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Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina - UFSC (Federal University of Santa Catarina)
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Ideias Revista Do Instituto De Filosofia E Ciencias Humanas Da Unicamp, 2010
Fazer um balanço sobre a redemocratização brasileira pós 1989 soa uma tarefa ampla o bastante e q... more Fazer um balanço sobre a redemocratização brasileira pós 1989 soa uma tarefa ampla o bastante e quase impossível devido à amplitude adquirida pelo conceito de democracia ao longo dos últimos 20 anos, fruto, inclusive, do próprio processo de redemocratização e seus sucessos. Para dar conta de seu conjunto seria preciso abordar temas como participação social, cidadania, espaços públicos, sociedade civil, movimentos sociais, só para citar os mais próximos. Autores consagrados no campo como Lavalle (2003) e Dagnino (2002, só para citar alguns, fizeram balanços definitivos de alguns aspectos deste processo.
DESCRIPTION Our three-year study in the cities of São Paulo and Delhi found widespread social acc... more DESCRIPTION Our three-year study in the cities of São Paulo and Delhi found widespread social accountability activity by the urban poor. This activity was not ring-fenced from other efforts to improve public services and urban infrastructure but an attempt to inscribe social accountability into existing and multi-faceted relations with service providers and state agencies (the regulators). The social accountability activities we found were often part of multi-scalar strategies by civil society actors that engaged with front-line providers, as well as with state agencies at the city and even federal levels. Local actors who were a part of trans-local movements that brought urban poor and middle-class professionals together had higher and more robust levels of activity than organizations of the urban poor that worked exclusively in one locality. Our research was conducted in 40 catchment areas of each city.
There are signs that public services can improve in big cities when the urban poor hold providers... more There are signs that public services can improve in big cities when the urban poor hold providers directly accountable – what we now call social accountability. We do not know, however, to what extent the urban poor, through their civil society groups, engage in forms of social accountability nor what strategies they use. We do not know what factors lead the poor to choose accountability as a way to secure access to essential services, rather than clientelism, electing representatives to public office or simply self-provisioning. We need to answer these questions in order to develop programmes that support accountability initiatives and understand the potential social accountability has to improve the basic public services. We designed a unique comparative study to take a step in this direction. The study compares activism by the urban poor to improve two essential types of services in the cities of Delhi and São Paulo, primary healthcare and social assistance. The unusual comparison between a South Asian and Latin American city, and across two very different types of services, gives us greater capacity to sort through different possible causes of accountability activism by the urban poor and explanations for the different types of strategies people use. In the two cities, we find, a substantial share of civil society groups attempt to improve health and welfare services by holding providers accountable. They seek to establish greater accountability as one of several types of engagement strategies with the state – that is, accountability is a part of a larger repertoire of activism. There is large variation, however, in the level of activity and type of strategies in the two cities, and across the two services.
Ideias Revista Do Instituto De Filosofia E Ciencias Humanas Da Unicamp, 2010
Fazer um balanço sobre a redemocratização brasileira pós 1989 soa uma tarefa ampla o bastante e q... more Fazer um balanço sobre a redemocratização brasileira pós 1989 soa uma tarefa ampla o bastante e quase impossível devido à amplitude adquirida pelo conceito de democracia ao longo dos últimos 20 anos, fruto, inclusive, do próprio processo de redemocratização e seus sucessos. Para dar conta de seu conjunto seria preciso abordar temas como participação social, cidadania, espaços públicos, sociedade civil, movimentos sociais, só para citar os mais próximos. Autores consagrados no campo como Lavalle (2003) e Dagnino (2002, só para citar alguns, fizeram balanços definitivos de alguns aspectos deste processo.
DESCRIPTION Our three-year study in the cities of São Paulo and Delhi found widespread social acc... more DESCRIPTION Our three-year study in the cities of São Paulo and Delhi found widespread social accountability activity by the urban poor. This activity was not ring-fenced from other efforts to improve public services and urban infrastructure but an attempt to inscribe social accountability into existing and multi-faceted relations with service providers and state agencies (the regulators). The social accountability activities we found were often part of multi-scalar strategies by civil society actors that engaged with front-line providers, as well as with state agencies at the city and even federal levels. Local actors who were a part of trans-local movements that brought urban poor and middle-class professionals together had higher and more robust levels of activity than organizations of the urban poor that worked exclusively in one locality. Our research was conducted in 40 catchment areas of each city.
There are signs that public services can improve in big cities when the urban poor hold providers... more There are signs that public services can improve in big cities when the urban poor hold providers directly accountable – what we now call social accountability. We do not know, however, to what extent the urban poor, through their civil society groups, engage in forms of social accountability nor what strategies they use. We do not know what factors lead the poor to choose accountability as a way to secure access to essential services, rather than clientelism, electing representatives to public office or simply self-provisioning. We need to answer these questions in order to develop programmes that support accountability initiatives and understand the potential social accountability has to improve the basic public services. We designed a unique comparative study to take a step in this direction. The study compares activism by the urban poor to improve two essential types of services in the cities of Delhi and São Paulo, primary healthcare and social assistance. The unusual comparison between a South Asian and Latin American city, and across two very different types of services, gives us greater capacity to sort through different possible causes of accountability activism by the urban poor and explanations for the different types of strategies people use. In the two cities, we find, a substantial share of civil society groups attempt to improve health and welfare services by holding providers accountable. They seek to establish greater accountability as one of several types of engagement strategies with the state – that is, accountability is a part of a larger repertoire of activism. There is large variation, however, in the level of activity and type of strategies in the two cities, and across the two services.