The Role of Civil Society in the Control of Public Power

Abstract

This paper examines the need to control power through the courts and civil society in States with an overwhelming influence of political parties, which tend to invade most areas of their citizens’ lives. For the analysis of political parties ’ performance, which reveals their present excess of power, we provide some general considerations that apply, to some extent, to the vast majority of Western democracies. Then, we take the situation in Spain as a departure point, because of its still weakly structured and relatively untested civil society; for the study of control systems, we focus our analysis on the Spanish model of social and political interaction. In particular, we delve into issues that demonstrate the lack of control over economic and financial issues affecting political parties and the citizens’ new perception of their role and the necessity for accountability.