Abstract

In modern complex societies, the «people» is not a homogeneous whole, on the contrary a plurality where there is contrast rather than harmony between its component parts. Parties provide evidence that society is made of «parts» that is of concreteness and complexity, of legitimate opposing partial interests, and therefore doomed to conflict and contingency. Differently from what both contractualism and populism maintain, the present thesis is that compromise-based policies choices are necessary to protect the dialectic between the parts and the whole that represents the fundamental nucleus of democratic freedom.