A conexão entre representação e participação no nível local: um estudo a partir das experiências de vereadores de Minas Gerais

Abstract

This thesis aims to think about the concepts of participation and political representation from its elements of continuity and rupture, with the purpose of observing their connection empirically. For this purpose, the work starts from democratic theory, passing through the innovative debates about the concept of political representation that took shape in the 1990s and keep ofering important points of debate and reflexion. In this sense, the constructivist turn and the studies on institutionalized political participation and in civil society were fundamental to go beyond certain assumptions that confined the phenomenon of representation to representative government. In addition, these studies overcame the opposition between the concepts of participation and representation to think about the dimensions of complementarity, even though we argue in favor of defending the existence of tension between them. We therefore seek to explore empirical elements that could demonstrate this relationship, which is sometimes more evident in the theoretical field. To this end, we chose to combine this interest with the concern with the deepening of studies on politics at the local level, casting a look directed at the institutions and the political dynamics in the environment of the municipality. In such a way we chose to observe the representation undertaken by councilors and how they connect to society and whether this connection privileges participation. We carried out an analysis on three levels, combining institutional aspects, the actors and an arena that proposed to be a space of contact between representatives and Society. In this way, we mobilized quantitative data produced within the scope of the Political Representation survey at the Municipal Level in Brazil, referring to 44 municipalities and 422 city councilors in Minas Gerais, in addition to data collected through interviews with city councils and the analysis of the minutes of public hearings held in Belo Horizonte and Juiz de Fora. In this sense, we seek to explore and characterize aspects of this continuity between representation and participation, also addressing its elements of contradiction and its limits.