Despite the vast literature on social security reform there are relatively few studies that analyze the participation of representatives coming from the union movement in the decision-making process. This article aims to fill part of that gap in Brazilian academic production on unionism and public policy. In situations in which unionist representatives support the ruling party, does the union bloc tend to defend the specific interests of their base of social representation or to follow the guidance of the party […]

This article describes the legislative process of the Administrative Department of the state of São Paulo (DAESP) during the Estado Novo dictatorship and seeks to answer three questions: i) what were its real attributions? ii) what was its place among the state-level government agencies? iii) what was its role in the dictatorial regime’s public decision-making structure? Ordering and interpreting information on the DAESP’s deliberative process will allow us to establish whether or not it exercised power (understood as the capacity […]