Electoral cycles and access to continuing cash transfer benefit (Benefício de Prestação Continuada)

• Grant number: 18/24737-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2019
• End date: July 31, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - Public Policies
• Principal Investigator: Diego Sanches Corrêa
• Grantee: Lorena Ismael Fernandes
• 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

Several studies have demonstrated a relationship between electoral processes and the process of implementation of public policies. In the pre-election period, governments tend to spend more on policies that stimulate the economy to increase their political support and their chances of re-election. Newly elected governments, on the other hand, tend to promote greater monetary and fiscal restraint. In Brazil, this phenomenon has been extensively analyzed by specialized literature and there is evidence that electoral cycles affect spending in several areas. This project intends to investigate its influence in an assistance policy not yet analyzed by this literature: the "Continuing Cash Transfer Benefit" (Benefício de Prestação Continuada). This benefit covers vulnerable segments of the population and it's one of the most important social security policies in the country. The fact that it's constitutionally foreseen can result in the association of the electoral cycle with another phenomenon: the increasing judicialization of the BPC in periods of greater spending restraint. Thus, this project seeks to investigate whether the electoral cycle affects the flow of BPC concessions and the flow of lawsuits demanding the granting of the benefit, between the period from 2004 to 2015.