Limit to popular participation in the legislative process as obstacle to development in Brazil

Abstract

The research explores development as idealized by Amartya Sen and the theories of representative and participatory democracy to establish the premise that the occurrence of development depends on popular participation in decisions on relevant issues. Development depends on the exercise of liberties, and political freedom is the premise for the exercise of others. Therefore, the text discusses whether mechanisms currently provided for direct participation of the population in our democracy are adequate for the popular control of legislative process. From this analysis, important considerations were extracted, such as the important narrative that favors popular participation in the Federal Constitution, and the discrepant discredit given to the formal mechanisms of participation by legislators, excluding the people from the deliberations on legislation that deal with social rights. The conclusion is that the non-use of the formal mechanisms of popular participation in Brazil is an obstacle to development. The methodology used was a bibliographical review, documental and empirica.