Moving Away from Liberal Democracy:
Participation, Representation, & Political Experimentalism in Brazil

Thamy Pogrebinschi
(State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Wednesday, September 8, 2010:  4:10 - 5:30 p.m.
124 Mt. Auburn Street, Suite 200-North, Room 226

Brazil’s national public policy conferences are arguably the largest and most innovative participatory experience currently held in the country. Summoned by the Executive Branch, and organized at the national level along with civil society, such policy conferences have proven themselves successful enough to affect the policies drafted by the administration, and to influence the legislation enacted by the Congress. This seminar will discuss Brazil's national policy conferences as a case of constitutive political representation, that is, an interplay between participatory experiments and representative institutions that allow civil society to act within the state, thereby promoting a cooperative policymaking process.

About the Speaker: 

Thamy Pogrebinschi is a professor of political science at the Institute of Social and Political Studies at the State University of Rio de Janeiro (formerly IUPERJ). Her published books include Contemporary Political Theory: An Introduction (Elsevier, 2010), The Enigma of the Political: Marx Against Political Modernity (Civilização Brasileira, 2009), Pragmatism: Social and Political Theory (Relume Dumará, 2005), The Problem of Obedience in Thomas Hobbes (EDUSC, 2003), Where is Democracy? (Editora UFMG, 2002). She has also co-edited the books Cooperative Democracy. Selected Political Writings of John Dewey (EDIPUCRS, 2008), and New Perspectives of Philosophy of Law (Lumen Juris, 2005). Pogrebinschi has received the two major Brazilian social science book awards: the Vitor Nunes Leal Prize, granted by the Brazilian Political Science Association (ABCP) in 2010, and the National Association of Graduate Programs in Social Sciences (ANPOCS) Prize in 2002.

This seminar is part of the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Democracy Series:
Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation
www.ash.harvard.edu/democracyseminar
democracyseminar@ash.harvard.edu