PARTICIPATORY SYSTEMS IN BRAZIL AND VENEZUELA: origins and twilights of two models

The gamut of participatory reforms to include citizens in Latin America has varied widely in scope, content, implementation, and impact. This article compares the cases of Brazil and Venezuela, which were considered as exemplary in the field of participatory democracy by different observers, to ask how and why their participatory systems vary in their design and why they are no longer examples. In short, the differences in design are due to the different origins of the two models, in Brazil’s democratic transition and in Venezuela’s democratic crisis. To explain their varying results, in addition to the obvious negative consequences of the recent economic crises, we argue that, on one hand, Brazil’s participatory system lost its popular roots by shifting to a more organizational approach and scaling up to a macro level, and, on the other hand, Venezuela’s participatory institutions took too much of a partisan approach and focused too much on the micro level.

拉丁美洲各国旨在吸纳公民参与的各类参与式改革，在实施范围、内容、落地路径与实际成效上均存在显著差异。本文选取曾被不同学界观察者视作参与式民主领域典范的巴西与委内瑞拉两国作为研究案例，探讨二者参与式制度在设计层面的差异路径与成因，同时分析其为何不再被视为该领域的标杆案例。简言之，两国参与式制度的设计差异源于其模式诞生的不同背景：巴西模式形成于本国民主转型进程，而委内瑞拉模式则根植于国内的民主危机之中。为解释二者实施成效的差异，除近期经济危机带来的显性负面影响外，本文提出如下观点：一方面，巴西的参与式制度逐渐脱离民众根基，转向更为侧重组织化的运作模式并升级至宏观层面；另一方面，委内瑞拉的参与式制度过度偏向党派化路径，且过于聚焦微观层面的具体运作。