Civil Society Meets the State : Towards Associational Democracy?

This article discusses the 'associational democratic' model of relationship between state and civil society organizations, which recommends devolution of as many regulatory functions as possible to local groups and associations with detailed knowledge of problems and possible solutions, extensive monitoring capacities and the potential to deliberate about generalizable as opposed to purely sectional interests. The goal is to introduce greater doses of realism in a model that has, so far, mostly been confined to abstract, normative discussions. The article does so by discussing two themes in particular: the link between associational democracy and neo-corporatism, and the relationship between deliberation-a crucial element in the normative model-and bargaining