Gabriela Lotta

This study analyses the institutional arrangements of Brasil Participativo, a digital public policy platform launched in 2023 by the Brazilian federal government to expand social participation in the formulation, implementation, and monitoring of public policies. Drawing on neo institutionalist theories, the article investigates four key dimensions: horizontal integration (intersectorality), vertical integration (relations among federative entities), social participation, and territoriality. The findings, based on official documents, indicate that Brasil Participativo presents strong intersectorality in both formulation and implementation, involving multiple ministries, secretariats, and national councils. This feature is also reflected in the dimension of social participation, through the inclusion of councils, social movements, and citizens by means of public consultations, conferences, proposal submission, and voting. However, the policy seems to face limitations regarding decision-making transparency, the monitoring of results, and coordination with states and municipalities, according to the public information. The territorial dimension is emphasized in official discourse, but it lacks clear guidelines for decentralization and the inclusion of local realities. The central hypothesis is that, although the institutional arrangement is robust, the publicly available documentation does not clarify its effectiveness, especially in the monitoring stage and in the inclusion of subnational actors in implementation. The study adopts a qualitative methodology based on documentary and normative analysis and contributes to the debate on institutional designs of participatory policies in complex federal contexts. It concludes with recommendations for greater transparency, stronger multilevel governance, and better integration of marginalized territories.

Street‐level implementation work routinely involves navigating resource scarcity while still meeting policy demands. Recent literature suggests that frontline workers cope with these challenges through informal practices, including the use of personal resources. This study expands contemporary knowledge by examining the role of street‐level managers and the impact of organizational resources. Using a mixed‐methods design, we examine why and how primary school principals in two Brazilian municipalities with different education budgets utilise personal resources. The quantitative survey of 92 principals shows that these informal practices are routine. Principals fundraise, solicit donations from families and communities, mobilise contributions from teachers, and donate their own money and unpaid time. The qualitative phase, consisting of 26 in‐depth interviews, demonstrates that rather than mere resource scarcity, principals mobilise personal and informal resources and engage in legitimising the use of informal resources from others as a managerial tool for addressing imperatives associated with multiple public sector reforms. The study contributes by demonstrating that the mobilisation of informal resources has become institutionalised as part of street‐level managerial work regardless of the level of formal resources available, as it allows managers to respond to local needs and implementation challenges that cannot be adequately addressed through formal resources alone.

Lors des élections municipales de 2024, les candidats issus des forces de sécurité ont consolidé leur présence dans la politique locale. Cet article analyse de manière comparative les programmes de gouvernement des maires élus provenant des forces de sécurité et ceux de leurs adversaires non élus, en identifiant la manière dont l’appartenance institutionnelle se traduit par des accentuations programmatiques différenciées. En mobilisant une modélisation thématique (BERTopic) et une analyse qualitative appliquées à 106 programmes recueillis dans le répertoire du Tribunal supérieur électoral (TSE), l’étude met en évidence des régularités discursives et mesure l’intensité des catégories thématiques. Les résultats montrent que les candidats élus concentrent leurs discours sur la valorisation et l’organisation des corporations policières, tandis que les non élus privilégient des thèmes liés à la prévention de la violence et aux droits sociaux. L’idéologie module, sans toutefois déterminer entièrement, ces divergences, indiquant que le succès électoral du policialismo découle de la capacité à convertir une crédentialisation institutionnelle en capital politique. L’étude contribue ainsi à comprendre le policialismo comme un phénomène à la fois discursif et électoral.

This article assesses the needs and capacities for Disaster Risk Management (DRM) in Brazilian municipalities most susceptible to landslides and floods. The analyses involved counting planning instruments for DRM and their relationships with governance, structuring, and capacitation of DRM in local organizations, as well as municipal population size. The results demonstrated that the presence of instruments is linearly associated with municipalities' organizational capacities for DRM and municipal population size. Therefore, it is concluded that implementing public DRM policies requires developing organizational capacities at the local level. The occurrence of severe disasters in recent years supports the need to articulate different scales and organizations in DRM.

When frontline workers interact with citizens, they often need to categorize individuals and decide who receives what and how. Previous research highlights that some frontline workers rely on negative stereotypes when evaluating certain social groups, thereby perpetuating inequalities. However, studies also suggest that not all frontline workers rely on stereotypes; some are able to suppress these biases during their interactions with citizens. The reasons behind this variation in the use or suppression of stereotypes remain underexplored in the literature. This paper aims to address this gap by proposing a framework to better understand the differences in how frontline workers use and suppress stereotypes. We argue that categorization operates along a continuum with distinct logics. On one end is stereotypical categorization, where individuals are classified as members of a specific group based on a cultural-cognitive framework that amplifies perceived differences between members of that group and others. On the other end is investigative categorization, a dynamic approach that involves forming hypotheses about individuals, testing them, and revising or reformulating these hypotheses based on new information. To illustrate these two categorization logics, we analyze the reactions of 46 Brazilian kindergarten professionals to a vignette, highlighting the theoretical and practical implications of these approaches.

Este artigo examina como os políticos exercem pressão sobre os burocratas de nível de rua para promover seus interesses, focando em quatro formas principais de politização: clientelismo (nomeações baseadas em lealdade), questões políticas (disputas ideológicas nas agendas públicas), pressões vindas de cima (interferência direta e críticas à burocracia) e candidaturas de burocratas a cargos públicos. Com base em uma revisão da literatura, o estudo abrange artigos nacionais e internacionais, particularmente em contextos polarizados e populistas. Nós sistematizamos essas pressões, seus vários efeitos (por exemplo, redução da colaboração na linha de frente, aumento do estresse e da desconfiança pública, portas giratórias) e estratégias de mitigação, resumidas em uma tabela abrangente. Os resultados destacam o papel do clientelismo na erosão da meritocracia, a ambiguidade dos conflitos políticos que prejudica a implementação, as pressões hierárquicas que fomentam disfunções durante as eleições e as candidaturas eleitorais que promovem plataformas corporativistas. As medidas de mitigação incluem a limitação de cargos comissionados, o aumento da transparência e da participação cidadã, o planejamento estratégico com treinamento em neutralidade e reformas institucionais para a independência burocrática. Em conclusão, o equilíbrio entre a responsividade política e a ética profissional é crucial para a governança democrática e a qualidade dos serviços, especialmente no nível local.

The health and care workforce crisis and gender inequalities are interconnected, threatening healthcare and equity. We turn this ‘unhealthy’ connection upside down, aiming to explore how health policy can create co-benefits for gender equality and how governance can support policy implementation. A conceptual approach on SDG3 ‘Health’ and SDG5 ‘Gender Equality’ co-benefits served our analysis. We applied a qualitative explorative approach to identify co-benefits; following a rapid scoping review of the literature, we focus on document analysis and an illustrative case study of artificial intelligence in the health and care workforce. The literature reveals an overall lack of attention to co-benefits in research. Policy documents pay some attention to co-benefits, but primarily consider the benefits for the healthcare sector rather than for gender equality. The case of artificial intelligence illustrates that technological innovations provide opportunities for change, but to create co-benefits, they need gender-responsive and equity-based policy approaches to enhance economically effective and socially fair transformations. We discuss how transformational leadership and gender-transformative governance approaches can support implementation of co-benefits policies. Strengthening the policy and implementation of co-benefits provides novel opportunities for improving gender equality and responding to the health and care workforce crisis.

This article explores the implications of democratic backsliding for public administration (PA), both as a discipline and as a research subject, using Brazil as an exemplary case. Grounded in two experiences of conducting empirical research on the federal bureaucracy during the Bolsonaro administration (2019–2022), we argue for the need to understand the complexities involved in studying PA—particularly bureaucrats—during democratic backsliding. In Brazil, researchers identified changes to research agendas and priorities, to the training of civil servants, and to the academic curriculum, as well as new issues and challenges in public debate. The Brazilian case also made it apparent that research protocols require revisions, with heightened protections when involving bureaucrats at risk of persecution. Ultimately, the article contends that democratic backsliding demands a rethinking of PA as both a field of practice and an object of study.