Controle Social via Ouvidoria Geral do Estado da Paraíba: a participação como mecanismo de fortalecimento da democracia.

Abstract

The contemporary state has been characterized as a structure that has made possible a greater social participation in the decisions and public control; in this connection, starting from the inseparable relationship between social control and democracy, this paper has as its general objective to analyze the relevance of participation and social control through the General Ombudsman’s Office of Paraíba – PB State, as an institutional space that should enable the strengthening of democracy, based on data from the Management Reports from 2014 to 2017. Thus, this study had as specific objectives: presenting thoughts about the effectiveness of a participatory democracy, and its implications for the consolidation of the democratic Rule of law; exposing the importance of social control as a way of empowering society in the construction of democratic public management; mapping which branches of the State Government obtained the highest number of demands in the years 2014 to 2017 and their resolution indexes through the data from the General Ombudsman’s Office of Paraíba State - OGE; and suggesting improvements for the Public Ombudsman’s Office of the Paraíba State. Consequently, as the demands were requested in all the bodies of the State Government of Paraíba, the resolutivity rates, therefore, increased, evidencing as a result of the research that the pressure/ social participation was shown as an essential element for the achievement of rights and consequently for the democratic progress of the State. It is therefore concluded that the Public Ombudsman's Office of Paraíba State plays a fundamental role for the improvement of social control and democracy, providing improvements for public management and for the empowerment of people in matters related to the improvement of public services.