The policy process of “Minha Casa, Minha Vida”: creation, development, and termination

Abstract

Introduction: Created in March 2009, the Minha Casa, Minha Vida Program is considered the greatest housing policy in Brazilian history. In its eleven years of execution, the program has gone through four presidential terms and its execution organized in phases, modalities, and income brackets. Despite its importance, changes in the country’s fiscal, political and economic conditions resulted in the program’s gradual weakening, and in 2021 it was ended. The article investigates the development process (policy process) of Minha Casa, Minha Vida Program in its different stages: creation, consolidation and extinction. Materials and Methods: Scientific articles, technical reports and discussion texts about the program were analyzed, in addition to specific legislation and press news. Complementarily, an information access request was made to gather data regarding the program execution. Data collected span over March 2009 and January 2021. Items considered towards the documentations studying were: agenda setting, policy design, implementation, evaluation, and extinction. Results: We disaggregated the decision-making process of one of the main recent public programs in Brazil into sub-processes, which allowed us to understand it in its specificity, evolution, and context. The program was developed through interaction with its environment, evolving in a contingent way. This process was gradual, with changes of both operational and global scales, and was shaped by political disputes and constraints. The policy process was constrained by the rules of the game and by political-economic circumstances. These conjunctures shaped the scenario of disputes between actors, interests, and ideas. Discussion: The study empirically demonstrates the gradual development of public policies. Although extinct, Minha Casa, Minha Vida served as a structure to a new program, the “Casa Verde e Amarela”, which bases its institutional framework in categories created by its predecessor for higher-income beneficiaries, showing the continuous and interactive process of adjustment between actors, institutions, and ideas.