Abstract
I will defend the argument that since the last decade of XX century it is possible to perceive a reaffirmation of a strong, compensatory, and regulatory State, which is directive concerning social evolution. In this sense, politics turns to foreground, both in terms of affirmation of the public institutions and referring to citizen participation, as the core to the performing of transformations in all sides of the society. Against conservative tendencies in the politics, assumed again with the current social and economic crisis, and after a long time of influence of the neoliberal theory advocating for politics of austerity, we can perceive a consolidation of a democratic culture or collective mentality that affirms this directive State concerning social evolution, realizing politics of social integration and regulating economic dynamic. It is a very important reality to our democracies, because it conducts to the reinforcement of a public culture of defense of the social rights, to the affirmation of a politics that, opposed to neoliberalism, assumes the vocation of directive center of society, space of claims for justice and effective exercise of citizenship, by an always growing number of individuals, cultural groups and social movements. It is an optimistic perspective to reinforce of the political democracy that puts the State as the basic institution to the constitution of a contemporary democratic society.
Keywords:
politics; State; society; economics; contemporaneity