Although empowerment is seen as intrinsically important and instrumentally valuable to escape poverty, there is very little research on the empirical drivers of empowerment. Using custom-made household-level information and using advanced econometric techniques that also correct for endogeneity,...

This paper examines the institutional arrangements that organize the arenas of formulation and implementation of development policies in Brazil, asking if such policies are setting up more democratic decision-making processes with the inclusion of a larger number of actors and at the same time...

Many public policies seek to promote, maintain, modify or improve collective actions. The development of a country requires actions that are complex and wide in scope. This and following texts sort out: i) two general classes of problem-situations that lack collective action; and ii) kinds of...

The article analyses the Programa Nacional de Produção e Uso do Biodiesel (PNPB), an agro-energy policy with social aims, through the study of the political and technical capabilities of its institutional arrangement. The article verifies if the arrangement is able to combine the demands of...

The paper presents an exploratory study aims to verify the potential of public policy conferences for the inclusion of population segments that have been traditionally excluded from political participation processes, such as women, blacks, illiterates, low schooling and less income. The study...

Public policy studies in Brazil strongly rely on sociological, historical or rational choice neo-institutionalisms. A forth 'newest new institutionalism' argues that ideas and discourse matter, meaning they play a paramount role in politics. The concept of narratives may provide insights into...

The main objective of this article is to verify the impact of both the incarceration rate and the number of police officers over the homicide rates. Overall, our results suggest that the increase in both the incarceration rate and the number of police officers are important do deter homicides....

The aim of this paper is to analyze to what extent the scale changing impacts the dynamics of participatory, deliberative and representative of the Health Conference held in Belo Horizonte. The hypothesis is this changing of level - from the local, to district and to municipal level - impact...

Public Policy Conferences are institutionalized participatory bodies that outshine the traditional separation between state and society and generate dynamics of political representation different from the electoral model of democracy. In these areas, civil society is called to represent the...

National conferences became the most important participatory policy at the national level in Brazil. Brazil has had a tradition of national conferences since the early 40's when Vargas government called a national health conference. Since 1988 the forms of civil society participation envisioned...