La trappola di Banfield. L’ethos democratico oltre il mito del «familismo amorale»

This article reviews the old assumptions about “amoral familism” developed by Edward C. Banfield in the Fifties, with particular emphasis on the relationship between political culture and democratic institutions. More particularly, the objective is to develop a criticism against the Banfield’s image of democratic ethos. The article argues in fact that Banfield’s hypothesis was founded on a distorted vision of the relationship between political culture and political structure, and that these limits neutralized the insights of a cultural analysis of politics.