THE RELEVANCE OF THE LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF URBAN POLICY IN BRAZIL: THE EXAMPLE OF RESEARCH ON URBAN ROADS AND THEIR SOCIAL FUNCTION

Abstract

The Law and Public Policies’ approach has contributed to the legal research on various policies. Considering an agenda of assessment - that comprehends the matters for which it is most productive, thinking tools to compare studies, establishing references of research, consolidating strategies to deal with the interfaces’ approach on the fields of the law and identifying potentialities - the present article highlight the relevance of the approach on the study of urban policy. It was divided in three sections: first, the characteristics of the approach are resumed; next, considerations on urban policy in Brazil are made, stressing the converging aspects of its nature and the approach’s strategies; lastly, the contribution of the approach to the legal research on urban roads’ social function is presented, further developed in the master’s dissertation of the author. Finally, it was noted that the converging aspects with the approach are due to the fact that urban policy: (i) intents to ensure social rights; (ii) is characterized by transversality; (iii) depends on a complex institutional arrangement; (iv) assumes a systematic interpretation of legal norms; (v) has its achievement hampered by legal barriers; (vi) materializes a significative distributive conflict; (vii) illustrates mismatch between the legal commands and reality.