A socio-historical approach to policy analysis

The case of the Brazilian Workers' Food Policy

Bibliographic Data

ID5230819
AuthorsJamacy Costa-Souza, Jamacy Costa Souza (0000-0003-4198-351X, corresponding author), Lígia Maria Vieira-Da-Silva (0000-0003-2518-411X), Patrice Pinell (0000-0001-7961-5187)
Year2018
Volume34
Issue1
Pagese00140516-e00140516
Publication date2018-02-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCadernos de Saude Publica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0102-311X • E-ISSN: 1678-4464
PublisherFapUNIFESP (SciELO) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1590/0102-311x00140516
PMID29412319
OpenAlexW2786870570
SCIELO_PIDS0102-311X2018000105002
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited23

Policy analyses based on traditional or structuralist definitions of the state are important, but they have some limitations for explaining processes related to policymaking, implementation, and results. Bourdieusian sociology links the analysis to objective and subjective dimensions of social practices and can help elucidate these phenomena. This article provides such empirical evidence by analyzing the social genesis of a Brazilian policy that currently serves 18 million workers and was established by the state in 1976 through the Fiscal Incentives Program for Workers' Nutrition (PIFAT/PAT). The study linked the analysis of the trajectory of social agents involved in the policy's formulation to the historical conditions that allowed the policy to exist in the first place. Although the literature treats the policy as a workers' food program (PAT), the current study showed that it actually represented a new model for paying financial subsidies to companies that provided food to their employees, meanwhile upgrading the commercial market for collective meals. The study further showed that the program emerged as an administrative policy, but linked to economic agents. The program became a specific social space in which issues related to workers' nutrition became secondary, but useful for disguising what had been an explicit side of its genesis, namely its essentially fiscal nature

Agriculture · Economic growth · Economics · Food policy · Food security · Geography · Policy analysis · Political science · Social policy · Food, Nutrition, and Cultural Practices · Law · Organic Food and Agriculture · Public Administration · Rural Development and Agriculture

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access