Access to information, transparency and social control in Brazil

Résumé

The United Nations (UN) estimates that around 70% of the world population is going to live in cities up to the middle of the XXI century; fact that makes the theme of urbanization one of the most relevant topics of this century for countries with a major impact and those which are still poor and suffering with social inequality.

In such context, it is urgent to transcend the static and spatial view of the cities to better understand it as a living and multi-factorial organism that overlaps the old cartography based on its territorial infrastructure. The new urban mapping arises from common interests that gather or differentiate the citizens, that challenges us to assess and question the model for making decisions in urban areas (governance), as well as one may design and manage the cities, as one implements and controls the local public policies.

The current challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, that has its effects quickly widened by new technologies, have imposed a new political agenda to the States that see their hierarchical pillars and centralizers confronted. What was understood so far as innovator and modern in public administration and democracy has its origins in the end of XXVIII century, in the French Revolution and in the Independence of the United States. It is important to understand that we have been through disruptive times and we are able to break barriers and paradigms, including the ones in politics and management, in the states and the cities.

The State that centers the information, that acts exclusively in a hierarchical way, not responsive and extremely bureaucratic is in crisis, the same way that the sheer representative democracy is in crisis.