CHANGES IN RELATIONS BETWEEN PUBLIC AUTHORITIES AND THE CIVIL SECTOR: A REVIEW OF RECENT RESEARCH

Abstract

The civil sector sector is often determined by a few more or less precise differences. Itdiffers from the state and the market in its specific qualities. Referring to the originality ofthe civic world, dilemmas arise: Are associations really places of politicization, democracyand its learning? - Or are the associations a place of solidarity where labor is renewed? In aword, are they the iron of social change? In such a connotation that connects the civil sectorwith the idea of counter-power, it should not be equated with either the Government or itsadministration. As different from the state, the civil society sector could be confused withthe wider sphere of politics. Today, significant values are attributed to the civil society sector,for example as a potential reservoir of political elites or as a facilitator of public regulation.The interest in the civil sector today is part of the reassessment of the relations between thecitizen and the state, of the political power of the common man. What defines the civil sectoris the fact that it is the space where citizens can freely associate and organize in groups andorganizations at different levels in accordance with their interests. The relations between thecivil sector and the state have been the subject of interest for a long time. In this paper, wefocus on the changing relations between public authorities (the state but also others suchas local governments or supranational governments such as the institutions of the EuropeanUnion) and the civil society sector by analyzing current research in some European Unioncountries. and the Republic of Northern Macedonia.