 This opens the way for political struggles about alternative conceptions and solutions (where democratic politics entails at times collective self-reflectivity par excellence).In general, such processes enhance the collective capacity to deal with new challenges and crises.Thus, a collective has potentially a rich basis not only for talking about, discussing, agreeing (or disagreeing) about a variety of objects including the "collective self" as well as particular "individual selves"; but it also has a means to conceptualize and develop alternative types of social relationships, effective forms of leadership, coordination and control, and, in general, new normative orders and institutional arrangements.