Agenda Building and Institutional Innovations: A Comparative Analysis of Sanitary Reform and Urban Reform

• Published in: Estudos de sociologia (Araraquara, Brazil) Vol. 15; no. 29; pp. 369 - 396
• Main Authors: Menicucci, Telma Maria Goncalves, Brasil, Flavia de Paula Duque
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: 01.01.2010
• Subjects: Comparative Analysis; Innovations; Policy Making; Reform; Social Problems; Urban Areas
• ISSN: 1414-0144

This article focuses on two basic issues related to the process of public policies reform & the relations between them: the constitution of new public agendas & the translation of these agendas into institutional changes. We incorporate contributions from different theoretical fields in order to build a model of analysis that is applied to two empiric cases of constitution of reformist agendas, which have had repercussions in the public policies, leading to institutional changes from the 1988 Federal Constitution on: the sanitary reform & the urban reform. We aim at identifying the decisive factors of both processes by emphasizing the role of ideas in the agenda building processes & in the institutional innovation & by understanding the symbolic & interpretative dimension of the political process. Analytically, we focus on recognizing the ways in which certain understandings of social problems that are developed by collective actors are related to the process of policy formation (also involving specific sociopolitical dynamics) in which ideational innovation interacts with institutional constraints. Adapted from the source document.