PUBLIC POLICY-MAKING ARENAS: A NEW NACIONAL POLICY ON MENTAL HEALTH

The interaction between executive and legislative in the process of public policy-making presents diversified contours, with vary according to the rules inherent in the political system, the strategies adopted by these political actors and the ability of organized social groups to influence politics decisions related to public policies. Therefore there is no single pattern of interaction between executive and legislative in the process of public policies production. in the brazilian political system the executive and the legislative are directly responsible for the incumbency of editing public policy, hence the objective of this research to investigate, under the new institutionalism approach, the basis of the interaction between these powers in the production of a new national policy in mental health between 1989 and 2001, its period of legal consolidation, considering the correlation of forces that are usually established between them in the process of public policies production.