Abstract

The personalist foundation of the Italian Constitution interprets the human condition as constitutively vulnerable, opening up to a vision of democracy as cooperation between citizens united by their fragility. Vulnerability cannot therefore expire as a distinctive feature of a limited band of citizenship. Universalism is coherent with the definition of priorities that assist the concrete and current manifestations of fragility, promoting social reactivation. To counteract the crystallization of closed areas of fragility, the Constitution erects three different banks: the definition of essential levels to be universally guaranteed; the delineation of an essential content of rights; and the inclusive role of the social relations, promoted and supported by the institutions on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity.