Paralipomeni della Breve storia della democrazia

My aim in this paper is to highlight some points of my Brief History of Democracy. The first point concerns the exclusive character of democratic institutions. Democratic theory, since its classical birth, is bound to a two-level structure in which the selection of the voters is direct towards assuring the quality of the output. In our age, the reaction to this scheme takes the form of the populist paradox: the idea that the voters' will must be protected against those that should guarantee the proper functioning of democratic procedures. In the last part of my contribution, I argue that the populist propaganda should be countered not by trying to uncover its blind spots but by advancing novel theories and views that can help people to look at problems through new lenses. [Publisher's text].