Management councils of public policies: theoretical aspects on the potential of a democratic and effective social control

Abstract

The proliferation of management councils of public policies gives rise to assessing their potential to deepen the democratic contents of the public management and increase the effectiveness of public policies through social control. With this purpose, this theoretical essay opposes the representative and deliberative dimensions in democracy to criticism against the representative system and the democratic method of aggregating preferences, and it also analyzes the propensity for government accountability as for the signalization of policies processed by the council. Argumentation relies on significant international studies about the models of representative and deliberative democracy and on dialogue with Brazilian studies addressing the theme social control. It is concluded that the councils have potential to foster a democratic deepening in management of public policies, particularly by strengthening conditions that enable an egalitarian decision-making process. Nevertheless, such potential is closely related to the geographical domain and the sectoral scope: municipal participatory bodies with an only scope have greater democratic potential than national bodies having a broader range of themes. In any case, making this potential a reality is conditioned to institutional arrangements that enable incentives to ensure the legitimacy of representatives both of the civil society and the government, the egalitarian decision-making process, and the availability of tools to enforce council’s decisions. This article hopes to contribute to developing the analytical tools needed to study the councils and build effective institutional arrangements of these bodies vis-à-vis their democratic and effectiveness goals.