Change or continuity in Cardoso and Lula's anti-poverty policy: a scoping review

ABSTRACT

Introduction:

We mapped and classified the intellectual production on the anti-poverty policy of the governments of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1994-1997 and 1998-2002) and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (2003-2006 and 2007-2010) to answer the following question: Was there continuity or change in this policy between these governments?

Materials and methods:

We adopted the scoping review method, a type of literature review useful for broad syntheses on a new or little-studied research topic and with heterogeneous or contradictory evidence. Starting from a review protocol with previously defined selectivity criteria, we selected, using the Rayyan software, a set of 42 relevant studies on the topic of interest. They were searched in Scopus, Web of Science, Scielo, CAPES Periodicals, Semantic Scholar, CAPES Catalog of Theses and Dissertations, Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations, Mendeley, Google Scholar and ResearchGate. In addition, we gathered bibliographies listed in references of teaching plans on the subject and incorporated references to this corpus from the indications of three specialists. The studies were reviewed with the aid of a standardized reading grid that allowed extracting information focused on the research question.

Results:

We identified three types of positions in the literature on the anti-poverty policy between the Cardoso and Lula governments: there was continuity (21 papers); there was limited change (14 papers); there was a substantive change (7 works). Such positions depend on several factors, such as the focus of the researcher's analysis, his theoretical-conceptual framework, and his normative assessment of the governments in question.

Discussion:

Studies focused on changes in the institutionality of the income transfer policy tend to interpret them as reflections of a substantive and unprecedented commitment by Lula with the reduction of poverty. Studies concerned with the underlying logic of government choices tend to see the continuity of a “neoliberal” rationality as the fundamental basis of the two governments. As for works focused on the concrete strategies of both, they tend to identify important improvements in the established model, combined with the maintenance of old limiting patterns with which the Lula government would not have effectively broken. This review provides an overview of specialized production, without the concern of systematically assessing its quality. Further refinement can be obtained through a systematic review with additional requirements regarding the quality of the studies.

Keywords
Lula government; Cardoso government; public policy; anti-poverty policy; scope review