Dialogue and dialogical democracy

Abstract

This essay seeks to demonstrate the indissoluble link between democracy and sociodialogical processes. To this end, it first describes the essential features of democracy as a system of government, vindicating its suitability for managing public affairs, where dissimilar interests and perspectives coexist and must be tolerated. It then refers to the crisis afflicting the system, pointing to the shortcomings of the representative model to explain it. In short, it shows how the absence of dialogue plays a leading role among the causes of democratic decline. In response, we describe the fundamental aspects of social dialogue, conceived by the ILO as an appropriate instrument for the democratic governance of the world of work, and the valuable lessons that can be drawn from it for the recomposition and deepening of the democratic model based on the dialogic participation of all the actors concerned. Keywords: Social dialogue, democracy, participation, governance, ILO.