The simulacrum of progress: reflections about democracy, technology and local development

Abstract

Based on critical text about local development by Francisco de Oliveira, the present paper find to reflex the relationship between democracy and development. Using the important and necessary approximation made by Oliveira between the concepts of citizenship and local development, aims to unravel the current character of the terms democracy and development, within the neoliberal capitalist system. Technology, Popular Participation and Participatory Budgeting objects are promptly reviewed under the gaze of the categories of Gramscian hegemony and counter-hegemony to circumvent the purpose of this essay. In the end, there are hints that at present is experiencing a semblance of progress that hides, in fact, a great social and political return, because the concept of local development does not bring in fact, alternatives to the liberal hegemonic model in vogue.