Communicative action in the managment of a privatized water and sanitation services: an assessment in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim (ES)

• Autor(a) principal: de Aguiar, Marluce Martins
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Outros Autores: Heller, Léo, de Melo, Elza Machado
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista de Administração Pública
• Texto Completo: https://periodicos.fgv.br/rap/article/view/7133
• topic: water and sanitation management; social participation; communicative action theory; deliberative democracy; gestión de servicios de abastecimiento de agua y saneamiento; participación social; teoría de la acción comunicativa; democracia deliberativa.; gestão de serviços de abastecimento de água e esgotamento sanitário; participação social; teoria da ação comunicativa; democracia deliberativa

This article discusses the social participation in water and sanitation services in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, Espírito Santo, Brazil. The theoretical background used was Jürgen Habermas’ deliberative democracy, understood as the institutionalization of discursive processes of opinion and will-formation. Documentary research were performed, interviews with key stakeholders and focus groups with the population. It was found that in the actions of the City Council Sanitation and public hearings of the municipal regulation agency’s, systemic imperatives mediated by money and administrative power prevail over the possibility of the formation of political will and opinion, own the world’s life. It is concluded that the forms of management are still far from the ideal of deliberative democracy, producing what Habermas calls the “colonization of the lifeworld”.