Volume 5 - Spring 2009 Featuring research of 2008 Boise State McNair Summer Research Fellows

The discourse of participation in and about Brazil has contributed to the wider discourse of the public sphere. As anoccasion to revise the general concept of the public sphere, it carries its own limitations as well. The public sphereis an arena where citizens come together to discuss matters of general interest and through this discussion are thenable to influence the state. The concept public sphere is a challenged concept and is often called exclusive and“unrealistic.” One scholar revises this challenged concept, Leonardo Avritzer, author of Democracy and the PublicSpace in Latin America. Avritzer’s revision claims to take the revision further in the direction of participatory,democratic publics. Yet it adds an administrative dimension to the public sphere that is problematic bothconceptually and practically. It allows for state control of the public sphere in the name of “accountability” and“democratic elitism.” The paper offers a critique of such a revision by showing that accountability means elitegovernance through a reduction of participation to administered publics as a false “necessity.”