Desempenho institucional e a superação dos dilemas sociais em assentamentos do semiárido paraibano.

Abstract

Studies on Agrarian Reform Policies in Brazil and on processes of constitution of rural settlements have done a weak emphasis to institutional dynamics as part of the efforts that settled families have done in order to consolidate the occupied áreas and to make their living as family farmers. This dissertation analyses the relation among the building of constitution of institutional arrangements, some of make decision processes and the overwhelming of collective action dilemmas, adopting the notion of institutional performance, inspired in the neo-institutional perspective. This work represents a theoretical effort to reflect on institutional dynamics of two rural settlements, denominated José Antônio Eufrosino e Osiel Pereira, located in the Semi-Arid of Paraíba, Brazil. In those rural settlements, the institutional performance (the quality of institutional dynamics) was assessed taking as basis five collective action fields in which the settled families has acted: l)the slices resulted of the Land Reform (definition of size and localization of parts destined to each family); 2)The elaboration of Rural Settlement Development Plan; 3)the control of use and access to natural resources, collectively appropriated; 4) the organization an commercialization of the production; and 5) the offering of credit to be used in building houses. Our study shows that the vacuum of effective institutions in the beginnings of settlement makes difficult the conflicts management, opening space to make decision processes with low degree of the involved subjects participation. On the other side, it reveals as well that there is an effort to build more effective institutions, which open new possibilities of collective action in those áreas.