e-Participation and civic engagement. Active citizenship and Catholic associations in the framework of dialogic democracy

One of the rhetorical arguments that accompanied globalization and, in particular, the advance of neo-liberalism (or, more correctly, its resistance to the crisis it had itself provoked) found its strong points in two keywords: 1) quantity, and 2) efficiency. The crisis of confidence in and indifference to politics must not be labelled simply as an exit or worse, a withdrawal into the individual and personal sphere. New forms of political participation are developing, which are no longer covered by the old definitions of non-conventional participation, since they have adopted consolidated political practices, but they remain outside the traditional political institutions. One of the “new” forms of citizenships is active citizenship, the definition of which is anything but simple. Active participation on the part of citizens not only fosters democracy but is also a genuine indicator of the quality of democracy itself.