Democrazia illiberale e forma di stato costituzionale di diritto nel costituzionalismo euro-atlantico: contingenze elettorali o cambio di paradigma?

Illiberal Democracy and Rule of Constitutional Law State in the Framework of Euro-Atlantic Constitutionalism: Electoral Contingencies or Change of Paradigm?

Abstract

The scenario of the “world constitutional phenomenon” requires that any reasoning on democracy makes use of a specific qualification that turns out being instrumental to wider comparative classifications. With regard to the Euro-Atlantic constitutional framework, the notion of ‘illiberal democracy’ is an oxymoron, an intrinsic contradiction incompatible with its origins and physiological formal and substantive legal paradigm. So far, a structural change of such paradigm does not appear to have occurred, although recent electoral trends do give evidence to such a threat, that is mostly limited to present political moods and electoral outcomes. The paper focuses on Western Europe and the United States.

Keywords: Illiberal democracy; Rule of Constitutional Law State; Euro-Atlantic Constitutionalism; Electoral Contingencies; Change of Constitutional Paradigm.