Public space and citizenship. New challenges for the development agenda in Chile

Abstract

It is a common place the recognition that Chile has changed during the past thirty years; several tansformations in the institutional, economic, political and cultural level would account for that. Chile would have achieved overcoming in this interval, with high levels of political and economic stability, the traditional axis of conflict that have organized the Latin American scene, standing at the forefront in the region. However, the changes outlined above would place us in a new scenario against which traditional resolution approaches presented seem inadequate. Assuming this scenario, the challenges up front  keep close relationship with the need to rethink not only what it claims to be modified, but also the constitutive ambivalence of the modernization process, being prioritary axis of analysis culture, integration and civil society . In order to understand this reconfiguration, this essay will attempt to develop a reconstruction of the notion of public space and to elucidate the specificity of the Latin American experience, highlight the central themes of what has been called crisis of public space and characterize the new phenomena that defy contemporary Chilean society as a whole.