Civil Society, the Public Sphere and Democratization in Latin America

• In Event: Party Networks, Indigenous Politics, and Civil Society in Latin America

Abstract

The concept of civil society appeared during the third-wave transitions when democratizing actors invoked the resurrection, the reconstruction, or the rebirth of civil society in Eastern Europe and Latin America during struggles against authoritarianism. The term became the cornerstone of a critical theory of democratization challenging the then-dominant paradigm of democratic elitism. The latter reduced democracy to a method of elite selection, emptying the concept of any reference to the citizenship principle. The civil society argument sought to restore the citizenship principle as the core of democratic theory, stressing the relevance of organized citizens in civil society in democratic will formation processes. It proposes a two-track understanding of democracy predicated on a constant and lively exchange between bottom-up political will formation processes deriving from citizens' experiences and the political system.

The paper reviews the civil society argument in light of the transformations that contemporary Latin American societies are experiencing and that result in a political scenario that differs from the one that the third wave inaugurated. Those transformations question whether the original assumptions of the civil society model still hold or need revisiting. The paper focuses on two contemporary trends that challenge the initially envisioned civil society's role in democratic life. The first one refers to a structural transformation of the public sphere due to digitalization, the second one to changes within civil society like the emergence of new forms of digitally induced contention and a more individualized political format of public intervention on the one hand, and the promotion of a democratization backlash motorized by conservative civic groups seeking to undo many of the rights accomplishments of the third wave.

Author

• Enrique Peruzzotti, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella