Is citizen participation possible beyond social movements?

To answer the question of whether citizen participation beyond social movements is possible, it is necessary to bear in mind that there is an intertwined, permanent, complex and changing relationship between democracy, socio-political actors -new or not-, civil society, citizen participation and public policies, throughout their cycle; and that in any case, the social movements that arise will depend on the conflictive or non-conflictive forms of these intertwined relationships. Each of these relationships brings together actors - with or without agency, but, in any case, in search of it - rules, strategies and practices. In fact, their definition and characteristics have their raison d'être under the conceptual framework that brings them together closely in a skein of relationships that can only be distinguished analytically, which is why in this article we have chosen to group them in a back-and-forth path that, without being exhaustive, gives us an idea of the possibilities and meanings of their development.