This article looks at three cases of democratic participation in municipal administration in the state of Minas Gerais, that is, Health Management Councils (Conselhos Gestores de Saúde), in the Bom Despacho and Lagoa da Prata municipalities, and the Centers for Meetings and Integrating Actions (Centros de Encontro e Integração de Ações (CEIA)), in the municipality of Betim. Over the last few decades, political participation has been characterized by a growing presence of civil society in processes surrounding the definition of public policy. Thus, the spaces in which civil society and State actors participate in diverse arenas of decision-making on social policies tend to become institutionalized. A substantial part of the existing literature places its wager on the democratic virtues of political participation. This article, however, attempts to point to a series of problems affecting the institutionalization of democratic participation. Results of the cases we look at here show that the experiments analyzed do not indicate the evolution of Brazilian democracy in the direction of its initial promise. In general, the degree of participation that is verified is less than that which defenders of participatory democracy would desire, especially since the measurement criteria that are adopted reflect an ideal standard that does not materialize easily. Nonetheless, if we look at the recent historical trajectory of our democratic institutions, the definition of civil society's deliberative spaces, in spite of its problems, has the undeniable potential of reinforcing the accountability of public power, thus increasing the transparency of its actions.
Democratic Participation; Municipal Administration; Public Policy