Challenges of citizen participation: on the institutional profile of Brazilian municipal councils

Abstract The objective of this work is to understand the changes and continuities in the institutional profile of municipal councils in Brazil and analyze factors that have influenced these processes. We analyzed the IBGE/Munic databases and constructed the Municipal Councils Institutional Profile Indicator (IPICM), adapted from the work by Almeida et al. (2021). Based on descriptive and inferential statistics, we observed the strengthening of the councils’ institutional profile, related, on the one hand, to a process of moderate convergence of participatory institutions in the municipalities and, on the other hand, to a process influenced by variables such as the Municipal Human Development Index and the Gini Index, population, mayors’ political ideology, and the number of Civil Society Organizations. Despite this progress, we perceive that the distribution of these institutions still reproduces patterns of territorial inequality between Brazilian municipalities.