PUBLIC POLICIES AND IDENTITY: NOTES CONCERNING THE EPISTEMIC REFERENT

Abstract

Public policies are currently growing in importance as an instrument to facilitate the effectiveness and pertinence of a government administration, especially in local spaces. Thus, studies on the subject are becoming more complex dealing with previously unknown or disregarded dimensions and incorporating variables of analysis that had been relegated to the background. Identity is one of the increasingly relevant categories within the discipline of public policies as a principle for understanding the decisive guidelines of the subjects. Its analysis, as a process included in the decision-making exercises, highlights its multifactorial nature in terms of social strata, working sectors, interests, identity references, beliefs, goals and plans of real life subjects. These elements define the courses of action followed by public policies, by prioritizing the axiological component over the economic one. The inclusion of the identity category in public policy shows that these studies are not extrapolated models since, in each process, individuals are conditioned by lifestyles, forms of organization, roles distribution and different motivations which determine their actions.

The objective of this paper is to analyze identity as a foundation determining the courses of action in the design and implementation of public policies.