This paper examines the determinants and limits of resilience to democratic policy dismantling. With a focus on the country’s Northeast, semiarid region. The study analyzes two interrelated policies involving the participation of non-state actors: first, water governance in the São Francisco river basin, and second, water access and agroecology food support. This sheds light on the informal policy networks and the interactions between these networks and formal institutions to promote policy resilience. This notion is discussed in Section 2. Sections 3 reviews changes operated in two subsystems. It draws on the argument that the dismantling of policies, characterized by social participation principles and use of illiberal strategies to promote policy change, are gradually undermining Brazil’s democratic policy-making and policy regime. Section 4 presents policy changes observed for each case study and the main factors and limits of resilience to this process.