The Role of Civil Society in Public Policies: between the Ethical Guidance of Participation and the Political Need

Civil society is historically a public policy actor, especially in the field of social policies. In fact, in modern societies, welfare is often provided by different sources: State, market, family and civil society, governed by diverse principles of social risk management: authorized redistribution, distribution, reciprocity, and voluntary and nonprofit participation respectively. This work provides a perspective on the civil society, analyzes its dynamics and principles, its links with other areas and roles that was occupying it for autonomous action or delegated directly by the State. Then, it inquires about a concept built on the theory and practice, where civil society was presented as a space discursively different from the traditional institutions of democracy and with different positive abilities to carry out proposals and implement policies. Also, this paper develops different problems related to the simultaneous treatment of civil society in topological terms and rules of ethical guidance and points out the potential of civil society to assume functions related to welfare provision. Although the contribution of the civil society organizations was not so significant -especially in promoting public policies superior than the ones developed by State actors- there was a speech emphasis which exaggerated that attribute, provided from the State actors and also the civil society ones. The central hypothesis developed by this article is that the emphasis placed in the civil society as an actor capable of challenging the State in matters of efficiency, transparency, legitimacy building and even to lower the levels of social "chaos" is directly related to its differentiation from the State. Mainly from the processes of "structural adjustment" in the region, the State has negative connotations and the condition of "nonstate" or "NGO" which gives certain virtues to the civil society. This document seeks to break with those interpretations which give civil society some virtues per se in welfare provision, in front of a State space that appears as corrupt and inefficient. In addition, it emphasizes the diversity of the area to be made up of organizations that share neither objective nor common operating logic nor comparable social practices. Finally, from an approach of the welfare studies (civil society as a welfare sphere) with some perspectives close to the political theory field, the analysis developed goes far beyond the "anti-politic" vision of civil society to think from a "politization" and political decentralization perspective. In this context, any analysis that argues that politics loses centrality rests on a category mistake, a product of assimilation of politics only to State institutions.