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The paper's main goal is to advance in the knowledge of a key function of the government: the policy coordination. This is even more relevant within the core of the government, which is a set of institutions and actors that provide direct support to implementation of priority actions defined by the president. Thus, the research analyzes what mechanisms, instruments and levels of coordination are actually used in the policymaking of four strategic policies during the Lula's and Dilma's administration, namely: i) Programa Bolsa Família (PBF); ii) Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento (PAC); iii) Programa Brasil Sem Miséria (BSM); e iv) Programa de Investimento em Logística (PIL). The investigation employed bibliographic review, content analysis of official publications and, mainly, interviews with actors who occupied key positions in the Presidency and Ministries of Finance and Planning in both administrations. The main conclusion is that in spite of the existence of various formal and procedural coordination instruments, in practice, the instruments most used in priority policies coordination are the ones informal and designed ad hoc for such programs. In addition, the hierarchical mechanism shares space with intra-governmental networking strategies, especially to solve conflicts and disagreements among ministries.

The objective of this text is to present an overview of the trajectory of the infrastructure policies in Brazil in the recent period (2005-2013). In order to do so, it highlights the main efforts and advances towards the resumption of the role of the federal government in the sector, as well as it points to the limits and obstacles that contributed to the production of incomplete results and partial achievements in terms of project implementation and effectiveness. The analysis of the historical trajectory draws from three interrelated analytical categories: political-institutional environment, institutional arrangements and instruments of public action. The main conclusion is that the advances in the development of instruments and arrangements were incomplete and insufficient. Incomplete because they failed to overcome some of internal limitations (such as planning failures and decision-making processes isolated from civil society). Insufficient because, even if they were fully developed, they would still face difficulties in counterbalancing external constraints and the governance challenges imposed by the Brazilian political-institutional environment (such as a fragmentation of the state apparatus and the short-term interests of political actors inside the logic of the political system).

This text discusses the regulatory frameworks of public transport systems for urban bus, featuring their main variables and assessing their impact on economic, financial and operational services. Initially, it tried to clarify the reasons for the regulation of urban bus systems from a review of the literature, emphasizing among other things the existing market failures, such as the generation of negative externalities and socialinequalities in the production of services in addition to own essentiality of public transport - responsible for the low-income population displacements. In addition, it was presented a set of descriptive variables of regulatory frameworks, as a platform for exploratory and comparative analysis of these models.

The transport economics literature has indicated that introduction of competition for the market in urban bus services (i.e. by means of competitive bidding) could promote cost-efficiency with low fares and better quality services. Therefore, this paper analyse the main outcomes and the latest consequences of the bidding process occurred during 1997-1998 in Belo Horizonte with the use of operational data. Did economic efficiency improve? Did fares decrease? This case study concludes that contracting-out bus services through a bidding process is not enough to ensure company cost-efficiency if public authorities do not implement a well-devised competitive tendering process and do not design an effective regulatory framework. We hope that this study can help policy makers to improve future bidding processes in Brazilian cities and to design an effective regulatory model for the urban bus sector, especially in these days where the media have made known the critical situation endured by the urban poor, which have no conditions to afford the costly fare levels of the public transport services.

O texto analisa as características da política fiscal no governo Lula, enfatizando seu conteúdo e estilo decisório, em perspectiva comparada, ou seja, fazendo o confronto com governos anteriores e ainda entre seus dois mandatos. A análise é contextualizada no quadro dos desafios trazidos pela inserção do país na economia global e pela ampliação das demandas sociais permitidas pela nova ordem democrática. Indica-se que a despeito dos limites impostos pelo mercado financeiro que exigem credibilidade financeira diante dos investidores e, portanto, restrições fiscais e altos níveis de superávits primários, há espaços para que a política fiscal também se oriente para outros objetivos: estímulo ao crescimento e à expansão da demanda interna, por meio de programas de transferência de renda. Isso foi possível, em grande parte, pela ampliação das arenas decisórias governamentais e pela adoção de estilo mais negociado de tomada de decisão. This paper analyzes the characteristics of the fiscal policy in Lula's government, emphasizing its content and decision-making style in a comparative perspective, both with prior governments and between his two terms in office. The analysis is contextualized in the framework of the challenges introduced by the international integration model adopted in Brazil during the 1990s and by the expansion of social demands brought by the new democratic order. In spite of limits imposed by financial markets that ask for credibility, fiscal restrictions and high levels of primary surplus, the paper points out that there is room to orienting the fiscal policy towards other goals: economic growth and internal demand stimulus by means of income transfer programs. That was made possible, to a great extent, by the expansion of governmental decision-making arenas and by the adoption of a style of decision-making based more on negotiations. Le texte analyse les caractéristiques de la politique fiscale dans le gouvernement Lula, mettant en avant son contenu et son style de prise de décisions, dans une perspective comparée, c'est-à-dire, en les confrontant à celle des gouvernements précédents, mais aussi à celles de ses deux mandats. L'analyse est contextualisée dans le cadre des défis posés par l'insertion du Brésil à l'économie mondiale et par l'expansion des demandes sociales permises par le nouvel ordre démocratique. Il montre que malgré les limites imposées par les marchés financiers qui exigent la crédibilité financière face aux investisseurs et, par conséquent, des contraintes budgétaires et des niveaux élevés d'excédents primaires, il y a place pour que la politique budgétaire s'oriente vers d'autres objectifs: stimuler la croissance et l'expansion de la demande intérieure par des programmes de transfert de revenus. Cela a été, en grande partie, possible par l'expansion des arènes décisoires gouvernementales et par l'adoption d'un style plus négocié de la prise de décision.

This research aims to explain the political process that resulted in the current institutional arrangement of the federal transportation sector in Brazil. The Federal Law 10233, of 2001, restructured water and land transportation; it created two autonomous regulatory agencies, a council to propose national policies to integrate the different modes of transport, and the National Department of Transport Infrastructure. Using the theoretical approach of historical institutionalism from contemporary Political Science and the method of controlled comparison between two contrasting cases, namely the cases of the telecommunication and transportation institutional reforms, the analysis concludes that the temporal ordering of the reform process and the mechanism of policy feedback had a significant impact on the outcomes of the transportation case, delineating a pattern of institutional change characterized by the introduction of new rules and organizations on top of existing ones, whereas in the telecommunication sector the institutional change was typified by the removal of existing rules and organizations and the introduction of new ones. A pesquisa tem por objetivo explicar o processo político que resultou na configuração institucional do setor federal de transportes consubstanciado na Lei 10.233, de 2001, que reestruturou os transportes aquaviário e terrestre, criou duas agências reguladoras autônomas vinculadas ao Ministério dos Transportes e um conselho para propor políticas nacionais de integração dos diferentes modos de transporte, além do Departamento Nacional de Infraestrutura de Transportes. Utilizando-se a abordagem teórica do institucionalismo histórico da Ciência Política contemporânea e o método de comparação controlada com um caso contrastante, a saber, a reestruturação institucional do setor de telecomunicações, a análise mostra como a sequência do processo de reforma e a atuação do mecanismo de policy feedback delinearam um tipo de mudança institucional no setor de transportes caracterizado pela introdução de novas regras e organizações sobre as existentes, diferentemente da mudança no setor de telecomunicações, no qual foram removidas as antigas regras e organizações, substituindo-as por novas.

Esta pesquisa busca posicionar a Inação em uma agenda mais ampla de pesquisas sobre políticas públicas, como uma dimensão significativa de uma nova perspectiva política em governos populistas. O questionamento central deste trabalho é compreender por que o governo brasileiro sob o presidente Jair Bolsonaro, um populista de extrema-direita, optou pela Inação de forma estratégica diante de um problema sanitário de alta complexidade: a pandemia da COVID-19. Esta postura foi decisiva para determinar as ações e omissões do governo brasileiro na mais grave crise sanitária do século XXI. Ao passo que eventos dessa natureza requerem coordenação e cooperação intergovernamental para respostas políticas eficazes, por se tratarem de um complex intergovernamental problem (PAQUET; SCHERTZER, 2020), o presidente brasileiro atuou em direção oposta, contrária às estruturas institucionais e burocráticas postas. Bolsonaro tenta alinhar o país a um movimento mundial mais amplo de democracias iliberais, apoiadas em desinformação e na figura populista do líder “antissistema” para impactar a formulação de políticas e a democracia local (BAUER; BECKER, 2020). A inação foi uma ferramenta eficiente para a afirmação desse projeto de poder, que não é baseado na busca de resultados formais de gestão, mas da manutenção de vínculos com determinados grupos. Nesse sentido, a inação na agenda de pesquisa das ciências políticas ganha novo impulso com a pandemia da COVID-19. A Inação (Inaction), enquanto dimensão analítica para o estudo de políticas públicas e governos (MCCONNELL; ’T HART, 2019), é relativamente recente e fruto de avanços obtidos anteriormente pelos conceitos de não-decisão (Non-decision making) (BACHRACH; BARATZ, 1963) e omissão (Omission bias) (SPRANCA; MINSK; BARON, 1991). O trabalho busca oferecer uma contribuição ao constatar que, em que pese ação e inação em governos serem faces equivalentes do processo decisório, que devem ser vistos com o mesmo peso moral, intencionalidade e mesmo potencial de virtudes e danos, governantes podem incorrer em inação consciente para se aproveitar de nossa tendência em julgar omissões como menos passíveis de responsabilização (BARON; RITOV, 2004; KORDES-DE VAAL, 1996; RITOV; BARON, 1990), dando preferência à proteção de um projeto político, mesmo que à custa de não-alocação tempestiva de recursos, não-proposição de ações estratégicas e coordenadas e com tentativas de desresponsabilização em relação a ações esperadas pelo governo, quando tais intervenções poderiam ter sido realizadas. No trabalho que se segue, é realizado um estudo de caso de três episódios de não-tomada de decisão efetiva e tempestiva pelo governo brasileiro na crise causada pela pandemia de COVID-19 que promoveram: (a) atraso na vacinação da população geral – que resultou em mais mortes e infecções do que a média mundial; (b) descoordenação federativa; e (c) ensejo a um debate anticientífico sobre a imunização infantil, com o governo promovendo uma consulta pública enviesada para tentar se desobrigar de cumprir a ação necessária. This research seeks to position Inaction in a broader public policy research agenda, as a significant dimension of a new political perspective in populist governments. The central question of this work is to understand why the Brazilian government under President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right populist, strategically opted for Inaction in the face of a highly complex health problem: the COVID-19 pandemic. This stance was decisive in determining the actions and omissions of the Brazilian government in the most severe health crisis of the 21st century. While events of this nature require coordination and intergovernmental cooperation for effective policy responses, as they are complex intergovernmental problems (PAQUET; SCHERTZER, 2020), the Brazilian president acted in the opposite direction, contrary to the institutional and bureaucratic structures in place. Bolsonaro tries to align the country with a broader world movement of illiberal democracies, supported by disinformation and the populist figure of the “anti-system” leader to impact policymaking and local democracy (BAUER; BECKER, 2020). Inaction was an efficient tool for the affirmation of this power project, which is not based on the search for formal management results, but on the maintenance of ties with specific groups. In this sense, Inaction in the political science research agenda gains new impetus with the COVID-19 pandemic. Inaction, as an analytical dimension for the study of public policies and governments (MCCONNELL; 'T HART, 2019), is a relatively recent concept that stems from the previously established concepts of non-decision making (BACHRACH; BARATZ, 1963) and omission bias (SPRANCA; MINSK; BARON, 1991). This work seeks to contribute by noting that, despite action and inaction in governments being equivalent faces of the decision-making process, which must be seen with the same moral weight, intentionality, and even potential for virtues and damages, rulers can incur conscious inaction. This is done to take advantage of our tendency to judge omissions as less liable to accountability (BARON; RITOV, 2004; KORDES-DE VAAL, 1996; RITOV; BARON, 1990), giving preference to the protection of a political project, even if it means avoiding timely allocation of resources and proposition of strategic and coordinated actions, and attempting to remove responsibility from the government when such interventions could have been carried out. The work that follows is a case study of three episodes where the Brazilian government avoided timely and effective decision-making during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, promoting: (a) delay in vaccination of the general population - which resulted in more deaths and infections than the world average; (b) federative lack of coordination; and (c) supporting an unscientific debate on childhood immunization, with the government promoting a biased public consultation to try to free itself from complying with the necessary action.

A presente pesquisa analisou como se deu a construção de capacidades estatais no Programa Cisternas, política pública federal de mais de catorze anos que visa a promoção do acesso à água e engajamento social para famílias rurais semiáridas de baixa renda. A iniciativa é um marco no convívio com a seca, concepção desenvolvida por Organizações da Sociedade Civil locais que se estruturaram em torno da Articulação do Semiárido. Esses atores, além de terem concebido a proposta do Programa,são executores da política, em um modelo de governança que exige sinergia entre Estado e Sociedade Civil para sua operação. Referenciada na literatura do tema, foi feita relação de indicadores da existência de capacidades técnico-operacionais e político-relacionais que serviram de guia analítico à pesquisa. Os dados levantados permitiram o resgate do comportamento dos indicadores nas diferentes etapas da política e elucidações sobre as dificuldades de se estudar o tema – tanto pela complexidade do caso como por não se tratar de conceito estanque. Ao fim e ao cabo, o estudo de caso tratou de política geradora de inovações e cujas capacidades estatais se desenvolveram por meio de relação sinérgica junto à sociedade civil com a participação de atores chave na viabilização de sua habilidade de diálogo, com destaque aos órgãos participativos e de controle. The following research analyzed how state capacities were built in the Cisterns Program, a federal public policy launched over fourteen years that seeks to promote water access and civic engagement to low income families from the Brazilian rural semiarid region. The initiative is a landmark of the drought conviviality, a conception developed by local Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that have composed the greater Articulação do Semiárido organization. These actors, besides from conceiving the Programs proposal, are the policy’s executors, in a governance model that demands synergy between the State and civil society to operate. Referenced in the topic’s literature, a listing of indicators to identify the existence of technical and relational capacities served as an analytical guide to the research. Data raised gave the means to reconstitute the indicators’ behavior in the different phases the policy has been through, as well as elucidate difficulties to dive into the concept – both due to the case’s complexity and to the fact that the concept is not stanch. Finally, the study tackled a policy that generated innovations and whose capacities developed through a synergic relationship with civil society with the participation of key-actors the promoted dialogue abilities, especially participatory and control organs.