Centro Studi sul Federalismo

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NEWSLETTER

Registration number 5917
del 31/10/2005
registrato presso il Tribunale
di Torino - Ufficio Stampa

ISSN: 2039-7488

Special Issue

The "special" issue collects the suggestion coming from the users of the Bulletin, with regards to relevant articles published in journals that the Bulletin does not cover, or earlier than 2004. It will be updated at each new issue of the Bulletin, allowing the search in the archive of the Bulletin to access an ever-growing bibliography. It is the instrument to make the Bulletin not just a service provided by the Centre for Studies on Federalism, but an instrument for and of the international academic community, which can actively contribute to its development, by sending suggestions to the editorial coordinator at castaldi@csfederalismo.it.

Book Received

INDEX

Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government

Section B) Global governance and international organizations

Section C) Regional integration processes

Section D) Federalism as a political idea

Section D) Federalism as a political idea
Subsection 4.Various/Miscellaneous

Filipowicz Stanislaw

Democracy - The Power of Illusion

Ed. Peter Lang , Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Wien , 2013
Page 235
ISBN 978-3-631-62894-2

Democracy – hope or illusion? Blooming, failing or declining? Our doubts and hesitation make part of unbending efforts to endorse and explain democracy. Who is right – the custodians of promise ort the prophets of decline? The book concentrates on doubts. The author tries to explore «the other side of the moon», emphasizing the role of critical thinking, opposing a main-current optimism. Defending democracy we want to generate hope, but hoping may be a dangerous craft. Protecting our hope we are prone to believe that democracy – even if it is not a full success story – is justified in its nature and out of question. How much do we have to forget to sanction this view? This is, in fact, the main question the book raises. It gives voice to those who never, in their writing on democracy, used a flattering tone. Starting with Greek giants – Plato and Aristotle – up to modern and most recent times, going through a broad field of revealing criticism, leaving us with unsettling feeling that democracy is rather something to be explained than something to be celebrated. Living in democracy, lamenting its underperformances, we must not overlook a fundamental question – in what part do our disappointments reflect the «art of forgetting», allowing us to cast into oblivion all serious doubts originating in a critical discourse on modernity and democracy?

Details

Series: Lex et Res Publica - Volume 2

Centro studi sul federalismo