LA DEMOCRAZIA INTERNA AI PARTITI POLITICI. BILANCI E PROSPETTIVE

The paper focuses on the internal democracy of the political parties, with particular attention to the concept of the " democratic method " governed by Article 49 of the Italian Constitution . Empirical observation of the parties and scientific research underline a framework marked today by two general phenomena . On one hand, the continuing tendency of the Parties to "cartelization " and, on the other hand, the decreasing of the powers of the militants , the weakening of the structures and the personalization of the national and local structures. In Italy, this scenario has to deal with article 49 of the Italian Constitution , an article that originally represented the will to overcome the neglect of the phenomenon of " political parties " , giving them constitutional significance , marking “de facto” a sharp break with the liberal Italy. Today the Italian political parties are facing a crisis of legitimacy and authority, perhaps even greater than the one that dramatically changed the political landscape in the early nineties . Despite this, they still retain all the functions and policies of the previous decades and are still the fulcrum around which revolves the functioning of democratic institutions . This fact led some researchers to describe the situation as an Italian “party system without parties”. In particular, the controversy of the doctrine concerned the lack of interest of the Parties in the “democratic method " included in Article 49 of the Italian Constitution . Accepting therefore, the more widespread interpretation of the doctrine that extends the prescription of the " democratic method " even to the internal organization of the political Parties, we have focused on the status quo of the past and current Italian Party organizations through the study of the statutes of the major Parties and through a comparison beginning from some fundamental institutions. The overall scenario is therefore focused on the political Parties that have little in common with the mass parties of the twentieth century and that, in the face of profound social changes , have not been able to introduce neither by laws nor by practice, new methods of democratic participation in political processes . Just to deal with the crisis of legitimacy caused by these events, it is now widely thought that it is necessary to pass a law governing the implementation of Art. 49 of the Constitution, including the concept of " democratic method " . As we were writing ,however, an important innovation was introduced. By a decree of the Letta Government, approved by the government on December 13th , the possibility to access to the financial aid for political Parties becomes subject to compliance with the requirements of democracy and transparency. It’s the first time ever. Finally, we can also add a final reflection on the primaries, both those that are regulated via private law and those institutions regulated by public law. The primaries have strengths and weaknesses , but now it seems to be an essential tool in the processes to democratize the political Parties. For political Parties to recover authority, it is necessary, therefore , to interfere with force in the mechanisms used to regulate the internal democracy organization . While it now seems that legislative intervention designed to regulate certain processes is necessary, it is understood that it needs to be accompanied by some self-regulatory experiments of the political Parties , so that the statutes are freely available to introduce the willingness to "open " the Party and to encourage the members of the Parties to make decisions.