Mobilizing the state: The erratic partner in Brazil's participatory water policy

Politics and Society

Volumn 37, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 289-314

  Neaera Abers, Rebecca ^a   Keck, Margaret E ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRASILIA   (Brazil)

^b JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Brazil; Deliberation; Participatory governance; State capacity; Water policy

Indexed keywords

EID: 67650500173     PISSN: 00323292     EISSN: 15527514     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0032329209334003     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. See, for example, Evenlina Dagnino, ed., Sociedade Civil e Espaços Públicos no Brasil (São Paulo, Brazil: Paz e Terra, 2002);
2. and Evelina Dagnino, Alberto J. Olvera, and Aldo Panfichi, eds., A Disputa pela Construção Democrática na America Latina (Campinas, Sâo Paulo: UNICAMP and São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 2006). The authors portray contemporary politics in Latin America as a dispute between "democratic/participatory" and "neoliberal projects," both of which contain proposals for empowering civil society and promoting participatory governance.
3. Luciana Tatagiba, "Os Conselhos Gestores e a Democratizaç ão das Políticas Públicas no Brasil," in Dagnino, Sociedade Civil e Espaços Públicos, 47-104.
4. Elinor Ostrom, "Crossing the Great Divide: Coproduction, Synergy, and Development," in Peter Evans, ed., State-Society Synergy: Government and Social Capital in Development (Berkeley: University of California, International and Area Studies, no. 94 (1977): 85-118.
5. Luciano Martins, "Reforma da Administração Pública e Cultura Política no Brasil: Uma Visão Geral," Cadernos ENAP, no. 8 (1997).
6. Francis Fukuyama,"The Imperative of State-Building," Journal of Democracy 15, no. 2 (2004): 28.
7. For an excellent edited collection focusing on the difficulties of state administrative reform, see Ben Ross Schneider and Blanca Heredia, Blanca, eds., Reinventing Leviathan: The Politics of Administrative Reform in Developing Countries (Miami, FL: North South Center Press, 2003).
8. The term "civil-society organization" is left unspecified here, because its boundaries are contested in ordinary political usage. Its use presumes both nonstateness and (usually) publicness, but publicness in a Deweyian sense, known by its consequences, rather than as a categorical term. John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (Chicago: Swallow Press, 1954): 13.
9. Peter Evans, "Government Action, Social Capital and Development: Reviewing the Evidence on Synergy," World Development 24, no. 6. (1996): 1119-32.
10. For a rare exception, see discussion of state capacities in Anthony Pereira, The End of the Peasantry (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997): 154.
11. See Evelina Dagnino, "Sociedade Civil, Espaços Públicos e a Constituição Democrática no Brasil: Limites e Possibilidades," in Dagnino, Sociedade Civil e Espaços Públicos, 287-88. Dagnino, nonetheless, ties this collaboration to the political project of the government in office rather than activists in the regular bureaucracy.
12. Katheryn Hochstetler and Margaret E. Keck, Greening Brazil: Environmental Activism in State and Society (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007).
13. The Watermark Project is an ongoing, collaborative, interdisciplinary network that began in 2001. It has conducted a variety of studies of on participatory water management in Brazil. For more information, see www.marcadagua.org.br.
14. See www.marcadagua.org.br or Rosa Maria Formiga Johnsson and Paula Duarte Lopes, eds., Projeto Marca d'Água: Seguindo as Mudanças na Gestão das Bacias Hidrográficas do Brasil: Caderno 1: Retratos 3X 4 Das Bacias Pesquisadas (Brasília, Brazil: FINATEC, 2003)
15. C. B. MacPherson, The Life and Times of Liberal Democracy (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1977);
16. Amy Gutmann, Liberal Equality (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980);
17. Orlando Alves do Santos, Jr., Luiz Cesar de Queiroz Ribeiro, and Sergio Azevedo, Governança Democrática e Poder Local: A experiência dos conselhos municipais no Brasil (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Revan, 2004);
18. Leonardo Avritzer, Democracy and the Public Sphere in Latin America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).
19. Mark E. Warren, Democracy and Association (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).
20. Elenaldo Teixeira, O Local e o Global: Limites e desafios da participação cidadã (São Paulo, Brazil: Cortez Editora, 2002): 195;
21. Avritzer, Democracy and the Public Sphere; Patrick Heller, "Social Capital as a Product of Class Mobilization and State Intervention: Industrial Workers in Kerala, India," in Evans, State-Society Synergy, 48-84.
22. For Dagnino, Olvera, and Panfichi, the similarity between what they call "democratic" and "neoliberal" views of participation is extremely dangerous, since proponents of one project can easily find themselves supporting the other.
23. JohnAckerman, "Co-Governance for Accountability: Beyond 'Exit' and 'Voice'," World Developments, no. 2 (2004): 447-63;
24. Brian Wampler, "Expanding Accountability Through Participatory Institutions: Mayors, Citizens, and Budgeting in Three Brazilian Municipalities," Latin American Politics and Society 46, no. 2 (2004): 73-99.
25. Robert E. Goodin, 1996. "Institutions and their Design." In Robert E. Goodin, ed., The Theory of Institutional Design (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1996): 41.
26. James Manor, "User Committees: A Potentially Damaging Second Wave of Decentralization?" in Jesse C. Ribot and Anne Larson, eds., Democratic Decentralization Through a Natural Resource Lens (New York: Routledge, 2004): 192-213 ;
27. Alan Gilbert and Peter Ward, "Community Action by the Urban Poor: Democratic Involvement, Community Self-help or a Means of Social Control?" World Development 12, no. 8 (1984): 769-82.
28. Marilyn Gittell, "The Consequences of Mandating Citizen Participation," Policy Studies Review 3, no. 1 (1983): 90-95;
29. Katherine Coit, "Local Action, Not Citizen Participation," in William K. Tabb and Larry Sawyers, eds., Marxism and the Metropolis: New Perspectives in Urban Political Economy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978).
30. Bill Cooke and Uma Kothari, eds., Participation: The New Tyranny? (London: Zed, 2001).
31. Coit, "Local Action"; Robert Goodman, After the Planners (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1971);
32. Frances Fox Piven, "Whom Does the Advocacy Planner Serve?" Social Policy 1 (May-June, 1970): 32-36;
33. Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, Poor People's Movements (New York: Vintage, 1979);
34. Gittell, "The Consequences of Mandating Citizen Participation"; and Benjamin Kohl, "Stabilizing Neoliberalism in Bolivia: Popular Participation and Privatization," Political Geography 21 (2002): 449-72.
35. Philip Selznick, T.V.A. and the Grassroots (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949).
36. Brazil has a federal political system, with twenty-six states, a federal district, and about 5,500 municipalities. Following a presidential system, each of the three levels of the federation (municipal, state, and federal) has an elected legislature (two chambers, in the case of the federal level), an elected executive, and accompanying bureaucracy. Municipalities and states have the power to levy certain taxes as well as receive constitutionally determined transfers from higher levels.
37. Rebecca Abers, Inventing Local Democracy (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000);
38. Avritzer, Democracy and the Public Sphere;
39. Gianpaulo Baiocchi, Militants and Citizens: The Politics of Participatory Democracy in Porto Alegre (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005);
40. Marion Gret and Yves Sintomer, The Porto Alegre Experiment: Learning Lessons for Better Democracy (London: Zed, 2005);
41. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, "Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre: Toward a Redistributive Democracy," Politics andSociety26, no. 4 (1998): 461-510;
42. Brian Wampler, "Expanding Accountability Through Participatory Institutions: Mayors, Citizens, and Budgeting in Three Brazilian Municipalities," Latin American Politics and Society 46, no. 2 (2004): 73-99.
43. Nelson Rodrigues dos Santos, "Implantação e funcionamento dos Conselhos de Saúde no Brasil," in Maria do Carmo A.A. Carvalho and Ana Claudia C. Teixeira, eds., Conselhos Gestores de Políticas Públicas (São Paulo, Brazil: Polis (Publicações Polis 37), 2000): 15.
44. Manor, "User Communities"; Marcus Melo and Flávio Rezende, "Decentralization and Governance in Brazil," in Joseph S. Tulchin and Andrew Selee, eds., Decentralization and Democratic Governance in Latin América (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2004): 37-66.
45. Dagnino, "Sociedade Civil, Espaços Públicos, e a Construção Democrática;" Tabagiba, "Os Conselhos Gestores e a Democratização;" Carvalho and Teixeira, Conselhos Gestores de Politicas Públicas; Santos Jr., Azevedo, and Ribeiro, Governança Democratica.
46. This gap is being filled by the research projects of the Participatory Democracy Project, coordinated by Leonardo Avritzer. See http://www. democraciaparticipativa.org/
47. Margaret E. Keck, "Governance Regimes and the Politics of Discursive Representation," in Anders Uhlin and Nicola Piper, eds., Transnational Activism in Asia: Problems of Power and Democracy (London: Routledge, 2003): 51-52.
48. Fewer than half of these, however, have a readily discernible public presence.
49. Ken Conca, Governing Water (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005).
50. Bodies of water that run along or cross state or international borders belong to the Union.
51. Rebecca Neaera Abers and Margaret E. Keck, "Muddy Waters: Decentralization, Coordination, and Power Struggle in the Brazilian Water Management Reform," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 30, no. 3 (2006): 601-22.
52. Most river basin plans are never implemented. M. J. M. Neves, "Efetividade dos Planos de Recursos Hídricos: Uma Análise dos Casos no Brasil após 1990" (Dissertação de Mestrado em Tecnologia Ambiental e Recursos Hídricos, Departamento de Engenharia Civil e Ambiental, Universidade de Brasília, 2004).
53. Tatagiba, "Os Conselhos Gestores e Democratização, " 80; M. Labra and J. Figueiredo, "Associativismo, participação e cultura cívica. O potencial dos conselhos de saúde.' Ciência e Saúde Coletiva 7, no. 3 (2002);
54. Rosangela Paz, "A representação da sociedade civil nos Conselhos de Assistência Social." Conselhos Gestores de Políticas Públicas 37, no. 11 (2003): 58-62.
55. Margaret E. Keck, '"Water, Water Everywhere, Nor Any Drop to Drink:' Land Use and Water Policy in São Paulo," in Peter Evans, ed., Livable Cities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000): 168-73.
56. Manuela Moreira, Secretariat of Water Resources, Ministry of the Environment, Brazil, Personal Communication.
57. Lei no. 12.183, passed on December 29, 2005.
58. Rosa Maria Formiga Johnsson and Karin Kemper, "Institutional and Policy Analysis of River Basin Management in the Alto Tietê River, São Paulo, Brazil," Policy Research Paper 3650 (Washington, DC: World Bank, Agriculture and Rural Development Department, 2005).
59. Keck, "Water, Water Everywhere," 191-93.
60. On the role of Brazil's Ministério Público, see Hochstetler and Keck, Greening Brazil, 51-57.
61. Ivanir Mais, "Projeto Marca d'Água: Relatórios Preliminares 2001: A Bacia do Rio Itajaí, Santa Catarina - 2001," http://www.marcadagua.org.br.
62. Ibid.; Beate Frank and Noémia Bohn, Noémia, "A Formalização da Gestão das Cheias no Âmbito da Bacia do Itajaí," in Beate Frank and Adilson Pinheiro, eds., Enchentes na Bacia do Itafai: 20 anos de experiências (Blumenau, Brazil: IPA/Edifurb, 2003): 223-36.
63. World Bank, "Loan Agreement (Minas Gerais Water Quality and Pollution Control Project) Between International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and State of Minas Gerais, dated February 1, 1993," (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1993).
64. Vijayendra Rao and Michael Walton, "Culture and Public Action: Relationality, Equality of Agency and Development" in Vijayendra Rao and Michael Walton, eds., Culture and Public Action (Stanford, CA: Stanford Social Sciences, 2004): 359-70.
65. Maria Carmen Lemos and João Lúcio Farias de Oliveira, "Can Water Reform Survive Politics? Institutional Change and River Basin Management in Ceará, Northeast Brazil," World Development 32, no. 12 (2004): 2121-37.
66. Rosa Maria Formiga Johnsson, Lori Kumler, and Maria Carmen Lemos, "The Politics of Bulk Water Pricing in Brazil: Lessons from the Paraíba do Sul Basin," Water Policy 9 (2007): 87-104.
67. Sandra Momm Schult, "Santa Maria," in Formiga Johnsson and Lopes, Projeto Marca d'Água, 169-73.