BETWEEN GOVERNANCE AND THE EXERCISE OF CITIZENSHIP: EXERCISING CITIZENSHIP TO INFLUENCE GOVERNANCE OR GOVERNING TO NORMALIZE CITIZENSHIP?

Abstract

The essay summarized here introduces a critical analysis and understanding of the intersections likely
to occur between the act of governance and the exercise of citizenship, following a two-way approach:
i) (democratic) governance as conditioning of the exercise of citizenship; ii) and, conversely, the
exercise of citizenship as a condition for governing action. We essay a hermeneutic of conceptual
confrontation of the systemic definitions of democracy, governance, citizenship and citizen, with the
aim of consolidating a logically articulated model of analysis and, more lately, to a sufficiently
comprehensive theoretical sample of the object of study. We develop our analysis on the basis of the
hermeneutic circle methodology. For this, the approach we take to the notion of democracy isrelevant, making the construction of that scheme dependent on the conceptual indicators of political
participation and citizen, more or less able to effect / experience the exercise of democratic
governance. Congruently, we have access to a framework of meanings and meanings of
contemporary citizenship, from which we hypothetically come to circumstance an idea of citizen,
sometimes conditioned by the governing act, now, himself, capable of conditioning the processes of
governance of contemporary society.