Natasha Borges Sugiyama
Biographic Data
| ID | 777124 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Natasha Borges Sugiyama |
| GIVEN NAMES | Natasha Borges |
| FAMILY NAME | Sugiyama |
| SIGNATURE | SUGIYAMA N B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5829-1512 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 291 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Subnational Resilience During Crisis: How Brazilian Municipalities Responded to Covid‐19 and Public Health Budget Cuts
Concern over democratic resilience has grown in recent years, as observers identify threats including populist leadership, weak institutions, flawed elections, rising inequality, and polarization. Yet many democracies appear more resilient than anticipated. In the face of dual crises—a severe pandemic and austerity‐driven budget cuts—how might democratic regimes promote human development and high living standards? We answer this question by exami…
Participatory Health Governance and HIV/Aids in Brazil
This research note assesses participatory health governance practices for HIV and AIDS in Brazil. By extension, we also evaluate municipal democratic governance to public health outcomes. We draw from a unique dataset on municipal HIV/AIDS prevalence and participatory health governance from 2006-17 for all 5,570 Brazilian municipalities. We use negative binomial regression and coarsened exact matching with treatment effects to estimate the influe…
Building Capacity to Deliver Education as a Social Right in Brazil
We evaluate states’ capacity to deliver public education in Latin America. Education is essential for developing human capabilities and pursuing one’s best, chosen life. We focus on Brazil, where a right to an education is enshrined in the constitution. Brazil and other countries in the region have fallen short of achieving universal public education, and the quality of that education is low, on average, especially in poorer, rural areas. Yet, Br…
Democratic Dead Spots: Local Elections and Human Development in Brazil
Democracy’s proponents argue that decentralisation improves service delivery, expands local accountability, and engages citizens in public life. However, the combination of democratisation and decentralisation sometimes sustains subnational authoritarianism, resulting in differential redistribution of power that limit citizens’ ability to pursue and secure public goods. In this article we ask: To what extent do authoritarian enclaves affect well-…
How family and child cash transfers can empower women: Comparative lessons from Brazil and South Africa
By leveraging a comparison of Brazil’s Bolsa Família and South Africa’s Child Support Grant, this article probes whether and how income transfer programs enhance the standing of women recipients. Empowerment is assessed according to economic decision making, bodily protection and integrity, and psycho-social wellbeing and growth. The comparative analysis determines that regular income assistance boosts the self-esteem and agency of women recipien…
Democracia Em Ação: Indo Além Das Eleições Para Melhorar O Bem-Estar
Como a democracia contribui para melhorar o bem-estar? Neste artigo, separamos os componentes da prática democrática - eleições, participação social, expansão dos programas sociais, capacidade administrativa municipal - para identificar sua relação com o bem-estar. Nossa análise de um conjunto de dados original abrangendo mais de 5.550 municípios brasileiros demonstra que eleições competitivas sozinhas não explicam variação nas taxas de mortalida…
Do Conditional Cash Transfers Empower Women? Insights from Brazil's Bolsa Família
Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have emerged as an important social welfare innovation across the Global South in the last two decades. That poor mothers are typically the primary recipients of the grants renders easy, but not necessarily correct, the notion that CCTs empower women. This article assesses the relationship between the world's largest CCT, Brazil's Bolsa Família, and women's empowerment. To systematize and interpret existi…
Democracy at Work: Pathways to Well-Being in Brazil
One of the greatest challenges in the twenty-first century is to address large, deep, and historic deficits in human development. Democracy at Work explores a crucial question: how does democracy, with all of its messy, contested, and, time-consuming features, advance well-being and improve citizens' lives? Professors Brian Wampler, Natasha Borges Sugiyama, and Michael Touchton argue that differences in the local robustness of three democratic pa…
Making the Newest Citizens: Achieving Universal Birth Registration in Contemporary Brazil
Identity documentation is essential to secure the rights, benefits, and services that modern states provide. Historically, significant numbers of poor Brazilians lacked core documents, beginning with a birth certificate. In recent years the government has conducted a campaign to rectify this situation. We explore why the state left so many Brazilians without a birth certificate previously and why it became intent on registering all births, as ref…
Democracy at Work: Moving Beyond Elections to Improve Well-Being
How does democracy work to improve well-being? In this article, we disentangle the component parts of democratic practice-elections, civic participation, expansion of social provisioning, local administrative capacity-to identify their relationship with well-being. We draw from the citizenship debates to argue that democratic practices allow citizens to gain access to a wide range of rights, which then serve as the foundation for improving social…
Pathways to Citizen Accountability: Brazil’s Bolsa Família
This article examines the pathways – citizen-driven, bottom-up oversight or state-centred administrative controls – that have played the largest role in promoting the accountability of the Bolsa Família programme. The exploratory analysis draws on interviews with local and federal officials as well as beneficiaries of the Bolsa Família in order to identify the ways monitoring and accountability have evolved in practise and on the ground. Field re…
Transforming Subjects into Citizens: Insights from Brazil’s Bolsa Família
Welfare programs distribute benefits to citizens. Perhaps even more importantly, by conveying powerful messages about how the state views poor people, welfare programs shape people’s views about themselves as subjects or citizens. Theoretical debates on how public policies can enhance democratic citizenship inspire our study of Brazil’s Bolsa Família (Family Grant). Has this conditional cash transfer program, which forms a major point of contact …
Whither Clientelism? Good Governance and Brazil's Bolsa Família Program
Diffusion of Good Government: Social Sector Reforms in Brazil
Bottom-up Policy Diffusion: National Emulation of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program in Brazil
Policy diffusion studies often invoke explanations that draw on the directional pressures for emulation, whether top-down, horizontal, or bottom-up. This article develops a theoretical framework that accounts for the multidirectional features of diffusion, including sub-national, cross-national, and international mechanisms, through the illustrative case of Brazil's federal adoption of Bolsa Escola (School Grant Program), a conditional cash trans…
The diffusion of Conditional Cash Transfer programs in the Americas
In the mid-1990s, Brazil and Mexico created innovative social policies known as Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs). Since then, CCTs have spread to countries throughout Latin America and beyond. While these programs reflect a new development norm, their spread is surprising given that some emulating countries lack the basic education and health infrastructure to support increased demand from beneficiaries. This article draws on a policy diffusion …
Democracy and Social Policy in Brazil: Advancing Basic Needs, Preserving Privileged Interests
Has democracy promoted poverty alleviation and equity-enhancing reforms in Brazil, a country of striking inequality and destitution? The effects of an open, competitive political system have not been straightforward. Factors that would seem to work toward this goal include the voting power of poor people, the progressive 1988 Constitution, the activism of social movements, and governance since 1995 by presidents affiliated with center-left and le…
Theories of Policy Diffusion: Social Sector Reform in Brazil
Brazil's democratic constitution granted municipalities responsibility to design and implement social policies, allowing for tailored programs to meet local constituent demands. Yet instead of pursuing local diversity, many governments chose to emulate programs made famous elsewhere. What explains the diffusion of social programs across Brazil? This article investigates whether policy makers are motivated by political self-interest, ideology, or …
Ideology and Networks: The Politics of Social Policy Diffusion in Brazil
Brazil’s constitution (1988) granted municipalities the responsibility of providing social services. Many observers anticipated that this newfound authority would produce policy diversity, as local governments would tailor programs to constituents’ needs. Instead, many municipalities chose to replicate programs made famous elsewhere. What explains this diffusion of social policies across Brazil? In particular, what motivates policy makers to emul…
Transforming Subjects into Citizens: Insights from Brazil’s Bolsa Família
Welfare programs distribute benefits to citizens. Perhaps even more importantly, by conveying powerful messages about how the state views poor people, welfare programs shape people’s views about themselves as subjects or citizens. Theoretical debates on how public policies can enhance democratic citizenship inspire our study of Brazil’s Bolsa Família (Family Grant). Has this conditional cash transfer program, which forms a major point of contact …
Whither Clientelism? Good Governance and Brazil's Bolsa Família Program
The diffusion of Conditional Cash Transfer programs in the Americas
In the mid-1990s, Brazil and Mexico created innovative social policies known as Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs). Since then, CCTs have spread to countries throughout Latin America and beyond. While these programs reflect a new development norm, their spread is surprising given that some emulating countries lack the basic education and health infrastructure to support increased demand from beneficiaries. This article draws on a policy diffusion …
Democracy at Work: Moving Beyond Elections to Improve Well-Being
How does democracy work to improve well-being? In this article, we disentangle the component parts of democratic practice-elections, civic participation, expansion of social provisioning, local administrative capacity-to identify their relationship with well-being. We draw from the citizenship debates to argue that democratic practices allow citizens to gain access to a wide range of rights, which then serve as the foundation for improving social…
Theories of Policy Diffusion: Social Sector Reform in Brazil
Brazil's democratic constitution granted municipalities responsibility to design and implement social policies, allowing for tailored programs to meet local constituent demands. Yet instead of pursuing local diversity, many governments chose to emulate programs made famous elsewhere. What explains the diffusion of social programs across Brazil? This article investigates whether policy makers are motivated by political self-interest, ideology, or …
Bottom-up Policy Diffusion: National Emulation of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program in Brazil
Policy diffusion studies often invoke explanations that draw on the directional pressures for emulation, whether top-down, horizontal, or bottom-up. This article develops a theoretical framework that accounts for the multidirectional features of diffusion, including sub-national, cross-national, and international mechanisms, through the illustrative case of Brazil's federal adoption of Bolsa Escola (School Grant Program), a conditional cash trans…
Democracy and Social Policy in Brazil: Advancing Basic Needs, Preserving Privileged Interests
Has democracy promoted poverty alleviation and equity-enhancing reforms in Brazil, a country of striking inequality and destitution? The effects of an open, competitive political system have not been straightforward. Factors that would seem to work toward this goal include the voting power of poor people, the progressive 1988 Constitution, the activism of social movements, and governance since 1995 by presidents affiliated with center-left and le…
Ideology and Networks: The Politics of Social Policy Diffusion in Brazil
Brazil’s constitution (1988) granted municipalities the responsibility of providing social services. Many observers anticipated that this newfound authority would produce policy diversity, as local governments would tailor programs to constituents’ needs. Instead, many municipalities chose to replicate programs made famous elsewhere. What explains this diffusion of social policies across Brazil? In particular, what motivates policy makers to emul…
Making the Newest Citizens: Achieving Universal Birth Registration in Contemporary Brazil
Identity documentation is essential to secure the rights, benefits, and services that modern states provide. Historically, significant numbers of poor Brazilians lacked core documents, beginning with a birth certificate. In recent years the government has conducted a campaign to rectify this situation. We explore why the state left so many Brazilians without a birth certificate previously and why it became intent on registering all births, as ref…
How family and child cash transfers can empower women: Comparative lessons from Brazil and South Africa
By leveraging a comparison of Brazil’s Bolsa Família and South Africa’s Child Support Grant, this article probes whether and how income transfer programs enhance the standing of women recipients. Empowerment is assessed according to economic decision making, bodily protection and integrity, and psycho-social wellbeing and growth. The comparative analysis determines that regular income assistance boosts the self-esteem and agency of women recipien…
Participatory Health Governance and HIV/Aids in Brazil
This research note assesses participatory health governance practices for HIV and AIDS in Brazil. By extension, we also evaluate municipal democratic governance to public health outcomes. We draw from a unique dataset on municipal HIV/AIDS prevalence and participatory health governance from 2006-17 for all 5,570 Brazilian municipalities. We use negative binomial regression and coarsened exact matching with treatment effects to estimate the influe…
Democracia Em Ação: Indo Além Das Eleições Para Melhorar O Bem-Estar
Como a democracia contribui para melhorar o bem-estar? Neste artigo, separamos os componentes da prática democrática - eleições, participação social, expansão dos programas sociais, capacidade administrativa municipal - para identificar sua relação com o bem-estar. Nossa análise de um conjunto de dados original abrangendo mais de 5.550 municípios brasileiros demonstra que eleições competitivas sozinhas não explicam variação nas taxas de mortalida…
Do Conditional Cash Transfers Empower Women? Insights from Brazil's Bolsa Família
Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have emerged as an important social welfare innovation across the Global South in the last two decades. That poor mothers are typically the primary recipients of the grants renders easy, but not necessarily correct, the notion that CCTs empower women. This article assesses the relationship between the world's largest CCT, Brazil's Bolsa Família, and women's empowerment. To systematize and interpret existi…
Theories of Policy Diffusion: Social Sector Reform in Brazil
Brazil's democratic constitution granted municipalities responsibility to design and implement social policies, allowing for tailored programs to meet local constituent demands. Yet instead of pursuing local diversity, many governments chose to emulate programs made famous elsewhere. What explains the diffusion of social programs across Brazil? This article investigates whether policy makers are motivated by political self-interest, ideology, or …
Ideology and Networks: The Politics of Social Policy Diffusion in Brazil
Brazil’s constitution (1988) granted municipalities the responsibility of providing social services. Many observers anticipated that this newfound authority would produce policy diversity, as local governments would tailor programs to constituents’ needs. Instead, many municipalities chose to replicate programs made famous elsewhere. What explains this diffusion of social policies across Brazil? In particular, what motivates policy makers to emul…
Democracy and Social Policy in Brazil: Advancing Basic Needs, Preserving Privileged Interests
Has democracy promoted poverty alleviation and equity-enhancing reforms in Brazil, a country of striking inequality and destitution? The effects of an open, competitive political system have not been straightforward. Factors that would seem to work toward this goal include the voting power of poor people, the progressive 1988 Constitution, the activism of social movements, and governance since 1995 by presidents affiliated with center-left and le…
The diffusion of Conditional Cash Transfer programs in the Americas
In the mid-1990s, Brazil and Mexico created innovative social policies known as Conditional Cash Transfers (CCTs). Since then, CCTs have spread to countries throughout Latin America and beyond. While these programs reflect a new development norm, their spread is surprising given that some emulating countries lack the basic education and health infrastructure to support increased demand from beneficiaries. This article draws on a policy diffusion …
Diffusion of Good Government: Social Sector Reforms in Brazil
Bottom-up Policy Diffusion: National Emulation of a Conditional Cash Transfer Program in Brazil
Policy diffusion studies often invoke explanations that draw on the directional pressures for emulation, whether top-down, horizontal, or bottom-up. This article develops a theoretical framework that accounts for the multidirectional features of diffusion, including sub-national, cross-national, and international mechanisms, through the illustrative case of Brazil's federal adoption of Bolsa Escola (School Grant Program), a conditional cash trans…
Whither Clientelism? Good Governance and Brazil's Bolsa Família Program
Transforming Subjects into Citizens: Insights from Brazil’s Bolsa Família
Welfare programs distribute benefits to citizens. Perhaps even more importantly, by conveying powerful messages about how the state views poor people, welfare programs shape people’s views about themselves as subjects or citizens. Theoretical debates on how public policies can enhance democratic citizenship inspire our study of Brazil’s Bolsa Família (Family Grant). Has this conditional cash transfer program, which forms a major point of contact …
Pathways to Citizen Accountability: Brazil’s Bolsa Família
This article examines the pathways – citizen-driven, bottom-up oversight or state-centred administrative controls – that have played the largest role in promoting the accountability of the Bolsa Família programme. The exploratory analysis draws on interviews with local and federal officials as well as beneficiaries of the Bolsa Família in order to identify the ways monitoring and accountability have evolved in practise and on the ground. Field re…
Making the Newest Citizens: Achieving Universal Birth Registration in Contemporary Brazil
Identity documentation is essential to secure the rights, benefits, and services that modern states provide. Historically, significant numbers of poor Brazilians lacked core documents, beginning with a birth certificate. In recent years the government has conducted a campaign to rectify this situation. We explore why the state left so many Brazilians without a birth certificate previously and why it became intent on registering all births, as ref…
Democracy at Work: Moving Beyond Elections to Improve Well-Being
How does democracy work to improve well-being? In this article, we disentangle the component parts of democratic practice-elections, civic participation, expansion of social provisioning, local administrative capacity-to identify their relationship with well-being. We draw from the citizenship debates to argue that democratic practices allow citizens to gain access to a wide range of rights, which then serve as the foundation for improving social…
Democracy at Work: Pathways to Well-Being in Brazil
One of the greatest challenges in the twenty-first century is to address large, deep, and historic deficits in human development. Democracy at Work explores a crucial question: how does democracy, with all of its messy, contested, and, time-consuming features, advance well-being and improve citizens' lives? Professors Brian Wampler, Natasha Borges Sugiyama, and Michael Touchton argue that differences in the local robustness of three democratic pa…
How family and child cash transfers can empower women: Comparative lessons from Brazil and South Africa
By leveraging a comparison of Brazil’s Bolsa Família and South Africa’s Child Support Grant, this article probes whether and how income transfer programs enhance the standing of women recipients. Empowerment is assessed according to economic decision making, bodily protection and integrity, and psycho-social wellbeing and growth. The comparative analysis determines that regular income assistance boosts the self-esteem and agency of women recipien…
Democracia Em Ação: Indo Além Das Eleições Para Melhorar O Bem-Estar
Como a democracia contribui para melhorar o bem-estar? Neste artigo, separamos os componentes da prática democrática - eleições, participação social, expansão dos programas sociais, capacidade administrativa municipal - para identificar sua relação com o bem-estar. Nossa análise de um conjunto de dados original abrangendo mais de 5.550 municípios brasileiros demonstra que eleições competitivas sozinhas não explicam variação nas taxas de mortalida…
Do Conditional Cash Transfers Empower Women? Insights from Brazil's Bolsa Família
Conditional cash transfer programs (CCTs) have emerged as an important social welfare innovation across the Global South in the last two decades. That poor mothers are typically the primary recipients of the grants renders easy, but not necessarily correct, the notion that CCTs empower women. This article assesses the relationship between the world's largest CCT, Brazil's Bolsa Família, and women's empowerment. To systematize and interpret existi…
Building Capacity to Deliver Education as a Social Right in Brazil
We evaluate states’ capacity to deliver public education in Latin America. Education is essential for developing human capabilities and pursuing one’s best, chosen life. We focus on Brazil, where a right to an education is enshrined in the constitution. Brazil and other countries in the region have fallen short of achieving universal public education, and the quality of that education is low, on average, especially in poorer, rural areas. Yet, Br…
Democratic Dead Spots: Local Elections and Human Development in Brazil
Democracy’s proponents argue that decentralisation improves service delivery, expands local accountability, and engages citizens in public life. However, the combination of democratisation and decentralisation sometimes sustains subnational authoritarianism, resulting in differential redistribution of power that limit citizens’ ability to pursue and secure public goods. In this article we ask: To what extent do authoritarian enclaves affect well-…
Participatory Health Governance and HIV/Aids in Brazil
This research note assesses participatory health governance practices for HIV and AIDS in Brazil. By extension, we also evaluate municipal democratic governance to public health outcomes. We draw from a unique dataset on municipal HIV/AIDS prevalence and participatory health governance from 2006-17 for all 5,570 Brazilian municipalities. We use negative binomial regression and coarsened exact matching with treatment effects to estimate the influe…
Subnational Resilience During Crisis: How Brazilian Municipalities Responded to Covid‐19 and Public Health Budget Cuts
Concern over democratic resilience has grown in recent years, as observers identify threats including populist leadership, weak institutions, flawed elections, rising inequality, and polarization. Yet many democracies appear more resilient than anticipated. In the face of dual crises—a severe pandemic and austerity‐driven budget cuts—how might democratic regimes promote human development and high living standards? We answer this question by exami…
Political science (16 works) · Economics (12 works) · Politics (11 works) · Democracy (10 works) · Economic growth (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Social Policy and Reform Studies (9 works) · Income, Poverty, and Inequality (8 works) · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare (8 works) · Public Administration (8 works)