Participatory mechanisms and inequality reduction: searching for plausible relations

Abstract

Brazil is known for being one of the most unequal countries in the world. Since the 1990s many scholars, both in Brazil and those analyzing the country¹s trajectories from abroad, have been describing a decrease in country¹s inequalities. In this article we discuss the possible role of expanding citizen participation in policy making processes and overseeing their implementation in inequality reduction. To do so we explore the connections between the participatory mechanisms and the implementation of policies that are expected to reduce inequalities in two different participatory experiments that have taken place in Brazil: Sao Paulo municipal health councils and the country¹s participation in the Open Government Partnership (OGP). We argue that, despite their thematic and historical differences, there are good reasons to believe that these two participatory experiences sustained the expectations concerning their role in contributing to reduced inequalities. However, these cases suggest that their contributions were less determined by the quality of the participatory process, as defined by the deliberative democracy literature, than by the nature of political alliances and mobilization processes that supported these spaces.