Efficiency, democracy, entrepreneurship and participation: notes on the management model in local governments

Abstract

The article discusses the local management stressing its revaluation as space of reproduction of capital and as mean to increase the social participation. The answer forthis situation occurs through of two opposed models. One is aligned with the New Public Management and sustains goverments more efficient and entrepreneurs wielding their resources, addressing to endow the cities of more competitive edge. This conception stresses the relevance of the technical neutrality and the departure of politics. Another conception identified with the building of a new public sphere proposes models of participatory governance and social control, and involvement of citizens to build public policies and democratic management dedicated to criate a new organizational culture basen in organizational learning. A vision that sustains in the importance of political rationality as a way to orient the organizational management which should approach political leadership and public management in a collective process of changes in the public sector. The article follows to seek an approach between both conceptions highlighting the relevance of capacity of government to hinge the political, social and managerial actors to envisage the challenges to build a new institutional culture. Thus discusses the relation between the inside and outside faces of government as features of modernization of public management network. Concludes comparing both approaches to sugest a methodological guide seeking to approximate it premises to understand the management in local government. The proposed itinerary suggests an integrated managerial model by four dimensions: effiency, democracy, participation, and entrepreneurship to develop studies about the combined relation between strategics roles by cities and their systems of institutional fortification.