Street level bureaucracy: discretion uses and its impact in inclusion, exclusion and inequalities (re)production

• Grant number: 17/24750-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: March 01, 2018
• End date: October 31, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - Public Policies
• Principal Investigator: Gabriela Spanghero Lotta
• Grantee: Gabriela Spanghero Lotta
• Host Institution: Centro de Engenharia, Modelagem e Ciências Sociais Aplicadas (CECS). Universidade Federal do ABC (UFABC). Ministério da Educação (Brasil). Santo André , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The research aims to analyze the performance of street level bureaucrats (SLB) based on the interactions they establish with service users, understanding how this performance can promote inclusive or excluding processes that affect (re) production or reduction of inequalities . The purpose of this research is to develop an analytical model to understand the impact of the bureaucrats' role in reproducing and reducing inequalities. For the purposes of this project specifically, the analytical model should be applied in the analysis of the activities of Community Health Workers in the Family Health Strategy, but should also be applied in other master's studies that are being developed under the guidance of the researcher. The hypothesis is that the exercise of discretion conducted by SLBs has allocative effects that can reduce or increase inclusion and inequality, and that this exercise of discretion is influenced by different social, organizational, relational and individual factors. In methodological terms, the research will be based on: analysis of the international literature on the social effects of implementation; conducting interviews and ethnography with Community Health Workers; survey of the processes of categorization, judgment and construction of merit operated; understanding the effects of these processes on inclusion and exclusion; and survey and analysis of factors that allow explaining these processes. (AU)

Scientific publications

(7)

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

NUNES, JOAO; LOTTA, GABRIELA. Discretion, power and the reproduction of inequality in health policy implementation: Practices, discursive styles and classifications of Brazil's community health workers. SOCIAL SCIENCE & MEDICINE, v. 242, DEC 2019. (17/24750-0)

LOTTA, GABRIELA; KIRSCHBAUM, CHARLES. How street-level bureaucrats use conceptual systems to categorise clients. POLICY AND POLITICS, v. 49, n. 4, p. 531-551, OCT 2021. (19/13439-7, 17/24750-0)

SPINK, PETER; LOTTA, GABRIELA; BURGOS, FERNANDO. Institutional vulnerability and trust in public agencies: Views from both sides of the street. GOVERNANCE-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POLICY ADMINISTRATION AND INSTITUTIONS, v. 34, n. 4, JUL 2021. (19/13439-7, 17/24750-0)

GABRIELA SPANGHERO LOTTA; ROBERTO ROCHA COELHO PIRES. Categorizando Usuários “Fáceis” e “Difíceis”: Práticas Cotidianas de Implementação de Políticas Públicas e a Produção de Diferenças Sociais. Dados, v. 63, n. 4, 2020-11-06. (17/24750-0)

LOTTA, GABRIELA; NIETO-MORALES, FERNANDO; PEETERS, RIK. "Nobody wants to be a dead hero": Coping with precarity at the frontlines of the Brazilian and Mexican pandemic response. PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND DEVELOPMENT, v. 43, n. 3, p. 13-pg., 2023-05-15. (17/24750-0, 19/13439-7)

LOTTA, GABRIELA; KRIEGER, MORGANA G. MARTINS; COHEN, NISSIM; KIRSCHBAUM, CHARLES. Not separate, but certainly unequal: The burdens and coping strategies of low-status street-level bureaucrats. GOVERNANCE-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF POLICY ADMINISTRATION AND INSTITUTIONS, v. N/A, p. 20-pg., 2023-07-27. (19/24495-5, 17/24750-0, 19/13439-7)

NUNES, JOAO; LOTTA, GABRIELA. Are community health programmes always benign? Community health worker perceptions and the social construction of users in Brazil's primary healthcare policy. GLOBAL PUBLIC HEALTH, v. N/A, p. 14-pg., 2022-02-25. (19/13439-7, 19/24495-5, 17/24750-0)