ECLAC 2018
Nonetheless, the depth of inequalities, along with their persistence in the face of policies aimed at reducing them, probably play a role in the indifference, detachment and limited civic and political life in the region. Strengthening democracy threatens the culture of privilege. At the same time, however, it raises questions about the coherence between the symbolic and material progress of democracy towards a culture of equal rights. Symbolic progress entails democratic institutions and forums for discussion that instil, in the collective awareness, the idea of a community of citizens with equal rights. Material progress involves effective tools that translate that idea into actions that promote equality and penalize privileges. To bring these two dimensions together, institutional changes must be introduced to dismantle the culture of privilege through social compacts for equality, as ECLAC proposed to its member countries in the position paper it presented at its thirty-fifth session (ECLAC, 2014). Such compacts are both an end and a means: as the fruits of a deliberative process in pursuit of equality and democratic learning they are ends in themselves and, as instruments of public policy, they are a means for the ongoing and progressive implementation of pro-equality policies. The construction of compacts and their institutional consecration both produce a collective learning process in which the culture of equal rights is instilled in the community’s awareness and, consequently, the exercise of privilege is curtailed.
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