Ana Carolina Nunes

A pressão de movimentos sociais foi essencial para colocar na agenda as políticas de promoção da equidade de gênero. Mas para que sejam implementadas, é importante que as novas ideias trazidas por essas políticas sejam apropriadas pelos atores responsáveis por tirá-las do papel. Esse trabalho explora como uma política pública ligada à temática de gênero é apropriada pelos atores que a implementam. Olhamos para organizações do setor de transporte público da cidade de São Paulo, responsáveis por políticas para combater diferentes formas de violência sexual. A partir de entrevistas e observação participante, analisamos como os conflitos e desafios desse processo são percebidos por quem atua nessas organizações, nas quais as discussões sobre as relações de poder entre gêneros são recentes. Por um lado, características do setor como o “isolamento técnico” e a predominância masculina em seus quadros constituem obstáculos a mudanças efetivas. Por outro, as relações de poder entre gêneros são desestabilizadas por ideias disruptivas, promovidas por movimentos feministas, que adentram essas organizações por meio da política pública implementada. Apesar dos avanços relatados, verifica-se que as mulheres ainda são responsabilizadas pelo enfrentamento ao assédio sexual e outras formas de discriminação de gênero nas organizações.

Community health workers (CHWs) are framed as the link between communities and the formal health system. CHWs must establish trusting relationships with the community and with the broader health service. How to find the optimal balance between the various strands of work for CHWs, and how to formalise this, has been the focus of different studies. We performed an extensive documentary analysis of federal legislation in Brazil to understand the institutionalisation of the CHW workforce in Brazil over the last 3 decades. The paper offers three contributions to the literature: the development and application of an analytical framework to consider the institutionalisation process of CHWs; a historical analysis of the professional institutionalisation of CHW in Brazil; and the identification of the paradoxes that such institutionalisation faces: firstly, institutionalisation focused on improving CHW remuneration created difficulties in hiring and paying these professionals; when CHW are incorporated within state bureaucracy they start to lose their autonomy as community agents; and that the effectiveness of CHW programmes depends on the improvement of clinical services in the most deprived areas.

Dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic requires that the State make hard decisions that involve the action of bureaucrats who interact with the population through the implementation of public policy, the street-level bureaucracy (SLB). In this paper, based on a mixed- method exploratory study, we analyze how the daily performance of street-level bureaucrats in different policy areas- health and social care, access to the justice system, public security and education - has changed during the pandemic. We also explore the repercussions of those changes. Based on the analysis of the perceptions of bureaucrats, changes in their work and in their relationship with the public, we identify three categories that illustrate the dynamics of SLB work during the pandemic: the SLB who faces the crisis on the front lines; the SLB who suffers the effects of the pandemic, but whose work does not require her to face it directly; and the SLB who began to work remotely. We conclude that, during the pandemic, SLB suffered in varying degrees an aggravation of structural problems, such as their removal from decision-making processes - now restricted to the highest government level - and the exacerbation of already existing conflicts and ambiguities.