This work explores the theories of democracy - from those that emphasize its competitive, realist and formal nature, including the ones that highlight its deliberative, plebiscitary and participative aspects, to those that emphasize its substantive and egalitarian character - seeking to demonstrate the scope, the convergences and the limits of such theories. More than just emphasizing the differences, contradictions and the normative character of such theoretical frameworks, we seek to reveal the aspects in which the institutions and democratic contemporary experiences respond significantly to the questions raised by these theories in Brazil.
Theories of democracy; Representation; Participation; Brazilian democracy