Networks, Urban Governance and Associative Practices: The Example of the Health Program for the Family

The authors introduce the notion of social networks as an analytical instrument for bringing to light some essential mechanisms of governance, namely, that the design of associative networks would make possible to visualize socialization fields facilitating the existence of models of governance with a participative component. Because of networks' structural characteristics, resources -- mainly communication -- become more or less centralized, & the resulting power of this structuring would be, therefore, more or less distributed. This information could be useful to pinpoint possible structural obstacles to management practices that rely on local participation. From empirical work carried out with Health Communitarian Agents from a sanitary district of the city of Recife in Brazil, the authors verified the consistency of health-promotion practices where the participative content is a fundamental ingredient. The associative networks of health agents will highlight relevant questions for understanding the practice of participative public management. Charts, Sociograma, References. Adapted from the source document.