Social Policy Dismantling and De-democratization in Brazil: Citizenship in Danger (Societies and Political Orders in Transition)

This book examines the emergence of authoritarian populist regimes, analyzing Brazil as a case study. The authors explain how the tactics employed by the Bolsonaro administration to dismantle bureaucracy and public policies, especially labour and social policies, find expression in the fiscal austerity measures recently inscribed in the Federal Constitution: a counter-democratic device employed by technical and financial elites to systemically derail the social protection system. Through this in-depth case study, the book presents new theoretical arguments and concepts that can be useful to understand the dynamics of such new regimes, and discussing similar cases in other contexts. Democratic governments in Brazil, driven by social movements and political actors, have strengthened social protection through a distinctive institutional architecture that combines the strengthening of public bureaucracies, the creation of intergovernmental networks, and the democratic instances ofsocial participation and agreement. The contributions throughout this volume analyze these transformations in different sectors of public policy, such as labour, employment, pensions, food and nutrition security, health, and social assistance. Each contribution discusses the recent trajectory through a political analysis of the main actors and institutions, reform processes and policy changes, and the results achieved. Finally, the existing weaknesses in each of these social protection sectors are identified in the context of the literature on policy dismantling, revealing the strategies used to take advantage of these political and institutional weaknesses. This book will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers of political science and public policy, interested in a better understanding of de-democratization by social policy dismantling. Preface Contents Part I: Theoretical Approaches to the Welfare State in Latin America Chapter 1: The Welfare State: In Search of a Latin-American Theory 1 Introduction 2 Capitalist Development and Social Protection 3 Nature of the State and State-Society Relations 4 Conditions for the Emergence of Social Protection 5 Welfare Regimes or States 6 Political Regimes and Reform Coalitions 7 From Reforms to Dismantling 8 Final Considerations References Part II: Austerity Policies and Economic Constraints Chapter 2: The Institutional Construction of Post-1988 Austerity 1 Introduction 2 Managerial State Reform and Neoliberal Governance 3 Constitutional Limits to Public Investment 4 The New Fiscal Regime and Extreme Neoliberalism 5 Final Considerations References Part III: Employment and Social Security Chapter 3: Labor Reforms and the Crisis of Democratic Corporatism 1 Introduction 2 Labor Rights and the Shaping of Contemporary Welfare States 3 Interpretations of the Institutionalization of Labor Rights in Brazil 4 An Analysis of the Anti-corporatist Meaning of Labor Reforms 5 Final Considerations References Chapter 4: The Dismantling of Employment Policies in Brazil: Employability without Rights 1 Introduction 2 Dismantling of Social Policies in a Context of Constitutionalized Fiscal Austerity 3 Strategies for the Dismantling of Employment Policies 4 The Dismantling of Public Employment Policies in Brazil 5 Final Comments: The Naturalization of Precarious Employability References Chapter 5: Pension System at Crossroads: Between Frail Solidarity and Financial Appropriation 1 Introduction 2 Social Security as Non-universal Social Insurance 2.1 The 1998 Dismantling: The First Pension Reform 2.2 The 2003 Dismantling: The Reform of the Public Service Pension System 2.3 The 2016–2019 Dismantling: The Third Pension Reform 2.4 The Redistributive Importance of Social Security 3 Private Pension and Interest Rate Financialization in Brazil 4 Final Considerations References Part IV: Networks of Social Policies Under the Aegis of De-Democratization Chapter 6: The Universal Right to Health in Brazil: From Restricted Expansion to Dismantling 1 Introduction 2 Background 3 Restricted Expansion: Cost Containment and Recommodification 4 From Restricted Expansion to Dismantling 5 Conclusion References Chapter 7: The Brazilian System for Food and Nutrition Security: Tensions, Conflicts, and Paradoxes 1 The National System for Food and Nutrition Security: Institutionalization and Reconfiguration 1.1 Brief Historical Trajectory 1.2 General Characterization of the Policy and System for Food and Nutrition Security 2 Signs of the Progressive Dismantling of the National Food and Nutrition Security Policy and System and Possible Factors Influencing this Process 2.1 Budget Cuts and Institutional Reconfiguration 2.2 Reorientation of Government Priorities and Reactions from Organized Civil Society 3 Elements for Analyzing the Construction and Reorientation of Government Institutionality and Policies Within the Scope of FNS from 2003 to 2020 3.1 The Weakening, Dismantling, and Reconfiguration of SISAN 3.2 Conditioning Factors of the Dismantling Process 4 Final Considerations References Chapter 8: Advancing Toward the Past: The Dismantling of the Unified Social Assistance System 1 Introduction 2 Policy Dismantling as an Analytical Reference for the SUAS Dismantling Process 3 Brazilian Social Assistance Before the 1988 Federal Constitution 4 Social Assistance in the Constitution and the Difficult Transition to the Field of Rights 5 The Implementation of the SUAS 6 The SUAS Dismantling Process: Conditions and Strategies 7 Final Considerations References Chapter 9: Authoritarian Populism, De-democratization, and Social Policy Dismantling: Lessons from Brazil 1 A Global Wave of Authoritarianism 2 Inside the Dismantling of Social Protection in Brazil 3 Challenges in the Reconstruction of Democracy and Citizenship References