DOUBTS AROUND THE SOCIAL MANAGEMENT CONCEPT: THEORETICAL AND POLITICAL DILEMMAS

Abstract

This text aims to discuss the doubts raised by the concept of Social Management (SM), formulated by
Fernando Tenório, based on the theory of Junger Habermas’ communicative action. The developed
reflection is an offshoot of debate opened in recent years, whose turning point was the ENAPEGS III, held in
2010 in Juazeiro do Norte (Ceará), as well as formulations contained in Tenório’s most recent work, Gestão
Social: epistemologia de um paradigma, which incorporates aspects of this debate. The methodology used is
the analysis of texts of Fernando Tenório and José Antonio Pinho, in the light of theoretical contribution of
Junger Habermas. The main conclusion of this reflection is the statement of the thesis according to which the
qualification of Social Management as an instrument of public sphere construction and as emancipation
lacks theoretical and political significance, since the necessary conditions to its establishment as a field of
knowledge and of production of social individuals capable of transforming the asymmetric relations between 

State, society and market, in the current context of productive flexibility, are not present. The text points out
the need to deepen this debate, particularly in light of Tenório’s claim and other authors to constitute an
ontology and epistemology from that concept.