La ciudadanía republicana como alternativa para el desarrollo democrático de las sociedades occidentales en el siglo XXI.

Introduction: This article argues that, due to its characteristics, the republican citizenship model is the best alternative for promoting citizen participation in contemporary Western democracies. Objective: The purpose of the text is to analyze its advantages over other citizenship models, as well as to explain the reasons why it is considered the most appropriate approach for the theoretical and practical development of citizen participation. Method: For the elaboration of the article, the documentary research method and the argumentative analysis were used. First, the debate between the visions of representative democracy and participatory democracy is presented, to later examine the influence of the realist and idealist paradigms as political philosophical currents that underlie and sustain the main premises of each of these perspectives of democracy. Results: From the analysis, it is concluded that the republican citizenship model allows overcoming the representation-participation dichotomy, in addition to providing a more solid and congruent foundation for both the theory and the praxis of citizen involvement in public affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]