INSTITUTIONAL ACTIVISTS AND PUBLIC POLICY ENTREPRENEURS IN THE CONSTRUCTION AND OPERATION OF THE TRADITIONAL FOODS COMMISSION OF THE PEOPLES IN AMAZONAS – CATRAPOA

Based on the dialogue between the literature of institutional activism and policy entrepreneurs, this paper analyzes the interaction of governmental and non-governmental actors in the construction and performance of CATRAPOA. Different from the interpretation that reinforces the idea of individual actors with heroic characteristics, we emphasize the collective performance of CATRAPOA. Derived from non-participant observation and 14 semi-structured interviews, the results confirm that: i) in the construction/defense of public policies, the actors act in networks formed by institutional activists and policy entrepreneurs sited internal and external to the State; ii) the sum of protagonisms (agency), opportunities and constraints (structure) influence on the configuration of the network; iii) although intrinsic to the configuration, networking is a tactic mobilized for collective action to pursue its causes. In addition, the reflections point out that the literature of institutional activism and of policy entrepreneurs focus on the same object and present several analytical confluences.

Institutional activism; Policy Entrepreneurs; Public Policy; Collective actors; Tactics