A institucionalização dos municípios no Brasil: estímulos, restrições e constrangimentos na trajetória dos municípios brasileiros

Abstract

The municipality is a structural par of the Brazilian federal system, given its purpose of being the space of expression of local interests. This work examines the role of municipalities in the Brazilian federalism and how the institutions and rules that structure the social, political and economic life can model the behavior of political actors and local authorities in Brazil. In this context, the advent of the Fiscal Responsibility Act as an institutional change impacted decisively its role in the federalism. The methodology used in the analysis is the neo-institutionalist approach, giving prominence to the variable "institutions" both as a mental model for strategic decision making and as bringing stimuli, restrictions and constraints to formulate and pursue goals that are not always a simple reflection of the demands of interests groups or social classes. In addition, a review of the scientific literature and relevant legislation is made. The second chapter sheds light on neo-institutionalist theory, specially in the areas that will illuminate the examination of how municipalities and its institutions cause marginal arrangements not always expected by those who make the rules. In the third chapter, starting from the distinction between unitary state, federation and confederation, it makes a comparison between the US federation and the Brazilian federation based on the theoretical framework adopted, the identification of influences and marginal arrangements that provoked such different results in those federations. In the third chapter, attention is directed to the concept of path dependence of the municipalities in the constitutions and how the state preceded the nation as a sociological artifact in Brazil. In the fourth chapter the examination is directed to the importance of institutional change and the impacts of the Fiscal Responsibility Act on municipalities, as an illustration. The closing remarks present the conclusion that institutions reproduce the forces which generated them and that the incentives, restrictions and constraints arising from institutional design interfere with the fulfillment of municipal functions and the behavior of political actors. Therefore, the initial choices, creating the institutional environment, must find legitimacy only in the dialogic and participatory construction of local level and, through this process creative networks, interactions, spaces that make high costs of political transaction for any regression under local government, strengthening democratic infiltration in the foundations of the state.