Farzaneh Hall, Room 203
Phone: 405-325-9821
Email: michelle.morais@ou.edu
Michelle Morais de Sá e Silva, PhD, is the Wick Cary Associate Professor of International and Area Studies and Co-Director of the Center for Brazil Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Since 2017 she has been teaching courses on public policy, human rights, international development and international cooperation at the David L. Boren College of International Studies. Dr. Morais has an extensive professional and academic background in human rights and public policy. Her post-doctoral research studies at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government reflect her continuing contributions to the field.
Dr. Morais is a key figure on several academic publications. She is the co-editor of the International Review of Public Policy and associate editor of the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis. She recently served as Vice President of the International Public Policy Association (IPPA), where she still serves as member of the association’s Executive Committee.
Dr. Morais is the author of Poverty Reduction, Education, and the Global Diffusion of Conditional Cash Transfers (Palgrave 2017). She is the co-editor of Dismantling and Reconfiguration of Public Policies [Desmonte e Reconfiguração de Políticas Públicas] (Ipea 2023) and of the upcoming edited volume The Policy Process in Democratic Backsliding (Palgrave 2024).
Prior to her career at OU, Dr. Morais had been Head of Graduate Programs at Brazil’s National School of Public Administration, Director of International Cooperation at Brazil’s Ministry of Human Rights, and Project Officer at UNESCO in Brasilia. Dr. Morais has also served as a consultant to several international organizations, including the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States; UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning; and the Ibero-American General Secretariat (SEGIB).
Courses taught at the University of Oklahoma
Graduate courses:
Undergraduate courses:
Executive education (Summer Semester):
Recent Publications
Morais de Sa e Silva, M., Porto de Oliveira, O. (2023) Incorporating time into policy transfer studies: a comparative analysis of the transnational policy process of Conditional Cash Transfers and Participatory Budgeting. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice, 25:4, 418-438.
Gomide, A., Leopolidi, M. A., Morais de Sa e Silva, M. (2023). Desmonte e reconfiguração de políticas públicas no Brasil (2016-2022) [Dismantling and reconfigurations of public policies in Brazil (2016-2022)]. Brasília: Ipea.
Morais de Sa e Silva, M. (2023). Desmonte autoritário de políticas públicas: Quando burocratas pedem pra sair. [Authoritarian dismantling of public policies: When bureaucrats choose to exit]. In A. Gomide, M. A. Leopolidi, M. (eds). Desmonte e reconfiguração de políticas públicas no Brasil (2016-2022) [Dismantling and reconfigurations of public policies in Brazil (2016-2022)]. Brasília: Ipea.
Gomide, A., Leopolidi, M. A., Morais de Sa e Silva, M. (2023). Políticas públicas em contexto de retrocesso democrático e populismo reacionário: desmontes e reconfigurações [Public policies in the context of democratic backsliding and reactionary populism: dismantling and reconfigurations]. In A. Gomide, M. A. Leopolidi, M. (eds). Desmonte e reconfiguração de políticas públicas no Brasil (2016-2022) [Dismantling and reconfigurations of public policies in Brazil (2016-2022)]. Brasília: Ipea.
Morais de Sa e Silva, M. (2022). Policy dismantling by capacity manipulation in a context of democratic backsliding: The bureaucracy in disarray in Bolsonaro’s Brazil. International Review of Public Policy, 4 (3).
Morais de Sa e Silva, M. (2022). South-south cooperation through the lenses of bureaucrats: peripheral policy transfers. Contexto Internacional: Journal of Global Connections, 44 (1).
Borges, C.; Morais de Sa e Silva, M. (2022). Clima de medo em plena democracia: Percepções da burocracia federal [Fear in a context of democracy: Perceptions of the federal bureaucracy]. In Cardoso Jr., J. C., Barbosa da Silva, F., Florencio de Aguiar, M., Lemos Sandim, T. (Eds.) Assédio Institucional no Brasil: Avanço do autoritarismo e desconstrução do Estado [Institutional Harassment in Brazil: advancements of authoritarianism and State dismantling], pp. 408-456. Brasília: Afipea and Edupub.
Morais de Sa e Silva, M. (2021). South–South cooperation resilience in Brazil: presidential leadership, institutions and bureaucracies. Third World Quarterly, 42 (10), 1-19.
Morais de Sa e Silva, M. (2021). An intrastate approach to the withdrawal from International Organizations: the case of Brazil and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Global Governance, 27 (1), 49-70.
de Sa e Silva, F., Morais de Sa e Silva, M. (2021). The environment, human rights, and democracy in Brazil under Bolsonaro: dispatches from an academic symposium. Videre, 13(28).
Morais de Sa e Silva, M. (2020). Once upon a time, a human rights ally: The state and its bureaucracy in right-wing populist Brazil. Human Rights Quarterly 42, 646-666.
