Capacidades estatais nos Centros de Referência Especializados de Assistência Social : associações com o nível de serviços ofertados entre 2014 e 2021

Abstract

The theme of state capacities has received attention from a series of studies, focusing on the various dimensions that enable a better understanding of the actions undertaken by the State to achieve its objectives through the implementation of public policies. For this reason, national and international research has turned to the analysis of these capacities, seeking to verify their effects on the provision of services and benefits to society. The same applies to Brazilian social assistance. The institutional arrangement of this policy established since 1988 emphasized the importance of the State as a guarantor of social rights for the population. To this end, the federal government created institutional mechanisms aimed not only at providing coordination among all entities for policy execution, but also at inducing the formation of state capacities in subnational governments, especially in municipalities, which are directly responsible for its implementation. In this context, the study aims to investigate to what extent the capacities, in their infrastructural and bureaucratic dimensions, are associated with the level of services offered in the Specialized Social Assistance Reference Centers (CREAS). Despite playing a relevant role in the Unified Social Assistance System (SUAS), there is still little research that focuses on Special Social Protection (PSE) in social assistance, compared to Basic Social Protection (PSB). For the analysis, data from the SUAS Census, covering the period from 2014 to 2021, were used to create variables that allowed for the estimation of multivariate regressions, with an inferential strategy based on the panel data structure. The results indicated that some of the variables related to infrastructural capacity support the hypothesis that this capacity is associated with the level of services offered in the CREAS. Similarly, the variables related to bureaucratic capacity, especially concerning the career paths of professionals, contribute to the hypothesis that this capacity is also associated with the level of these services.