The participation of the legislative power in municipal public planning: analyzing proposals for parliamentary amendments to the budget laws in Curitiba

Abstract

Guided by the objective of analyzing the quantity and characteristics of amendments that have become law and by discussion on the issue of parliamentarian distancing from legislative functions regarding budget matters, this article addresses the participation of the legislative power in public planning from the perspective of social legitimacy in representative democracies. The theoretical framework, which provides support for this, is in reference to the process of public planning and to budget policies, focusing on parliamentary amendments. The methodological path emphasizes an applied research defined as a case study with a descriptive approach. The method employed is that of descriptive statistics. The results have indicated that i) the lack of technical knowledge, asymmetric information and a low quality of transparency in budget proposals perpetuate the hegemony of the executive power and ii) there were no modifications in this structure through the adoption of impositive amendments to the annual budget.