Work · Political Philosophy & Ethics (20th–21st c.)
The Future of Democracy
Defines democracy by rules for collective decisions and examines its “broken promises”: the persistence of oligarchies, invisible power and limited citizen education.
Introduction
“The Future of Democracy” appeared in 1984 and collects essays from the preceding years; the English edition of 1987 is subtitled “A Defence of the Rules of the Game”. In the title essay Bobbio proposes a minimal definition: democracy is a set of rules that establish who is authorised to take collective decisions and by which procedures, above all majority rule, under the guarantee of basic liberties. Measured against the hopes of its founders, real democracy has broken several promises: organised groups rather than sovereign individuals dominate, particular interests prevail over representation, oligarchies persist, invisible power survives beside public power and the education of citizens has remained limited. Bobbio still defends the procedural core as the precondition of any further democratisation. Habermas discussed this definition in “Between Facts and Norms” (1992).
More works by Norberto Bobbio
As of November 2026 · Improve this page · How Agora is made