IX Encontro de Administração Pública da ANPAD VI - EnAPG 2022

On-line - 30/MayMay
2177-2517

Social innovation, experimentalism and public governance: an ethnographical

approach to study public arenas in the city

Autoria
Maria Carolina Martinez Andion - andion.esag@gmail.com
Prog de Pós-Grad Profissional em Administração/Centro de Ciências da Administração e Socioeconômicas/ESAG /
UDESC - Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina

Agradecimentos
A autora agradece a FAPESC e a UDESC pelo apoio financeiro ao projeto de pesquisa e ao
CNPQ pela bolsa de pós-doutorado recebida para realização desse estudo.

Resumo
This text develops a particular perspective to study civil society and State interactions in
public governance, focusing on the key notions of public inquiry and democratic
experimentalism. An approach of a “pragmatist ethnography of public arenas” is proposed
and has been validated by many empirical studies in Florianopolis city, since 2017. It is in
this crossing point between the invention and the instituted that we seek to show how social
innovations emerge and spread (or are prevented or aborted) in the public arenas of the city.
This approach permits to problematise and interrelate social innovation and public
governance, providing clues to understand how socio-state relations and distinct modes of
governance could be vectors to boost or hinder social innovation and the promotion of more
democratic and sustainable cities.
 IX Encontro de Administração Pública da ANPAD VI - EnAPG 2022
On-line - 30/MayMay - 2177-2517

Social innovation, experimentalism and public governance:

an ethnographical approach to study public arenas in the city

Abstract
This text develops a particular perspective to study civil society and State interactions in public
governance, focusing on the key notions of public inquiry and democratic experimentalism. An
approach of a “pragmatist ethnography of public arenas” is proposed and has been validated by many
empirical studies in Florianopolis city, since 2017. It is in this crossing point between the invention and
the instituted that we seek to show how social innovations emerge and spread (or are prevented or
aborted) in the public arenas of the city. This approach permits to problematise and interrelate social
innovation and public governance, providing clues to understand how socio-state relations and distinct
modes of governance could be vectors to boost or hinder social innovation and the promotion of more
democratic and sustainable cities.

Keywords
Public action, civil society, social innovation, experimentalism, public governance.

Introduction

The function of locally coping with global, turbulent and unpredictable problems demands
constant adaptation. It has become more critical now with the urgency imposed by climate
change and after the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic (Ansell, Sørensen and
Torfing, 2020). It requires negotiation, co-creation and the practice of new patterns of
connection between the State, market and civil society. In this sense, the debate about new
forms of governance gains force, placing emphasis on more experimentalist standards of social-
state relations that foster a ‘recursive process of provisional goal-setting and its constant
redefinition, based on collaborative learning’ (Sabel and Zeitlin, 2012, p. 3).

At the same time, we observed here in Brazil as in several countries a deep crisis of liberal
democracies that puts into question the traditional models of promoting participation and
engagement with public issues and common interest co-construction (Levistsky and Zibllat,
2019). Despite presenting different interpretations of the phenomenon, many authors denounce
the process of democracy decline or regression and invite us to reflect on new possibilities, to
(re)signify and strengthen democracies in the face of this scenario.

As discussed by Ansell and Torfing (2016), the field of governance studies has largely
expanded since its emergence in the 1980s, and is permeated by multiple theoretical strands,
paradigms and lenses of analysis of the phenomenon. But the emergence and reinforcement of
the notion of governance and its use in place of the concept of government not means ‘per si’
a democratic reinvention and the reinforcement of public policies, nor the mere elimination of
the idea of the State. More than a buzzword that can solve the democratic failures, governance
is a “problem” a phenomenon that needs more investigation. In this sense, a central issue to
advancing the research agenda is to understand the new forms of governance and their real
effects on democracy and public policies by empirical studies.

In light of this, a question arises: What new forms of governance and state-civil society
interactions to promote social innovation, reinforce public policies and democracy? This
question is particularly relevant in the poorest countries where the multiple crises—
environmental, economic, sanitary and democratic—overlap and whose effects are even
prominent and more urgent. This paper aims to discuss this broad question by generating a
 IX Encontro de Administração Pública da ANPAD VI - EnAPG 2022
On-line - 30/MayMay - 2177-2517

dialogue with the literature that addresses social innovations promoted by civil society actors
and their impacting in public action and public policies. Particularly, we explore the reality of
a city in Brazil, country that are facing a clear democratic regression since 2013 (Tenório &
Carvalho Teixeira, 2021).

The international debate about the role of civil society in promoting social innovation in public
policies and governance includes different and somewhat contradictory theoretical positions.
On the one hand, there are enthusiasts who express a wide range of positive effects of civil
society’s collective actions such as the improvement of accountability and transparency,
reinforcing participation and social control and enhancing public policies (Arko-Cobbah, 2008;
Burlandy, 2011, Pereira and Nichiata, 2011). On the other hand, there are sceptics who criticise
CSOs for entering the vacuum of social provision (Massey and Johnston-Miller, 2016). Instead
of starting from extremes and a priori notion, we propose to understand the changes in social-
state interaction patterns and their consequences; that is, how it influences the conception of
more (or less) democratic public policies and governance systems that foster or discourage
social innovation (Gurza Lavalle and Swako, 2015; Frega, 2019).

Our analytical and methodological approach is based on theoretical streams that are all
anchored in a pragmatic tradition based in the work of John Dewey, with a focus on discussions
about: (i) democratic experimentalism (Ansell, 2011; 2012, Frega, 2019); (ii) sociology of
public action, focusing on experiences and trajectories of public problems (Cefaï and Terzi,
2012; Chateauraynaud, 2011; Cefaï, 2017) and (iii) social innovation, centring on social
innovation ecosystems and cities’ living labs (Howaldt et al, 2018 and 2019; Kaletka; Makmann
and Pelka, 2016; Schiavo et al., 2013).

So, as contribution we propose a pragmatist ‘ethnography of public arenas’ (Cefaï, 2002, 2007)
both as a posture and as a research method. The methodological pathway was based on distinct
moments, questions and data collection and analysis techniques that are explored in the text.
The empirical application of this framework allows to retrace the configuration of public arenas
in the city, their fields of practice, actors, devices, interactions, transactions, forms of
engagement, problematic situations (public problems) and ways in which they faced them.
Beyond that, the discussion highlights the complexity and diversity of the “public governances”
and how they are performed at the interface between the creativity of action produced by
emerging collective actions and the regularity of the institutions, which is manifested in norms,
rules and other devices in these arenas. In this crossing point, we seek to show how social
innovations emerge and spread—or are prevented or aborted—in these public arenas and what
effects and lessons we can observe in public actions in cities.

(Re) discussing public governance to understand public action

The idea of governance compels us to look at the various forms of interaction and joint
coordination between civil society and the government, emphasizing the multipolarity of the
instituted powers, their fluidity and decentralization (Gaudin, 2002; Levi-Faur, 2012). Despite
the different conceptions and the plurality of qualifying prefix applied to the term governance
it is commonly defined as “process of coordination” or as a “collective action” promoted to
achieve common goals (Torfing et al., 2012). Even though there is a consensus in regard to this
(re)interpretation, governance has become an umbrella term, which provides space for distinct
readings and perspectives about what should be this interaction between the State and civil
society and what the effects of this is in public actions (Ansell and Torfing, 2016).
 IX Encontro de Administração Pública da ANPAD VI - EnAPG 2022
On-line - 30/MayMay - 2177-2517

A more traditional perspective, adopted and diffused by the World Bank (2007), is prescriptive
and clams to the “good governance”, focusing on the role of government to promote effective
public policies and reinforce institutions. In public administration debate this conception is
observed in the New Public Management (NPM) discourse that defends a managerial and
market-oriented framework for public services delivery. In this perspective civil society is
conceived as a complementary sphere dependent on governmental action. The notion of
“interdependence” (Salamon, 1995) is offered as an alternative to increase the efficiency of the
State and diminish its costs. Governance here occurs through the control of the principal (the
government) in relation to the agent, which consists of civil society organizations (CSOs),
which assume the role of providing public services and/or goods.

A second conception, that emerges in response to the NPM fragilities and is also quite
influential in the field of public administration refers to the notion of New Public Governance
(NPG) (Osborne, 2010). In this case the focus is the public service delivery, highlighting the
role of the users in the coproduction of public goods (Radnor, Osborne and Glennon, 2016).
The governance is a way to improve the quality, effectiveness and equity in public service,
including the users as protagonists of the public service delivering.

A third relevant conception is linked with discussions in democratic theories, especially the
debate about participative and deliberative democracy (Klinke, 2016). Here, we talk about
democratic governance or participative governance to refer to the influence of civil society by
pressure, social control, political and social fights in various fields of rights (Cohen and Arato,
1992). These studies broaden the debate about the importance of the participation, by
considering multiple forms of political representation, social control and legitimacy within the
context of democracies (Almeida, 2014).

Without ignoring the importance of each of these conceptions, it can be stated that all of them
are based on the fundamental idea that civil society and the State are separate entities/enclaves.
The conceptions of politics, governance and democracy adopted are formal and institutional.
Government, governance and their dimensions are promoted apart of civil society – which has
the role of repairing the fissures of the system from a managerial perspective, or the functions
of opposing/demanding/pressuring or even participating in the State and thus, controlling it.

More recently, many studies have emphasized the importance of looking at the relationships
between the State and civil society, further discussing the naturalization of this foundational
duality (Ansel, 2011; Frega, 2019; Lavalle and Szwako, 2015; Sabel, 2011; Sabel and Zeitlin,
2012). These studies offer clues to reinterpret governance and the role of civil society as an
intrinsic and constitutive space of the democratic State and the public actions promoted by it.
In this way, public actions are not limited to governmental actions that the State
determines/ascribes to/controls; it has relative autonomy, which is promoted in loco and in the
intersection between what is instituted and social autonomy through societal-state associations,
interfaces and responses co-constructed for public problems. We further discuss these studies
above.

A pragmatist approach for the study of civil society, social innovation and its incidence in
public governance

Some ‘grammars of public life’ will also permeate the studies that discuss the interface between
civil society, governance and public policies. In a brief literature review conducted for this
 IX Encontro de Administração Pública da ANPAD VI - EnAPG 2022
On-line - 30/MayMay - 2177-2517

article1, it was evident there was a polarisation in the debate between those who defend the
virtues of the ‘partnership’ between civil society initiatives and the state, in a perspective of
complementarity and cooperation and others who take a critical stance towards this
phenomenon. Some studies highlight the role of civil society in promoting participatory
governance and improving accountability, transparency, effectiveness and coherence in public
policies (Arko-Cobbah, 2008; Burlandy, 2008; Pereira and Nichiata, 2011).

Other authors have launched questions and show that few CSOs have a consistent level of
engagement in the policy process or make a significant difference to policy outcomes. Some
criticise the permeable boundaries that have been established between the state, market and
civil society under neoliberalism (Massey and Johnston-Miller, 2016), causing certain CSOs to
step into the vacuum of public services provision. Moreover, the Big Society agenda, followed
by cuts in public budget, is also criticised, for how it has affected the independence and
capability of CSOs to engage in public policymaking (Ishkanian, 2014). In this sense, neoliberal
policies are criticised for instrumentalising CSOs as alternative agents for service delivery,
despite the discourse being that of strengthening the capacity of civil society.

In this text, we attempt to transcend these polarisations, affirming the importance of empirical
research to study collective actions and social innovation promoted in the fields of public
policies to understand public action. It means as proposed by Zittoun, Fischer and Zahariadis
(2012) to examine the capacity of the policy actors to identify the public issues, argue,
deliberate, define their interests and act.

These perspective aims to transcending the fundamental idea that civil society and the state are
separate entities/enclaves. Thus, the adopted conceptions of politics, governance and
democracy are not only formal and institutional (Frega, 2019). Instead of taking this opposition
for granted—assuming CSOs as partners or adversaries of the government—we emphasise here
the relationships between the state and civil society. In this way, public actions are not limited
to governmental actions that the state determines/ascribes to/controls; it has relative autonomy,
which is promoted in loco and in the intersection between what is instiuted and social autonomy
through societal-state interfaces and responses co-constructed for public problems.

In terms of the research this allows to reconcile and take into account the individual scale and
everyday experience of civil society actors in promoting broader institutional changes; in other
words, this concerns the process of the social being constructed (Latour, 2012). This implies
another interpretation of social innovation and of the governance process that is expressed in
recent debates about ‘democratic experimentalism’ and ‘public inquiry’. As discussed by Sabel
and Zeitlin (2012) and Ansell and Boin (2019), an experimentalist approach to governance is
central in a world with global, turbulent and unpredictable public problems. This requirement
of constant adaptation has become increasingly urgent now in a world with the COVID-19
pandemic.

From a pragmatist perspective—expressed in the pioneering work of John Dewey (1927, 1950,
1974)—this experimentalist form of governance is linked with the ways in which social actors
face, learn from, and act in a collaborative manner in response to public problems. In these
processes that constitute ‘public inquiries’, they could form ‘publics’ which perform as ‘public
arenas’. The latter are interpreted by Cefaï (2002) at the same time as spaces of conflict and

1
A systematic review was made in November 2021 in the 10th most cited articles of the Web of Science and
Google Scholar data bases searching for the terms ‘civil society’ and ‘public policies’ and ‘civil society’ and
‘public governance’. After reading the abstracts, 40 articles were considered in the analysis.
 IX Encontro de Administração Pública da ANPAD VI - EnAPG 2022
On-line - 30/MayMay - 2177-2517

agreements, in which public actions are performed. From this perspective, what is public is no
longer a monopoly of the government or technocrats, and the processes that make possible the
democratic construction that occurs in the interaction between state and society becomes the
central point to be investigated, followed and viewed by researchers. Therefore, systematic
observation of public arenas could permit a better understanding of how actors and devices
report to each other and commit themselves (or not) to a collective effort to define and control
‘problematic situations’ as well as their effects.

Ansell (2011) and Frega (2019) explores this process as a ‘democratic experimentalism’. This
approach is understood as an opportunity to transform what is instituted, which is essential to
reinventing democracy and to reconnecting local actions and the broader processes of social
change, which is a critical issue for advancing the agenda of social innovation studies. For them,
democratic experimentalism can provide theoretical and analytical insights to comprehend how
democracy is related to social innovation and the role of civil society in reinforcing (or not)
democracy. In addition to identifying the extent and limits of participative processes, it means
recognising the way in which the design of institutions occurs to face undesirable consequences
of life in common.

However, how can we put into practice this approach and assess the process of public inquiry
and democratic experimentalism that results from social innovations promoted in real life?
Moved by this broad question and inspired by the pragmatic lens discussed, we have been
developing a research agenda in Brazil since 2010. From 2013 to 2016, with the research project
‘Civil Society and Social Innovation in the Public Sphere’ we try to understand to what extent
social innovation initiatives promoted by civil society actors respond to public problems and
influence the public arenas and policies in which they operate. It makes it possible to conceive
a theoretical and methodological approach and the study of several social innovation initiatives
in some public arenas at federal and local levels in Brazil.

This first stage of the research and the analysis of the results comparatively permits us to
conclude that in order to more closely follow the effects of civil society in the fields of public
policy and public governance as well as emphasising social innovation, it was necessary to
continuously follow these experiences, considering their inscription in time and space
(territory) and using a multiscalar and multisectorial approach. This is because social innovation
is configured as a process of co-definition and coping with problematic situations that occur in
everyday politics. Our study demonstrates that social innovation does not result from a single
actor; specifically, it emerges through associations in networks. It does not occur in a vacuum,
is not a linear process, and does not have predictable outcomes as traditionally stated in classical
studies on social innovation.

To follow these dynamics, we begin a longitudinal and systematic research of ‘public arenas’
in the city as a second stage of our research agenda. To accomplish this goal, we implemented
the Observatory of Social Innovation of Florianopolis (OBISF) in 2017. Such research
articulates with teaching and community engagement and is implemented through a
collaborative digital platform built in partnership with almost 15 institutions to promote the
cartography of the social innovation ecosystem (SIE) of the city formed by support actors and
initiatives of social innovation in the municipality. In addition to a structural analysis of the
SIE, its network and the form of interactions between actors, the ultimate goal of the project is
to strengthen and disseminate ‘public inquiry’ practices in the context of the city, thereby
contributing to reinforce the dynamics of democratic experimentalism and to promote systems
of governance that contributes to conceive more sustainable styles of development.
 IX Encontro de Administração Pública da ANPAD VI - EnAPG 2022
On-line - 30/MayMay - 2177-2517

To do so, we have designed and performed a research method referred to as ‘ethnography of

public arenas’ based on ‘design experimentalism’ (Ansell, 2012) which: (1) focuses on real and
lived experiences and not on those produced in the intramural university ‘laboratories’; (2)
promotes the interaction between subject and object and its importance in research by valuing
and taking seriously the justifications, knowledge and practices of the actors; (3) takes into
account the multiple forms of cause–action links, measurements and tests, in particular the
metrics developed by the different audiences and the people affected, considered also as
experimenters; (4) allow space for error, learning, formulation and reformulation of hypotheses,
discussion, debate and validation of research results in collaboration with the people studied;
(5) promotes theoretical ‘excavation’ and methodological craftsmanship, dialogue and
triangulation of different qualitative and quantitative research approaches and methodologies
in an abductive standpoint; (6) favours the idea of a ‘political ecology’ and a plurality of
relations and interactions in the SIE rather than an ideal of universality or an SIE ‘model of
analysis’.

Subsequently, to penetrate and promote these processes of co-construction of knowledge, we

therefore sought to identify and strengthen the ‘social innovation living labs’ (SILLs) already
existing in the public arenas by carrying out actions with the ‘communities of practices’ being
studied. SILLs are interpreted as real spaces of interaction experienced outside the university,
which function as ‘public action laboratories’ and, consequently, places in which social
innovations can flourish (Schiavo et al, 2013). Thus, in these spaces, we can observe policies
and public actions as ‘uncontrolled experiments’ that are under development which are
interpreted during their implementation (Lascoumes and Le Galès, 2007).

In the next section, we describe in more detail the method, moments and research strategies
used to make the ethnography in the public arenas.

Methodology: From the cartography to the ethnography of public arenas

This section discusses how to access and comprehend social innovation by the “ethnography of
public arenas”. Each research project developed within the scope of the Observatory has its
own design and research path. However, there are certain "moments" that are common and
which, after the conclusion of the last researches, consolidate the theoretical-analytical
framework of ethnography of public arenas, which we present below.

Inspired by Cefaï (2002), we perceive the public arenas as formed in multiple places and
moments, with a great dispersion of scenes, fields, exchanges of arguments and logics of action
among the different publics mobilized. To capture this complexity the research design
privileged a multiscale and multisectoral perspective (Revel, 1996) to capture different
scenarios where the network unfolds. Table 1 summarizes the different moments of the research
that were not developed in a linear way, respecting the research indetermination, the pragmatist
postures and the abductive approach (Timmermans and Tavory, 2012). Each moment had some
objectives, research strategies, spaces where these strategies were implemented and questions
that guides the research.

First, the methodological path allowed to co-produce the cartography and analysis of public
arena’s network composed by civil society, government, universities, communities and market
organizations, collectives and devices that mobilize around the city´s public problems such as
the vulnerability of children and adolescents, food insecurity, waste and environmental issues.
 IX Encontro de Administração Pública da ANPAD VI - EnAPG 2022
On-line - 30/MayMay - 2177-2517

It made possible to see more closely the real situation and issues lived by ordinary citizens,
communities, groups and collectives, many of them not publicized in the debate and by the
public authorities.

Table 1 - Analytical focus and methodological path to conduct the ethnography of the
public arenas

Moment Focus Research strategy Locus of the study

Understanding the outlines of Mapping, Social innovation
Cartography and
the public arena, the main cartography ecosystem, networks that
analysis of public
actors and interactions form the public arena
arena’ s network
(structural analysis)
Guiding questions: Who are the support actors that uphold social innovation in the city? What are their
roles? Which initiatives aim to respond to the cities’ public problem? What are the problematic situations that
they aim to address? What are the interactions established? Whom are the people affected? What are the
proposed solutions? What are the methodologies and technologies presented? What is the incidence in public
arenas?
Spaces of connection and
Identification and observation
Identification and dialogue, such as the
of scenes of commitment Direct, continued,
observation of the forums or councils of
and/or conflict among and systematic
scenes of reciprocal public policies
different publics engaged in observation
adjustment Public scenes and
the public arena
situations
Guiding questions: How are the actors organized to request their demands? What are the legal and
institutional mechanisms, objects, and rules that publics used to respond to public problems? How can
representation and legitimacy be built in the public arena? What is the scale of publicity used in the arena?
Who are the protagonists, the spectators, the narrators, and the audience? Who is responsible?
Government agencies
How does the action occur (if
and civil society
Follow-up with it does), and what are the Direct and
organizations that act
different publics and consequences? Recovery time systematic
with the public problem,
their life experiences sequences while they are observation
public action and public
produced
policies
Guiding questions: How do affected people understand the public problem? Do they mobilize and act around
this problem? How? How does the attribution of responsibility, the elaboration of a complaint, the unfolding
of a violation of right occur? What are the consequences for the affected people? Do they publicize their
problems? How?
Agenda of the media
Reconstitution of trajectory of Document analysis
Governmental agenda
Reconstitution and the public arena (and the Systematic
Mechanisms of public
analysis of the public public problems ballistic) and observation
action
arena’s trajectory the problematic situations Interviews with
Public scenes and
experienced actor
situations
Guiding questions: Who are the spokespersons? What are the events? What are the themes discussed? What
problematic situations have people lived? How are these situations faced? What are the consequences? What
is the narrative when facing the problem? What are the arguments? What are the controversies?
Community Service Projects and workshops
Collaboration, sharing
How the surveyed subjects (extension) with different publics
and validating research
perceive and (re) signify the Workshop surveyed (government,
results with affected
research results? Focus-group civil society, universities,
publics
Interviews ordinary citizens)
Guiding questions: How do the researched people perceive and (re) signify and coproduce the research
results? What are their impressions, questions, dilemmas, difficulties? What feedbacks?
Source: Adapted from xxxxx (2020)

This was possible in function of the collaborative platform developed in the OBISF (as
mentioned) and the compromise of the team to map and visit the social innovations initiatives
 IX Encontro de Administração Pública da ANPAD VI - EnAPG 2022
On-line - 30/MayMay - 2177-2517

in situ. In the various research projects developed, this cartography starts from key spaces of
articulation in the public arenas, such as forums, public policy councils, and other spaces for
deliberation. Starting from some "gateway" into the public arena, the researchers begin to
follow the actors and reconstitute the network mobilized around public problems through their
interactions with other actors forming an ecosystem of social innovation in the city.

However, in addition to this structural analysis of the network, the study also permits to identify
and follow scenes of reciprocal adjustment and to acess the publics and their lived experiences.
It makes possible to understand how they act and what are the consequences of this action to
promote dynamics of “public inquiry”, “democratic experimentalism” in public governance,
and social innovations. For that, penetrating the associations, regimes of coordination and
movements was essential. This was possible through different research strategies: (1)
documental analysis (of minutes, reports, discussion on social networks, etc.); (2) participation
of researchers in the spaces of articulation, debate and social control identified, such as the
Municipal Council of Defense of Children and Adolescents Rights (CMDCA), the Forum of
Public Policies of Florianopolis (FPPF) and the forum called “Rede Semear” in the fied of urban
agriculture. Such strategies made it possible to access situations of coordination/commitment
and also of conflict between the different actors in the arena and the processes of problematizing
and publicizing “situations”, while these were being experienced (Cefaï, 2002).

Other crucial moment of the research involved collaboration, sharing and validating research
results with affected publics. At this moment, the preliminary results of the research are shared
with the researched publics and submitted to their perception, understanding and co-
construction. This is consistent with the epistemological posture of pragmatism (Corrêa, 2019):
the academic production needs to make sense to the actors and be grounded in their daily
operations of problematization and publicization. Here strategies such as projects and
workshops with different partners and actors are used, as will be detailed later.

All this work made possible to recover as pointed by Terzi (2015) the narrative component of
this “public actions” and its constitution. This effort to recover this component is important not
only for researchers but especially for the actors who engage in the public arenas, as it makes
it possible to understand better how democracy is learned and exercised in these fields of
political practice and its effects on public governance and public actions, producing or not social
innovations. Next, we briefly explore the main lessons learned from the studies carried out in
the two researched fields of practice in the city of Florianopolis.

Final considerations: The processual nature of governance and its influence on the
dynamics of social innovation

This study departs from pragmatism to observe and analyse, by means of a political
ethnography of the public arenas of the city, showing the contributions and limits of the
collective actions of SCOs in promoting social innovations to reinforce democracy and promote
sustainability, while facing the effects of multiple crises confronted today in local realities.

First, the study highlights the relevance of civil society actors on public governance in the city.
However, their collective actions and their consequences are as diverse as the composition of
civil society. Both the cartography and ethnography of the public arenas, studied by a
longitudinal analysis, allowed us to visualise the diversification of the actors, the forms and
 IX Encontro de Administração Pública da ANPAD VI - EnAPG 2022
On-line - 30/MayMay - 2177-2517

logics of action and the constant change in interactions and transactions in these fields. This
revealed the processual dimension of governance and public policies that are far from being
constituted as homogeneous and rational systems (Zittoun; Fischer and Zahariadis, 2021). The
study shows that public action takes place in these plural spaces made up of multiple public
arenas in which actors, practices, devices and norms interact and associate, producing changes
or maintenance of the status quo. In this sense, public governance can be a vector for stimulating
or hindering social innovation.

The ballistics of public governance are not the same in the public arenas studied, and this is
reflected in social innovation dynamics and the consequences produced. The complexity of
these interactions, the plurality of ways of commitment and the difference in the political
ecology in these public arenas indicate that, even in the local reality, there is not a single form
of relationship between the state and civil society and only one way to coproduce ‘good
governance’. Also, public governance is not a panacea that will solve all the problems of
democracy. It does not automatically derive from official mechanisms (norms, rules etc.), nor
results from a natural process of partnership, marked by mutual trust and the absence of
conflicts, as advocated by many theorists who study collaborative governance (Ansell and
Gash, 2008). Moreover, governance also does not innately emerge from the opening of
‘windows of opportunities’ by the state for society to co-produce public policies, or even by the
interface and connectivity inherent of networks in counterpoint to hierarchies.

This study corroborates with other researches that problematizes public governance and
indicate that state-civil society relations are plural, permeated by challenges, and have virtues
and vices that need to be further understood by empirical research at the local level and by
comparative studies (Bode and Brandsen, 2014; Ansell and Torfing, 2016). An accurate
appreciation of the contributions and limits of the civil society to public governance requires
moving away from preconceptions and to go beyond classical oppositions opening space to
deepen the understanding about the complexity of social-state relations and their impacts. The
analysis of the exercise of governance here showed that it is constituted as a historical, nonlinear
co-construction, marked by comings and goings and by recurrences and controversies.

There is no optimal governance. What we saw was an experimental process of formulation of

public policies permeated by conflicts, built by struggles and clashes 'penetrating through the
gaps', based on 'resistance' and persistence—words often found in the speeches and scenes of
the research. Governance is experimented at the interface between the invention and the
instituted, in the daily life of the city's public scenes, through the practices of ordinary actors
(who have a name, colour, age, gender, etc.) and who produce accusations, accountability,
publicization, diagnoses, plans, negotiations and bargaining.

However, we are talking about a city in a country facing multiple crises in a democratic
regression scenario. As such, this daily practice of politics is still little or not officially
recognised by both the government and society in general. A cleavage between state and civil
society still prevails, which is reinforced in the collaboration/conflict duality, which makes it
difficult to fully exercise an experimentalist governance that can learn and feed from this fruitful
encounter between inventiveness and what is instituted.
References
Ansell, C. (2011). Pragmatist Democracy: Evolutionary Learning as Public Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford Scholarship.
Ansell, C; Torfing, J. (2016) Handbook on Theories of Governance. Elgar: Massachusetts.
Ansell, C. (2012). What is democratic experiment? Contemporary Pragmatism, 9(2), 159-180.
Ansell, C., Sørensen, E., & Torfing, J. (2020). The COVID-19 pandemic as a game changer for public administration and
leadership? The need for robust governance responses to turbulent problems. Public Management Review, 23(7), 949-960.
 IX Encontro de Administração Pública da ANPAD VI - EnAPG 2022
On-line - 30/MayMay - 2177-2517

Arko-Cobbah, A. (2008). The Right of Access to Information: opportunities and challenges for civil society and good
governance in South Africa. IFLA Journal, 34(2), 180–191.
Bode, I & Brandsen, T (2014) State-Third Sector partnerships a short overview of key issues in the debate. Public Management
Review 16 (8),1055-1066.
Burlandy, L. A atuação da sociedade civil na construção do campo da Alimentação e Nutrição no Brasil: elementos para
reflexão. Ciência & Saúde Coletiva 6 (1), 63-72.
Cefaï, D. (2002) Qu’est-ce qu’une arène publique? Quelques pistes pour une approche pragmatiste. In Cefaï; D.; Joseph, I.
L’héritage du pragmatisme, 51-82.
Cefaï, D. (2007) Pourquoi se mobilise-t-on? Les théories de l’action collective. Paris: La Découverte.
Cefaï, D; Terzi, C. (2012) L´experience des problèmes publiques. Paris: Éditions de l’EHESS
Cefaï, D. Públicos, problemas públicos, arenas públicas. Novos Estudos CEBRAP, v. 36, n. 1, p. 187-213, 2017.
Cohen, J.L., Arato, A. (1992). Civil Society and Political Theory. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Dewey, J. (1974). Experiência e natureza. São Paulo: Abril Cultural.
Dewey, J. (1950). Logica, teoria de la investigación. Mexico, D. F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Dewey, J. (1927). The public and its problems. Chicago: Swallow Press.
Frega, R. (2019) Pragmatism and the wide view of democracy. Gewerbestrasse: Palgrave Macmillan.
Gaudin, J.-P. (2002). Pourquoi la gouvernance. Paris, France: Presses de Sciences Po.
Gurza Lavalle, A., Szwako, J. (2015). Sociedade civil, Estado e autonomia: argumentos, contra-argumentos e avanços no
debate. Opinião Pública, 21(1), 157-187.
Howaldt, J; Kaletka, C; Schooder, A & Zirngiebl, M. (2018) Atlas of Social Innovation – New Practices for a Better Future.
Dortmund: TU Dortmund University.
Howaldt, J; Kaletka, C; Schooder, A & Zirngiebl, M. (2019) Atlas of Social Innovation – A World of new Practices.
Dortmund: TU Dortmund University.
Ishkanian, A. (2014) Neoliberalism and violence: The Big Society and the changing politics of domestic violence in England.
Critical Social Policy, 34(3) 333-353.
Kaletka, C.; Makmann, M. & Pelka, B. (2016) Peelling the Onion. An Exploration of the Layers of Social Innovation
Ecossystems. Modelling a context sensitive perspective on driving and hindering factors for social innovation. European Public
Social & Social Innovation Review. 1(2), 83-93.
Klinke, A. (2016) Democratic Theory. In: Ansell, C; and Torfing, J. Handbook on Theories of Governance. Elgar:
Massachusetts.
Lascoumes, P., &Le Galès, P. (2007). Sociologie de l´Action Publique. Paris: Armand Colin.
Latour, B. (2012). Reagregando o social: uma introdução à Teoria do Ator-Rede. Salvador: Edufba.
Lehtola, V., & Stahle, P. (2014). Societal innovation at the interface of the state and civil society. Innovation: The European
Journal of Social Science Research, 27(2), 152-174.
Levistiky, E., Ziblatt, (2019). D. How Democracies Dies. Scorpio Press.
Levi-Faur, D. (2012). The Oxford Handbook of Governance. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Massey, A & Johnston-Miller, K (2016) Governance: public governance to social innovation? Policy and Politics. 44 (4), 663-
675.
Monedero, J. C. (2019) 15M and indignant democracy: legitimation problems withinneoliberal capitalism. In Pereira, Ó.,
Torres, S.L. (eds.), Spain after the Indignados/15M Movement. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 21–63.
Pereira, A. J. & Nichiata, L.Y.I. A sociedade civil contra a Aids: demandas coletivas e políticas públicas Ciência & Saúde
Coletiva 16 (7), 3249-3257.
Revel, J. (Org.) (1998). Jogos de escalas: a experiência da microanálise. Rio deJaneiro: Editora Fundação Getúlio Vargas.
Sabel, C. (2012). Dewey, Democracy and Democratic Experimentalism. Contenporary Pragmatism, 9(2), 35-55.
Sabel, C.F; Zeitlin, J. (2012) Experimentalist Governance. In Levi-Faur, D. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Governance. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Salamon, L. M. (1995) Partners in Public Service: Government–Nonprofit Relations in the Modern Welfare State, London,
UK: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Salamon, L. (2011). The New Governance and the Tools of Public Action: An Introduction. Fordham Urban Law Journal,
28(5), 1611-1674.
Schiavo, E.; Dos Santos-Nogueira, C. and Vera, P. (2013) Entre la divulgación de la cultura digitaly el surgimiento de los
laboratorios ciudadanos. El caso argentino en el contexto latinoamericano. Revista Iberoamericana de Ciencia, Tecnología y
Sociedad, 2013.
Tenorio, F.G.; Carvalho Teixeira, M.C. (2021) O conceito de gestão social e a democracia regressiva no Brasil após 2016.
Administração Pública e Gestão Social, 13 (2).
Terzi, C. (2015) La composante narrative du monde pratique. Intervention au Congrès de l’AFSP, 24 juin.
Timmermans, S., and Tavory, I. (2012). Theory Construction in Qualitative Research.Sociological Theory, 30(3), 167-
186.Zittoun, P (2021). A abordagem pragmática de políticas públicas. In Porto de Oliveira, O. and Hassenteufel, P. Sociologia
Política da Ação Pública: teorias, abordagens e conceitos. Brasília: ENAP.
Torfing, J, Peters, B.G; Pierre, J. and Sorensen, E. (2012) Interactive Governance: Advancing the Paradigm. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.:
World Bank (2007) A decade for Measuring the Quality of Governance, Washington DC: World Bank.
Zittoun, P; Fischer, F and Zahariadis, N. (2021). The Political Formulation of Policy Solutions: Arguments, Arenas and
Coalitions. Bristol: Policy Press.