The Aldir Blanc Law: the impact of the pandemic on institutional change

Abstract:

This study analyzes how temporary emergency actions, in the context of a pandemic, became permanent components of Brazil’s cultural policy. To this end, it analyzes elements of the policy, focusing on strategies to overcome the pandemic and on the subsequent improvement of the policy. It seeks to describe the institutional changes that occurred in the design elements of the policy in question, in light of the theoretical framework of institutional change. Initially, it proposes a theoretical discussion on the effects of the pandemic on policy change, and shows how these changes have been reflected in Brazil’s cultural policy by analyzing discourse representations in the Chamber of Deputies. The results indicate that the pandemic, after the approval of the emergency actions, was a driving force for the alignment of the authors of the Aldir Blanc Law, and a window of opportunity for its consolidation. The article contributes to the field of public policy by analyzing the constituent elements of policy design, where crises become factors for engagement and cooperation among agents in the legislative branch in the long term.

Keywords:
institutional change; Covid-19; National Culture Policy; Aldir Blanc Law; policy design