La democrazia italiana: partecipazione, corpi intermedi, pace

This chapter examines the relationship between democracy and peace in a context of growing geopolitical instability and democratic backsliding, drawing on survey data collected by the Polidemos–Ipsos Doxa Observatory on the State of Democracy on a representative sample of the Italian population. The findings reveal a central paradox: widespread dissatisfaction with democratic institutions and deep distrust towards the political class do not translate into a rejection of democracy itself; rather, citizens identify the deepening of democratic participation as the preferred response to its current crisis. This suggests that public discontent should not be read as diffuse hostility towards the democratic system, but as a demand for targeted corrective measures addressing specific institutional dysfunctions. The chapter concludes by arguing that neither alarmist nor complacent interpretations adequately capture the current democratic conjuncture, and that the resilience of democratic values among citizens places a precise responsibility on political and institutional elites to respond to identifiable and addressable failures.