Preferências, instituições e política na formulação e implementação do benefício de prestação continuada

Herein, the influence of institutions and of social and political preferences upon the design and the implementation of the Brazilian non contributive income cash transfer to the elderly and disabled poor - Benefício de Prestação Continuada (BPC) - is analyzed. The main argument is that forward and backward movements throughout the policy process were related to the degree of convergence of the social and political stakeholder's preferences as well as to the institutional environment where they interacted. Two stages are distinguished by particular events during the design period, the end of the first being the appearance of BPC as a Constitutional right, in 1988, and the end of the second marked by its final regulation in the Brazilian Social Assistance Law - Lei Orgânica de Assistência Social (Loas), 1993. Such stages are distinct in regard to the influence of the institutional openness to social preferences about the BPC design. Along the implementation period, changes in key political stakeholder's preferences were related to variations in the degree of political responsiveness and bureaucratic insulation, leading to restrictions and improvement in BPC. This period can also be divided in two stages, from Loas, 1993, to the Elder Person Protection Act (Estatuto do Idoso) in 2003, and then on.