PARTICIPATION, INTEGRATION AND PARADIGMS AS ANALYSIS VARIABLES OF THE REGIONAL ENVIRONMENT MANAGEMENT THROUGH THE RIVER BASIN MANAGEMENT COMMITTEES

Abstract

This paper analyses the performance of three river basin committees on the managing of environmental-hydrological problems in a Brazilian metropolitan area. For such analysis three concepts, here defined as variables: participation, (inter- and intra-sectorial) integration and the dominant paradigm about the environment in the decision (and management) arenas were used. The conceptual basis of the analysis is the institutionalism approach from the research area Policy Analysis, where the researchers Fritz Scharpf and Elinor Ostrom propose that the interaction among political actors results in changes that run in a cyclic process. Theses changes are not just technical, but also institutional changes. Here the institutional results were analyzed against the literature about the proposed variables. This way, the participation is analyzed through a Ladder scale, by ARNSTEIN (1969), the integration among research areas and administrative sectors is analyzed through the continuum proposed by Scandinavian authors of Planning, CICIN-SAIN (1993a) and WELP (2000). The third variable, however, is a classification created by the researcher using a literature which proposes and discusses a new environmental paradigm against an outdated falling one. Focusing on the environmental-hydrological problem – the regional water pollution -, we propose a possible scaling variable for such paradigm. The paper is based on data from 41 interviews with major playing role actors in the regional arena for the managing of the environmental problems in the metropolitan area. With such qualitative and quantitative data we propose an institutional result for the three arenas – the three river basin committees – according to the exposed variables.