This article discusses the social participation in water and sanitation services in Cachoeiro de Itapemirim, Espírito Santo, Brazil. The theoretical background used was Jürgen Habermas' deliberative democracy, understood as the institutionalization of discursive processes of opinion and will-formation. Documentary research were performed, interviews with key stakeholders and focus groups with the population. It was found that in the actions of the City Council Sanitation and public hearings of the municipal regulation agency's, systemic imperatives mediated by money and administrative power prevail over the possibility of the formation of political will and opinion, own the world's life. It is concluded that the forms of management are still far from the ideal of deliberative democracy, producing what Habermas calls the "colonization of the lifeworld".
water and sanitation management; social participation; communicative action theory; deliberative democracy
