| Abstract: |
The way in which the social subjects take decisions, the interactions
established between these, the web of social institutions and rules, the
architecture of the power relationships between the various “points of social
coagulation” have as a foundation a complex set of determinants, in which the
“pure” economic factors have an important, but not unique role. Thus, this
paper intends to draft a possible analytical framework, capable of allowing
the stress of some existing connections between the cultural variables, the
social actions and the role of the public power. Heavy indebted to OLSON and
NOZICK, the starting point is made out by a version of the mandate theory,
within the way in which society, as a whole, as well as its individual
components, delegates a certain set of social responsibilities to the public
authorities, based on some social utility functions, which include the
characteristics of the dominant cultural model. Part I of the paper deals with
the elements of the theoretical foundation, elements resumed by a set of
critical postulates and a special definition of state as the dominant agency
in a social space and also of the negotiation/parallel associations. Part II
is an attempt to examine some empirical evidences in the favor of some results
derived from this foundation. The main conclusion of the paper could be
resumed by the idea that trying to describe the interactions between state and
society without taking into the account the characteristics of the cultural
paradigm is equivalent to talk about Hamlet without mentioning the prince of
Denmark. |