AUTONOMY WITHOUT DEMOCRACY IS LIKE CHOCOLATE WOTHOUT SUGAR

On-line Journal Modelling the New Europe, 2019

International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 1992

Perspectives on Politics, 2019

Conocimiento y Acción

The theory of the modern state considers that freedom consists in the absolute autonomy of the individual. This consideration of politics and law as a relationship between "absolute equals" - with revolutionary roots - besides being metaphysically contradictory, is one of the causes of the current intellectual confusion, whose main symptoms are relativism, skepticism and ethical indifferentism. Now, since a society cannot function without there being something "in common" among its citizens, - and all reference to human nature, also to its sociability, has been renounced - this task is entrusted to the State, which establishes relationships of an external type that are sustained by means of power. This presents numerous dangers such as possible arbitrariness of the ruler, lack of social stability, permanent threats of conflicts, lawlessness, etc., which prevent people from attaining the level of freedom, security and peace they need. When any idea of "the co...

Civil society, a concept, a framework, an idea… it’s also often a meaning of associational life, of a good society or of a public sphere… So many meanings, definitions that have been popularized for 20 by many scholars. Regardless the negative effect of the popularization, the common point of all the definitions given is the contribution to democracy. The main reason is that with the end of the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), several countries needed new basis to build. Walzer is one of the scholars who has explored for example the building of civil society and of democracy in Eastern Europe countries. The reason of such a questioning was the loss of credibility of the state and the role of the citizens after the collapsing of a violent bureaucratic state. In the following research the accent will be put on societies as well. Nevertheless, here the expression “new societies” refers to the countries born after decolonization. The aim of the research will be to explore how such societies build? How democracy and civil society, together build civil society and are part of those societies? The question is to wonder why such an interest. The fact is that civil society has been defined from several points of view. Among the various definitions, social capital as the amount of connections appears as a generalized one. So to start, we will assume this concept of social capital. It means that people make connections between each other and the accumulation makes social capital. And those relations are beneficial to the democracy. However the regular critics are that the existence and the birth of these connections, and their life duration are fragile. Hence the fragility of democracy. In “New societies”, the background is then a really difficult one, first to build a society, then to develop democracy. Indeed, in “New societies”, there are no legitimate state power, the economic area is often absent or artificial, finally the people are more several groups living in hostile ambiance instead of citizens. Particularly, these societies often face to ethnics issues. The ethnics and cultural issues brings to pay attention to the intervention of cultural and ethnics differences in the building of social connections. And within these relations, there are the citizen’s relations. Since there, different kinds of relationship will be considered in the building of the civil society, or social capital, and their impact on the later. Because of the specific subject, it’s important to precise that the geographic is restrained to some countries in Africa mainly. And the will here is also to consider the particular case of a territory n the South Pacific, New Caledonia. This territory is a former colony of France, which is still a French territory but with a special status, sui generis. The country is, indeed, engaged in a process of independence. Nevertheless, over the principle lied down by the United Nation, the building of an independent country rise several difficulties; particularly the population settlement has made of the territory a multiethnic one. So the democracy and the civil society are important. The analysis of the building of the democracy with several different cultures is interesting as well for the “Old societies”. The “Old societies” refers here to the democracy already, officially settled. Indeed, nowadays, those societies meet important problem of democracy diminishing and apathy of the civil society. In his context one of the regular issue rose when election comes is about immigration. Putnam Robert, said, thus, that the immigration causes the diminishing of social capital and of democracy as a result. In this research, the issue in “old societies” is really relevant, but will not be discussed because it would be too long. Actually, the problem in dealing with notions of civil society and democracy is that those two words involve hundred others notions. And often the explanation becomes more and more complicated that what the scholars want to explain at first. So the immigration aspect, because of a worry of clarity and shortness will be let on the side, even though it could be made mention of it.

2006

It is possible to note, since the 70s, an intensification of the globalization processes of the social relations, intensification that has direct implications in the studies of the contemporary world politics. One important aspect in which such implications express themselves regards the emergence of new actors in the world politics that organize themselves no more in national terms only, but paying attention in the local, national, regional and global dynamics – in other words, seeing the global political economy as a whole. In some sense, it is possible to note that dominant and the dominated social groups are being influenced and are influencing such globalization processes – in other words, it would be possible to note, nowadays, the rising of a transnational fraction of the capitalist class and the rising of a globalized resistance in the ambit of a civil society influenced by the globalization processes. Therefore, the objective of the present proposal is to analyze this proce...

SIGUIENDO UNA LINEA DE DEBATE E INVESTIGACIÓN SOBRE LAS POSIBILIDADES REALES DEL ESTADO POSTMODERNO PARA CONVERTIRSE EN UN INSTRUMENTO DE TRANSFORMACIÓN EN LA PERSPECTIVA HEGELIANA-GRAMSCIANA, ADJUNTO ESTE OTRO TRABAJO. FOLLOWING MY INTEREST IN THE DEBATE ABOUT THE POSTMODERN NATION-STATE AND ITS REAL POSSIBILITY TO BECOME AN INSTRUMENT OF SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION , AS DEFINED FROM AN HEGELIAN-GRAMSCIAN POINT OF VIEW, I WANT TO ADD ANOTHER PAPER THAT I CONSIDERED OF HIGH INTEREST