Norberto Bobbio e le promesse non mantenute della democrazia. Vent'anni dopo

The essay goes throug Bobbio’s famous book twenty years later it was first published. The six «unfulfilled promises of democracy» (individual’s sovereignity, primacy of political representation over representation of interests. defeat of oligarchies and hidden power, mutiplying of self-government areas, education of citizens) are analyzed at the light of a crucial question: was it good or bad that democracy did not fulfill it promises? Rousseau, Bentham, John Stuart Mill’s ideals, which Bobbio takes as a point of reference to reflection on contemporary democracy’s disfunction, may still be shared by XXIst century democrats? The answer is not a simple one. Some promises could not possibly be kept and consequently they cannot be included in the normative model of democracy for our times. Other ones, such as those linked to the defeat of hidden power and money’s oligarchies, can not be divided from a conception of democracy like the one put forward by Bobbio, «minimal» but demanding at the same time.;

Valentina Pazé, Norberto Bobbio e le promesse non mantenute della democrazia. Vent'anni dopo in "TEORIA POLITICA" 1/2005, pp , DOI: