Emancipations in the state of Rio Grande do Sul: rationality or inconsequence in the municipalization proceedings

Abstract

This paper discusses the inconsistencies found in the emancipation legal proceedings of 30 counties in Rio Grande do Sul. The emancipation proceedings consist of various documents, beginning with the accreditation of an emancipation committee and ending up with the promulgation of an Executive act installing the new municipality. The set of all the proceedings
documents constitutes a dossier, and the detailed analysis of these dossiers has revealed a wide range of inconsistencies. There is not, e.g., a single motivation sustaining the emancipatory arguments throughout all the cases;
and often the information put into the repercussion study is not compatible with that presented in the emancipation committee justifications. What is more startling is the total lack of attention regarding the budgetary, financial and fiscal aspects affecting both the new county and the base-municipality. In fact, the analysis shows that there is not any objective rationality
whatsoever throughout all the phases of the emancipation proceedings. What the analysis does indicate is that the proceedings reflect much more an interplay of political interests than the satisfaction of the emancipationists’ real needs.