Abstract

CHERESKY, Isidoro. Citizenship and continuous democracy. Temas debates (En línea) [online]. 2011, n.22, pp.19-49. ISSN 1853-984X.

This article addresses the expansion and mutation of the democratic political regime that has acquired a universal validity and value, resulting in the centrality of citizenship, understood as a space of individuals who are given rights or otherwise claim them and constitute changing associative and identity bonds. At the same time there is a questioning of representation bonds in different orders of social organization, resulting in an emancipation of the political world. Therefore the conception of public and political life as a mere expression of social realities and the conflicts they entail has vanished. Interests and ideals are constituted in the public sphere along with the citizen identities that support them. It is evident that the very institutional and normative system is in permanent revision and restructuring, so democracy should be conceived as an unstable regime, where an autonomous citizenship keeps distance from power by making their rulers renew their legitimacy in each decision. In fact, the political regime could be defined as a continuous democracy whose essence is citizen life, which requires but does not occur within an institutional device; as a consequence, is not definitive and universal but subject to the particular mutations that democratic principles require.

Keywords : Ciudadanía; Democracia; Representación; Citizenship; Democracy; Representation.

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