ABSTRACT
Brazilian municipalities became the sites of extensive innovation of new democratic institutions during the 1980s and 1990s. These innovations have their roots in the renewal of civil society during the 1980s along with the reformist tendencies of center and center-left politicians and political parties seeking to generate new ways of incorporating citizens into more democratic policy-making processes. This chapter analyzes the political and policy development of participatory institutions in democratic Brazil, with a focus on subnational participatory institutions. From a small number of municipally led innovations in the early 1980s, Brazil has seen an explosion of formal institutional opportunities for participation. We first explain the motivations and interests that led public officials and citizens/CSOs to support these new institutional arrangements. We then assess the extent to which the different subnational institutions were able to produce identifiable impacts on the broader social, political, and economic environment.
