Citizenship, Participation and Democracy. Debt and deficit in the 20 years of ‘democracy’ in Chile

Abstract

The thesis defended on this essay is that the promise-desire called “democracy”, understood as the necessary and beneficial confluence between citizenship participation and a political management model (today concertacionista), is one of the main national debts of the Concertación Governments. Debt, because in the political plan for after regaining democracy social forces were excluded from “power practice” -although in the struggle for achievement of femocracy social forces played a fundamental role- all wich has risen to a deficit of citizenship participation and of participative citizenship in the twenty years of concertación governments. Nevertheless today, because of social forces action and potentially because of the last Government’s discourse, a series of conditions have arise that enable to discuss and conduct the sociopolitical model towards inclusion and citizenship participation, understood in two ways: first as a strenghtening of civil society against the fragmentation of social network (demos reconstruction) and the development of mechanisms of citizenship participation in public management, opossing the devaluation of democracy and politics (polis reconstruction).