Seeing the trees and catching sight of the woods
10 August 2007
Article written by Patrus Ananias, Minister for Social Development and Hunger Alleviation, published in Valor Econômico on 10 August 2007.
The consolidation of democracy is presented by many specialists in the area as a major achievement of the 20th century. Despite the fact that an embryo of democratic government already existed at the beginning of the 18th century, a long historical period was necessary for an understanding and consensus on mass democracy to be reached. The end of the last century brought this achievement to us along with various challenges and demands, amongst which was the need to ‘democratize democracy’ to paraphrase the title of a book edited by Boaventura de Souza Santos (1).
At the start of the millennium we pondered upon this historic legacy and were faced with new forms of popular participation in democratic regimes, which offered an answer of sorts to the dilemma: electoral representation alone, albeit being a fundamental historic victory, has been incapable of responding to all issues presented by diversity.
We are now, as aptly recognised by Sousa Santos, going through a paradoxical period with a paradigm change. This imposes upon us a responsibility to reflect on the forms, models and structures for public participation and, at the same time, to promote and implement them. Indeed, we must pursue this without losing sight of both purpose and potential of these movements in strengthening democracy.
The emergence of national conferences examining specific issues or regions fits in well with this task, which is present in the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to promote further advancement and radicalization - in the sense of going to the root of the matter - of democracy with healthy widening of opportunities for a participatory democracy. In the case of the Ministry for Social Development and Hunger Alleviation, we have already held three conferences in the areas of Food Security and Social Welfare, planned another two and we are on the way to holding a third one in the next semester. I was also able to attend other conferences that interface with our Ministry, for instance, Women, Culture and Environment. Since 2003, there have been 44 conferences, some of which have reached a more advanced stage of organization while many others have just been launched. Increased space for this kind of conferences within government is a result of the process of strengthening of and incentive for sectorial councils, a structure based on parity, which had been envisaged by the 1988 Constitution.
This debate is not new, despite the fact that it has now acquired contours of a new dimension since it features in the public agenda a great deal more and was awarded institutional value particularly in the current government. In the 1970s and beginning of 1980s, in the party organizations and in the popular movements, we were already debating what character those councils were supposed to acquire, that is, whether they should be consultative or decision-making councils. I think we must defend the councils and their debating spaces that act as important interlocutors of the State with the society, with sectorial or regional representative bodies, which must be heard in the public policy making. However, I also believe that the process must respect specificities, maintaining, on the one hand, the responsibilities of the State, and on the other, the role of society. The joint space that unites us through these debates, namely the common national good, should be its guiding principle.
All of the councils have splendid and representative experience of popular mobilization around relevant topics such as food and nutritional security, access to water, social welfare, ethnic and gender issues. However strong they are in terms of their capacity to mobilize, they cannot have a decision-making capacity and should be constituted as a forum to be taken into account by the government as it has actually been happening. For instance, we have had a re-adjustment of the school meals and implemented the Organic Law on Food Security (LOSAN), which have been promoted by the government in consonance with the demands presented at the Second National Conference on Food and Nutrition Security which was held in Recife in 2004. The Fifth Social Welfare Conference held in Brasilia in 2005 produced a ten-year plan for the implementation of a Unified Social Welfare System, which has been adopted by the government.
If every council were to have decision-making powers, it is possible that they may come to disagree amongst themselves. Furthermore, within the perspective of strengthening democratic process, councils are unable to derogate constituted powers; they cannot override the legitimacy of the elected representatives to the Executive, Legislative or, indeed, the Judiciary. The councils need to be consolidated as bodies which will enrich both the concept and process of improvement, oxygenation, thus bringing new life to established powers. It is bringing a breath of fresh air with the presence of the people, of monitoring and of society. This is the reason why these processes are not ‘merely consultative’ as the government can incorporate their decisions as indeed it has been doing so far.
Both councils and conferences are legitimate places for demands, for democratic and social struggle. However, it is necessary, and it is in fact the role of the State to consider priorities, availability of resources, feasibility of a given project proposal in detriment to another and to assess effects within the national strategy. However important the councils are, all have a sectorial or regional view, hence ‘cannot see the wood for the trees’, as a German adage revisited by Ortega y Gasset states.
Our challenge is to overcome fragmentation, and continue advancing the experiments further so that the councils begin to have an inter-sectorial vision. I believe that this is a possible pathway for us to further advance the idea of popular and participatory government even further. I am persuaded that the more the councils and conferences operate in a holistic context on the basis of an integrated and integral vision of development in a national project proposal, the more space they will be able to gain at the decision-making level without compromising the civilizing role of the State.
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(1) Boaventura Souza Santos (1940-) Portuguese Professor of Sociology at the School of Economics at the University of Coimbra (Portugal), Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law Schools, has published widely on globalization, sociology of law and the state, epistemology, democracy and human rights. This article refers to a 2006 book that Souza Santos edited "Democratizing Democracy. Beyond the Liberal Democratic Canon." (Verso: London)
The consolidation of democracy is presented by many specialists in the area as a major achievement of the 20th century. Despite the fact that an embryo of democratic government already existed at the beginning of the 18th century, a long historical period was necessary for an understanding and consensus on mass democracy to be reached. The end of the last century brought this achievement to us along with various challenges and demands, amongst which was the need to ‘democratize democracy’ to paraphrase the title of a book edited by Boaventura de Souza Santos (1).
At the start of the millennium we pondered upon this historic legacy and were faced with new forms of popular participation in democratic regimes, which offered an answer of sorts to the dilemma: electoral representation alone, albeit being a fundamental historic victory, has been incapable of responding to all issues presented by diversity.
We are now, as aptly recognised by Sousa Santos, going through a paradoxical period with a paradigm change. This imposes upon us a responsibility to reflect on the forms, models and structures for public participation and, at the same time, to promote and implement them. Indeed, we must pursue this without losing sight of both purpose and potential of these movements in strengthening democracy.
The emergence of national conferences examining specific issues or regions fits in well with this task, which is present in the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to promote further advancement and radicalization - in the sense of going to the root of the matter - of democracy with healthy widening of opportunities for a participatory democracy. In the case of the Ministry for Social Development and Hunger Alleviation, we have already held three conferences in the areas of Food Security and Social Welfare, planned another two and we are on the way to holding a third one in the next semester. I was also able to attend other conferences that interface with our Ministry, for instance, Women, Culture and Environment. Since 2003, there have been 44 conferences, some of which have reached a more advanced stage of organization while many others have just been launched. Increased space for this kind of conferences within government is a result of the process of strengthening of and incentive for sectorial councils, a structure based on parity, which had been envisaged by the 1988 Constitution.
This debate is not new, despite the fact that it has now acquired contours of a new dimension since it features in the public agenda a great deal more and was awarded institutional value particularly in the current government. In the 1970s and beginning of 1980s, in the party organizations and in the popular movements, we were already debating what character those councils were supposed to acquire, that is, whether they should be consultative or decision-making councils. I think we must defend the councils and their debating spaces that act as important interlocutors of the State with the society, with sectorial or regional representative bodies, which must be heard in the public policy making. However, I also believe that the process must respect specificities, maintaining, on the one hand, the responsibilities of the State, and on the other, the role of society. The joint space that unites us through these debates, namely the common national good, should be its guiding principle.
All of the councils have splendid and representative experience of popular mobilization around relevant topics such as food and nutritional security, access to water, social welfare, ethnic and gender issues. However strong they are in terms of their capacity to mobilize, they cannot have a decision-making capacity and should be constituted as a forum to be taken into account by the government as it has actually been happening. For instance, we have had a re-adjustment of the school meals and implemented the Organic Law on Food Security (LOSAN), which have been promoted by the government in consonance with the demands presented at the Second National Conference on Food and Nutrition Security which was held in Recife in 2004. The Fifth Social Welfare Conference held in Brasilia in 2005 produced a ten-year plan for the implementation of a Unified Social Welfare System, which has been adopted by the government.
If every council were to have decision-making powers, it is possible that they may come to disagree amongst themselves. Furthermore, within the perspective of strengthening democratic process, councils are unable to derogate constituted powers; they cannot override the legitimacy of the elected representatives to the Executive, Legislative or, indeed, the Judiciary. The councils need to be consolidated as bodies which will enrich both the concept and process of improvement, oxygenation, thus bringing new life to established powers. It is bringing a breath of fresh air with the presence of the people, of monitoring and of society. This is the reason why these processes are not ‘merely consultative’ as the government can incorporate their decisions as indeed it has been doing so far.
Both councils and conferences are legitimate places for demands, for democratic and social struggle. However, it is necessary, and it is in fact the role of the State to consider priorities, availability of resources, feasibility of a given project proposal in detriment to another and to assess effects within the national strategy. However important the councils are, all have a sectorial or regional view, hence ‘cannot see the wood for the trees’, as a German adage revisited by Ortega y Gasset states.
Our challenge is to overcome fragmentation, and continue advancing the experiments further so that the councils begin to have an inter-sectorial vision. I believe that this is a possible pathway for us to further advance the idea of popular and participatory government even further. I am persuaded that the more the councils and conferences operate in a holistic context on the basis of an integrated and integral vision of development in a national project proposal, the more space they will be able to gain at the decision-making level without compromising the civilizing role of the State.
----------
(1) Boaventura Souza Santos (1940-) Portuguese Professor of Sociology at the School of Economics at the University of Coimbra (Portugal), Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law Schools, has published widely on globalization, sociology of law and the state, epistemology, democracy and human rights. This article refers to a 2006 book that Souza Santos edited "Democratizing Democracy. Beyond the Liberal Democratic Canon." (Verso: London)