Regions between powers and society Possible participatory and contestatory paths

Abstract

The crisis of the Regions and of regionalist culture, proposals for reform contrary to the constitutional design. This is the crux of the study.

From this perspective – and briefly – the paper is aimed to point out that isn’t time for detailed issues, but to discuss about the underlying reasons for the crisis and evaluate possible responses and proposal.

The crisis of the Regions has its own characteristics. However, more profoundly, it is affected by the one of the role of public authorities in neoliberal order and the concrete shift of power outside the public institutions.

From this perspective, the possibility for the Regions to regain their legitimacy lies in the revival of their founding elements: autonomy, pluralism, solidarity and subsidiarity.

Given these four pillars, it is clear that the Regions shall activate instruments with which to create spaces for autonomous social subjectivity – necessarily contestatory, because democracy feeds on conflict – and to make themselves functional to the fulfillment of what fundamental rights demands – because fundamental rights always contain a collective dimension and those who act on them always determine a result of general interest – as well as enhancing the administrative function of local authorities, applying subsidiarity, pluralism and solidarity on a massive scale, in order to regain the reasons for autonomy.