Agenda local : desvendando a autonomia decisória dos municípios brasileiros

Abstract

The thesis aimed to contribute to the debate on the agenda of local governments by elucidating the issue of municipal decision-making autonomy in the context of Brazilian federalism. It engages with the dominant argument in Brazilian literature regarding the central role of the federal government in formulating and implementing public policies, influencing local agendas through institutional instruments that standardize policies nationally. From this institutional dynamic and the public policies designs that shape municipal autonomy in constructing the local agenda, the research aimed to answer two questions: (1) To what extent is there a local agenda in Brazil? and (2) What explains the configuration this agenda? The analysis focused on intergovernmental relations under assumptions of agency theory, exploring the spaces of local autonomy. Delegating authority from a principal to an agent creates challenges of monitoring, control, and informational asymmetry. This logic was applied to understand how the federal government and municipalities interact in the implementation of public policies, considering the federal coordination and the opportunities for self-interested municipal action to pursue their own agendas. The policies’ institutional design and the intergovernmental relations allowed for the classification of policies on local agendas into three groups: (1) those adopted through federal induction, (2) those resulting from autonomous municipal action, and (3) those primarily under the jurisdiction of other entities. The concept of a local agenda of total execution was then proposed, encompassing all municipal actions and enabling the measurement of policy adoption and prioritization based on public expenditures. The hypothesis is that the varying levels of municipal decision-making autonomy to adopt and prioritize policies in their local agenda result from the combination of local governments' state capacity, population demands for specific policies, and the degree of federal coordination, defined by the institutional design of policies. Using quantitative data, descriptive statistics, and multivariate compositional data modeling, significant variations were identified in policy adoption and prioritization, highlighting the role of fiscal capacity and specific arenas (federal induction, municipal competences, and external competences). The findings underscore the need to differentiate between the attribution of responsibility and decision-making autonomy, challenging the generalized notion of an absence of municipal autonomy as the rule. They draw attention to local capacities and contextual demands in shaping local agendas in Brazil.