The Management Councils for Public Policy: spaces of consolidation of public administration?

Managerial public administration adopted in Brazil in the 1990s, combined with neoliberalism, has resulted in the insufficient progress of socioeconomic policies and in the centralization of decision-making about public life. Therefore, discussions were reopened on the subject of an ideal model of administration, which resulted in experiences such as the management councils of public policy, in order to outline an institutional design of power-sharing based on societal administration. However, given the continuity of management assumptions in the country, it is relevant to examine whether such councils have become a reality as practices of societal management. Conducting a descriptive and qualitative research, it was observed that such boards, while composed by the presented dysfunctions, are a management instrument more than a consolidation of the societal model. Therefore, it was noted that the dysfunctions of the management councils can be solved in the light of the Weberian bureaucracy and republican citizenship so they can be consolidated as a model of societal management.