Abstract
From a dialectical and institutional critical perspective based on the central concept of Hegemony Strategy Process and analyzing the bibliography, we’ll discuss some grounds for inclusion of Social Assistance in 1988’s Federal Constitution as a citizen right and a State obligation. It’s a public policy whose social function aims to safeguard the access to basic social rights, indispensable for the survival of a significant portion of the Brazilian population. These rights are mainly destined for poorest people, but also for those that have been designated by the Unified Social Assistance System (USAS) as people in situation of vulnerability and social risk. The inclusion of Social Assistance policy in the Constitution can be considered a tacit concession, since it did not come from a wide political struggle or from a great popular revindication, differently from the Social Security and Health policy, which demonstrates an essential contradiction, since the number of possible users of this policy is enough to justify its existence. The Social Assistance is one of the main public policies, alongside policies of food safety and generation of work and income, that aim to serve the poorest segments of the population. It produces real, focused, and restricted effects alongside important symbolic effects that guarantee and legitimize the governance. We intend to contribute to the strengthening of Social Assistance as a public policy, problematizing some of its impasses.
Keywords:
Social assistance; Social policy; Hegemony strategy process; Federal Constitution; Social right