Relational Perspectives on Civil Society and Democracy: Relational Sociology, Personalism, Universal Fraternity, and Related Approaches

Representative democracy and democratic governance face persistent challenges, including corruption, polarization, state capture, weakened civic ties, and other interrelated problems. Much research explains political and social outcomes by focusing on individuals, institutions, or structures as the principal units of analysis. Relational approaches complement these perspectives by emphasizing that enduring patterns of relationships possess emergent properties not reducible to individuals, institutions, or structures. This panel explores what can be better understood once relationships themselves are treated as a primary unit of analysis.
The panel builds on relational sociology's premise that social relationships are emergent social realities, constituted through reciprocal orientations between social actors, shaping cooperation, exclusion, and other outcomes. Personalism, universal fraternity, and other relational approaches conceptualize relationships differently, but share this premise. Building on it, the panel asks: what can be better understood when relationships are treated as a primary unit of analysis for civil society, democracy, and governance? Relational perspectives examine how trust, reciprocity, solidarity, and the common good take shape through relationships, and how this shapes democratic resilience and policymaking.
This approach helps illuminate an important problem in democracy today. Civil society is often seen as essential for democracy, but this is not always the case. It can support democratic participation and trust, but can also become divided, polarized, or controlled by anti-democratic groups. What explains these outcomes? Which qualities of social relations let civil society act as a democratic resource, and which turn it into a factor of democratic decline?
Bringing together relational sociology, personalism, universal fraternity, and other approaches, this panel advances a relational understanding of politics, moving beyond divisions such as individual versus society, agency versus structure, or domestic versus international. It thus contributes to debates on rethinking governance and foreign policymaking by showing that democratic institutions, civic participation, and the common good depend on relationships.
We invite theoretical, comparative, and empirical papers on civil society and democracy across political science, including international relations, engaging relational sociology, personalism, universal fraternity, or related frameworks. We especially welcome papers demonstrating the value of relational perspectives for advancing theoretical and empirical understandings of democratic governance and political practice.