From proposals and passed Amendments: Policy Changes in the Brazilian Federal Constitution between 1988 and 2023

• Grant number: 24/01447-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: June 01, 2024
• End date: December 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - Public Policies
• Principal Investigator: Felipe Gonçalves Brasil
• Grantee: Guilherme Arnaud Dias
• Host Institution: Escola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades (EACH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 20/07485-3 - Dynamic attention and agenda-setting in Brazil (Brazilian Policy Agendas Project), AP.JP

Abstract

The Brazilian Federal Constitution has been the subject of several studies, in different areas of knowledge, since its promulgation in 1988. A specific debate about the relationship between the Federal Constitution (FC) and public policies is carried out by authors such as Couto and Arantes ( 2003), Souza (2008) and Melo (1999), which highlight the ability to schedule policy in CF/88 and also in the constitutional reforms that followed over the years, going far beyond structuring the rules of the game and organizing the polity apparatus. Until 2019, 4397 proposed constitutional amendments (PCAs) were prepared, with 132 constitutional amendments (CAs) approved. The purposeful nature of public policy actions characteristic of the Brazilian Constitution, as well as the changes proposed and implemented, can be understood as an important indicator of attention in the formation of the governmental agenda. Thus, uniting the literature that analyzes the Federal Constitution as a locus for scheduling public policies with the theoretical and methodological repertoire of policy analysis (Baumgartner and Jones, 1993, 2002), this project aims to map and analyze the Federal Constitution of 1988 according to the public policy sectors prioritized in its formulation. More than that, it seeks to identify the sectors most attacked by proposed constitutional amendments over time, as well as the level of success of these proposals that resulted in Constitutional amendments. From the mapping of these care indicators (FC, PCAs, CAs), the expected result is an analysis of the priorities in the attention of decision makers, highlighting changes and continuities in public policies.