Citizenship as Consumption or Citizenship as Agency: comparing democratizing reforms in Bolivia and Brazil

Abstract

The paper first discusses 2 opposing models of citizenship within Latin American: citizenship as consumption, which reflects the consequences of the pervasive influence of market-oriented reforms on patterns of representation in the context of universal political rights, and citizenship as agency, which would reflect the emergence of alternative forms of participation through civil society and their potential impact on political patterns of representation. The second part of the paper then examines the potential for citizenship as agency to emerge by contrasting the impact of the Popular Participation Law in Bolivia and Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil.