Civil society, democracy and neoliberalism

an interview with Professor Nadia Urbinati

Abstract

This is an interview with Professor Nadia Urbinati, in October 2017, at Columbia University, New York. Questions about the origin, conceptualization, and foundations of Civil Society are addressed, as well as its development amidst the consolidation of democratic states in the West throughout the 19th and 20th centuries.  In the current scenario, it is discussed how the rise of neoliberalism as a hegemonic ideology of macroeconomic management and state organization and, consequently, the fall of the Welfare State, are determinant to the democratic and representation crises experienced in the first two decades of the 21st century. Nadia Urbinati's reflections conjure up new ways of organizing civil society that contemplate the citizen and citizenship in an institutionalized manner inside the State, in the public policies, and in the political parties themselves, so that the representation and participation of social interests are present.