Political Direction and the Form of the State: Notes on the Crisis of a Constitutional Category

The paper examines the trajectory of the constitutional category of political direction (indirizzo politico), investigating the meaning and causes of its crisis from a historical-material perspective. The underlying hypothesis is that, while the phenomenon to which the category refers has universal validity – namely, the existence of a connection between law and its material and social basis – the perspective offered by the category itself is not ahistorical, as it is tied to a particular configuration of the political sphere and of its relationship with law. Since neither can exist without the others, the category of political direction enters into crisis together with the conceptions of the State and of law that gave rise to it and within which it is immanent. Having lost its speculative capacity to describe reality, the category nevertheless retains a polemical and critical cognitive value, insofar as it remains useful for analysing the concrete transformations of the fundamental structures of contemporary legal orders and, consequently, for criticising the effects of the distortions affecting the constitutional State.

Keywords: Political direction; State; Constitution; European Union; Post-democracy.

Alberto Arcuri, Indirizzo politico e forma di Stato. Appunti sulla crisi di una categoria costituzionale in "DIRITTO COSTITUZIONALE" 2/2026, pp 13-38, DOI: 10.3280/DC2026-002002