It is no mere coincidence that the title of this special issue of the Cadernos EBAPE.BR journal, "Modern-day challenges to public management: participation, efficiency and accountability" is so pertinent to Brazil's modern-day reality. When we first proposed this theme, in the second half of 2014, Brazil's political scenario was already showing signs of what we are presently witnessing, and signalling a desire for a greater participation by its citizens in the future of the nation.
Even though certain articles within the Federal Constitution of 1988 did allude to the possibility of greater involvement on the part of Brazil's citizens in the debate over res publica, we cannot ignore the fact that ever since then civil society has increasingly manifested itself and made participative inroads by taking advantage of this constitutional backing. Criticism of those who advocate maintaining and even expanding such participative conquests has increased, even to the extent that terms such as "Bolivarianism" and/or "Chavism" have been widely used in an attempt to depreciate any efforts to promote the idea of deliberative citizenship.
We already well versed in the institutional barriers that need to be overcome in order to move on from a representative democracy towards a deliberative democracy, or even to a system that combines these two modalities. We should also consider that, essentially, Brazil's managerial culture in public administration still lacks knowledge and/or interest in terms of the decision-making processes where citizens are seen as the subjects of the process and not merely as customers of public services, as neoliberal modernization dictates. Furthermore, teaching in administration, even in public administration, has been primarily focused on market determinism, i.e. achieving results, rather than on highlighting society or the common good.
The coeditors invited to produce this special edition of the Cadernos EBAPE.BR journal were thus faced with the challenge of providing articles that discuss the possibilities and/or contradictions which characterize or de-characterize the participation of citizens in the public sector.
Thus, just as it was no coincidence that the focus of the articles in this special edition coincided with the historical moment we are currently experiencing, so the three professors invited to coedit this special edition were similarly not a random choice: Marco Antonio Carvalho Teixeira (EAESP/FGV), Cecília Olivieri (EACH/USP) and Bruno Lazzarotti Diniz Costa (FJP-MG), all of whom are committed researchers in the field of public management. We would especially like to mention Prof. Marco Antonio Carvalho Teixeira for his active collaboration with the press in taking part in the debate over our current political scenario.
Although we are at pains to stress the current moment, the articles published here are not dated, that is, they are not articles that are limited to analyzing the present alone. Instead, our hope is that they will contribute to readers' understanding of the past, the present and the future.
To our readers who have followed the editorials of the Cadernos EBAPE.BR avidly over the past three and a half years, we would like to say that we realize that reading editorials is somewhat uncommon. Most readers tend to be more interested in the journal article summaries, where they can see and choose exactly what interests them. However, we should not ignore the fact that editorials are important in that they represent not only the views of the institutions responsible for the journals in question, but also the way in which their editors interpret such views. On my leaving this important role, the responsibility will now fall on Prof. Dr. Isabella F. Freitas Gouveia de Vasconcelos to make this interpretation, starting with Vol.14, No.4 (Oct-Dec). My best wishes to all.
Pleasant reading!
Fernando G. Tenório
Editor-in-Chief
(Jan./2013 - Jun./2016)
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
Sept 2016
