"Votare non basta. Il patto eletto-elettore nella crisi democratica"

Abstract: Democracy requires its elected leaders to account for their actions, especially when it comes to voting time. For a growing number of electors, however, participation in the life of the polis has to be more that simply putting a mark on the ballot paper. One of the crucial unanswered questions of modern democratic systems is how citizens can be involved in the political life of their representatives, during their whole period in office, in an explicit and continuous way. A new view of participation arising from an experience linked to the “culture of unity” which began in the mid-eighties is the “pact of accountability”, between electors and elected. Considering how risky it is to entrust government to an élite, this provides a glimpse of democracy handed back to the people, a form of political action by a properly constructed civil society that respects political tendencies and functions, in the context of a broader unity of the social body made up of free relationships oriented to the common good.