Policy reform and governance in Brazil's Congress: a case study of the Polícia Civil oversight reforms

Thesis Abstract

Policy reform and governance in Brazil's Congress a case study of the Polícia Civil oversight reforms abstracted as a detailed examination of legislative oversight dynamics, the study investigates how parliamentary mechanisms influence police oversight reform within the Brazilian Federal Congress, addressing the gap between formal norms and policy implementation in a high?stakes, multi?actor environment. The aim is to assess the effectiveness, legitimacy, and accountability of Polícia Civil oversight reforms, with specific objectives to identify the principal drivers of reform, evaluate the implementation outcomes across federal and state police units, examine institutional constraints and power relations among Congress, the Ministério da Justiça, and police bodies, and assess public legitimacy through stakeholder perceptions. The research employs a mixed?methods design to triangulate normative expectations with empirical findings, drawing on a population comprising 27 congressional committees involved in justice and public security, 11 state police departments, and 30 civil society organizations with formal oversight mandates. A purposive sample of 60 key informants—policymakers, prosecutors, police officials, and watchdog representatives—will be complemented by 40 semi?structured interviews with frontline officers and 20 survey respondents from civil society groups. Data collection instruments include a structured survey (n=200) to quantify perceptions of reform legitimacy and implementation fidelity, interview guides for in?depth policymaker and officer perspectives, a document analysis protocol to code legislative texts, oversight reports, and audit outcomes, and a GIS?enabled mapping of oversight activity across states. Validity and reliability will be ensured through triangulation, pilot testing of surveys (n=20), and inter?coder reliability checks (Cohen’s kappa above 0.75). Analytical approaches combine regression analysis to test hypotheses about the relationship between legislative oversight intensity and reform outcomes, thematic analysis of interview transcripts to extract salient governance narratives, and process tracing to illuminate causal mechanisms linking reform design to implementation results. The theoretical framework will integrate principal–agent theory to examine accountability frictions, resource dependence theory to understand strategic interactions among branches, and governance legitimacy theory to interpret public acceptance of oversight changes. It is expected that the study will reveal how legislative oversight reforms influence operational autonomy, inter?agency coordination, and transparency in Polícia Civil processes, with variations across states driven by electoral incentives, budgetary constraints, and institutional capacity. Key findings are anticipated to indicate that stronger committee oversight correlates with higher reform fidelity but may induce resistance from police leadership unless accompanied by capacity building and transparent performance feedback. The study contributes to knowledge by offering a nuanced, empirically grounded account of parliamentary oversight reform in a federated, non?European context, bridging political science and public administration literatures on police reform, governance mechanisms, and accountability. The anticipated conclusion argues for a calibrated combination of binding oversight provisions, routine financial and performance audits, and inclusive stakeholder engagement to sustain legitimacy and governance gains. Policy recommendations include establishing formal oversight benchmarks, creating independent evaluation units within Congress, standardizing data?sharing protocols between police agencies and oversight bodies, and investing in capacity development for state bodies to reduce implementation disparities. The study also outlines areas for further research, such as comparative analyses with other federations facing similar policing challenges and longitudinal investigations into the sustained impact of oversight reforms on police accountability and citizen trust.