This paper looks at the relation between State and society in the contemporary world, focusing particularly on the role of Law and penal justice. Taking on a normative and interdisciplinary perspective (Philosophy, Sociology and Anthropology of Law), it takes a stand for the democratization of democracy", thus establishing an opposition between the socialization of the exercize of political power and the "statization" of society. More specifically, it opposes the Ethics of the Other to the Ethics of the One; the first represents alterity, which should be incorporated into our standards of behavior, while the latter represents confinement within particularist values. In addition to this, Penal Law is perceived as a privileged locus in which these themes - the ethics of the Other and of the One, the socialization of power and the statization of society - are related and become materialized.
society; pluralism; the State; Law; Penal Justice; democracy