Policy Process Frameworks in Practice: Critical Analysis from Brazil and Latin America

Policy Process Frameworks in Practice offers a fresh and critical look at the main frameworks used to study policy processes, with a unique focus on their application in Brazil and Latin America.

Rather than simply presenting theories, it examines how these models are used in practice, highlighting both their strengths and their limits. By shifting attention to the Global South, the book challenges the idea that frameworks developed in the Northern Hemisphere are only applied elsewhere, showing instead how they are reshaped and enriched in new contexts. Each chapter follows a clear and accessible structure: a concise overview of the framework, a systematic review of its reception in Brazilian and Latin American scholarship, and a critical discussion of whether and how causal explanations are employed. This approach provides readers with both conceptual clarity and empirical depth, while also pointing to gaps and opportunities for future research.

Bringing a critical Global South perspective, this book challenges established policy frameworks, broadens international debates, and provides scholars with refined tools to understand how policies take shape and change.

Natália Sátyro is Full Professor of Political Science at Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil, and Vice-Coordinator of the National Institute of Science and Technology for Government Quality and Policies for Sustainable Development (INCT-QualiGov). She is Convener of the International Political Science Association (2023–present) Research Committee on Welfare State and Developing Societies (RC39), the coordinator of the Inter-Institutional Centre for Policy Analyses (CIAPSoc-UFMG), and was the founder and the coordinator of Asociación Latinoamericana de Ciencia Política Public Policy Research Group (2013–2024).

André Marenco is Full Professor at the Graduate Program in Public Policy of Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and coordinator of the National Institute of Science and Technology for Government Quality and Policies for Sustainable Development (INCT-QualiGov). He completed a senior internship at the Institut d’Études Politiques–Sciences Po/Paris, was a full member of the Technical-Scientific Council for Higher Education, and was the Political Science Area [Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)] coordinator. His work focuses on comparative political institutions, political reform, bureaucracies, and public policy.

Mariana Batista is Professor of Political Science at the Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil. She was a visiting researcher at Harvard University and Oxford University, National Council for Scientific and Technological Development productivity fellow, and Member of INCT-QualiGov. Her main publications have appeared in the European Journal of Political Research, Governance, Party Politics, Research and Politics, and the Journal of Politics in Latin America. Her areas of research are government composition and decision-making process, bureaucracy, state capacities, transparency and public integrity, and public policy evaluation.