DEMOCRATIE PARTICIPATIVE ET INCLUSION SOCIOPOLITIQUE EN FRANCE ET AU BRESIL : LES ASSISES DE LA VILLE A BOBIGNY ET LE BUDGET PARTICIPATIF A BELO HORIZONTE

Abstract

The way it has developed throughout the past two decades, especially as a participative budget, the participative democracy in Europe and Latin America shows that it's main objectives are political equality and social justice. The representative democracy is sustained by citizens’ direct implication mechanisms that straightly implicate citizens in the decision making process. Thus, one may expect a democratization of the public space and a good distribution of the public resources. As Blondiaux (2008, p. 109-110) affirms, "the participative democracy makes sense only if it contributes to the elimination of the social exclusion logic that describes the usual dynamics of our democracies [...]. If, contrariwise, the participative democracy resumes itself only to the continuation  of the traditional politics through other means, who would benefit from it in case it reproduces its limits  and serves only  to those who are already in power?” By making the political equality possible, participation can become a vehicle for social justice: the more the dominant individuals and groups  are given the chance to affirm themselves, the more they can express themselves and have their requests taken into consideration. What would one think if this „ideal of inclusion” (Blondiaux, 2008) would be found in the concrete experiences of participation? Would these new forms of democracy can actually open the access to the decision making process of those excluded or allow for the reproductions of the hidden sense „that requests for” the traditional mechanisms of political representation (Gaxie, 1978)? Can one think of the social results of these mechanisms in terms of the distribution of public resources? Starting with the comparison between two experiences of France and Brazil- the participative budget of Belo Horizonte, whose analyses focused on theBarreiro area and of the Assisi city in Bobigny  – this article considers the inclusive dimension of the participative democracy. The objectives of the polls done in each of the above mentioned cities in the spring of 2006 were to analyse the relationship between the political and social inclusion: can on make a connection between the access of those excluded from the traditional representative system to the decision making process and the production of social results?