The project aims at comparing governance strategies in large metropolitan areas around the world, both in developing and developed countries. It aims at depicting financing strategies and their outcomes.
From Marta Teresa da Silva Arretche.
Comparative research involving researchers from the EUA, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, Belgium, India, South Africa, Czech Republic, Canada and Brazil on coordination mechanisms for public service management in metropolitan areas and their egalitarian effects.
From Marta Teresa da Silva Arretche e Edgard Fusaro.
The project studies the mechanisms that affect the capacity of the Brazilian state to provide social services as well as the effectiveness of social policies. Particularly, the project examines the impact of federal intervention on the agenda of subnational governments and also the impact of the subnational governments’ political autonomy and the regional disparities on inequality of public policy provision.
Three main questions guide this research project with the objective of verifying if increases in specific spending categories can be observed before elections whereas other types of spending are reduced by governors in Argentinean provinces and in Brazilian states. The first one asks if since the democratization elections have served as a stimulus to change the composition of spending by governments in Argentinean provinces and in Brazilian states. Secondly, are governor elections in the immediate aftermath of the democratic transition more prone to provoke sudden changes in budget allocations to specific types of spending, again in the provinces and the states? Finally, what is the impact of federalism on the fiscal behavior of Argentinean provinces and Brazilian states in election years? In order to answer these questions, this project will explore how the elections for governor influenced the composition of spending in Argentinean provinces and states in Brazil from the beginning of democratization through to 2009.
From Lorena Guadalupe Barberia e George Avelino Filho.
This project aims to analyze the possibilities of south-American regional integration with a focus on the main domestic institutional obstacles. The investigation observes national features and other aspects of countries and their influence on the process of regional integration. The domestic institutional design of five countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Venezuela) is analyzed, in particular executive-legislative relations and the influence of the main interest groups on the decision-making process of foreign policy issues. The comparative analysis of this information will produce an assessment of the level of impact that these institutional relations have on the advancement of a South American integration proposal.
From Janina Onuki.
The objective of this project is to observe whether there is change or rather continuity in the patterns of trade policy by adopting a comparative perspective and focusing on the main aspects of the institutional field. The main puzzle is to explain how two countries (Brazil and Argentina) with similar economic models at some point and facing analogous changes from the world economic scenario, ended up with such distinct trajectories in terms of trade policy. The investigation covers the 1990-2005 period and it adopts a qualitative methodology by building a panel of the main foreign policy approaches in the field of trading and analyzing three levels of decision-making: inter-bureaucratic, legislative dynamics and Executive-Legislative relations.
From Janina Onuki.
At the end of each electoral cycle it becomes clear that foreign policy has become one of the key dimensions connecting democracy and development in Latin America. Regional integration, international security, international trade agreements, legislation on international migration, energy and regulation are some among many international issues that have become frequent, and sometimes polarized, in national electoral debates. Contrary to the predictions that Latin-American countries would inevitably, from the 1990s, move towards a convergent model of development dictated by the competitive integration into the world economy, what was seen in the countries of the region was the emergency of hard-fought disputes concerning the concepts of development and the confrontation of ideas from political coalitions, political parties and national elites. The degree of polarization in these political disputes or otherwise the level of ideological convergence varies from country to country. For instance, political disputes tend to be more polarized in Argentina and Mexico than Brazil and Chile. Similarly, institutional structures are quite distinct, especially regarding legislative-executive relations at the national level, institutions responsible for bridging the gap between Society and Governments on foreign policy. The fundamental objective of this project is to analyze the evolution of both the institutional role and the performance of national legislatures on foreign policy in four countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. Besides updating the analysis on the connections among Society, Legislatures and Foreign Policy, the original contribution of this research refers to the systematic way in which the comparison of the political-institutional dimension is dealt with in the field of Latin American foreign policy, an aspect that has traditionally received little attention by the international literature.
New studies adopting social network analysis have been improving the understanding of processes within the State, shedding light on the relationship between the State and its immediate political surroundings, especially politicians and private companies. This set of studies showed the importance of networks in the operation of public policies. However, given the specificities of the policies studied, these investigations did not provide a significant contribution to the connections of networks within the State, their associative web and the users of the policies. On the other hand, studies on social inequalities faced by cities give special attention to the so-called street-level bureaucracy along with popular organizations. This research aims to fulfill this gap by analyzing the case of the last five governments of the city of São Paulo in a particularly relevant policy to urban inequalities – housing policies. This policy counts on organized social movements, and also on a state bureaucracy traditionally connected to them, therefore helping us to understand more about the State and its role on the reproduction of social inequalities in the city.
This research investigates recently adopted housing policies within the Brazilian metropolitan context. It also analyzes the main features of popular housing alternatives in the metropolises. The study counts on primary data collected from municipal public agencies and relating to housing policies and other housing alternatives, and geocoded demographic information that can be overlaid with census data. By the use of Geographical Information Systems, the research can produce a profile of the population living in each of the alternatives – shanty towns (favelas) and public housing projects – and problematize the literature on urban studies and urban sociology.
New studies adopting social network analysis have been improving the understanding of processes within the State, shedding light on the relationship between the State and its immediate political surroundings, especially politicians and private companies. This set of studies showed the importance of networks in the operation of public policies. However, given the specificities of the policies studied, these investigations did not provide a significant contribution to the connections of networks within the State, their associative web and the users of the policies. On the other hand, studies on social inequalities faced by cities give special attention to the so-called street-level bureaucracy along with popular organizations. This research aims to fulfill this gap by analyzing the case of the last five governments of the city of São Paulo in a particularly relevant policy to urban inequalities – housing policies. This policy counts on organized social movements, and also on a state bureaucracy traditionally connected to them, therefore helping us to understand more about the State and its role on the reproduction of social inequalities in the city.
