Poor politics -: poor housing.: Policy under the Collor government in Brazil (1990-92)

This paper((1)) describes the ways in which clientelism was a factor in the formal structures promoting housing during the Collor government in Brazil, a country where frequent institutional changes have provided the opportunity for new client-patron chains to penetrate the government apparatus. While the institutional and organizational aspects of housing provision are of paramount interest to social scientists and practitioners, it is necessary to go beyond the surface of these formal structures to find out how the system works in practice. This paper analyzes the institutional arrangements that supported housing promotion under the Ministry of Social Action in Brazil during the Collor government and examines their private nature as well as the often loose ways in which the housing authorities actually operated the system.