The pursuit of security and a desire for greater certainty were recurrent themes in discussions at this national roundtable on the future of government in Italy. It was observed that Western democracies – beset by populist movements of various ilks and engulfed by ongoing economic crisis – are struggling to arrive at a new order and are, above all, failing to fully meet the needs and demands of their citizens. There was a sense that fear and anxiety are mounting, fueling – as at other times in the past – the temptation to look to “strongmen” capable of breaking out of powerlessness and taking the necessary decisions fast. Indeed, it was highlighted that democracy only operates in 40 countries around the world, being paradoxically regarded negatively in those countries that have adopted it and esteemed very highly – if not romanticized – in countries that are not democratic, starting with Russia and Turkey.
Faced with the fragility of a system as complex as democracy, intrinsically built on accommodations, citizens seem to prefer – as confirmed on good authority by The Economist – a strong and authoritarian leadership that does not need to contend with the stalemates and intricacies of parliamentary process. It was suggested that, in a certain sense, this was the message that American voters sent by electing Donald Trump.
The participants noted that so-called “liquid democracy” is on the rise, and is now eroding the foundations of representative democracy. This sees policy made outside the realm of political parties and intermediary bodies, although some fixtures of debate and formulation remain which, however, are no longer integral to the system.
It was suggested that Italy is also called upon to reflect upon its future in this regard, from a starting point of a complex and multifaceted history. However, a note of caution was sounded: it is definitely not policy that is capable of changing a people, but rather all policy must contend with the legacy left by history and culture over the centuries.
The participants cited the observation made by Giuseppe De Rita in his book Il Consolato Guelfo (tabled during the debate) that, in the post-World War 2 period, the Italian mindset has long been underpinned by a closed vision of the country’s borders. At most, the boundaries extended to Europe, or modernity. Today, the borders have widened to include the South, the Mediterranean, and Africa, representing a real anthropological shift, in which engagement with the “other” – with political, social, and religious diversity – emerges in all its complexity. It is this engagement which often generates anxiety, lack of security, and much uncertainty. It was emphasized, in this respect, that even the fundamentals that have characterized Italian society – localism, the shadow economy, small business and its local embeddedness, and the moral and financial solidity of families over the past forty years – are being called into question. Young people undoubtedly still wish to run a business, but no one has the ambition to establish and develop it for their children. The aim is simply to build a firm to a high potential, to then sell it.
The view was expressed that, in recent decades, society has become acentric, mediations have disappeared, and intermediary bodies have lost importance and effectiveness. However, not all those present agreed. According to some, structured social groups that have a precise identity and are cohesive have hung on. What instead is lacking is social mobility, giving rise to a need for redistributive measures to reduce growing inequalities.
While the unified state was acknowledged as undoubtedly weak, mediation was still considered an enabling source of resources today. The solution to the loss of meaning was felt to lie in the shared understanding of the people and not in the triteness of the elite classes. It was stressed that the primacy of the individual, the sense of family, and the propensity to do business remain fundamentals of the future. Moreover, strength of tradition reinvests life as well as economic and social vitality with purpose, the former being a necessary precondition for the latter.
At this point, the question was posed as to whether the verticalization of power and society could serve as a way out? For many, such an approach was deemed insufficient, or rather, as not resolving the other major problem affecting contemporary societies, namely: fragmentation. Indeed, for some, verticalization would spell the end of democracy. This is where the proposal put forward in Il Consolato Guelfo was seen as filling the breach, predicated as it is on the need to have a two-track process – where the religious value system also counts – that goes beyond verticalization and has a “procreative” capacity, in the sense of giving life to innovation and creativity. Like a woman – to borrow a beautiful image from the great poet Mario Luzi – who both “generates” and “governs”. The person who creates, in other words, is best suited to manage. By launching a new vision of the future, from the bottom up, he or she will overcome the difficulties of the past.