Republicanism or Modern Natural Right?: The Question of the Origins of Modern Representative Democracy and the Political Thought of Giuseppe Duso

Abstract

Giuseppe Duso's work in political theory during recent decades has focused on contradictions or aporiae implicit in very idea of representative democracy. This theme is not surprising coming from a theorist who began his career as a scholar of Fichte and Hegel in 1970s and went on to introduce work of Weber and Schmitt into post-Marxist debate in 1980s. But unlike Schmitt and other more recent critics of modern liberal democracy, Dusos project is an attempt to save democracy democracy,1 that is, beyond its current representative form, to give a participatory role in political life back to people. Dusos central critique of modern representative democracy is based on following claim: the theoretical system that is constitutive of power and of its legitimacy assigns modern concept of equality a function that