La democrazia contemporanea e la scelta diretta dei governanti

Political leaders have always played a crucial role in mass democracies, as we know from the famous Max Weber’s writing, Politics as a Vocation. Nevertheless, during the last decades, the functions they perform have considerably changed. Some phenomena, generally labelled as presidenzialisation of politics or public democracy, concerning a large array of political, institutional, economical, technological and social transformations, have taken place in Western societies. They have reinforced the link between leaders and citizens (the public) at the expense of the traditional intermediate agencies, as – first of all – political parties. Such developments have challenged both parties , which , in order to maintain a role in the political system, have been forced to rethink their goals and organizational models, and the conception itself of the working of liberal democracies (in particular the parliamentary ones), and opened the way to a large and often critical debate and, at the same time, at the political level, many and different efforts to manage, constrain or further develop these new trends.