Democratic trust and the process of formulating public policies: The case of the water policy of Catalonia

© 2018, Universidade Federal do Parana. Introduction: Under the premise that democratic political and administrative systems work through certain trust and distrust assignments, this paper aims to focus on a reality where double distrust reigns between citizens and the public administration. It tries to create an alternative, which uses citizen participation and deliberation between citizen and public administration to bring more democracy to public policies without renouncing the exercise of authority necessary to adopt policies. Methods: After a few theoretical and analytical sections, the case of democratization Catalonias water policy in the context of the Spain and Europe normative is analyzed. We highlight the results achieved and the keys to success in unlocking the distrust and formulating a public policy. Results: The hypothesis and main finding of the research are the conditions that generate trust in the deliberative process, which are: diversity of actors (interaction with the other), rules and processes clearly defined and linked to final decisions that will be taken with the exercise of authority, and attitudes of respect. Discussion: The important thing of the paper is to offer keys derived from and empirical analysis of a case to thing about how to build the double trust and to encourage the deliberative process that our democracy need. In his line, the work advances the construction of an alternative by appealing to citizen participation and deliberation among citizen and public administrations, and generates a democratization of public decisions without renouncing the essential exercise of authority that implies approving any public policy.