State and society on a democratic perspective

Abstract

The author maps the situation in Latin America as inserted in a double frame of modernization and democratization, postulating that Latin American countries have to respond simultaneously to both "logics". He argues that to the extent that market society does not offer a binding normativity, it is for democracy to generate this normativity, but warns that it can not be contrary to the "imperatives" of current economic rationality. Then elaborates on the new role of the State, and on the demand to strengthen civil society, which would represent an essential criterion for the "quality of democracy."