Creation, diffusion and learning of national public policy systems: the heterogeneous paths of the SNRH, SUAS and SUSP

Abstract

This article analyzes how the idea of national public policy system spread in Brazil, comparing the origin and structure of the National Water Resources System, the Unified Social Assistance System and the Unified Public Security System. The objective is to understand the context in which the systemic format was adopted by the institutional design of these different sectors and how this and their governance structures reflect different notions of what a public policy system would be. The choice for the three sectors was due to the temporal distance from their origins, thematic diversity, and the distinct roles that subnational entities assume in their designs. Based on the literature on learning in public policies, the proposal takes a qualitative and comparative research approach. From interviews with actors of each policy, the content of regulations and the literature of each sector, it was found that the previous trajectory of the policy influenced the moment and the need to create a system and the characteristics and main components of each one of them. Therefore, different origins and structures point to different meanings of the “national system” as an institutional design of public policies in Brazil.