Profits and votes: Entrepreneurs and the government in Brazilian housing policy

DIAS, EDNEY CIELICI

doi:10.1590/0101-31572015v35n04a05

ABSTRACT

After more than twenty years of low housing construction output, the housing policy recovered its momentum in the country with the ascent of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party, PT) to the seat of the federal government. This article demonstrates - through the analysis of documents, interviews and research conducted with businessmen - that the impetus of such a state policy is a part of the PT electoral strategy, which is based on economic growth and the expansion of social programs. The research analyses the dovetailing of interests between the Lula (the Brazilian President from 2003 to 2010) administration and the civil construction business - the latter concerned with expanding its business, and the former with increasing the supply of jobs and the level of economic activity. This process culminated in the launching of the largest social housing program to be implemented in the country. Minha Casa, Minha Vida (My House, My Life), is a project in whose planning building companies played a key role, performing feasibility studies and carrying out social housing projects.

KEYWORDS:
public policy; housing policy; business interests; agenda setting; Lula administration

[TFN1] Source: Produced by the author, based on interviews with the private sector and participants of the process within the Treasury, Ministry of Cities and the Caixa Economica Federal.

Brasil

Brasil

Profits and votes: Entrepreneurs and the government in Brazilian housing policy

Lucros e votos: os empresários e o governo na política habitacional brasileira

ABSTRACT

Conditioning political factors
The international financial crisis might compromise the development of a federal government project of a social-democratic nature.
This would put at risk the 2010 elections, involving the election of a president, and governors, renewal of the Chamber and to two thirds of the Senate.
The government, because of its social-democratic nature, was prone, in true Keynesian fashion, to a more interventionist stance in economic affairs.
The government had the power to approve in Congress a high-cost program, such as housing subsidies.
Government preference for the policy
The government had a preference for a policy of expenditure with an economic impact of a social nature, out of which housing grew.
The urbanization of the slums as part of the PAC program was a slow process - for an anticyclical policy swift implementation was of the essence, which FAR would make possible.
The construction of new housing units complemented the activities of the PAC and was target of demands for civil construction by social movements.
Conditioning economic factors
Residential construction generates a high number of jobs.
It has a high multiplying effect on the remaining areas of the economy.
A housing construction policy has an effect on the entire country.
It is essentially a domestic policy with national input.
There was strong demand for housing at all social levels.
Building companies could rapidly increase the housing supply.
Credit was made available and families were only slightly indebted.