Another democracy: civil society, citizenship and local governance (Notes for discution)

Abstract

This essay proposses a discussion on the concept of civil society, in order to restate it from a point of view which privileges the normative moment of theoretical construction, from an epistemological rather than a theoretical function, in articulation with an active citizenship and with strategies of local governance which privileges the belonging of the citizens to a certain political community. In the realm of globalization today’s processes local development require to give complexity to the relationship of different actors who participate in these processes, beyond the state-market relationship. For that purpose we work over a normative concept of civil society and its relationship with active society, which we then problematize by including strategies of citizenship participation including strategies for citizen participation in local governance. We end with a few notes on the role of participative investigation in the referred relationship we formerly proposed, all in the frame of an horizon where another democracy is possible.