PurposeIn most Latin American countries, the provision of legal assistance to the vulnerable population is carried out by public defender's offices (PDOs), agencies composed of state-paid career lawyers. The aim of this paper is to explain the cross-country variation in regarding the autonomy levels of Latin American PDOs.Design/methodology/approachA scale to measure autonomy was built allowing access to the autonomy of sixteen different PDOs. Data were gathered through content analysis of the statutes that organize the PDOs and analyzed through qualitative comparative analysis (QCA).FindingsThe results demonstrate different levels of autonomy among Latin American PDOs. Furthermore, conditions related to institutional and social contexts, such as levels of income, human development, democracy, and the complexity of the political systems, presented sufficient relationships for high levels of autonomy.Research limitations/implicationsIt was not possible to interview representatives of the PDOs analyzed. This could help the interpretation of the legislation applied to PDOs, as well as the observation of regulations that may not have come to the knowledge of researchers. Thus, analyses were made according to what was observed in the legislation of each country. It is also noteworthy that this research covered only nationwide PDOs, not involving subnational PDOs. In addition, the data have only internal validity, and cannot be extrapolated to the population.Practical implicationsThe creation of a scale to measure the autonomy of public agencies stands out as an original comparative data set of PDOs covering a large amount of Latin American countries.Social implicationsThis study was able to characterize the institutional arrangements of sixteen national PDOs, allowing broad comparison between legal aid agencies for the vulnerable population in a region of the world that still suffers from high levels of poverty.Originality/valueThe article presents possible explanations on the variations of PDOs' level of autonomy, showing PDOs' idiosyncrasies, whose autonomy is influenced also by social context variables, in view of the nature of their mission. It should be noted that factors related to the social context are not widely considered by the literature on autonomy of public agencies.

Com o objetivo de identificar as características dos serviços da Defensoria Pública da União, a partir da abordagem integradora da inovação, realizou-se um estudo de caso qualitativo-descritivo. Observou-se que, para a prestação de assistência jurídica, é necessário mobilizar competências relacionadas ao conhecimento e operação do Direito, atendimento ao público, interação com outros órgãos, realização de mutirões e conciliação extrajudicial. Os serviços são construídos por meio de operações informacionais, de conhecimento e relacionais. Modificações nas competências e nos meios de construção conduziram principalmente inovações incrementais e de melhoria, ligadas ao princípio norteador intensivo. Observou-se também a relação entre princípios norteadores e formas de inovação, sendo o princípio extensivo ligado à forma radical, o intensivo relacionado às formas incremental e de melhoria, e o combinatório orientador das formas ad hoc e por recombinação.Palavras-chave: serviço públicos, Defensoria Pública, inovação[Artigo recebido em 26 de maio de 2015. Aprovado em 11 de maio de 2016.] Assistência jurídica gratuita: serviços da Defensoria Pública da União na ótica da abordagem integradora da inovação 378 Rev. Serv. Público Brasília 67 (3) 377-406 jul/set 2016 Asistencia jurídica gratuita: servicios de la Defensoría Pública de la Unión desde la perspectiva del enfoque integrado para la innovaciónCon el objetivo de identificar las características de los servicios de la Defensoría Pública de la Unión en Brasil, desde la perspectiva del abordaje integradora de la innovación, se llevó a cabo un estudio de caso cualitativo-descriptivo. Se observó que, para la prestación de asistencia jurídica, es necesario movilizar competencias relacionados con el conocimiento y la operación del Derecho, el servicio al cliente, la interacción con otros organismos, la realización de esfuerzos conjuntos y la conciliación extrajudicial. Los servicios se construyen por medio de operaciones informacionales, relacionales y de conocimiento. Los cambios en las competencias y en los medios de construcción llevaron a innovaciones de mejoría e incrementales, principalmente vinculadas al principio rector intensivo. También se ha observado la relación entre los principios rectores y las formas de innovación, con el principio extensivo vinculado a la forma de innovación radical, el intensivo relacionado con las formas incrementales y de mejoría, el principio combinatorio vinculado a las formas de innovación ad hoc y de recombinación.Palabras-clave: servicios públicos, Defensoría Pública, innovación Free legal assistance: services of the Brazilian Federal Public Defender's Office in the perspective of innovation integrative approachA qualitative-descriptive case study on the perspective of the innovation integrative approach was realized to identify the services characteristics of the brazilian Federal Public Defender's Office. The results show that it is necessary to mobilize competencies related to the knowledge and operation of the Law, customer serv...

The Public Defenders' Office is responsible for providing access to justice for vuln erable citizens. This agency needs to adopt good governance standards to achieve good performance. Although socially important, governance in this type of organization has been little studied. Aiming to fill that gap, this paper identifies and discusses standards of good governance in the Brazilian Federal Public Defenders' Office, as well as relationships between its dimensions and variables. The research included 14 in-depth interviews and building and validating a questionnaire to measure the perceptions of governance in that agency. The results show four factors of governance: Control and Accountability, Social Participation, Strategic Resources, and Access to Justice. It was observed that public defenders and administrative staff do not perceive control mechanisms to be part of governance, perceive little or no social participation in decision-making processes, and perceive that some working conditions and actions to develop the Public Defenders' Office personnel are absent. This study contributes to the advancement of the literature on the administration of justice, proposes a Public Defenders' Governance Scale, and reflects on the relationship between performance, access to justice and other dimensions of governance. Public Defenders' Office, as well as relationships between its dimensions and variables. This study contributes to the advancement of literature on the administration of justice, which generally has a greater focus on courts and neglects other organizations in the justice system. It also proposes a governance scale by way of a questionnaire that can be useful to researchers and practitioners alike in assessing the management of public defense bodies. Additionally, underlying the discussion on governance, this article reflects on the relationships between performance, understood here as access to justice and other dimensions of governance. Public GovernanceThe concept of governance comes from several theoretical approaches. The Agency and Transaction Costs theories and the approach of stakeholders form the basis for this concept. Similarly, the multilevel governance and policy networks approaches provide support for understanding public governance. From this perspective, governance refers to the management of relationships among several stakeholders as a means to solve conflicts that could threaten to divert the mutual gains of stakeholders. 3 Another view of the concept of governance is related to a way of governing, moving from a hierarchical model to a more cooperative form, that can include several state and non-state stakeholders. These two meanings of governance deal with stakeholder relationships and the mechanisms used to manage such relationships. However, while the first concept is more related to the scope of private relations, the latter generally falls within the scope of the state, where public governance is exercised.Public governance involves actions related to the decision-making process, the f...

Resumo O objetivo deste trabalho é identificar e avaliar comparativamente iniciativas de definição e mensuração de governança pública. Para tanto, foi realizada uma metanálise de artigos voltados à construção ou crítica aos índices de governança pública. O conteúdo dos artigos foi analisado por meio da técnica de análise categorial, com base em três dimensões de governança: conceitual, mensural e democrática. Os resultados indicam grande diversidade de conceitos de governança pública, de instrumentos utilizados para a sua mensuração e de atores institucionais que a exercem. Observou-se também dissonância entre os indicadores e os conceitos de governança pública. Por fim, propõe-se uma definição para governança pública a partir da identificação e análise dos conceitos apresentados nos artigos.

Public Defender’s Offices (PDOs) are responsible for providing legal assistance to citizens in situations of social and economic vulnerability. These organizations litigate directly against the state to guarantee the provision of public services and prevent government abuses or deviations. Therefore, these organizations require autonomy to fulfill their mission. This work analyzes the relationship between autonomy and performance in Brazilian PDOs. The work tests the perception of the impact between autonomy and performance of Brazilian PDOs. A survey was carried out with bureaucrats from 27 Brazilian PDOs, and the data was analyzed through structural equation modeling. The variables observed include, in addition to performance and autonomy, availability of resources, competencies, and accountability. The results point out a perception that PDOs must be autonomous and free from political influences to perform their mission properly. The bureaucrats’ skills and accountability were identified as relevant factors for the organizations’ performance. However, there was no significant relationship between resource availability and perceived performance. The contributions of this study include obtaining evidence of empirical validity to measure the constructs “autonomy,” “availability of resources,” “skills,” and “responsibility” and their impact on the performance of PDOs.

Public Defender's Office is responsible for providing access to justice for vulnerable citizens. This agency needs to adopt good governance standards to operate lawfully and responsibly, be accountable, and achieve effective performance. Although socially important, governance in this type of organization has been little studied.This paper identifies and discusses standards of good governance and the relationships between its dimensions and variables at the Federal Public Defender's Office. The research includes the building and validation of a questionnaire to measure the perceptions of governance, which was used to conduct 14 in depth interviews at the Federal Public Defender's Office. The results show four factors of governance: Control and Accountability, Social Participation, Strategic Resources and Access to Justice. There were three main observations from this research 1. The public defenders and agency administration staff do not perceive control mechanisms to be part of governance, 2. There is little or no social participation in decision-making processes, and 3. Some working conditions and actions to develop the Public Defenders' Office personnel are absent.This study contributes to the advancement of literature on the administration of justice, proposes a Governance Scale for the Federal Public Defender's Office, and reflects on the relationship between performance, access to justice and other dimensions of governance.

Resumo A Defensoria Pública da União (DPU) é um órgão essencial para o funcionamento do sistema de justiça, de modo que avaliar seu desempenho é fundamental para aperfeiçoar a prestação dos serviços de justiça no país. O presente artigo tem o objetivo de propor e testar empiricamente um índice de desempenho da DPU. Os dados foram coletados por meio de entrevistas com defensores e gestores e em bases oficiais secundárias do órgão, e examinados mediante análise de conteúdo e análise fatorial exploratória e confirmatória. Os resultados mostram que, na percepção dos entrevistados, o desempenho da DPU deve ter como base as seguintes categorias: produtividade, êxito, capacidade de atendimento, qualidade do serviço, celeridade, acesso, descongestionamento e atuação extrajudicial. Os resultados da análise fatorial demonstram a validade de um índice de desempenho composto por quatro fatores, quais sejam: atendimento ao cidadão, quantidade de assistidos, conciliações extrajudiciais e taxa de êxito. A aplicação do índice mostra que o desempenho da DPU vem se reduzindo ao longo dos últimos anos - 2014 a 2017.

No abstract