A efetividade dos conselhos como instituições participativas: o caso dos conselhos de políticas sociais de São José dos Pinhais/PR

Abstract

The 1988 Federal Constitution established a series of participatory mechanisms and instances, such as participatory budgeting, public hearings, conferences and management councils. And, with this, it opened space for democratic participation in the elaboration and monitoring of public policies. Since then, the right to social participation has been elevated to a constitutional principle, consolidating the possibilities of implementing participatory democracy. The proliferation of management councils or public policies in the country, as institutions of direct participation, has been intense, and although several studies on different aspects related to councils have been developed in recent years, there is a gap in the assessment of effectiveness of its performance in public policies at the municipal level. In this context, we have the following research problem: Are social public policy councils effectively participatory institutions? And as an object of study the social policy councils of São José dos Pinhais, PR. To answer this question, the theoretical foundation related to Democratic Theory, Institutional Arrangements of Public Policies and their Effectiveness guided the development of this research. With regard to methodological procedures, the research is characterized by a qualitative approach and applied purpose, with an exploratory and descriptive bias, using the bibliographic and documentary method. To achieve the research objectives, we chose to collect data from publicly accessible information and for content analysis, the following categories of analysis were assigned: social participation and effectiveness of management councils. Considering that in a society with só many demands and intense social exclusion, effective social participation is a means of developing public policies in line with the needs of the population, which justifies the relevance of this study. The main results show that the effectiveness of management councils is present with regard to the formal organization macrocondition; However, when analyzing the macro conditions of deliberative processes and institutional designs, we found partial effectiveness due to the predominance of government actors in deliberations and the absence of conflicts in decision-making, which may mean the need for training for more proactive action. And equality of all counselors; and on the other hand, the need to diversify interinstitutional interactions beyond the composition of councils, which could strengthen the interinstitutional role of counselors. Finally, the deliberative effectiveness was evidenced based on the deliberate actions, predominantly, to implement public policies, in the composition and organization of the activities of the management councils. From such results, it is expected that they can be used to reflect on the role of council participants, strengthen decision-making and monitoring of public policies and improve the collegiality of municipal management councils.