Categorizing “easy” and “difficult” users: Everyday practices of public policy implementation and the production of social differences

Abstract

This article addresses how the daily practices of agents involved in public policy implementation processes are intertwined with the production of social differentiation of the types of publics served. We start from a systematization of analytical perspectives that are part of the international debate on the implementation of public policies. Then, we aim to establish a dialogue between these perspectives and the empirical study of the implementation of the Family Health Strategy in the city of São Paulo, focusing on the performance of Community Health Agents. We proceed to reveal how social differences enter the world of public policies through the centrality of categorization and judgment practices of service users. These practices constitute an effort to delimit symbolic borders that allow agents to operate an unofficial segmentation of the public served, classifying them as “easy” or “difficult” users. The findings indicate that the social differentiation produced mixes elements of a functional nature with moral elements associated with an assessment of the adequacy or not of users´ behavior, with potential implications for the broader dynamics of reproduction of social inequalities.