The relation between public social policies for poverty reduction and the requirements of international organizations like the UN, IMF and World Bank on the issue might explain the similarities of such public policies in countries that have significant economic and cultural diversities. Better saying, the formulation of such policies might be linked to factors of domestic political and economic environment, but also to the institutional encouragement and international cultural standard, as discussed in the literature on international modeling and the Theories of Policy Diffusion. This article aims to present the results of ongoing research that investigates social policies for poverty reduction of the Governments of Cardoso, Lula and Rousseff from the perspective of these theoretical currents. The methodology is in the exploratory phase and data organization. In the discussion there is data related to the significant moments of the Brazilian social protection system between the years 1995 to 2012. The results suggest that in the Government of Cardoso, Lula and Rousseff the so-called "positive" modeling (isomorphism) predominated by the adherence of national policies to international policies focusing on the low-income population, and also due to the fact that Brazilian monetary transfer policies were recently considered by the international political community as a model. On the other hand, in the second Lula and Rousseff Government period there is the negative modeling (or else, policies that by referring to the widespread notions are formatted in opposite manners) identified in the linkage between policies of economic growth and increasing or maintaining the values of social public spending. This is contrary to the recommendations of international financial institutions that prescribe austerity in reducing social public policy. On the other hand, it remains as positive modeling due to centrality that the Governments have been assigning to policies that prioritize low-income people combining them with the weakening of universal policies, instead of strengthening the articulation between prioritizing and universality.