Participatory democracy and law-making in contemporary Brazil

During the re-democratization process that followed the 1964–1985 military dictatorship in Brazil, a variety of institutional innovations designed to provide citizens with the ability to directly influence the conception and drafting of laws, regulations and policies, and to monitor their execution have been implemented. Such initiatives vary significantly: they aim to carve out political participation and accountability at different state levels and branches, to allow for societal influence during various phases of law-making, and to safeguard the deliberative power of citizens. Also during the re-democratization period, Brazilian municipalities (which total more than 5500) became federative entities, with political, administrative and financial autonomy. Autonomy allowed cities to create citizen councils (in areas such as healthcare, welfare and housing) through which civil society participation and consensus-building among stakeholders became possible. One remarkable and recent participatory experience was the review process of the Master Plan of the city of São Paulo (urban planning legislation and regulations), which embraced a complex participative development process, engaged both the Legislative and the Executive branches, and called for citizen input for various law-making steps. Despite (or perhaps because of) its unusual scope, the São Paulo Master Plan participatory experience is valuable for identifying achievements, current and future challenges, as well as failures and legitimacy deficits that ultimately play a relevant role in shaping democracy in contemporary Brazil at the legal and institutional levels. Bearing that in mind, this article provides an overview of existing participatory mechanisms in the country, and presents the São Paulo urban planning legislation as a case study.