The Law and Public Policy approach in Brazil

Abstract

The article presents the Law and Public Policy approach in Brazil, consolidating studies on the effects of the introduction of this political science notion in the legal universe. Based on multidisciplinary theoretical analysis, this text proposes parameters to address this relationship in a systematic way. Public policies emerge in the context of the welfare state. That is, an orientation of the State that implied a change in the roles of law materialized in public-private relations and problems of direction and autonomy. In late-democratizing countries, the meaning of public policies is ambiguous. On the one hand, it revolves around modes of administrative modernization bringing politics and public management closer. On the other, it entails the decline of public services with a broad coverage. In the legal field, this tension occurs in the centrality of rights with demands for greater effectiveness and expanded powers for the Constitutional Courts, which calls for a more precise legal conceptualization of public policies. Given the complexity and diversity of this concept, this article proposes a representation that simplifies the approach to the object and leads to the proposal of frameworks. This is an important institutional legacy for post-pandemic reconstruction.