The social participation in environmental question: limits and possibilities in councils of environment in Brazil

Abstract

This study aims to reflect on social participation’s issue, in general, in the Councils of Environment (CE) and, in particular, at the county level, taking on for theoretical-conceptual basis the critical discussion around the conceptions of sustainability and social participation present on the agenda of some environment international conferences. From this, the analysis turn to some results of empirical-theoretical researchs that deal with the social participation in the processes of creation, implantation and/or institutional and political functioning of CE in the country, revealing that these studies expose, on one side, in reduced number, some discredit in relation to the democratic character atributed to the operation of those councils in the country, expression, in particular, of the absent of an effective social e polítical participation, while a second group of studies, in a greater number, turns out to highlight the essential dimension or potentially democratic of these collegiate organs, in large sense reflecting the dominant discourse, including about the development-sustainability relation.