ST 2 THE PROBLEM OF DEMOCRACY IN TWO BRAZILIAN GOVERNANCE EXPERIENCES
Pedro Novais
UFRJ / IPPUR
Carlos Bernardo Vainer
Instituto de Pesquisa e Planejamento Urbano e Regional / Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Resumo
This paper puts into question the relation between the State and civil society in Brazil
from the standpoint of the notion of governance. Initially, it describes the context in
which the idea of governance arrived at the debate concerning the state in Brazil in the
1990s. The country had completed a long process of democratization, after the military
dictatorship. Reflecting on the historical experience allows putting into perspective
themes such as popular participation, social control and political decentralization, which
set the foundations for the democratic state in Brazil, as established in the 1988
Constitution. Next, two cases are presented, the Participative Budget in Porto Alegre and
the Porto Maravilha Project in Rio de Janeiro.
The Participative Budget of the city of Porto Alegre is an emblematic case of popular
involvement in decision-making over public investments. It gained widespread reputation
as an innovative form of political participation that suggested that the “radicalization of
democracy”
could become reality. Prior to the use of the notion of governance in
government rhetoric, civil society participation and direct democracy were considered the
dominant alternative to the elections based liberal model, often resembling the
authoritarianism of the military regime. Popular participation would guarantee
permeability of the State to societal demands, and therefore, would ensure legitimacy to
public administration.
