Description of the book

Almost ten years after the publication of the Annale Feltrinelli La democrazia di fronte allo stato, edited by Alessandro Pizzorno (2010), epochal events lead us to return to reflect on the challenges of modern democracies. The Annal Thinking Democracy Now: Between Innovation and Regression focuses on the transformations affecting contemporary democracies.

The publication develops around a significant paradox: democracy today enjoys undisputed hegemony to the point that even those who put it at risk do so in its name, promising to increase or extend it, not to humiliate or overcome it. Reborn after the Second World War in contrast to mass dictatorships, constitutional democracy is a political order that has no predetermined purpose other than its own survival and is always exposed to risk. Starting from this premise, the volume accompanies the reader through an intense reflection that ranges from theoretical and institutional issues to the most representative political experiences and challenges in each of the five continents.

The Annal edited by Nadia Urbinati, thanks to the collaboration of international scholars and interpreters, examines the transformation of democratic processes, analyzing regressive temptations and opportunities for innovation in a global geopolitical horizon.

Meet the editor

Nadia Urbinati. Holder of the chair of Political Science at Columbia University in New York, she is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Giangiacomo Feltrinelli Foundation and scientific director of the Research Line on Political Innovation of the Foundation. She deals with contemporary democratic and liberal thought and theories of sovereignty and political representation, as well as collaborating with “La Repubblica” and “Il Sole 24 ore”.