Considerations on the Democratic Challenge from the Perspective of Social Services: Community, Participation and (In)equality

Abstract

This chapter offers a view on the need to find a more democratic approach to the social services system. We start from the premise that the current social services system encounters serious difficulties when trying to respond to, and transform, the different problems facing a social reality greatly impacted by injustice and social inequality. The commitment to greater democracy is therefore inevitable from the point of view of what was supposed to be one of the fundamental pillars of the welfare system. A review of some documents and access to some survey data afford an opportunity to discuss what we have called "greater community"/"intensified community", understood as a strategy allowing social services to develop a model based on participation and community perspective as preferential lines of intervention. The defence of this intensified community allows us to recognize the importance of working with the community towards the construction of active citizenship, this being understood as a fundamental condition for developing democracy. Following an overview of the main postulates supporting this interpretation, a brief summary of the reality of the Basque social services system is provided with the aim to outline the scope of greater community proposed herein.