Democratic innovations and institutional strength: management councils in Brazil

Abstract

Inserted in the studies on democratic innovations, this paper assesses the institutional strength of Brazilian municipal management councils. Based on data from 34 thousand councils in a series of policies made available by the Research on Basic Municipal Information 2013 and 2014, it proposes the Index of Potential Participation of the councils. Instrumentalized as an indicator of the institutional strength of these councils, the index is composed by variables that allow a broad diagnosis a) of its presence in the national territory, b) of the institutional format they assume in terms of composition and power of influence in policies and c) degree to which they are valued by social and state actors as places of representation. Results allow a portrait of the typical councilor participation in the municipalities and a diagnosis of the extent of this democratic innovation in Brazil, a country with challenging characteristics due to its continental dimension and social inequalities.