Concepções e práticas sobre gestão democrática e participativa na administração federal brasileira, no período de 2003-2019

Abstract

In the national administration from 2003 to 2019, governments considered to be progressive and conservative neoliberal governments attributed different meanings to Participatory Instances. After a trajectory of expansion and consolidation of almost three decades of the so-called “participatory institutions”, signs that their role had become an object of dissent in the political class appeared at the end of 2013. In view of this, we aimed to identify in the speeches, documents, programs and practices of progressive governments and neoliberal conservative governments, elements that characterize different positions on the social participation agenda, when occupying the national executive from 2003 to 2019, either through affirmation or through denial, with its impacts on Brazilian democracy . More than inventorying and cataloging, it is important here to illuminate the nature and reason for the “deconstruction” of institutionalized channels and spaces aimed at the participation of civil society. In Brazil, the political system established by the Federal Constitution of 1988 inaugurated a series of institutional innovations for social participation. Examples range from Participatory Budgeting, Councils, Forums etc. even more complex forms of Participatory Systems at different levels of government. The Workers' Party (PT) played a prominent role in this diffusion process. However, after the rise to power of explicitly conservative governments in Brazil, such as the government of Jair Messias Bolsonaro, there is a strong tendency to close and weaken channels and spaces for social participation, restricting the role of organized segments of civil society in decision-making. of public scope. It is argued that, in order to advance the population's participation in the management of public policies, a complementarity between institutionalized and non-institutionalized channels is necessary. The contradictions and limits of spaces for institutionalized participation in capitalist society are evident. However, if the struggle for equality and these spaces of participation emerge, linked to the radicalism of democracy, and the sectorial agendas are not reduced, there will be possibilities to generalize and intensify the recognition of rights. And this gives progressive sectors the urgency of a strategic debate that not only makes the necessary confrontation against liberal counter-reforms and the advance of the far right, but also goes beyond.