La democrazia partecipativa:tendenze all’istituzionalizzazione

This thesis aims to analyse the participatory democracy taking the perspective of one of the tendencies that cross it: the institutionalisation. Given the premise of a juridical approach to this multidisciplinary subject, the work suggest the adoption of a strict concept of participatory democracy and his instruments, than follows its path over the years throughout different experiences. Having found various degrees of institutionalisation as well as an opposing tension in order to not overregulate the participation, the analysis focus on the French débat public as one of the most accomplished examples of how a participatory instrument with a strong legislative basis can maintain, at the same time, a flexible procedure. Proceeding along this trace the attention shifts to the peculiar status of the participatory democracy in the Italian system. The work sustains the positive value of an institutionalisation’s process, suggesting the introduction of a national law on the citizens’ participation to the public policy-making process. Furthermore it is given an evaluation of the e-democracy set of problems as a consequence of the growing impact of the ICT in this field. In conclusion this research confirms the existence of some strong tendencies to the institutionalisation. These should be carefully balanced, whenever it is decided to begin a participatory experience, so that its instruments could actually reach, in concrete, the theoretical premises brought by the participatory democracy.