The book investigates how and why a country facing issues that needed to be tackled nationwide chose to decentralize political power and financial resources when it moved from military rule to democratization. Furthermore, the book examines whether the decision to decentralize in Brazil has changed the allocation of public expenditure at the subnational level, especially regarding education.

By analyzing the decision to decentralize and its results at the subnational level, the study embodies both an elite and a grassroots approach. The elite approach encompasses the topics related to decentralization in the Brazilian constituent assembly that sat from 1987 to 1988. The grassroots approach is comprised of three case studies.

The results suggest that in Brazil there was a lack of social consensus on what was to be achieved by decentralization. It is suggested that various political and economic factors influence the outcomes of decentralization, thus exposing the limits of decentralization on policy results.