This paper presents an exploratory study on social participation in the construction of public policies for HIV/AIDS control in Brazil and it contributes by characterizing social participation as a measure for qualitative analysis of social sustainability. One begins by contextualizing the globalization and population growth processes which led to economic, social, and environmental problems particularly evidenced from the second half of the 20th century and the early 21st century, culminating in a greater need for discussion and definition of a sustainable development in society. One presents a historical overview of the AIDS epidemic and, according to the proposal, one seeks to include social participation in the sustainability context, taking into account the Brazilian experiences of collective construction of public policies which succeed from the promulgation of the 1988 Constitution, with a special attention to the creation of the HIV/AIDS National Policy. The field research, with a qualitative approach, was conducted through semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation, and documentary analysis. Data were examined through the content analysis technique, taking into account the triangulation between the various data sources. One concludes that social participation is included in the sustainable development perspective, since it's through this mechanism that civil society, especially poorer groups, becomes able to obtain representativeness in the government and effectively contribute to the building of democracy. However, one finds out some specific weaknesses related to the socioeconomic, cultural, and political context in Brazil, something which may compromise the democratization of the various listening spaces of society and the implementation of the public policies related to the case under study.
Social sustainability; Social participation; Sustainable development; HIV/AIDS
