. Concerning the best practices, the highlights were: 1) production and dissemination of information (e.g., indicators and monitoring methodologies); 2) “translation” of information into popular and citizen language; 3) building and consolidating networks (including participatory governance strategies). The research on the cases confirms what the literature highlights about social observatories: they work as tools to participation and social control, regardless of origin, partnerships, types, themes, and objectives.

This paper analyzes the salary elite among Brazilian federal civil servants. We comprehend salary elites as the occupations with the highest salaries in the state. First, using data from Annual Social Inform (Rais), we identified the top income occupations for all Brazilian civil service in 2018, analyzing its main characteristics, such as predominant branches and spheres of government. Next, using two different criteria, the income median of the judiciary branch and the salary of a member of the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF) in 2018, we verified the recent salary history of the highest income part of Brazilian federal civil servants in the last 20 years. We focused on the study of the so called “supersalários” (supersalaries), i.e., salaries that are higher than the salary of a member of the STF. Despite being the executive branch the one with most employees, we show that the judiciary branch is the one paying the highest salaries. Besides, we conclude that the amount of supersalaries is lower than expected in the federal sphere, even though it is still relevant for public budget. Finally, we compared the findings to the Proposal of Constitutional Amendment (PEC) 32/2020, suggesting ways of building an administrative reform that is more efficient towards fighting privileges in the public civil service.