Normativity and Social Vision about Participatory Public Healthcare Policies in Central America

Abstract

Public healthcare policies in Central America incorporate social participation as a fundamental elemental for improving healthcare services and achieving social equality. Nevertheless, there are mechanisms that weaken, distort, and produce low levels of participation and impede their promotion. The article analyzes this type of public policy in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, involving different categories of traditional modes of public policy analysis: Luhmann’s societal view and Habermas’ normativity. Methodologically, it uses exploratory documental research of electronic bibliographic sources. As a result, the policies present post-conventional elements that do not influence the implementation or the evaluation of policy and its tendency towards hierarchy, therefore, the challenge is to overcome the presence of the “conscious actor”.