The Historical Transformation of the Relationship Between Public Administration and Civil Society: From Authority to Dialogue
The Historical Transformation of the Relationship Between Public Administration and Civil Society: From Authority to Dialogue

Summary/Abstract: This study investigates the historical evolution of the relationship between public administration and civil society through a diachronic lens, focusing on the transformations in institutional configurations, normative frameworks, and citizen-state interactions. Rather than examining administrative structures as merely technical systems, the analysis approaches them as historically embedded expressions of authority, legitimacy, and mediation. In the first stage, administration functioned as an extension of sovereign will in authoritarian and patrimonial regimes, devoid of legal predictability or civic engagement. The second stage reflects the rationalization of administration during the formation of the modern state, characterized by codified law, bureaucratic professionalism, and the gradual emergence of legal and procedural spaces for interaction with civil society. In the third stage, participatory governance reshapes administrative functioning through mechanisms of deliberation, transparency, and accountability, transforming the citizen from a regulated subject into an active interlocutor in public decision-making. The inquiry reveals that the administration–society nexus does not evolve in a linear manner but follows discontinuous paths, marked by tensions between continuity and rupture, hierarchy and collaboration, command and negotiation. The trajectory of these transformations delineates a shifting grammar of power and inclusion, with the modern administrative apparatus situated at the intersection of institutional reflexivity and societal pluralism.

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