Sociedad civil en América Latina: una conversación con el Dr. Alberto J. Olvera

Abstract

The following is an interview with Professor Alberto J. Olvera, an outstanding researcher who works on processes of democratic construction in Mexico and in Latin America, held at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Chile. In this conversation, we tried to deepen into the notion of civil society and its current understandings. The understanding of civil society in post-authoritarian contexts has led to rethinking the notion based on the experiences and the transformations of the social groups that compose it. This concept has gained an important place in political theory and in Latin America it served to account for the organization and resistance of society during military dictatorships. In this interview we review the evolution of this analytical category and its utility to interpret civil society in the current democratic regimes.