(di Giovanni Moro)
Paper presented at the Instituto Nacional de Administracao seminar
“A face oculta da governanca: cidadania, adminstracao publica e sociedade”
Lisbon, 19-20 November, 2001
Published in The Journal of Corporate Citizenship. Issue 7, Autumn 2002, pp. 18-30
Table of contents
- Introduction
- Epistemological difficulties, some basic statements, two definitions
- Citizenship and governance: a controversial issue
- From traditional to new citizenship
- The active citizenship approach
- Active citizenship and the “populist challenges” to governance
- The citizens’ side of governance: a definition
- Citizens as partners in governance: a memo for public administration
- Conclusion: the need for a constitutional framework
- Bibliography
Introduction This paper aims to highlight a quite hidden dimension of governance. It could be defined as the citizens’ side of governance: a topic that should be considered of the most importance in this field of research, but is strangely forgotten or underestimated by scholars, politicians and policy makers. It is a fact that governance studies concentrate on the state’s side of governance rather than on the citizens’ side. But in doing this they risk losing sight of what, in a sense, is most important.
In this paper, a few remarks will be devoted to some general issues linked to governance, especially from theoretical and methodological point of view. Then, the paradoxical lack of definition of the role of citizens’ initiatives in governance will be addressed through the thematization of the shift from traditional to new citizenship and the introduction of the “active citizenship” approach, linked to that shift. Then the issue of the citizens’ side of governance will be presented and discussed, both through a definition and some examples, and through some notes on the role of public administration in enabling active citizens to take their own responsibilities in the governance perspective.
