Knowledge of Social Rights and Access to State Services: Evidence from Brazil

• In Event: Political Knowledge and Information Processing in Developing Democracies

Abstract

What explains why some citizens successfully get access to social welfare programs and other state services? In this paper, we use survey evidence from Brazil to examine which citizens are more likely to access important anti-poverty programs and state-provided health, education, and utility services. We develop a new question battery on knowledge of social rights that includes questions on constitutional entitlements and large social programs. We show that knowledge of social rights (KSR) is distinct from conventional measures of political knowledge (PK) that focus on awareness of key national political actors and institutions. Although women and individuals with lower SES have lower levels of traditional political knowledge, they do not suffer a deficit in knowledge of social rights. We explore some possible explanations for this, including active outreach from the state.

Author

• Matthew S. Winters, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign