Abstract

VILLAVICENCIO, Susana. CITIZENSHIP AND CIVILITY: About the Right to Have Rights. colomb.int. [online]. 2007, n.66, pp.36-51. ISSN 0121-5612.

In a context of neoliberalism and deepening socioeconomic inequality in Latin America, the author analyzes the concept of citizenship and its articulation with the concept of civility. Citizenship has been defined as a status that guarantees rights and duties, liberties and restrictions, and powers and responsibilities to equal individuals. This is why the concept of citizenship occupies a central place in democratic politics. But exclusion, growing inequality and the absence of conditions for the exercise of rights shows that the concept of citizenship is insufficient and reveals a gap to fill.The need to link this concept to the expectations of recognition contained in the idea of civility leads the author to ask for the paradoxes of liberal democracy, and to question the existing gap between ideal rights and their actual exercise, which points to the extent of the task of developing a real democracy.

Keywords : Latin America; neoliberalism; inequality; democracy; citizenship; civility.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )