ABSTRACT
Stimulated by the mobilization of civil society since the 80s and first idealized by professionals, municipal health councils were created in Brazil in 1990. Present now in all over Brazil, its existence gives features of social control on the public management, allowing the citizens to participate of definition, execution and monitoring on public policies. In this context, this paper aims to characterize the participatory process in the social control of Municipal Health Council in Juiz de Fora (CMS/FJ). Methodologically this paper is essentially qualitative, in which the data were collected by semi structured interviews, documental analysis and non-participant observation. All these data had been analyzed by content analysis. Based on two categories - listening process and the role of counselor, the findings show that the debated topics in the health council are vast and diverse, as well as the participation of users is strong. Despite these positive findings, critical points have raised up, as attempts to coercion, lack of fruitful debate, scarce time for discussions in deep, existence of barriers to the deliberative process, and discursive asymmetry.
Keywords:
Municipal health council; Social participation; Social control; Participatory process