Capacidade e autoridade dos conselhos municipais de assistência social: a regulação sobre a provisão de serviços da rede privada

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to investigate how State-society interactions in management councils influence the implementation of public policies. It is part of the scope of studies interested in understanding how participatory institutions (PIs) relate to public policies and how they act in these sectors in interaction with other institutions. Its theoretical reference is the thesis of the mutual constitution between State and society. The thesis seeks to continue the advances observed in the last decade in the study of PIs, such as the application of adequate methods to increase the objectivity of the studies. It also aims to fill some gaps: considering that private sectors were and are essential for public policies, it aims to explain the influence of State-society interactions in their implementation; allied to this, the thesis proposes the application of the concept of “agency domain” to account for these interactions and associate decision-making patterns of the councils (outputs) with policy results. The methodology consists of studying the decision-making pattern of municipal social assistance councils. The municipalities of Maceió (AL) and São Gonçalo (RJ) were chosen for analysis, with Niterói and Florianópolis occupying the main comparison. The decision-making pattern comes from the publications of the councils in the Official Gazette that are classified as “management of the private network”. The hypothesis is that the selected municipalities, whose council decides more on the management of the private network, compared to the councils of other municipalities, will obtain greater hiring from private entities. The management of the private network is the decision on the organization, planning and management of the indirect provision of social assistance services, including, in particular, the contracting of entities and other activities that refer to the maintenance of these indirectly provided services. The hypothesis assumes that the ability to exercise management decisions in the private network is an indicator of the exercise of an “agency domain”, as it depends on the socio-state interactions negotiated in the councils. Thus, the management decisions of the private network would be indicative of the existence of socio-state interactions negotiated in the councils. The management decisions of the private network generate results in public policies, specifically, the increase in the contracting capacity of private entities – which means the increase in the coverage of the social assistance network. Thus, the increase in the hiring of social assistance entities can be understood as an indication of the domains of agency of the councils, that is, of their ability to exercise capacities and authorities over third parties, in this case, over the private part. Therefore, contracting entities may express agency dominance as a relevant board capability.