The laws of declaration of public utility in the ALMG: from the normative-institutional scope to the political outputs

Abstract

The present paper argues that the Public Utility Declaration Laws (LDUP) are instruments of linkage between the proponent parliamentarians and their respective electoral bases. Within the roll of action of the state deputies, in view of its low cost of approval and the opportunity to establish contact with its constituency, the LDUP have been one of the main legislative instruments of the mining assembly. The Public Utility Declaration Laws are a little used alternative in the legislative studies for the measurement of the particularistic behavior of the deputies in subnational level. The results suggest covariation between the proposition of Laws of Public Utility Declaration and the sending of Parliamentary Amendments. We argue that this relationship can be explained by the similar nature of the two types of parliamentary performance. Both are part of the same "Institutional Package", composing the universe of particularist action of the analyzed parliamentarians.