The fragmentation of the Brazilian political system and high inequalities between social groups are major factors in the country’s chronic difficulties in developing good public policies, said economist Marcos Mendez, professor at Insper. He emphasizes the importance of evaluating public policy in order to learn from your mistakes. This is the essence of the book “Not to forget: the public policy that impoverishes Brazil”, which will be released on Monday. Here are the main excerpts from the interview:
What is the main factor in the poor quality of public policy?
We have a political-electoral system that generates a very fragmented representation. Not only do we have more than 20 parties in Congress, but within the parties we are dispersing interests. Often parliamentarians are more responsive to the interests of specific groups than to the interests of party political programs. So, in the end, the Congress defends not the interests of the collective, but the interests of the group that the parliamentarian defends. And then they do not worry that these interests will lead to much higher costs than the benefits created.
Isn’t the play of interests part of democratic systems?
Interests exist in all societies, but political and electoral institutions are needed to filter these interests and shed light on them.
Are there any other peculiarities in the play of interests in the Brazilian political system?
Inequality. When we have a very unequal society, what the poor want is very different from what the rich want and what the middle class wants. Poor people want social assistance, help, employment. The rich want subsidies for their companies. The middle class wants a well-paid government job, a free public university. When a society is more homogeneous, everyone wants more or less the same thing.
Are there short term solutions to the problem?
We have several small government policies that, if implemented with reasonable efficiency, will improve the situation. For example, the government has just almost tripled the Bolsa Família with the creation of Auxilio Brasil. Only we tripled with bad design. At the same time, we have not invested in the heart of the transfer program, which is Cadastro Único.
Is the Bolsa Família a case of a well regarded public policy that has been discontinued?
We make poorly thought out policies worse. There are times when we learn from mistakes, but there are also times when good policies go bad. It is very easy to have an electoral flag of 400 reais for each family, but in practice we are losing the policy focus on the most needy people.
The information is taken from the newspaper. State of Sao Paulo.
