The research project
This research project aims to investigate the contemporary philosophical and political debate surrounding the meaning of democratic society and the challenges it currently faces. Issues such as the ecological crisis, artificial intelligence, emerging political and social fractures, and the reconfiguration of conflict and identity all demand a renewed understanding of democratic regimes and expose unprecedented dimensions of democracy itself.
The goal is to develop a new conception of democratic society that moves beyond both liberal theory and the critiques offered by deconstructionist and postmodernist approaches—one that is capable of responding to the urgent challenges shaping our time.
The guiding theoretical hypothesis of this project is the formulation of a new theory of democracy grounded in the concept of the institution of the social. This concept—rooted in the intersection of French ethnology (Émile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss) and phenomenology, particularly the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty—conceives of society as a form: a symbolic totality, a self-reflexive field of meaning.
At the heart of this theoretical approach, which developed in part as a reaction to structuralism and post-structuralism in France during the latter half of the 20th century, are the contributions of thinkers such as Claude Lefort, Cornelius Castoriadis, Marcel Gauchet, Miguel Abensour, Pierre Clastres, and Marc Richir.
From this perspective, democracy is not reducible to a mere political regime or a set of procedural rules. Rather, it is understood as a type of society that accepts internal conflict, where power cannot be definitively occupied by any single subject, and which evolves through an ongoing questioning of its foundations and meaning.
This project is driven by the conviction that a renewed theory of democracy can offer valuable tools for understanding the profound transformations currently affecting our societies—transformations that call into question long-held and increasingly outdated conceptions of democracy.
Within this broader theoretical framework, the project is structured around several distinct lines of inquiry, designed to align with the research interests of the various network partners and to foster collaboration, exchange, and joint research.
- The phenomenological roots of the institution theory of the social.
- The relationship between institution and conflict.
- The relationship between identities and community.
- The ecological crisis
- The Italian reception of social institution theory
- The work of Claude Lefort