Abstract

Being a citizen means belonging to a community, with rights and duties the exercise of which contributes to “formingµ the citizen. But thanks to the constitutional principle of subsidiarity, one can also become a citizen by practicing active citizenship, understood both as participation in public decision-making processes through the procedures of participatory and deliberative democracy, and as participation in the care of common goods by applying the model of shared administration. And since active citizens are people with a very high civic sense, by promoting active citizenship we can develop a sense of belonging to the community and produce new social capital.