Municipal councils and binding of decisions: A study in Porto Alegre

The work sought to understand how binding the public policy councils of Porto Alegre, Brazil, are for the public power. Therefore, the councils were characterized, an attempt to define and explore the degree of binding, with the analysis of the law and the verbs present in their competences. It was observed that they are more in the field of representation than participation and that they are not very binding. However, the potential that mandatory implementation has to contribute to the effective institutionalization and consequent binding of the councils to public power stands out.

Keywords:
Public administration; citizen participation; public policy; public policy councils; political science