Middle class and public services in Brazil
commodity boom, economic crisis, and protests for a better public transportation system
Keywords:
Public utilities, Riots and mobs, Middle class, Quality of life, Developing countriesAbstract
The purpose of this paper is to study the current low level of quality of public services in Brazil, in order to identify a relation between the bad quality of such provisions and the protests that have increasingly taken place in the country. Among other requests, some protests were initially against the low quality of services provided to the population, especially public transportation. One main reason for this dissatisfaction is the recent rise of the middle class in developing countries. Such ascension is increasing their share of participation in the decision-making processes (the middle class represents roughly half of the population in Brazil), and this engagement is shaping new demands for public policies oriented more towards their values. The middle class has a strong power of consumption of goods and private services: this influence led private companies to model their products and services to their preferences, but governments are still delivering lower quality services than the middle class is willing to receive. This mismatch leads to constant public dissatisfaction and may continue to cause further riots against the running of current public policies.
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