Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T20:04:56.111Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

State Institutions, Power, and Social Networks in Brazilian Urban Policies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Eduardo Marques*
Affiliation:
University of São Paulo and Center for Metropolitan Studies
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

A large historiographic tradition has studied the Brazilian state, yet we know relatively little about its internal dynamics and particularities. The role of informal, personal, and unintentional ties has remained underexplored in most policy network studies, mainly because of the pluralist origin of that tradition. It is possible to use network analysis to expand this knowledge by developing mesolevel analysis of those processes. This article proposes an analytical framework for studying networks inside policy communities. This framework considers the stable and resilient patterns that characterize state institutions, especially in contexts of low institutionalization, particularly those found in Latin America and Brazil. The article builds on research on urban policies in Brazil to suggest that networks made of institutional and personal ties structure state organizations internally and insert them into broader political scenarios. These networks, which I call state fabric, frame politics, influence public policies, and introduce more stability and predictability than the majority of the literature usually considers. They also form a specific power resource—positional power, associated with the positions that political actors occupy—that influences politics inside and around the state.

Resumo

Resumo

O Estado brasileiro tem sido objeto de intenso debate nas ciências sociais, em especial pela importância de suas políticas para diversas dimensões do país. Apesar disso, conhecemos relativamente pouco suas dinâmicas internas e os detalhes do seu funcionamento. O uso de análise de redes é uma das possíveis estratégias analíticas para o desenvolvimento de análises de nível intermediário sobre tais processos. Entretanto, a importância de laços informais, pessoais e não intencionais foi muito pouco explorada pela tradição de estudos das redes de políticas públicas, principalmente pela origem pluralista dessa tradição. Esse artigo propõe uma abordagem analítica para o estudo de redes dentro de comunidades de políticas que considera os padrões estáveis e resilientes que caracterizam as instituições estatais, especialmente em contextos como os da América Latina e do Brasil, em particular.

O artigo se apóia em pesquisas recentes sobre políticas urbanas no Brasil, sugerindo que redes feitas de vínculos institucionais e pessoais estruturam as organizações do Estado internamente, ao mesmo tempo em que as inserem em cenários políticos mais amplos. Essas redes, que denomino de tecido do Estado, enquadram as lutas políticas, influenciam as políticas públicas e introduzem maior estabilidade e previsibilidade do que considerado usualmente. Elas também configuram um tipo específico de poder —poder posicional— associado às posições ocupadas pelos atores políticos, influenciando a política dentro e no entorno do Estado.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by the Latin American Studies Association

References

Ansell, Christopher 2000The Networked Polity: Regional Development in Western Europe.” Governance: An International Journal of Policy and Administration 13 (3): 303333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ansell, Christopher, Bichir, Renata, and Shi, Zhou 2009When Are Policy Networks Oligarchical?” Paper presented at the International Political Science Association World Congress, Santiago, Chile, July 1216.Google Scholar
Arretche, Marta 2003Dossiê agenda de pesquisa em políticas públicas.” Revista Brasileira de Ciências Sociais 18 (51): 829.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arretche, Marta 2006Coordinating Policies in a Fragmented Federal State: The Brazilian Case.” International Political Science Association World Congress, Fukuoka, Japan, July 913.Google Scholar
Bobbio, Norberto 1997 Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction. Translated and with an introduction by Cameron, Allan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Breiger, Ronald L., and Mohr, John W. 2004La dualidad y la agregación de categories sociales.” Redes 5 (4): 118.Google Scholar
Burstein, Paul 1991Policy Domains: Organization, Culture, and Policy Outcomes.” Annual Review of Sociology 17:327350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cardoso, Fernando Henrique 1993Planejamento a política: Os anéis burocráticos.” In A construção da democracia: Estudos sobre política, 135162. São Paulo: Editora Siciliano.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert Alan 1961 Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Draibe, Sônia 1989O welfare state no Brasil: Características e perspectivas.” In Ciências Sociais Hoje, 1361. Rio de Janeiro: Anpocs and Rio Fundo.Google Scholar
Evans, Peter 1995 Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Falleti, Tulia G. 2010Infiltrating the State: The Evolution of Health Care Reforms in Brazil, 1964–1988.” In Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power, edited by Mahoney, James and Thelen, Kathleen, 3862. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P. 1977 Congress, Keystone of the Washington Establishment. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Freeman, Linton C. 2002 The Development of Social Network Analysis: A Study in the Sociology of Science. North Charleston, SC: Booksurge.Google Scholar
Granovetter, Mark 2003A Theoretical Agenda for Economic Sociology.” In The New Economic Sociology, edited by Guillén, Mauro, Collins, Randall, England, Paula, and Meyer, Marshall, 3560. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Hagopian, Frances 1994Traditional Politics against State Transformation in Brazil.” In State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the Third World, edited by Migdal, Joel S., Kohli, Atul, and Shue, Vivienne, 3764. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heclo, Hugh 1978Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment.” In The New American Political System, edited by King, Anthony, 4656. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.Google Scholar
Hedström, Peter, Sandell, Rickard, and Stern, Charlotta 2000Mesolevel Networks and the Diffusion of Social Movements: The Case of the Swedish Social Democratic Party.” American Journal of Sociology 106 (1): 145172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heinz, John P., Laumann, Edward, Nelson, Robert, and Salisbury, Robert 1997 Hollow Core: Private Interests in National Policy Making. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hjern, Benny, and Porter, David O. 1981Implementation Structures: A New Unit of Administrative Analysis.” Organizational Studies 2 (3): 211227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knoke, David, Pappi, Franz, Broadbent, Jeffrey, and Tsujinaka, Yutaka 1996 Comparing Policy Networks: Labor Politics in the U.S., Germany, and Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laumann, Edward O., and Knoke, David 1987 The Organizational State: Social Choice in National Policy Domains. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Linz, Juan J., and Stepan, Alfred 1996 Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Mainwaring, Scott P. 1999 Rethinking Party Systems in the Third Wave of Democratization: The Case of Brazil. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marques, Eduardo Cesar 2000 Estado e redes sociais: Permeabilidade e coesão nas políticas urbanas no Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro: Revan; Fundação da Emparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo.Google Scholar
Marques, Eduardo Cesar 2003 Redes sociais, instituições e atores políticos no governo da cidade de São Paulo. São Paulo: Annablume.Google Scholar
Nunes, Edson 1984Bureaucratic Insulation and Clientelism in Contemporary Brazil: Uneven State-Building and the Taming of Modernity.” Ph.D. diss., Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Santos, Wanderley dos 1979 Cidadania e justiça: A política social na ordem brasileira. Rio de Janeiro: Campus.Google Scholar
Schneider, Ben Ross 1991 Politics within the State: Elite Bureaucrats and Industrial Policy in Authoritarian Brazil. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Sikkink, Kathryn 1993Las capacidades y la autonomía del Estado em Brasil e Argentina: Un enfoque neoinstitucionalista.” Desarrollo Económico 32 (128): 543574.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stepan, Alfred 2001 Arguing Comparative Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stepan, Alfred, ed. 1989 Democratizing Brazil: Problems of Transition and Consolidation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tendler, Judith 1997 Good Government in the Tropics. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles 1992Prisoners of the State.” Historical Sociology 133:329342.Google Scholar
Wasserman, Stanley, and Faust, Katherine 1994 Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watts, Duncan J. 1999 Small Worlds: The Dynamics of Networks between Order and Randomness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weyland, Kurt 1996 Democracy without Equity: Failures of Reforms in Brazil. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar