The six premises for a healthy democracy

An analysis of Norberto Bobbio’s theory

by Alina Mancino

I started university in 2019 in Torino, a city in the Northwest of Italy, close to the Alps. I studied in a very nice campus and one of the places I first visited and ended up spending a lot of time studying for my exams was the library.

The library is dedicated to Norberto Bobbio, a renowned philosopher, jurist, historian and political scientist that was born in Turin in 1909 and passed away at the age of ninety five. He wrote many essays about law, political science, the relationship between politics and culture and about democracy. His reflections were based on the imperative to intertwine individual freedom with social equality.

During my first year of studies I attended a course of political philosophy, where I had the chance to learn about some of Bobbio’s works, particularly those focused on democracy. He explained that democracies should satisfy six basic rules:

1) Inclusivity

All adult citizens, without any distinction in terms of religion, ethnicity, economic and social status, gender, have to be granted political rights. Every citizen has the right to express their opinion or to choose who will express it for them. All the citizens have the right to vote.

In modern democracies, immigration is a crucial issue; non-citizens are obligated to abide by laws yet are unable to contribute to their formation due to exclusion from electoral processes, highlighting one of the problems of our democratic systems.

2) Equivalence

Every vote has the same value. There shouldn’t be votes that count more than others.

3) Subjective freedom

All the citizens that have political rights must be free to vote according to their personal opinion, that needs to be formed freely, among a competition between different political groups. Citizens need to be aware and well informed before taking decisions on who to vote for. Democratic institutions need to guarantee access to a plurality of information and to an adequate education.

There are several democracies in today’s world that do not satisfy this requirement. State propaganda, polarized social media and journalist censorship are all ways to control information and to avoid citizens to be fairly prepared when elections come. In order to allow critical thinking, it is fundamental to have a plurality of sources that the states need to guarantee.

4) Objective freedom

Citizens need to be free to choose from a plurality of parties that have different programs and proposals. The countries that present only one party to elections or more parties with the same programs are not considered democratic. Parties that have the goal to disrupt the democratic order of a country have to be illegal.

There are many countries in which elections are granted, while the presence of a genuine opposition is not allowed. States like Russia, Turkey and several Latin American countries are struggling to guarantee the existence of a real opposition.

5) Efficiency

The principle of majority governs every political decision: the elected candidate is the one that gets the majority of votes.

6) Protection of democracy

No decision taken by the majority can limit the rights of the minority. The majority cannot take decisions that limit the fundamental rights written in the constitutions.

In today’s world there are no perfect democracies, we can find minor and major flaws in every country.

My journey in university finished with a thesis about how social media can influence the results of electoral campaigns, where I delved into the topic of data protection, fake news and misinformation online. According to my personal interest in these topics, I’m particularly focused on the premise of having fairly educated citizens. The crisis on information is, for me, a scary challenge that can put several democracies at risk. My personal goal is to try to educate citizens on media literacy, data protection and how to detect misinformation to allow citizens to be more aware and make informed decisions.

It’s important to keep in mind all the six premises that Bobbio explained, to always pay attention to what our democracies are doing right and what needs to be improved.