A participação da sociedade civil na formulação de políticas públicas: o grupo Moçambicano da dívida e o PARPA

Abstract

Based on the reformulation of a hypothesis advanced by Robinson - that democratization does not necessarily lead to an increase in the participation of civil society in public policies - we seek to show that, 10 years after the establishment of democracy in Mozambique, the State continues to look at participation with reservations; and it continues to formulate strategic policies in a model that, while not being a perfect copy of the previous model, still contains traces of the former mono-party state. Through analysis of the Mozambican Debt Group, we find that civil society has institutional weaknesses that limit its effective participation in policy making. The absence of formal and clear mechanisms of relationship between the State and the other social partners, as well as the lack of clarification of the concept of participation, adds to the technical incapacity of civil society organizations in channeling alternative demands to the Government's strategy and International Financial Institutions. Based on Olson's theory of collective action (1998) and taking into account the popular analytical dimension of civil society advanced by Houtart (1998), we seek to measure participation in a context of multiparty democracy that looks at that same participation as a search engine broad consensus around public policies and an inflator of greater legitimacy to government action, assuming representative democracy as being in crisis. The methodological option favored semi-open interviews and documentary research as means of data collection, which partially validated our hypotheses and Robinson's reformulated hypothesis.