In:
Italian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica, Cambridge University Press (CUP), Vol. 24, No. 1 ( 1994-04), p. 3-25
Abstract:
From the perspective of the Italian and German national cases, the author argues that democratic institutions are well and alive when they fulfil the goals and criteria both of instrumental strategic rationality and of communicative, identity-oriented, rationality. The essay spells out the various dimensions of these two kinds of rationality in political behavior, focusing particularly on the integrative dimension of national identity. According to the author, theoretical approaches which unilaterally privilege either kind of rationality and which contrast utility and identity oriented logic, strategic and communicative behavior, are lacking both at the analytic and at the normative level. They do not understand that political action is an interactive process in which instrumental strategies and «understanding acts» combine. The author, therefore, criticizes Jürgen Habermas's «communicative» political theory. The Italian case indicates how a deficit of political rationality as well as of functional efficiency provokes forms of national dis-identification and de-solidarization (i.e. the Leagues’ separatism). In this case, civic virtue may be successfully called for to motivate solidarity only if the reference to universalistic democratic values is supported both by the utilitarian expectation of a common good (obtained through cooperation) and by the willingness – based on trust – to sustain the additional costs of solidarity. This willingness in turn presupposes some degree of acknowledgement of a common national historic belonging. In this perspective, citizenship coincides with a reciprocity link among citizens who acknowledge that they are members of the same national historic community.
Type of Medium:
Online Resource
ISSN:
0048-8402
,
2057-4908
DOI:
10.1017/S004884020002267X
Language:
English
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Publication Date:
1994
detail.hit.zdb_id:
2583926-3
SSG:
8
SSG:
3,6
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