Do conflito à colaboração: o papel da participação cidadã na construção de um ecossistema de segurança viária em rodovias

Abstract

Road safety on Brazilian federal highways remains a complex public problem. Traditional approaches, centered on retrospective analyses (based on past crashes) and technocratic decision-making, show limitations in capturing the contextual dynamics and interactions among multiple actors. From the perspective of the Public Service Logic and the principle of value co-creation, this dissertation investigates whether—and under which conditions—propositions formulated with citizen participation can achieve public value comparable to those proposed by professional agents. It is a qualitative, cross-sectional, and contextual study, based on semistructured interviews with citizens and Federal Highway Police officers, analyzed through thematic analysis supported by software and oriented toward analytical generalization. The findings indicate an affirmative answer under specific conditions: functional comparability depends on contextualization and empirical grounding, on the translation of propositions into observable terms (problem, evidence, proposal, and indicator), on evaluation through value-in-use, and on multi-scalar orchestration within collaborative governance arrangements that combine experiential and technical knowledge. The study also identified the relevance of citizen feedback as an element that reinforces the co-creation cycle, by strengthening trust and legitimizing mutual learning between the State and society. There is convergence in goals but divergence in emphasis and justification, revealing convergence through distinct paths that impact behavior and indicators of value-in-use. As contributions, the study clarifies the conditions of functional comparability between citizen and professional propositions, presents an interpretive synthesis of their convergences and tensions, and proposes guidelines for participatory design, prioritization, and fine-tuning of road safety actions. It is noteworthy that the notion of comparability addressed here does not imply absolute equivalence but rather the identification of situated and contingent conditions under which different propositions can produce similar effects in terms of value-in-use.