All rights reservedFrey, Klaus2023-12-072023-12-072015978-80-01-05782-7https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14235/1061Book of proceedings: Annual AESOP Congress, Definite Space – Fuzzy Responsibility, Prague, 13-16th July, 2015Participatory planning has become an ever more common practice in Brazil and many other Latin-American countries, at least in the case of more progressive local governments. Although significant progress has been made regarding the expansion of public participation in local policy making and planning processes, rising discontent can be observed in these countries with – especially young – people occupying streets and public squares, expressing their dissatisfaction with the shortcomings in service provision and infrastructure, as well as with increasing corruption, as recently happened in 2013/14, in the run-up to the Soccer World Cup in Brazil. In spite of an apparently consolidated democratic regime established in the country, deficits of democratic legitimacy are becoming evident in an increasing complex society demanding renewed interactive governance practices able to provide social justice and sustainable development. In this paper, we intend to analyze the potentials of postliberal theories on democracy (Sørensen & Torfing, 2007), which share the assumption of the insufficiency of representative institutions of liberal democracy for tackling adequately with contemporary challenges, to contribute to the development of new territorial governance approaches able to develop “more inclusive and democratic urban and regional processes”, referred to as a crucial governance challenge by the co-chairs of this track. Emphasis will be given to evaluate the capacity of those approaches to incorporate public interests and concerns with public goods in political decision making and planning. The Brazilian case will serve as reference to illustrate the theoretical considerations.EnglishopenAccessconferenceObject465-479