Paths For Building Strong Participatory Institutions in Latin America

Abstract

The Participatory Institutions (IPs) are expected to reduce the inequalities by including new players and demands from marginalized groups into the decision processes. Yet, what are the paths that lead the IPs to become strong enough to fulfill that role? That is the central question that Lindsay Mayka (2019) seeks to answer in her book based on a comparative study of the health and social assistance councils of Brazil and the planning and health councils of Colombia, which the Federal government also created and regulated and which the subnational spheres carried out. She concluded that the paths that the Brazilian councils followed bequeathed strong institutions, unlike the one that the Colombians followed. From that 'transnational and inter-sectorial' comparative analysis, she takes away the theoretical unfoldings that would explain to other contexts the determinant factors of the IP institutionalization processes. That is a unique contribution to such study agenda, which experiences the challenge to produce knowledge with greater generalization power.