Ontologia critica del presente e teoria democratica: genealogia della crisi, soggettività politica, immaginario neo-democratico

This paper addresses the topic of the "crisis" of contemporary democracy. The main question proposed claims: is democracy barely a name? This seems to be the troubling query emerging from a burgeon literature developed mainly in the last decade, which regards contemporary democratic regimes as 'post-democratic'. A foucauldian approach to the critique of capitalism for its effects on democratic institutions and values on the one hand (the critique to the hegemony of neoliberalism), the analysis of the aporetic nature of the 'modern' political representation on the other, compose the first part of the paper. Based on a critical overview of contemporary literature on the topic, the second part tries to address the topic of populism considered both as a 'pathology' of contemporary democracies and as a possible alternative democratic paradigm according to Laclau. The problem of the democratic subjectivity, according to the most recent theoretical and empirical debate, is also addressed in tha last chapter of the paper, along with the thematization of a radical democratic imaginary (the 'pars construens' of the paper). A post-foundationalist approach shapes the theoretical infrastructure of the paper.