LIBRI DI LUIGI BONANATE

Il rapporto tra le società e le guerre è a due vie e la lettura sociologica ha permesso di attraversare in profondità i processi che hanno cambiato il volto della guerra e fatto emergere nuove forme, nuovi attori, nuove barbarie. Nel tentativo di fare luce sulla complessità di queste dinamiche, il volume affronta il fenomeno sociale della guerra e riflette criticamente sulla molteplicità delle dimensioni che essa abbraccia nello scenario storico del XX e del XXI secolo.

La guerra è una relazione tra gli uomini fondata sulla morte. Se la spogliamo di strategie, tattiche, tecnologie, obiettivi… rivela la sua nuda verità, che si esplica in due azioni speculari: morire (o rischiare di morire, o essere disposti a farlo) e uccidere. Scavando nella cultura, nella psiche e nei miti che nutrono questa inesplicabile attitudine umana, il libro si interroga sui meccanismi che spingono gli uomini a giocare questa partita di sangue.

Il volume offre un quadro dei modelli di istituzioni educative, legate allo studio delle scienze politiche, più precoci e influenti in ambito europeo (francese, inglese, tedesco), con i quali sono posti a confronto la nascita, lo sviluppo, i progetti intellettuali delle facoltà italiane nel Novecento. I saggi, affidati a studiosi dei principali settori delle scienze politiche, discutono il ruolo, le prospettive e le responsabilità che a esse si aprono in un mondo in rapida trasformazione.

In occasione del centenario della nascita, una raccolta di scritti frutto di due grandi simposi voluti dall’Ambasciata spagnola in Italia, per dimostrare quanto l’insegnamento del filosofo abbia spazio anche in Spagna. I saggi raccolti sono stati dedicati al bilancio dell’apporto bobbiano alla teoria giuridica, con particolare riferimento alla problematica dei diritti umani che nell’opera del filosofo torinese occupa una posizione di assoluta centralità.

The state of democracy and democracy in states. Problems in the theory of transition This article reflects on the spread of democracy worldwide and on the state of academic discussion on the endogenous and exogenous dimensions of the process. The paradigm of the exogenous development of democracy is judged to be inadequate as an explanation of the current processes of democratisation worldwide, especially those under way in eastern Europe. By contrast, the exogenous and international dimension of the development of democracy is considered to occupy a central role in terms of the exporting of democracy in the framework of economic development. The author’s basic thesis, falling within the idealistic internationalist tradition, is that the international dimension of each single state has a crucial influence on its democratisation and stabilisation, above all through membership of international organisations and the democratic functions by which they work.

Nell’intervento di Luigi Bonanate si ricorda che per la sua struttura l’azione terroristica è strumento di lotta sia delle forze politiche troppo deboli per affrontare direttamente un avversario, sia di quelle tanto forti da non trovare opposizione. Il vero problema, nell’analisi del terrorismo, risiede secondo l’A. nella sua incompatibilità con ogni forma di democrazia, che non ammette alcuna forma di lotta violenta, neppure per raggiungere il bene politico (la virtù).

States and EU are not respectively prevailing on each other nor are separate: sovereign states "pool" their sovereignty in order to increase their joint capability to act as a single subject. They do not aim to keep separate the competences, which derive from the territorial nature of their power, but wish to pool them as well. Is it possible that at the end of this journey a new state will result? In this essay the author holds that this entity - neither state or super-state nor federation or confederation - is a thoroughly novel construction with respect to the other ones we know, as it started growing half a century ago: a reason why tools we made up through the past few centuries may not be suitable to a much more recent case. Foreign policy, security and borders do not have, for the EU, the same meaning they used to have for modern states.The object is different, different are its traits, as a consequence analytical tools have to be changed as well.

The essay tries to explain the crisis which started on September 11th from a philosophy of history point of view. Was the attack an historical cleavage, deemed to change the course of progress (bringing humankind back to the barathrum of war, which we thought we had gone over with the end of the clash between capitalism and socialism) or, on the contrary, September 11th, the war against Afghanistan, the menaces agaist "rogue states", the plan to use nuclear armaments by the Usa in case of non conventional attacks, are nothing but the consequence of the mistakes we have made, and more in general of our inconsiderate relying on globalization? Even if with many doubts, the author goes for this last hypothesis, which brings us back to the XVIII century world when "enlightened" kings (the Usa today) used to decide for their citizens as they thought they knew what was best for them even better than they did. Only a spontaneous evolution toward democratic forms of debate can help contemporary international system to avoid a new "revolution" (as the 1789 French one).

The essay discusses if the classical perspectives of Political science and International Relations are able to accomplish the theoretical revolution required by their inability to offer reasonable and interesting explanations of the recent transformations the world has undergone. Today in not any longer possible to distinguish between what happens within and outside the state, between domestic politics and international politics, since events are at once domestic and international, for the simple reason that the reciprocal influence of states has reached a degree unknown in history. In order to support this claim the author offers the examples of the two level-games introduced by R. Putnam and the evolution of European Union politics.

In this essay on citizenship and national identity, the author notes first of all that the debate on these concepts going on in the political science field appears to be old-fashioned and repetitive. This is so because the students taking part in it do not consider the fact that, on one side, the world is moving beyond these categories, and, on the other, students are unable to link these dimensions to the democracy issue which, nevertheless, is decisive: it does not matter who one is, but rather if he/she is democratic. Through some examples (as the curious one about the Kenian Kipketer winner of a world athletics championship for Denmark carrying a flag with the name of a famous sport clothing multinational printed on) and in particular with reference to the constitutionalization process Europe is undergoing, Bonanate concludes holding that only the sharing of the democratic habit by the highest possible number of states will help us overcoming the tensions that national feelings stir up.