This study shows the trajectory of the contribution of Brazilian civil society to the milestones achieved by the Brazilian health sector during the country's re-democratization. Authors such as Carvalho², Fleury³, Paim7 and Gerschman6 facilitate an understanding of the transition. The study aims to demonstrate the importance of social movements in the health field and their various relations with the Brazilian state with the view of institutionalizing Health Councils. As a fundamental alternative in the realization of a participatory democracy, the practical advances made by the social control mechanisms in these councils remain very limited. The authors conclude that most Health Boards experience a real drain of policies with practices still marked by the past's legitimizing of the dominant power. The role once played by social and popular movements for the training of counselors has become increasingly distant from the population, and institutionalized in the representation of a Social Control which is still apparently "figurative". In light of this reality uncovered in this study and in others, these Health Councils' role as a democratic public space must be questioned.
Participation; Democratization; Health Councils