O exercício da democracia em conselhos de políticas públicas

Abstract

This research was guided by a qualitative approach and aimed to understand the role played bu the deliberative spaces in the democratization of public management. Specifically, through the case study of the Municipal Health Council of Belo Horizonte the research sought to understand how those spaces work, who participates in them, as well as the effects of their actions. Regarding the methodological procedures, technical content analysis was used to organize the results and to prepare the theoretical analytical model applicable to the study of deliberative spaces. The analytical model was based on the conceptual framework of the theories of deliberative democracy, especially the contained in Fung (2004), but associated with other theoretical proposals contained in Fung (2003, 2007, 2012); Gutmann e Thompson (2004, 2009), Cohen (1997, 1998, 2009), Bohman (1996, 2009), e Benhabib (1996, 2009), who adhere to the pragmatic conception of deliberative democracy. The insights achieved by this study indicate that the Council has the potential to contribute to the improvement of the relationship between society and the government, and it actually has generated some effects of educational, regulatory, political and decisional kind-that somehow improve the deliberative processes and foster active citizenship in the domain of health policy. The Municipal Health Council of Belo Horizonte is a social construction that plays a role of resilience. Although it structures and roles are statutorily defined, its functioning depends on the type of relationships and social settings that are established in the social context in which it acts. This is because it suffers constant changes, due to internal and external influences that result in advances and setbacks. We must see the Council as a hybrid an intermediary institution, wich in principle has participation and the presence of an active citizenship to materialize them, as expressed by the surveyed Council members. Specially, the lack of social participation and active citizenship significantly undermines the functioning of the Council. This fact, thoroughly attested by the field research, reinforce the justification and the relevance of the thesis.