ABSTRACT
Through the study on importance of debate in public spheres for the construction of public space, this article’s goals are to identify at what level the restriction of interaction between citizens themselves and with the State can interfere in the local reality and also point out the consequences of the insufficient performance of the public spheres as intermediaries between civil society and the State. The justification of this analysis is based on the fact that the institution Council of Cities - ConCidades, which is part of the public sphere, was exempted from being heard during the formulating process of Casa Verde e Amarela Program (PCVA). In this bibliographic review, the distinction between public and private, the concept of public space, the existence of public spheres as well their functions are all under study, mainly approached from an essential category of thinking by Hannah Arendt and Jürgen Habermas, which brings as a result the evidence that if politics, as in Haberma’s view, must oscillate between the public and the private - and according to Arendt one does not exist without the other - the lack of previous debate about the PCVA has pushed the citizens away from a deliberative and participatory democracy.
Keywords:
citizenship; social participation; public sphere; public space; democracy