Power and Democracy
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Escapist freedom: The anthropocene, escape theory, and the persistence of non-freedom
No full textWhy has human freedom, increasingly defined in plural subjectivities, been continuously unable to confront its antithesis of non-freedom? Classical debates on liberty theorized exit as various attempts to reclaim freedom, epitomized by Rousseau’s return to the natural self. This precipitated a shift from autonomous to authentic notions of freedom, yet exit is both non-viable and essential in the 21st century as a response to the Anthropocene’s suicidal logic of non-freedom. This essay attempts to address responses to the global paradox of non-freedom by theorizing a set of disparate efforts to engage institutions of non-freedom, which I term ‘escapist freedom’. Escapist freedom is individual, focused on the generation of meaning, and has a contentious relationship to liberal democracy
Apocalisse democratica : Pensare la “fine della democrazia” dopo la pandemia
No full textThis article focuses on the challenges that Covid-19 poses to Western democracies, with the aim of updating the imaginary of democratic collapse, in the light of the pandemic. The article examines the “democratic recession” and the (hypothetical) “democratic deconsolidation” and it attempts to establish whether these processes can be accelerated by the crisis. The concluding remarks instead focus on the idea of a “total demobilization”: this image is used to identify the (technological, political and cultural) processes that could deeply affect the fabric of our democracies
Why a Pandemic Needs Social Science
No full textThis essay explores what insights about dealing with a pandemic can be learned from political economy. We argue that epidemiology and political economy share many theoretical and policy challenges. Experts in both fields face similar dilemmas in positioning themselves vis-à-vis the state and society, while epidemiologic and market processes are only partially controllable. A key similarity is that both disciplines have to deal with incomplete and dispersed knowledge and with decision-making in the face of radical uncertainty. In this perspective, the cultivation of learning processes for all players in society to live with risks and to constantly readjust trade-offs constitutes the key channel out of the Corona pandemic. This also implies that heterogenous groups learn and adjust differently, and that experts should seek to be part of this learning process. We also address the challenges of states of exception, especially their tendency to absolutizes one type of risk in society above all others
Il disastro come mezzo
No full textWhile the COVID-19 pandemic draws attention to the vulnerability of the neoliberal economic and political complex, the general dynamic of numerous crises in the last forty years reminds us that neoliberalism managed every time not only to avoid serious backlashes, but also to take advantage of emergency situations to strengthen itself, in particular with the implementation of de-democratizing policies. In this paper the impact of the pandemic on neoliberal rationality is assessed, on the one hand showing the novelty of the present situation in the history of neoliberal capitalism, while on the other hand pointing out the similarities with past crises and, through them, warning about the antidemocratical dynamics that COVID-19 could trigger
Federalismo ed analisi micro-macro delle istituzioni: il contributo di Bruno Leoni allo studio microfondato del federalismo liberale
No full textThe theory of federalism has strong roots in the liberal approach to the study of institutions. In particular, the Austrian school of economics and the Public Choice approach have a particular and interesting point of view regarding the methodological individualism and evolutive approach to the exam of micro and macro dimensions of social interactions. Through the analysis of liberal and libertarian thesis of Bruno Leoni’s theoretical structure, the aim of this paper is to propose an individualistic interpretation of the federal model
At the birth of social science
No full textThe aim of this analysis is to ascertain the parameters of social sciences, and to what extent they may rightly be called scientific
Beyond bad reputation: Human duties in the age of rights
No full textThe bad reputation that has long surrounded human duties has overshadowed the crucial functions they perform for the governance of democracies. This article, after analysing the historical and ideological roots of the marginalization of duties, aims to highlight their significant role in the Age of Rights. In particular, the paper shows how a duty-based approach enriches our legal culture and political institutions, promoting solidarity and strengthening the protection of fundamental freedoms
Il pensiero giuridico allo stato mitico: un’epopea tragica
No full textThe classical mythical figures evoked in the paper deal with a philosophical question of law, which comes back every time that it is a matter of personal identity. Moreover, identity presents itself as the content of a right, since it cannot be resolved in terms of a desire (to “possess” an identity), nor in an abstract “principle of reason”. This is the reason why desire cannot be translated into a legal claim; because legal thought of the myths prospects qualitatively much more than a desire; the aspiration to recognition overcomes the “finite” satisfaction of desire, making it the lever of a tension to infinity; the question “what am I?”, “who am I?” prevails over any “measure” of reason
Democrazia, politica e nuovi poteri: una frontiera comune per gli studi politici
No full textPolitical phenomena and processes are the key subject of study in a number of disciplines. Nowadays, however, there often seems to be a growing lack of interest in specifying whether the definition or idea of politics typical of each of these disciplines be identical (or at least still closely related) to that of the others. In addition to specific methodological developments in political studies since the 1960s, such a situation results from certain transformations, both in politics itself and in its more widespread social and cultural representations. The essay mainly focuses on the transformations that are determining an ‘excess’ of politics. Tolerated and often favoured by democratic regimes, this excess of politics is in fact increasing the risks of deconsolidation of democracies. The strengthening of oligarchic powers in domestic politics and the emergence of new powers in the areas of interference between domestic and global politics, thus, come to indicate an important frontier of research for all political studies
Verso un diritto costituzionale del terzo settore? : Considerazioni argomentative a margine della sentenza n. 131 del 26 giugno 2020 della Corte Costituzionale
No full textThe present article provides an analysis and evaluation of the Constitutional Court judgement number 131 (26th June 2020), from the point of view of the legal argumentation theory, in the interesting perspective given by Manuel Atienza. The judgement, which has been properly argued from a juridical point of view, not only provides a valid theoretical reflection on the discipline of social corporations, but it also demonstrates the valuable role of theorists for “pragmatic” jurists