A representatividade do Conselho Municipal de Cultura do município de Oliveira - MG

Abstract

The process of redemocratization of Brazil was marked by encouraging civil participation, culminating in the promulgation of the Federal Constitution of 1988, which established and expanded the participation of the civil society by introducing new spaces that enable the interaction between the State and the civil society. The main participatory instances present in the Brazilian context are the Management Councils of Public Policies. It is envisaged by legislation that the choice of representatives of the civil society should be made in democratic forums or conferences, however, it does not always happens. Therefore, this study focused on the Municipal Cultural Policies Council of Oliveira, in which the members were appointed by the local executive power. Since councilors were not chosen democratically, it may cause routing failures the aspirations of society and these spaces to be discredited and become no longer an alternative to traditional mechanisms of representation and losing their legitimacy. In order to guarantee the legitimacy of a representation, regardless of the form of choice of the representatives, criteria must be established to justify the choice of such representative. Therefore, in this study the following criteria were used: history of struggle in social causes, the qualification of representatives, the ability to represent interests of the cultural segments in which they represent and public recognition. The objective of this study was to understand the interpretation that current members of the Municipal Council of Culture and organized civil society of the cultural segment have on the representativeness of the municipal culture councilors. The qualitative approach was chosen in the methodology, in which descriptive research was carried out. The gathering of data occurred through documental analysis and semi-structured interviews. The data were analyzed from the content analysis using the four criteria of legitimacy: representative social struggle history, representative quality and competencies, representative's ability to express collective interests and public recognition. As a result, it was possible to verify that the councilors consider their representation to be legitimate, but with the proviso that they could have greater performance, they feel impaired by the local executive power that does not allow them to act effectively to improve the culture of the municipality. In the interpretation of the civil society, it is reaffirmed that the council has little action. In addition, the civil society does not recognize board members as their representatives.