FOR A MORPHOLOGY OF CONCEPTS IN THE DEMOCRATIC LEXICON

Since the Modern age, democracy stands as the characteristic Western form of government. We cannot consider such a political regime as just one among other possible ways of understanding the organization of power. Rather, it is the accomplishment of a certain culture and a certain anthropological vision. As a matter of fact, in its multifaceted variants, democracy is the most evident outcome of modern political thought, rooted in the theoretical bedrock of the natural law doctrine. Whoever intends to research on such a broad and complex topic, thus, has to keep in mind how wondering about the modern way of understanding and practicing politics is indispensable to this aim. Hence, we should start by clarifying the underlying concepts of politics and how they are used to justify political order and political obligation. As it is well known, concepts like, e.g., ‘equality’, ‘freedom’, ‘representation’, or ‘popular sovereignty’ are so controversial that often give raise to hard-to-solve aporias. At the same time, in everyday language, they are frequently used in minimal, uncritical or quasi-dogmatic ways, so to hinder any authentic understanding of the considered phenomena. Consequently, in order to shed light on contemporary political phenomena, it seems necessary to focus on the mentioned confusing cultural horizon, and to examine the common democratic lexicon with all its contradictions and conceptual stratifications. In particular, it is a matter of understanding whether there are irresolvable antinomies or not; or whether the reasons for the political conflict are to be traced back only to the ideologies of the warring parties or also to the ground where the conflict takes place. Indeed, the perpetual crisis that appears to afflict democratic regimes might be due not just to historical contingencies (though their relevance is certainly non-negligible) but to an endemic fragility intrinsic in the very origin of such regimes.