La ricerca dell’incerta sintesi tra democrazia rappresentativa e democrazia partecipativa. Riflessioni a margine del Grand Débat National

The search for the uncertain synthesis between representative democracy and participatory democracy. Reflections on the Great National Debate

Abstract

Abstract.  The French Great National Debate allows us to reflect on a very current topic, that is the research of combination between representative and participatory democracy. In France, the Great National Debate has been considered a great participatory democracy success (even with some flaws), due to the almost 2 million citizens who have contributed to foster the debate at regional and national level, also in the expected forms. The nationwide importance of the public debate opens up a discussion on the accessibility to using tools of participatory democracy towards decisional processes more and more complex, during a generalized period of crisis for the representative democracy, controlled by even more frequent requests of participation coming from the bottom. In this perspective, the urgent topic introduced by the Great National Debate tends to cross French boundary to become cause for reflection for
constitutional law science, called to challenge itself with the ability to merge different visions of democracy.

Keywords: Great National Debate - public debate – deliberative democracy – participatory  democracy – representative democracy