Everyday alliances and democratic actions:

Marcel Mauss, Robert Putnam and the bases of consensual agreements

Abstract

This article analyzes the theoretical performance of the classic essay by Marcel Mauss in the discussion about the idea of ​​citizenship in Robert Putnam. Authors focused on thinking about the non-formally expressed foundations of the contract and their assumptions go back to the seminal debate in the social sciences about obligatoriness versus spontaneity. Associated with studies on citizenship, in Making democracy work, Putnam investigates the different degrees of civic engagement and its relationship with government practices, a variable capable of indicating the quality of democratic regimes through a system of benefits. In terms of this debate, it is worth exploring, through a bibliographic review, how the essay The gift contributes to the understanding of the role of culture in the performance of democracies. We consider the hypothesis of the dialogue between these two versions of the alliance in everyday action and its fecundity in studies on the way in which individuals experience rules in modern democracies. It is an effort of dialogue between the fields of anthropology and political science, specifically the debate on engagement in public life.