Beyond comparative anecdotalism: lessons on civil society and participation from São Paulo, Brazil

The civil society approach in international development suggests that the most effective voice of the poor in policy making comes form civil society organisations that are independent of political parties and state agencies. Across different participatory institutions in São Paulo, however, the most active representatives of the poor are those well connected to conventional political actors – political parties and state agencies. Our data used mostly participation in the city health council by different level civil society organisation and was composed of an original survey carried out through snow-ball sampling.