Populismo, plebiscitarismo e crisi della democrazia

The aim of this article is to discuss recent transformations of Democracy in Europe from the point of view of a theory of leadership. Focusing on the present European Crisis, the paper will try to clarify why, in a high rationalized context as the one of contemporary western societies, plebiscitary politics returns, and it appears as specifically connected to populism. Through an analysis that takes into account both to the theoretical framework of democracy and the history of democratization in Europe, as it has mainly been explored in Max Weber's political sociology, I will thematise the very relation between democracy and plebiscitary as well as its reference to populism of today. On the streamline of recent works on populism, plebiscitary and the audience-democracy (like the ones by B. Manin, P. Rosanvallon and N. Urbinati) I will challenge as crucial issues the transformation of democratic context in a post-party society and the present meaning of mass politics, as well as the role that political group specifically plays today. According to its earlier meaning accepted by Weber himself, mass party will be discussed in its own double-faced profile, that is both as 'political machine', which works to guarantee an organized consensus to political leaders, and as freestanding corporate entity, which peculiarly remains a political stakeholder. Developing Weber's own perspective, I claim as result that modern democracy never released from its role of plebiscitary organizer, since it originally grounds in the fundamental relation that links popular legitimacy to the construction of consent through democratic deliberation. What follows is an overwhelming role played by demagoguery as a proper canon of the political discourse that potentially fosters the plebiscitary will.