State-civil society partnership: issues for debate and new researches

Abstract

I n this paper we look at the literature related to partnership between state and civil society, especially partnership between public and non-for-profi t organisations. We discuss the differing perspectives of partnership and attempt to identify some of the main theoretical concerns about partnership between state and civil society in the governance context. In this paper, we argue that the historical background of partnership has not been included among factors used in explaining the resort to partnership in governance. In spite of existing analyses showing that partnership brings social benefi ts in their own right, we try to show that there is no evidence that this 'social technology' contributes effectively to bringing power to powerless people and social groups. Most of the literature shows that partnership tries to make relationship between local people and local governance stronger and improve the possibilities for powerless people and social groups to participate in local governance. However, we do not fi nd clear evidence in the literature that partnership allows for a shift in political power. Finally, we show that it is unclear whether the interaction between ordinary people and the state through a participatory process has successfully helped to build social cohesiveness for different social groups. The main contribution of this paper is to expand the understanding of the factors that infl uence the process of partnership between state and civil society (positively and negatively) for local development.Keywords: Partnership. State-Civil Society Partnership. Governance. Empowerment. Social Capital. Parceria entre o Estado e a Sociedade Civil: pontos para o debate e novas pesquisasResumo N este artigo analisamos a literatura de parceria entre o estado e a sociedade civil, em particular sobre a parceria entre as organizações públicas e as organizações sem fi ns lucrativos. Discutimos as diferentes perspectivas do conceito de parceria e objetivamos destacar algumas das principais preocupações teóricas sobre este conceito no contexto da governança. Buscamos mostrar que, em geral, o contexto histórico da parceria não tem sido incluído entre os fatores usados para explicar o seu uso no contexto da governança. Apontamos que, a despeito das análises sobre parceria que indicam que esta traz benefícios sociais, ainda existem lacunas no conhecimento que evidenciem que esta "tecnologia social" contribui efetivamente para empoderar as pessoas e os grupos sociais com menor poder de infl uência. A maior parte da literatura sugere que a parceria objetiva fortalecer a relação entre a população e o governo local e melhorar as possibilidades das pessoas e dos grupos sociais com menor poder de infl uência em participar na governança local. Entretanto, não encontramos na literatura sobre parceria evidências substantivas de que ela se direciona para modifi car a estrutura de poder político. Finalmente, mostramos que não está claro se a interação entre as "pessoas comuns" e o estado, por via de um processo particip...

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“…As Vasconcellos 2011) show, the concept of partnership has a diversity of meaning. According to them, the most prominent conception of partnership involves cooperation, trust and synergy between individuals and organisations to achieve a common objective 2011).…”

“…As Vasconcellos 2011) show, the concept of partnership has a diversity of meaning. According to them, the most prominent conception of partnership involves cooperation, trust and synergy between individuals and organisations to achieve a common objective 2011). It evokes to relationships between two or more stakeholders that join different resources to pursue a joint approach to achieve common aims (LEWIS, 2000).…”

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