Descrição: The main goal of the project is to investigate the internal dynamics of civil society and the relationship between civil society organizations and the State – more specifically the formers role as intermediaries between under-privileged strata and political institutions by means of bi-national comparison (São Paulo and Mexico City). So far, our main findings go against the conventional wisdom on civil society and its relationship with the State. Firstly, scholars and policy makers often portray civil society in Latin America as a displacement of traditional actors (e.g. service non-profit) and protest actors (e.g. social movements) by new actors (NGO-ization). In the first phase of our project, we argue that this is an inaccurate depiction of change within civil society, by showing through network analysis that civil society has diversified and modernized in both cities, so that different types of actors are relevant and have specific and different roles beyond the traditional ones (self-help and non-profit relief). We concluded this phase in 2010 with the publication of a working paper, the submission of a paper to a leading international journal in political science (which is currently under revise and resubmit) and a manuscript’s submission to another international journal. Secondly, conventional wisdom also often assumes the increasing roles of advocacy NGOs as civil society political intermediaries as a trend related to the progressive detachment of political parties from their social milieus and to state legitimacy deficits. In the second phase, our findings show that such understanding is flawed, by showing that political parties. NGOs territorially-based organizations have clear and specific patterns of connection among them which indicate that both policial parties and civil organizations relay on each other to access the state and connect state and society.
Docente responsável: Adrian Gurza Lavalle