The Social Representations of Democracy: Reflexivity, Efferevescence and Conflict

This paper deals with “democracy within society” that appears predominantly in our research on social representations of democracy. We have interviewed 110 persons who have a regular access to the public sphere to perceive their understanding of democracy, its many dimensions, and its main stakes. Democracy within society, or democracy as a state of society, is opposed to institutional democracy (that is, political practices and Rule of law) toward which critics abound. Democracy within society is twofold: on the one hand, emphasis on effervescence and reflexivity that crystallize in collective organisations and in debate and communication and, on the other hand, assimilation of democracy to conflict, considered in terms of normality and processes. Moreover, democracy within society needs an actor, the citizen, who does not respond to the call of democracy, as shown in the many social sciences studies of the last decades.