Abstract

HEVIA DE LA JARA, Felipe. The Difficult Articulation between Universal Policies and Targeted Programs: Institutional Ethnography of the Bolsa Familia Program in Brazil. Gest. polít. pública [online]. 2011, vol.20, n.2, pp.331-379. ISSN 1405-1079.

One of the unresolved debates about social policy is the relationship between universal and targeted programs. In this context, conditional cash transfer program Bolsa Familia, in Brazil, has an institutional design that allows us to think this discussion in a different way because it generates innovations to transcend the limitations of focused programs. However, many of these innovations do not work in practice because of difficulties of coordination between the program and the universal welfare policy, which is organized in a National System of Social Assistance. Using institutional ethnography and an organizational approach, which defines the government as a net of dual organizations concluded that the articulation difficulties are due to the type of relationship established between two organizational forced to live under one command, but have different internal logics on key issues for the integration of both approaches. This causes limitations in the potentialities and results of the program, and in the real possibility of joint targeted and universal policies.

Keywords : poverty; social policy; social assistance; Brazil; government organizations.