Realizing Health Rights in Brazil: The Micropolitics of Sustaining Health System Reform

Abstract

Brazil’s ‘Citizens’ Constitution’ of 1988 established health as ‘the right of all and the duty of the state’. It also guaranteed the right of citizens to participate in the governance of the Sistema Único de Saúde (National Health System; SUS for short) through institutions created at municipal, state and national level. Nowhere else in the world have such ambitious and far-reaching efforts been made to institutionalize citizen participation in the governance of health systems. Yet the dominant tone in the literature on participation in Brazil’s SUS is largely negative, with many observers questioning whether these institutional arrangements have had any significant impact on improving efficiency, shifting priorities towards the needs of the poorest or promoting genuinely accountable health system management.2 KeywordsCivil SocietyIndigenous PeopleSocial MovementHealth SpendingCitizen ParticipationThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.