LIBRI DI ERMANNO VITALE

Civil Society between Deficit and Excess of Power. Reflections on Governance and Democracy - What many contemporary ways of understanding governance (briefly syummarized in this essay) have in common is that they consider governance to be a new, more effective and more democratic form of multilevel interaction and integration between, on one hand, the numerous organizations of civil society (local, national, supranational) and on the other, the political institutions of consolidated constitutional democracy. However, by confronting the procedures of governance with Norberto Bobbio’s minimal conception of democracy, it clearly appears that governance and democracy are not only incompatible from a theoretical standpoint. It also seems that the idea according to which governance is an implementation of deliberative democracy, i.e. a concrete sign of the increased capability of civil society (in Habermas’ sense) to influence the political agenda in this beginning of the new century, suffers from a strong ideological twist.

Among the good definitions of democracy Bobbio used to say that he preferred the one which says that democracy is «public power in public ». Systematic lying which has characterized the so called war on terrorism and «rogue states », fought by the world superpower and its allies in the name of freedom (of the market) and democracy poses many questions to moral and political philosophy. This essay takes into consideration three of them: a) from a normative pointy of view, are there reasons good enough to justify lying by democracies? b) from a historicalpoint of view, systematic lying by democracies may be a consequence of the deadly embrace of global capitalism? c) in any case, can democracy be distinguished from other regimes by applying the criterion of transparency in the exercise of power?

The author offers a strongly critical interpretation of RawlsÕ last book, Il diritto dei popoli, in four points which correspond, in his opinion, to the main flaws and limits of the book itself, that is 1) an inadequate knowledge of the bimillenarian discussion on ius gentium, inadequacy which is the source of all the conceptual confusions that the book shows; 2) la claim of an implausible Kantian origin of the analysis and the proposal put forward; 3) the incoherence of the typology of Çfive national societiesÈ which derives from the showy confusion between the two concepts of ÇpeopleÈ and ÇstateÈ; 4) the liberal position which hinders a thorough analysis of the planetÕs true big economic, political and strategic problems.

Is multiculturalism compatible with laicism? And what about nationalism? In order to answer this question it’s obviously compulsory to define all these terms, but in particular to clarify what we mean by laicism, a term which seems to be out of question as one of the rule of law strongest bases. The essay offers a strong and demanding definition of laicism which is used from a critical perspective to show how weak and contradictory some concepts which belong to the most used definition of multiculturalism and nationalism are. From the same perspective the relationships which link these two «isms» are analyzed: far from being in theoretical opposition, multiculturalism and nationalism seem to the author as two levels in which the same organic and historicist conception of society comes out, which enphasizes common sense and tradition with respect to critical knowledge and public use of reason.

The essay follows a symposium organized by the Basso Foundation to discuss, in the light of the Charter of fundamental rights proclaimed in Nice, the route philosophers, lawyers and political scientists believe integration should take in its evolution. The issue to be addressed, which is taken up by this essay too, is the following: is it plausible, besides being useful and desirable, that the promulgation of a European Constitution would facilitate the formation - or the strengthening or a better awareness - of a «public sphere» which would give new momentum and vitality to the original project of a federal Europe? Or would it rather be the opposite, i.e. that a European Constitution would be a leap forward and consequently a dangerous step which could bring about more fragmentation than integration since at the moment do not exist the communication conditions necessary for a European Constitution?

The essay is a contribution to the debate on the theory of fundamental rights started by Luigi Ferrajoli's article which appeared on this journal (II, 1998). The reply by Ferrajoli to a first set of critiques raised as renewed interest for the issue of the epistemological foundation and the worldview underlying general theory of law. Vitale tries to check, through the classic arguments put forward during the long contest between natural and positive law, wether the new paradigm proposed by Ferrajoli does not presuppose a foundation which is at least partly built ont the elements and the view of the world which belong to rationalism and modern doctrine of natural law. These elements appear to be the (philosophically) necessary premise to successfully defend, against ethical relativism and cultural particularism, the universality of fundamental rights and the normative function of the theory of law as Ferrajoli himself conceives it.