Gestão de serviços de abastecimento de água e esgotamento sanitário: a participação social em três modelos institucionais no Espírito Santo

Abstract

The aim of this work is to evaluate social participation in the management of the water and sanitation services in three different institutional models developed in the municipalities of Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, Colatina and Vitória, in the State of Espírito Santo, a coastal state in the northeast of Brazil. The three models are: privatized services, municipal services and state-administered services. The reference framework of the work is Jürgen Habermas` Communicative Action Theory, in which he proposes a deliberative democratic theory. Such theory is a procedural model for democracy, which is understood to be the institutionalization of discoursive processes of opinion and will formation, in which the citizens, by way of debates, mediated in equal conditions by language and the power of the best argument, act in problem-solving and in the search for emancipation. The qualitativemethod has been selected due to its adequacy in pinpointing the relationships between the various social players, either within the institutions or in the milieu of the social movements and also in the case of studies focusing on the evaluation of the degree of participation and the quality of citizenship. Methodological procedures were documentary research, interviews with key-players and focus-groups, both including representatives of the community. Results indicate that the current models of sanitation management are still a long way from Habermas´ deliberative proposal. They also show that the main mechanisms of participation are colonized by controlling factors such as money and power, alongside a civil society which is not yet participating in shaping sanitation policies