The Role of Subnational Governments in The Covid-19

Result of Service
The results of the study will promote the expansion and greater robustness of the body of knowledge produced with regard to government responses to the COVID-19 crisis, from the perspective of social policies.

Work Location
Brasília

Expected duration
420 Days

**Responsibilities**:
In 2021, the project “What about the states? Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations in Brazil” was part of the publication of the Boletim de Análise Politico-Institutional (BAPI), nº 30, aiming at promoting the debate based on the presentation of a series of analyses which provided a fresh look along with reflections on the performance of state governments. The intention, therefore, is to resume a research agenda that has already been, in Brazilian historiography, the object of great debates on the power relations between the federal government and the state and municipal governments since the institution of federalism in the First Republic, permeating the entire twentieth century (Abrucio, 1998; Leal, 1975).
The findings up of the project until now indicate that the performance of state entities - not only as formulators and implementers of public policies, but also as coordinators of this process in the municipalities of their territory - is quite heterogeneous, reflecting their own contexts and trajectories of action within different policies. This heterogeneity illustrates, to a large extent, the diversity of actions that underlie the characteristic arrangements of federative systems - an expected value that must be preserved in this type of institutional format. At the same time, it is necessary to consider which are the inequalities that are not fair - that is, those that do not produce minimum conditions guaranteed to the participants of the Federation - and that, therefore, deserve to be the object of adjustment and equity policies. It is worth mentioning that many of the analyses showed persistent mechanisms of reproduction of inequalities, mainly in state capacities and fiscal resources, a situation that limits the guarantee of access to rights with minimum standards of quality in all corners of the country.
The diversity of contexts and trajectories leads to the performance of each state entity being particular. To better understand this phenomenon, the need arises to advance in the systematization of both well-informed case studies and national comparative studies, which will allow us to identify what states do and what they do not do as a result of inequalities in their conditions and capabilities. Filling this gap is clearly a collective effort by analysts, researchers and managers. With a view to stimulating the resumption of this research agenda, the preparation of a book is underway to deepen the debates on the performance of states in Brazil, under the coordination of Ipea. This future publication intends to move forward in other public policies, fields of analysis and theoretical-methodological approaches, having as a starting point the analyses initiated in this Bulletin.
At the present time, which combines a fiscal, social and health crisis, because of the new coronavirus pandemic, with an apparent (and unprecedented in this post-1988 era) reorientation of the Union with regard to the absence of national coordination initiatives in various policies, a window of opportunity seems to be opening for state governments to act in policies and coordination together with their municipalities, while still lacking more systematic analyses.
It is in relation to this emerging context that the present Term of Reference aims to advance in producing research with the objective of scrutinizing the development of responses to the health crisis. Starting from other previous references - mainly from the Text for Discussion nº 2695 - “What state governments do - or should do - in the management of social policies” - the aim is to understand the type of response given by states in the context of these policies. The aim, therefore, is to explore the following research questions:
a) How have state governments responded to the COVID-19 crisis in terms of health, education and social assistance policies?
b) In the absence or insufficiency of national coordination, was there regional coordination produced by state governments in partnership with the respective municipalities?
c) Did federative autonomy lead to more successful responses to the health crisis?
d) What can we learn in terms of intergovernmental relations from the response given by subnational entities?
In order to advance this research agenda, the need for qualitative and quantitative analyzes was identified, which would allow the mapping and in-depth understanding of the different contexts of action and public policy instruments used by subnational governments.
The products to be developed through this Term of Reference will, therefore, aim to support the mapping and analysis of the performance of subnational governments to the COVID-1