Identità e trascendenza politica: tendenze antropologiche, e la democrazia in Italia oggi

The paper addresses the transcendence of political organizations adopting an anthropological perspectives. In contexts in which power is grounded in society the latter tends to be formed by the synergy of multiple and hybrid identities. When power becomes concentrated in institutional government, and thus becomes transcendental, identity is progressively codified and standardized. I argue that representative democracy has failed to resolve the transcendental dimension of government, as evidence from contemporary Italy shows. Emerging social movements, on the contrary, tend to root power in a polyphonic and heterogeneous social body.