Introduction

Abstract

After the political opening and the promulgation of the 1988 Constitution, Brazil became one of the most decentralized nations in the world in terms of the distribution of fiscal resources and political power. After two decades of military rule the political opening brought to the fore concerns regarding democratic values in which political, financial and administrative decentralization played an important role. There were also concerns with the improvement of welfare policies and of social democracy. These concerns emerged in Brazil and in Latin America when the so-called Western democracies were showing their disillusionment in the possibilities of their political systems finding solutions to increasing political and social predicaments (Dunleavy, 1980a). Conversely in the 1980s Latin American countries emphasized the importance of formal political institutions and the relevance of social democracy, as ways of legitimizing and stabilizing their struggle to rebuild their democratic institutions. These concerns were expressed in the 1988 Constitution, in which political and financial decentralization was achieved, together with several measures improving social rights. However, various constraints made it difficult to achieve the constitutional mandates and to trigger solutions to the above-mentioned concerns.KeywordsPolitical SystemPolicy ResultVeto PlayerFiscal FederalismPolitical OpeningThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.