Human Development and Citizenship in Chile: new challenges

Abstract

The social-economic achievements accomplished by Chile in the last decades, are correlated to significant improvements on human development of its people. Nevertheless, doubts arise in regards to the capacity of Chileans, and those of Latin-American countries, to adapt to the context of a market society, where the state has been loosing its centrality as the main actor of social integration. In this essay, the author invites us to go beyond this diagnosis, potentiating strengthening democracy and the possibilities of exercising a real participative citizenship, founded, not based on state verticalism, but rather in diverse forms of civil society. The author’s proposal suggests the rescue of the public space beyond the economic discourse which only aims to the maintenance of a self regulated social order.