Social capital and institutional performance in SUAS in Caxias do Sul and Novo Hamburgo

Abstract

The present study is based on Putnam's theory of social capital and its impact on the institutional performance of the National Social Assistance System (SUAS), in Rio Grande do Sul state, especially in the cities of Caxias do Sul and Novo Hamburgo. Thus, we intend to demonstrate comparatively the relationship between the accumulation of social capital and the institutional performance in the public policy. Regarding the methodological delimitation, we used a survey research, and 382 questionnaires were directly applied to SUAS users. In this sense, it was possible to affirm our hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between social capital and the institutional performance of public policies, thus, it’s possible to affirm that in so far as the stock of social capital grows, also occurs the growth of institutional performance in the public policy.