This article analyzes an innovative experience of inter-municipal cooperation in Brazil, by observing the work of Federação Catarinense de Municípios (Fecam) for promoting and organizing inter-municipal public consortia. It investigates the use of a singular strategy to face certain limits to the creation of consortium forms in Brazil, among them the difficulty of towns, without some external stimulus, to construct stable partnerships between themselves. The key point of the analysis highlights the possibility that municipalist associations induce a more durable cooperation with an increased technical support. Based on the qualitative case study, we observed the work of Fecam as advocacy and as a professionalized institutional structure which promotes cooperation between towns.
inter-municipal cooperation; municipalist association; public consortium
