All rights reservedBritto, Ana Lúcia Nogueira de PaivaMaiello, AntonellaMello, Yasmim Ribeiro2024-09-182024-09-182016978-85-7785-551-1https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14235/1996Proceedings of the IV World Planning Schools Congress, July 3-8th, 2016 : Global crisis, planning and challenges to spatial justice in the north and in the southBrazil The concern with public participation in the theoretical debate and practice of policies and planning has experienced a downward trend in the last fifteen years. In the thirty years between ’60 and ’90 participative processes gained an increasing interest in the most varied fields of policies (Reed, 2008), from agriculture (Pretty, 1995) to development studies (Chambers, 2014). Nonetheless, more recently other authors started to questioning the way participatory process have been implemented (Cooke & Kothari, 2001), and even their indispensability in policy-making (Hurlbert & Gupta, 2015). We acknowledge that several participative experiences failed to achieve the goal to enhance social democratic basis and that, in some cases, the notion of ‘participation’ has been used as a mere label of democracy. Though, we argue that ‘participation’ is a conditio sine qua non to promote the public dimension of policies (Dewey, 1927). Ergo, public engagement experiments are worthy since they compel public government to open the policy process and to improve their skills in citizen involvement. They stimulate citizen civicness, offering a unique opportunity to share decisions and discuss collectively about commons. Then, even if a critical ex-post assessment of the process is always necessary (Petts, 2003), it is crucial not to give up and try it again, because “participation is the pollen of democracy”1. On the other hand, effective engagement deserves expertise to blend and integrate different languages and knowledge (Maiello, Viegas, Frey, & D. Ribeiro, 2013).EnglishopenAccessconferenceObject1267-1271