Places of participation and construction of citizenship

Abstract

The article starts from the assumption that there is the risk that participation may loose its efficacy due to the multiple forms and mechanisms of participation which rarely communicate among themselves. The knowledge and the analysis of the places of participation, as a complex set of relations and structures, may contribute 1) to highlight the limits and possibilities of each one of them, and 2) for the construction of an active citizenship. There is, at the beginning, a brief argumentation in terms of the understandings of participation and social control. Then there are presented a variety of possibilities of participation through which citizenship is manifested and built: the vote, public manifestations, social movements, associations, networks, forums of the civil society, conferences and participatory management. The study dedicates special attention to the ounsels due to the role constitutionally attributed to them in terms of participation and social control. Key words: Participation; Social control; Democracy; Education; Citizenship.