Introduction

Public policy literature has increased in Brazil over recent decades, as have local government studies. However, in both fields, there is a lack of research on how policy analysis contributes to policy formulation, implementation and evaluation at the local level of government. This gap results partially from the fact that policy analysis has not become a clearly defined professional and academic field in Brazil, unlike what has occurred in the US.

However, even if one considers policy analysis to be the generation and mobilisation of knowledge for the resolution, by government of relevant public problems – even though such activities may not be given this designation (public policy) and therefore do not constitute a clearly delimited field – the gap is still there.

The research agenda regarding public policy and local government in Brazil has emphasised other subjects, reflecting the societal and the governmental agenda. Prominent topics include: democratisation of policymaking at the municipal level of government, with emphasis on new mechanisms for participation and new institutional arrangements, such as policy councils and participatory budget; the recognition of difference by social policies, bringing to analysis the inclusion of gender, ethnic and age concerns of public policies through the implementation of policies for women, the indigenous population, the black community and children and adolescents; and issues such as popular control of policymaking, the structuring of integrated and decentralised policy systems, and intergovernmental relations in a federative context.

These subjects reflect the main challenges that were being faced (and still are) by Brazil during its turnaround from an authoritarian to a democratic state, and from a centralised to a decentralised state. Even though policy analysis was absent from the research agenda on public policies and local governments, that is not to say that there were no processes of generating and mobilising knowledge as input to local government public policies, but rather that this subject was not being problematised.

This chapter intends to contribute to the study of public policies at the local level of government, centring the discussion on policy analysis understood as the generation and mobilisation of knowledge for the formulation, implementation and evaluation of public policies or government programmes.