Abstract
Political inclusion, meaning by that the direct involvement and participation of social actors in the shaping of public policies, is today very much at the centre of debate of social sciences and has been growingly practised by public bodies. Inclusion practices do represent an interesting and new phenomenon concerning the functioning of our public bodies: their aim is to provide institutions with a stronger legitimacy, to prevent conflict, and to get to know and successfully govern increasingly complex social settings. The objective of the article is a) to analyse and discuss the theories and practices underpinning political inclusion exercises by the direct involvement of social groups (the theory of neocorporativism and of associative democracy); of citizens (the theory of direct democracy and participatory democracy); of stakeholders (theory of deliberative democracy); b) to assess the strengths and weaknesses of these political inclusion models; c) and to point out issues within this area that necessitate further reflection and empirical investigation.
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