L'incoerenza della politica. Nodi teorici, dilemmi pratici e categorie di comprensione

This article claims that the study of politics does not consist just in dispelling the shadows of uncertainty and incoherence. On the contrary, it also aims at illuminating the presence of these shadows. In this perspective, pointing out the limits of knowledge and of political practice and showing the boundary of these limits on the threshold of the unknown should be considered an advance of learning in political studies. As Raymond Boudon wrote, “chance is generally regarded by the social sciences as an unwelcome guest. It is everywhere. But in general we try to hide it, forget it; eventually, to deny its existence”. On the contrary, in this article chance, fortune and irony are some of the classical notions aimed at understanding the uncertainty of politics, its tendency toward incoherence. In short, those conditions which make politics an open process with unexpected or unintended effects that, most of all, complicate the theory-policy nexus.