Società e mutamento: verso il nuovo paradigma della democrazia culturale radicale

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection on the model of radical cultural democracy. Through a dialogue with the theoretical visions of reference, specifically the theorisations of Mouffe and Laclau, attention will be focused on the characteristics of this paradigm, which in contrast to the simplistic definitions of culture as a consumer product, as stereotyped folklore, as the opening of spaces to accommodate a spectating public, aims at the critical involvement of the social sphere in the institutional one. The move away from the categories of cultural consumer presupposes an effort in terms of greater investment in a model in which cultural capital can generate social capital, in order to implement a conceptual redefinition of the role of the public arena in the cultural dimension. With the aim of analysing the possibilities of enlargement and radicalisation of democracy in its cultural dimension, a debate that is particularly intense in the Latin American region, an initial theoretical reconstruction of this paradigm will be attempted, so that it can form the basis for future empirical research. The conclusions will show that this redefinition implies a real alternative of bottom-up participation not only in the planning phase of cultural policy, but also during the in itinere and final control phases, thus configuring the element of originality of this model.