Fernando Serra
1
;
Elvira Pereira
1
;
Ana Esgaio
1
;
Carla Pinto
1
1 - Universidade de Lisboa, Institute of Social and Political Sciences, Centre for Public Administration and Public Policies, Rua Almerindo Lessa, 1300-663, Lisbon, PortugalThis work was funded by the Εuropean Union under the Horizon Europe grant 101095200..
Resumen
Social services are strongly linked to the core of democracy, and have a significant impact on the rights and wellbeing of citizens facing structural disadvantage. However, support from social services does not always fully meet complex needs and may even be directly unhelpful.Challenges arise when citizens are not involved in the definition and assessment of the social problems they face and on possible actions to address them. People who are voiceless due to multiple discrimination are often excluded from the public space where democracy takes place and collective action is decided.\ Therefore, we may raise questions on whether democracy really exist in social services, and on how citizens can shape the work of services that should support social rights.\ Based on the ongoing European Project RESPONSIVE (HORIZON-CL2-2022-DEMOCRACY-01-02), this paper aims to explore the normative construction of participation and responsiveness to citizens’ voice in policy discourses in the Portuguese context.Preliminary results, collected through a documental-based approach in four social sectors (mental health, disability, child protection, and youth at risk), reveal that opportunities for citizen’s input are generally more focused on indirect representation. Even in this form of participation, there seems to be an incoherence between policy ambitions and practical outcomes. This gap may suggest an institutionalized pattern of tokenistic or just inconsequent participation, whose likely inducing factors will be discussed.\ Based on the results, and on the RESPONSIVE project design, we propose an analytical scheme that contemplates different levels of participation and responsiveness and how they interconnect. This will pave the way to clarify how the research will proceed towards an action-research approach aiming to promote citizen’s knowledge and agency in social services.\
Palabras Clave (separar con comas)
Participation, \ Responsiveness, Voice, Social Services, Portugal