Civil society, participative instances and development: the case of Regional Development councils in the State of Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

The article presents a discussion about the literature produced in Brazil, after the 1990s, about the concepts of civil society, social capital, development and participation, questioning its normative aspects and its limitations to the comprehension of the processes empirially verified in contemporary Brazilian society. Through a research of the Regional Development Councils (COREDES) in RS, based on the documental analysis and interviews with its members, we sought to investigate how the acting of these forums have changed in the last two decades and how are the distinct regional social actors participating in these spaces. The theorical framework used in this article was based on recently produced approaches in the field of Social Sciences that aim to analyse the contingencial characteristic of the relations between civil society and democracy and/or participative instances and the development proceses in different territorries.