Gabriela Lotta

Research on street-level bureaucracy has been dominated by perspectives from the Global North, leaving a critical void in understanding how frontline public servants operate in vulnerable, unequal and politically unstable settings. Using Brazil as a case study, this book successfully bridges that gap.

The Public Policy Process is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the process by which public policy is made.Explaining clearly the importance of the relationship between theoretical and practical aspects of policymaking, the book gives a thorough overview of the people and organisations involved in the process. Changes to the complexity of the problems faced everywhere, and to the way populist approaches to policymaking are emerging, makes new thinking essential about how the policy process is examined across the globe.Key features and updates:Detailed discussion of challenges to effective policymaking in turbulent times, with special emphasis on crises and populism. Improved discussions about critical issues, such as governance, bureaucracy, global policies, and artificial intelligence among others.New material relating to countries from the Global South and unequal democracies.Further attention to comparative international examples from Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.This text is essential reading for students of public policy, public administration and management, as well as more broadly highly relevant to related courses in health and nursing, social welfare, environment, economics, development and local government.

The Public Policy Process is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the process by which public policy is made.Explaining clearly the importance of the relationship between theoretical and practical aspects of policymaking, the book gives a thorough overview of the people and organisations involved in the process. Changes to the complexity of the problems faced everywhere, and to the way populist approaches to policymaking are emerging, makes new thinking essential about how the policy process is examined across the globe.Key features and updates:Detailed discussion of challenges to effective policymaking in turbulent times, with special emphasis on crises and populism. Improved discussions about critical issues, such as governance, bureaucracy, global policies, and artificial intelligence among others.New material relating to countries from the Global South and unequal democracies.Further attention to comparative international examples from Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.This text is essential reading for students of public policy, public administration and management, as well as more broadly highly relevant to related courses in health and nursing, social welfare, environment, economics, development and local government.

Brazil has experienced a political crisis over the last decade, starting with massive street demonstrations in 2013and culminating with the invasion of the presidential palace in January 2023. The outcry against corruption became a call for policy without politics, politicians should be replaced by operators free of any ideology. The authors of this book review some of the major debates in Brazil’s recent past. They note that democracy is hostage to a serious conflict between the bureaucrats of the state's technocracy and the citizenry, represented by political animals, mainly parliamentarians, but also civil society activists. Abramovay and Lotta argue that the tension between a strong, independent bureaucracy and the natural conflicts of democracy - with the broad participation of students, workers, indigenous peoples and other forces that are the lifeblood of democracy - is the key to building a healthy and effective regime. If in 1979 it was about the fight against dictatorship, today, according to the book, it is about ensuring that the state achieves the goals of the constitution, such as building a free, fair and caring society. According to the two political scientists, this effort involves ceasing to demonize politics and realizing that civil servants are not necessarily the bearers of all virtues.