Patterns of Interaction in the Brazilian Policy Systems

• In Event: Citizen Engagement in the Policy Process: Global & Local Dynamics

Abstract

In the post-constituent period (1985-1988), a consensus was established in Brazil on the ideas and practices of social participation. The agenda of study, once centred on social movements, witnessed a “turn” and began to focus on the analysis of the organizations of civil society and their practices within institutional spaces of participation (henceforth democratic innovations).
The change from the analyses on the social movements to the analyses on democratic innovations such as participatory budgeting, policy councils and conferences, decentralized planning, popular assemblies, etc. characterized the institutionalist turn in the studies on the social participation in Brazil and in other countries around the world (Fung and Wright, 2003; Avritzer, 2004; Smith, 2009).
In Brazil, this change reflected the practice of the social and political actors stimulated by the constitutional process (1985-1988) that introduced the creation of the participatory institutions, such as councils and public policy conferences, within some public policy subsystems.
In the course of these practical and analytical convergences, public policies and participation became almost correlated terms. Scholars, concerned with the expansion of political and social inclusion, began to investigate a set of variables that would test the inclusiveness (or not) of these innovations (Fung, 2004; Faria e Coelho, 2010).
The large demonstrations around the world against ongoing austerity policies in the beginning of the 2010s, and later in Brazil (2013), have marked a new turn in the agenda on social participation. Participation in democratic innovations began to be criticised (Pateman, 2012) and other repertoires of actions (Tilly, 2004) such as protests, parades, occupations began to be more valued.
In Brazil, 2013 protests impact the field since the new generations and other forms of struggle for social inclusion gained media visibility and academic attention (Singer, 2013, Alonso & Mische, 2015, Mendonça, 2017). The emphasis on deliberation within institutionalised spaces of participation is challenged by the recognition of confrontational practices that denounce the violation of social rights and injustices. New repertories of action should be used in order to expand the limits of the Brazilian state.
Recognizing the changes in the practice and in the analysis of social participation does not mean abandon the democratic innovations. On the contrary, the article intends to explain whether and how the convergence of different actors, arenas and repertoires of actions enhances the inclusive goals intended by those involved in the daily struggle for greater social justice in the country.
This analysis will be carried out in three subsystems of public policies in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais: health, housing and politics for women.
In Belo Horizonte, the third biggest city in Brazil, the health, housing, and women social movements supported the country democratisation (1985-1988). During the Constituent process, these movements have encouraged the creation of different democratic innovations such as the Public Policy Councils. Later, with the Federal Constitution (1988), those innovations were institutionalized all over the country. This process allowed representatives from civil society and government to deliberated their policy demands regularly.
From 2010 onward, this more usual pattern of interaction has been changing. Belo Horizonte, like Brazil, has witnessed more conflicttive patterns of action. In some policies, such as policy for women, councils have been disintegrated (2016) as the result of political decision of former president, Michel Temer (2016-2018).
Our hypothesis is that the patterns of interaction among social movements and Policy Councils vary according to the ability of each Council to resist the attacks and to impact their respective policies. To explain the changes in the patterns of interaction in each policy, the article will (1) examine the history of health, housing and women policies in Belo Horizonte; (2) analyse the decisions taken by each Municipal Council during the period from 2003 to 2016; (3) analyse the repertories of actions performed by the collective actors through the “protest events analyses” (Hutter, 2014; Silva et. al., 2016; Galvão e Tatagiba, 2017), and (4) analyse the opinions of the representatives of social movements and policy councils about the effectiveness of those repertoires of actions performed in each policy area.

Authors

• Claudia Feres Faria, Federal University of Minas Gerais

• Luis Henrique Teixeira da Silva, Federal University of Minas Gerais