The Doctoral Programme “Democracy in the Twenty-first Century” meshes with a critical and interdisciplinary theoretical-methodological approach which aims to:

1. Provide systematic understanding of Democracy, of its capacity of including and valorising the diversities and citizen participations, and the concept of Republicanism in the Twenty-first Century, by means of critical debate on the alternative ways of pondering globalisation trends and foregrounded instances challenges and themes such as: an analysis of the discursive quality of parliamentary and political debate; the role of social movements and of NGOs; re-defining the functions of the State; the role of institutional experimentation developed by local institutions and their regional, national and international networks; the delegation of decision-making practices which involve citizens in managing territorial changes; the socialisation of scientific knowledge in the light of the new risks and challenges to the paradigm of sustainability, the new struggles for human rights and their progressive reformulations; the challenges posed by multicultural diversity; the problems of government and of global and local governance, as well as those applying public policies in general. Special attention will be focused on analysing changes in the South, especially Africa and Latin America.

2. Promote advanced sociological research conducive to producing original, high-quality results, worthy of being nationally and internationally disseminated and whose operationalization, it is hoped, will foment social and cultural progress in the area of sociology and of the social sciences.

3. Give doctoral candidates the opportunity of benefitting from the articulation of teaching-learning-research-action which characterises and distinguishes the scientific practice of CES/Associate Laboratory, which received a rating of ‘excellence’ as a research centre, and of the partners of the Federal University of Minas Gerais that work in centres such as PRODEP, the project participatory democracy, the Centre for Reference of Public Interest (CRIP) and the Project Republic. The goal is so this articulation teaching-learning-research-action may influence, through the exchange of practices and knowledge, the transformation of political and cultural institutions’ action with which FEUC, CES and UFMG work. In order to attain these goals, the Doctoral Programme “Democracy in the Twenty-first Century” articulates three central research lines that have come to be developed within the hosting institutions, through numerous projects, as indicated further on.

4. Ensure that every doctoral dissertation analyses political phenomena in a critical and interdisciplinary fashion. A critical approach is called for, because this will be the first post-graduate studies programme in this area in Portugal to adopt theoretical-methodological perspectives close to the traditions of ‘critical theory’, of participatory democracy and active citizenship. As for the interdisciplinary feature of the analyses to be developed, the reasons for this option have to do with the very nature of CES and CES-AL, with seat at UFMG, both research centres in the social and human sciences which have most committed to the multi-disciplinary study of the issues of our societies. Given CES researchers’ long and rich history of studying political phenomena, students will be able to benefit from contact with (and possible supervision by) researchers who have worked on cities and urban culture, on local government and localisation of public policies, on social movements, on the State and the new forms of regulation, on the political consequences of the phenomenon of globalisation. The experiences to be considered as focus of analysis and debate will proceed from different places, both from the South as from the North, engaging on the valorisation of contexts that more evidently reveal a veritable repository of alternative knowledge and ways of knowing.

In order to valorise such a significance, the adaptation of an thrust of “compared studies” on behalf of the teachers as well as the students will constitute the privileged focus of the Doctoral Programme “Democracy in the Twenty-first Century”.