The debate on effectiveness is today at the centre of the participation agenda. What are the results of participatory institutions, and how and when do they produce change? These are questions asked by activists, academics and governments hungry for assessments for evaluating the outcome of the rich democratic experimentation that has recently taken place in Brazil, and for projecting their future ventures. In academia, this effort means huge theoretical and methodological challenges. After all, when we speak of the results […]

Government decisions are taken based on circumstantiated studies and analyses of the policy in question. These studies, backed up by theory, research and good practices, indicate the alternatives available and their consequences, thus allowing the decision maker to choose with knowledge and confidence the most convenient programme or policy for the objectives proposed. Does this ideal, modern, rational world correspond to the practices of decision-makers? Is this comfortable situation, in which validated options are offered in order to inform decisions […]

The study of infrastructure services has long remained a field of technical studies carried out by the engineering community or by economists and finance experts, with few exceptions. This absence of contributions from other areas has caused the presence and dissemination of what the authors of this book call “mainstream water and sanitation policies” – general and standardised solutions for water and sanitation services (WSS) worldwide –, which have disregarded local processes and differences. This situation has had disastrous consequences […]

Traditionally conceived as a singular, differentiated policy insulated from public debate, foreign policy in democratic political systems has gradually drawn closer to other public policies. Mechanisms for channelling the demands of different political actors and even for direct participation in developing and executing foreign policy, as well as mechanisms of control and accountability, have been established and have moved the democratisation of foreign policy forward to a greater or lesser degree, according to the context. However, an examination of the […]

“Lula, the Workers’ Party and the Governability Dilemma in Brazil” analyses how the Workers’ Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores – PT) coped with the constraints imposed by governability during the two terms of President Lula. Inspired by reflections on the possibilities of the transformative politics of progressive political projects in power, Gómez Bruera certainly shares in what he terms the “great disappointment” in the party’s pragmatic changes and the limited reach of the policies pursued, present in the criticisms made by […]

A new political-institutional framework for water management was inaugurated in Brazil with the promulgation of Federal Law n° 9.433 of 1997. The model defined by the legislation was the result of a complex debate between political agents, specialists and service users, and generally received very positive reactions celebrating the fact that Brazil was carrying out a reorganisation of the sector attuned to contemporary global trends – more horizontal, decentralised, participatory and… effective. This model would allow for the environmental, economic, […]

The central theme of Mauro Porto’s analysis is the political role of the media in contexts of democratic transition. His reflection is anchored in a case study of the Globo Television Network, a prominent nationwide network usually referred to as TV Globo. It is interesting to note that the history of theories on political communication runs jointly with the history of the rise of representative democracies. But lacunas still exist in the interface between communication and democracy, and the contributions […]

The Welfare State in the Age of Reason is nor a neutral or modest book. It openly defends a position and suggests specific paths for social policies in Brazil based on successful international experiences that have produced more equality. In its first sentence, the author claims that the book is a defense of the welfare state – in clear opposition to a widespread idea highlighting its crisis – which shows resilience and solid institutionalization. Furthermore, an expansion is observed in […]

The book Opportunities and Deprivation in the Urban South by Eduardo Cesar Leão Marques explores and analyzes a dimension which is traditionally considered secondary (and frequently ignored) in poverty studies: the relationship between sociability configurations and the (re)production of diverse conditions of poverty. Based on a robust and rigorous empirical research with 209 individuals living in poverty situations and 30 middle-class individuals from the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo, the book is organized into seven chapters structured in the following […]

Nothing can be taken for granted, says a popular dictum phrased in different languages and manners. Such obvious statement, however, seems to have been forgotten by both professionals and researchers of politics. Whereas professionals have been surprised by social upheavals in societies where recent material progress seemed to have had successfully accommodated contentious political grievances—as in Brazil and Turkey—, researchers are have been caught by a wave that prioritizes hypothesis-testing over concept- and theory-building. Yet if nobody can avoid the […]

Brazilian foreign policy has reached a very interesting inflection point. The bureaucratic walls of the Itamaraty Palace so stoutly erected by the Baron of Rio Branco in 1902 are cracking. Where foreign policy used to be neatly circumscribed by the world of ‘high politics’ and external interaction by Brazilians limited to a small group of clearly defined actors, the situation today is very different. Itamaraty retains pride of place for the grand geopolitical thinking that often preoccupies the study of […]

The increasing cross-border use of drones, the transnational and elusive phenomenon of cyber espionage and warfare and the ineffectiveness of conventional states’ responses to non-traditional security threats such as international terrorism high-light some of the complexities involved in understanding state power in the 21st century. In the straightforward realist narrative, states are the main players in world politics and power is a reflection of states’ material capabilities. Military capacity, in particular, is the ultimate source of states’ power. Yet, notwithstanding […]