On the one hand, the radical liberal way of thinking, which was in favour of refraining public authority to free civil society market forces from the “state inefficiency”; and on the other hand the radical promoters of participatory democracy as the only vehicle of “true” emancipation of the citizens (Abers and Keck, 2013). By the end of the 1990s, almost 40 000 participatory councils or committees had been created throughout the country as the “ethos” of Brazil at the dawn of the newly established democracy. In fact, to a large extent, some of the tensions and difficulties in the negotiation of successive Brazilian water laws (Figure 2.1) are still present.