O DIÁLOGO DO CAPITAL SOCIAL COM A “SOCIEDADE CIVIL”: A REDEFINIÇÃO DESTE CONCEITO APLICADO EM UMA NOVA INSTITUCIONALIDADE

The article debates the social capital concept as an essential analytical variable to understand what happens on the urban and metropolitan social area. In the text, it is done both kinds of analysis, an incidence analysis and a theoretical critic to the concept of social capital. The article approaches an aspect of this operational standard when a city government public relationship office takes some initiatives. Those techniques are viewed in a case study of public relationships applied on mobilizing lower classes that live in popular neighborhoods in Porto Alegre city (capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul). This phenomenon occurs when the worldwide recognized public politic name as Orcamento Participativo (OP, Participative Budget) has took place during the first municipal administrations (1989-1992/1992-1996) commanded by a huge reformist party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT, Workers Party), that governed the state capital for sixteen years (1989-2004). This instrument, public relations communication effort, resumed social bows partially, generating a relative upgrade on citizen’s empowerment.