Between Deinstitutionalization and Resilience: Institutional Participation in the Bolsonaro Administration

Abstract

This study aims at characterizing the deinstitutionalization prompted by the Bolsonaro government and assessing its impact over participatory councils. It provides an empirical diagnosis of the regulatory situation of 103 national collegial bodies, based on an original database. It argues that the government measures do not result in homogeneous effects and can vary according to two factors: i) the government´s preferences in policy content; ii) the councils’ resilience. It proposes an analytical typology of resilience based on the interaction between two dimensions: institutional design and councils’ degree of insertion in their respective policy communities. Considering both dimensions, it concludes that councils whose performance was the most affected were the ones related to policies whose agenda is contrary to that of the Bolsonaro’s government, and displaying less resilience. In proportion, the environment policy area was the most affected by revocations. Human rights and social policies underwent more substantive changes. In turn, the economic development and infrastructure area was less affected, due to its greater alignment to the government’s preferences, even though its collegial bodies were less resilient.