ABSTRACT
In order to contribute to the study of citizen participation in sanitation area, this paper intend to identify references about citizen participation presents in the national legislation and analyze all of them in the light of key concepts: citizenship, empowerment and political culture. It was identified 18 references, which address the participation from the social control perspective and can be classified into two groups: 1) promoting participation and 2) marked by ambiguity, since at the same time, encourage and limit participatory action. Thus, it is necessary to recognize the progress made, knowing that, however, is insufficient to participation consolidate.
KEYWORDS
citizen participation; social control; sanitation; legislation; Brazil