This dissertation discusses three intertwining areas of social policy social Assistance, food security, and income transfer programs in relation to the recently formed Ministry of Social Development and Fight against Hunger (MDS) in Brazils post-democratization period (1988-present). I analyze how these social policy programs combined, interpenetrated, and ultimately coalesced under the same ministerial institutional locus, bringing forth a renewed discussion on social development. I started the research with the assumption that the creation of the MDS would have promoted hybridization of the policies, thus establishing a consolidated management system with a recognizable social development project united in its focus on improving living conditions for the most precarious sectors of the population. The assumption was based on the idea that the merging of the institutional locus for social policies could increase their interdependence, open new possibilities for working together, require negotiation of existing resources and priorities, and thereby result in institutional changes for all three policy areas. I adopted a longitudinal perspective and the process tracing method (COLLIER, 2011) for events and their evaluation as evidence. I conceptualized the creation and evolution of institutions as processes that may follow different paths: from persistence of patterns with incremental additions to extinctions and ruptures. My findings challenge the prevailing literature that suggests that cooperation between government bodies is rarely observed in the modern state apparatus. The conditions under which disparate policy domains are interwoven was in need of greater scholarly attention. My findings show that the MDS acquired enough legitimacy to coordinate once-atomized plans and priority programs that aligned with the executive agenda. This authority contributed to the incentive to integrate, even if only in normative terms. This unification created a distinctive coordination body for recent administrations social agendas. Thus, through the actions of a strong and integrating state, the MDS strengthened the social safety net in Brazil, mitigating hardships for the most precarious segments of the population, and improving access to basic services as rights.