RCAAP Repository

Given the growing importance of the internet as a means for governments to consult citizens about policies, this article presents a study on the feelings and perceptions of participants in the online forums of the Electronic Participatory Budgeting (e-PB) of the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. This case is particularly interesting for such analysis, as the number of participants decreased significantly between editions, allowing us to investigate the reasons for this withdrawal. We analyzed the content of all messages posted in the forum in the 2008 and 2011 editions (N = 2370) in order to identify citizens' feelings about the initiative, their perceptions of the effectiveness of their own participation in decision making, their perceptions of being well represented, and the use of storytelling to support arguments. Results indicate that the expression of citizens' feelings in online forums may be fundamental to assess policies and the participation tool itself. In addition, we reflect on the harm from not considering the opinions and feelings expressed by citizens.

The present article aims to reflect on the concept of rural territory as a category of analysis of spatial dynamics, as well as its dependence on and implications for public policies, in order to recover the history of its improvement in the administrations of former Brazilian presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso (a.k.a. FHC) and Lula. From a review of the literature, the article seeks to compare rural territory development strategies in both administrations, thus contributing to the discussion about the territorial aspects of regional development in Brazil. Our results show that there were advances, despite the enormous challenges still to overcome, among which are a greater participation and qualification of social actors and a political disposition for democratic administration by government actors.

This paper aims to provide a comparative analysis of the socioeconomic reality of small municipalities in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais from the perspective of municipal human development, based on data from 2000 and 2010. To that end, we used cluster analysis and regression by OLS. The classification of municipalities in the cluster analysis revealed three clusters or groups, namely, low, intermediate and high local human development. Results indicate a relative importance of local economic conditions, as well as municipalities’ income concentration level and fiscal capacity, for increasing human development rate. Therefore, the study reinforces the importance of seeking balanced development by strengthening the links between economic growth and human development.

The present study has developed a model of performance evaluation that is both aligned with the in­terests of public administrators and able to support their decisions. The studied context is a strategic administrative sector of the Supreme Court of the State of Santa Catarina (TJSC), Brazil. Data were obtained and analyzed using the Multicriteria Decision Aid – Constructivist (MCDA-C) methodology as it allows decision makers to build knowledge about the context they are addressing based on their perception. The results of the study include: (i) the development of a specific performance evaluation model; (ii) the presentation of four Fundamental Viewpoints (PVFs); (iii) six Internal Management PVF indicators covering aspects that decision makers consider relevant; (iv) that urgent action is required regarding one of the Internal Management PVF indicators; (v) that the model we built can aid manag­ers in their decision making process concerning performance management in their sector; (vi) the feasibility of replicating the procedure to build a suitable model for the other sectors forming the TJSC.

The co-production approach considers the active participation of public service users to be essential in policy implementation. The greater direct influence of citizens on public policies that is sought in this approach appears to be aligned with the principles of democracy. In order to better understand the relationship between user participation and democracy in co-production, the goal of this paper is to characterize public service users participation in the co-production of dengue vector control in Campo Grande – MS, Brazil. Data collected in five districts of the municipality were analyzed using content analysis. Findings revealed that in the five cases studied, service users (i) are included in the production relationship with public service professionals, (ii) are capable of producing policy results, and (iii) are benefited by the results produced. However, if full democratic participation in co-production is to be achieved, users have yet to exert influence on other policy processes, not limiting their participation to merely executing actions proposed by the public authorities.

This article aims to analyze the elements determining the action of different institutional models of productive microcredit. We used a multilevel model to investigate the relationship between interests and negotiation processes among groups involved in microcredit. The empirical study was conducted with three units of analysis: a public bank, a company the provides credit for micro entrepreneurs and small businesses (SCMPP), and a civil society organization of public interest (OSCIP) operating in microcredit. Results show that focus on managing the implementation of the Oriented Productive Microcredit methodology is a condition to achieve good results. Partnerships with government agencies, as well as the participation of microfinance institutions in public policy processes, are a major challenge and a major potential to enhancing the microcredit sector.

This essay explores the prospects brought for the democratic management of cultural policies in Brazil by technological changes revolving around ubiquitous computing, mobility, digital convergence and increasing access to public data. It builds on ideas from Social Construction of Technology and explores the interaction between technology and social processes. Based on these ideas, the essay presents reflections about emerging possibilities of new technological artifacts for the democratic management of public cultural policies. These possibilities are studied in two ways. The first concerns the adoption of technology and its usage patterns. The second is related to the production processes of those artifacts. In the former, the paper analyzes the literature and examples from it and from a structured inspection of websites to explore emerging possibilities, either already delivered or potential ones. These possibilities are grouped under the following categories: participation in the management of cultural policies; sharing of data and information related to cultural management; and transparency and social control in the management of cultural policies. In the latter, the paper explores the emergence of new actors and processes of production of technological resources in civil society. The paper concludes by presenting a set of issues that deserve the attention of researchers in future works.

The aim of this research is to identify different roles universities can perform when participating in civil society-led initiatives to promote information, citizenship and social accountability in Latin-American cities, especially the initiatives of Rede Nossa São Paulo and Red Ciudadana Nuestra Córdoba. The context for this work takes into consideration the challenges Latin American cities face nowadays, the potential roles of universities to deal with these challenges and the differences between the participation of universities in the two initiatives studied, both of which are members of the Latin American Network for Fair, Democratic and Sustainable Cities and Territories. Based on a descriptive and exploratory research conducted in 2015 in Córdoba and in São Paulo, this work identifies different roles, the motivation around them and the effects of the interaction between the university and the initiatives operating in the cities.

This article aims to understand the implementation process of organizational reforms in the public sector, focusing on two emblematic cases in the government of the State of São Paulo: the structuring of Poupatempo and the reform of Detran.SP. Based on the literature about policy implementation, it seeks to identify the variables and determinants that affect the implementation processes of organizational reforms. Thus, the goals, values and principles that guide them were analyzed, as well as the way they are carried out from several variables such as actors, their role, profile and performance. The categories used for the analysis allowed to identify the variables that determine these reforms, identifying issues common to both studies and the elements important to their success.

In this article, we focus on how children and youths are treated by Guardianship Councils. The Guardianship Council (CT) is one of the most important institutional tools for implementing the system of guarantees of children’s and adolescents’ rights. Our general goal is to analyze, according to the perception of guardianship councilors in Montes Claros, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, how the agency operates in this municipality. To that end, we conducted a qualitative study to understand the meanings perceived by the actors involved. We interviewed five of the eight councilors in the city of Montes Claros. We found that, in the case under analysis, a notorious lack of conditions leads to situations of "tragic choices": for every child in a "priority" situation who is quickly helped, some other children in non-priority situations remain subjected to risk, the effects of which are unpredictable in the long run. Priority cases are subjectively defined because of a system that imposes on the counselor the paradox to, as a government agent, feel able to intervene with some situations, and unable to help in other cases of extreme vulnerability. To some extent, this situation creates in the councilor the perception that it is up to him to decide "which life to save".

Innovation in services has gained space and several authors view it as a driver of organization development, thanks to the growth of the sector’s importance in the world economy. The present article proposes an analytical construct in which barriers and facilitators are antecedents of innovation, playing a significant role in its adoption in the public sector. It also shows a positive relationship between antecedents and type of innovation. For this study, we obtained literature-based variables through content analysis of 286 reports of innovation experiments from the Innovation Competition in Federal Public Management, which was promoted by ENAP. We used logistic regression to conduct a posteriori statistical analysis and found a significant relationship between innovation barriers and facilitators and the type of innovation adopted.

The present study aimed to analyze what has been discussed about social participation since the enactment of Brazil’s 1988 Federal Constitution, as well as to identify the main authors who have dedicated themselves to study the subject, the institutions and areas this participation has been discussed at, and the methodological profile adopted in publications. To that end, we reflected on the different denominations given to participation, as well as on the trajectory of research agenda over the last two decades. Our methodological procedures were meta-study and content analysis. We found that studies on social participation increased since 2003 and that there is a concentration of research in the health area. We also found that the main researchers discussing the subject are members of the Federal University of Viçosa. Finally, we verified that a thematic plurality pervades the subject, which contributes to different methodological profiles.

The scenario of public funding changed in 2015, when expenditure amendments to the budget bill by individual congress members had their execution made mandatory. Thus, it is reasonable to expect that the allocation of these amendments will need to be managed, with a view to aligning them with public policies. In this exploratory article, we selected the context of health care because of the potential impact of this change on this field. We analyzed to what extent congress members’ expenditure amendments to the Unified Health Care System (SUS) between 2012 and 2015 were in line with the system's agenda and how this indicates alignments between the executive and legislative branches. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted to determine whether mandatory amendments contribute to strengthen the funding of health care policy and to achieve the goals of its agenda.

The provision of water in the municipality of São Paulo depends on a system of reservoirs, of which two are particularly important: Cantareira, located in the north, and Guarapiranga-Billings, in the southern part of the city. Preservation of the headwaters of both systems is at present in conflict with the urgent need for housing, especially in the case of poorer sectors of the population that depend on informal settlements or social housing systems. This article derives from research carried out in the region where the headwaters of the Guarapiranga reservoir are located. It has a double aim. On one hand, it traces how environmental protection of the reservoir area has become a governmental issue; on the other hand, based on interviews and ethnographic approaches, it aims to discuss how environmental protection issues are dealt with on a day-to-day basis.

The article discusses innovative mechanisms of democratic participation arising from Brazilian public policy that articulate relations between government, the private sector, and civil society on questions of territorial development. It focuses on the possibilities and limitations for democratic rearrangements of public spaces and the creation of new participatory tools and languages of public action for the promotion of public policy. The discussion is based on the experience of the city of Belo Horizonte’s regionalization led by the municipal government in 2011, in which, the city was divided into 40 areas called “Shared Management Territories.” The process, guidelines, and methods are described, and the different cases of dispute, conflict, and cooperation are analyzed to understand the languages of social action and the effects of territorial logic; these work in the construction of spaces and tools, enabling actors to enlarge their political participation, demand, and propose adjustments to public policy.

The paper starts from the observation made by authors involved with different aspects of public action, that the State is not synonymous with public affairs. Given a more polycentric approach in which the public, or publics, are themselves key and independent social actors, amongst others, it questions the central role that public policy is assumed to take in articulating the discussion and provision of public goods and services. The paper takes a historical perspective on the emergence of policy at different moments in the English language and looks in more detail at three periods which are widely recognized as moments when English speaking democracies made significant steps forward in broadening the agenda of public affairs: Roosevelt’s New Deal, 1933; the 1945 British Labour Government; and the Johnson administrations (1963-1968). In all of these cases, there were very practical breakthroughs, with new approaches to some very difficult issues but with very little, if at all, discussion of policy. Given that action and talk go together, what other social languages (to use Bakhtin’s term, 1986) were available? In pointing out that these were many and most continue to be present and highly active today, the paper questions the centrality and inevitability of public policy and concludes by arguing for a public action languages approach to the study of public affairs.

While there is not much research on membership management – how associations recruit, engage and maintain members – the subject is very relevant to association managers. The goal of this research is to understand how Brazilian associations carry out membership management and how these management practices can vary depending on membership type, i.e., individual (APJ) or organizational (APJ). We developed a survey with questions about the profile of the association and its membership management practices, and obtained 99 valid responses – 42 APFs and 57 APJs. Main findings include that the difference in membership management practices between individual-based organizations and meta-organizations is smaller than the literature led to infer. The survey also revealed the predominance of uncompetitive governance, based on the “single ticket democracy” model, thus challenging the validity of the idea of associations as “democracy schools”.

Between 1969 and 1987, UNESCO published a series of 77 monographs on aspects related to cultural policies of individual countries. Each monograph mobilized cultural policy in very particular ways, by its association with local issues, increasing awareness and communication about issues that formerly had never been grouped together under this label. Based on primary documents concerning the monographs, in this article I show that their production involved the articulation of a network of narratives, repertoires, documents, and publics that contributed to the development of a language of cultural policy, which became a frequent way to talk about and perform public actions related to culture in different places around the globe.

Based on the premise that the Brazilian state recognizes the right to health care as a citizenship guarantee, the present article analyses the Brazilian Popular Pharmacy Program, implemented in 2004, as a public policy for access to medicines. The program was analyzed by means of documentary and bibliographic research, as well as interviews conducted with program stakeholders, in order to identify its scope and limitations. Aiming at the distribution of essential medicines for the treatment of non-communicable chronic diseases, the program showed advantages regarding its efficient logistics, which ensures medicine availability and easy access to contracted private pharmacies. However, we found that public healthcare system users, who should be using conventional public pharmaceutical assistance, which distributes free medicines to the population, needed another form of assistance, due to the deficiencies of that service. Although the program was considered important as an alternative, operational and strategic improvements are suggested to make it more effective in providing access to medicines for the Brazilian population.

In the last 30 years, no Brazilian president has had a majority of congress members in the party that elected him/her. In order to have support in the legislature, their strategy has been to form a government coalition with other parties. The literature indicates that the main currency used by presidents is the distribution of ministries, and that this division is proportional to the number of members of each party in the coalition. The presupposition to this theme is that proportional parliaments would be more satisfied, and would therefore act in a more regulated manner because of their sense of justice. The main indicator used to measure the distribution of ministries is the Coalescence Rate. This paper argues that this index has no statistical consistency, and suggests an alternative concentration indicator: the G. Index.