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starting from the critic against two theoretical-political points of the Jürgen Habermas' theory of modernity, i.e. his understanding of the Western modernization as systemic institutional self-differentiation, self-referentiality and self-subsistence, and his conception of a juridical-political procedural paradigm based on such notion of modernization, I argue that the systemic theory concerning modernization leads to strong institutionalism and to depoliticization of the institutional structuration, legitimation and evolution. The basic characteristic of systemic theory, which is the institutional self-referentiality and self-subsistence regarding political praxis and social normativity, autonomizes social systems of justifying and organizing themselves according to an inclusive democratic political praxis and to a biding notion of social normativity, depoliticizing them. From here emerges a radical separation between systemic institutional dynamic and democratic political-normative praxis, between institutions and civil society, in that systemic institutions become independent and closed in relation to politics and social normativity, allowing only a representative political role to social movements and citizen initiatives, centralizing and monopolizing the institutional legitimation and the social evolution inside the very own institutions. A radical democratic political praxis which can face such strong institutionalism based on the systemic theory must politicize both the liberal's notion of Western modernization and its consequent strong institutionalism, refusing the systemic theory as epistemological-political basis to the foundation of the contemporary institutional constitution and legitimation. It signifies also the normative-political centrality of the civil society's arena, practices and social subjects as the platform to institutional grounding and evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text aims to analyze the democratic potential of institutionalized social participation. I argue that the expansion of the channels of participation is a tool for deepening democracy to the extent that it favors the empowerment of minorities and of actors systematically alienated from decision-making processes, for it contributes so that they have a chance to interfere in the political agenda and in the formulation of public policies. For this analysis, I will draw on the experience of Brazilian National Conferences and on some aspects of the theory of deliberative democracy developed by Seyla Benhabib regarding the theme of public participation and political judgment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

starting from the critic against two theoretical-political points of the Jürgen Habermas' theory of modernity, i.e. his understanding of the Western modernization as systemic institutional self-differentiation, self-referentiality and self-subsistence, and his conception of a juridical-political procedural paradigm based on such notion of modernization, I argue that the systemic theory concerning modernization leads to strong institutionalism and to depoliticization of the institutional structuration, legitimation and evolution. The basic characteristic of systemic theory, which is the institutional self-referentiality and self-subsistence regarding political praxis and social normativity, autonomizes social systems of justifying and organizing themselves according to an inclusive democratic political praxis and to a biding notion of social normativity, depoliticizing them. From here emerges a radical separation between systemic institutional dynamic and democratic political-normative praxis, between institutions and civil society, in that systemic institutions become independent and closed in relation to politics and social normativity, allowing only a representative political role to social movements and citizen initiatives, centralizing and monopolizing the institutional legitimation and the social evolution inside the very own institutions. A radical democratic political praxis which can face such strong institutionalism based on the systemic theory must politicize both the liberal's notion of Western modernization and its consequent strong institutionalism, refusing the systemic theory as epistemological-political basis to the foundation of the contemporary institutional constitution and legitimation. It signifies also the normative-political centrality of the civil society's arena, practices and social subjects as the platform to institutional grounding and evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is dedicated to clarify Foucault's critique of the modern notion of power, a notion that supports the concept of political representation. To understand the need to refuse the legal notion of power gestated in modernity, I oppose Lebrun's understanding about Hobbesian power and Foucault's description. Lebrun and Foucault differ about what is the essence of modern power, although they agree in seeing in the legal sense of power the despotic spirit of political representation. Thus, through these different readings of Hobbes, I intend to explain the meaning of Foucault's critique of the modern concept of power. This criticism is not limited toa simple reversal of the modern sense of power (Hobbesian), changing the look of the Sovereign constitution for the constitution of subjects; it involves recognizing the concept of "power", particularly in its legal sense, as the despotic spirit of political representation and, therefore, the need to overcome it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text aims to analyze the democratic potential of institutionalized social participation. I argue that the expansion of the channels of participation is a tool for deepening democracy to the extent that it favors the empowerment of minorities and of actors systematically alienated from decision-making processes, for it contributes so that they have a chance to interfere in the political agenda and in the formulation of public policies. For this analysis, I will draw on the experience of Brazilian National Conferences and on some aspects of the theory of deliberative democracy developed by Seyla Benhabib regarding the theme of public participation and political judgment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theories of deliberative democracy formulate a critique of the liberal representative democracy model, which is based on ideals such as division of powers, periodic elections, and majority rule. These theories present proposals for resumption of political space as a place for discussion and resolution of collective interest issues. One of the main deliberative democracy models is the one developed by the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas. In this paper, Habermas's deliberative model is analyzed using three concepts, namely, people, will, and representativeness. It is argued that Habermas's model could be complemented in order to become more representative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crisis of political representation which marked the mobilizations in France in the 1960s and 1970s was accompanied by the invention of modalities of militant action, especially those integrated into the cultural production of the first generation of intellectuals of the post-war period. The intensification of the crisis decisively affected the institutional field of Marxism, giving a privileged space to soixante-huitard intellectual engagement devices. This paper presents the results of a research conducted on three of these devices: the Groupe d'Information sur les Prisons (GIP), the Centre d'Études et de Recherches de Formation Institutionnelles (CERFI), and the École Freudienne de Paris (EFP). In the twilight of the French Communist Party, it is the emergence of a critical rationality of the representational paradigm, which will occupy from now, the political imagination of what was once the hegemonic Marxism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]