Criticism of environmental rationality to urban management: the absence of participatory democracy in urban politics as a cause of ineffective socio-spation development in the city of Patos - State of Paraíba

Abstract

Participatory democratic management is one of the guidelines of urban policy championed by the Paraíba’s City Statute, but it manifests itself abstractly, primarily in administrative procedures, such as reports and bills – and more, infamously, in the case of Patos, located in Paraíba, Brazil. This study utilizes literature review with documentary research as a means for collecting data in order to question the factors that hinder the effective urban management of Patos, a municipality in the state of Paraíba. These documents are analyzed from the perspective of environmental rationality in order to deconstruct the power strategies of the scientific model of urban management as a way to interlock the sciences – a dialogue of knowledge and an intersection of the theoretical and instrumental order that values marginalized communities in the urban planning of cities. This paper argues that there is an ineffectiveness in the application of instruments of democratic participation in the city. This paper contends that the current rule of city governance does not implement participatory democratic management in the concrete sense. Thus, this research seeks to highlight that the absence of participatory democratic management, in terms of environmental rationality, is the main cause of the urban and social non-development of municipalities in Paraíba.