The decline and the need of the key force of intermediation

Abstract

This article focuses on the relationship between ‘the social’ and ‘the political’, or more precisely, between a society of individuals and associations on the one hand and the domain of political deliberation on the other. Its main goal is to understand whether the transformation of intermediary bodies in politics (the parties) reflects a transformation of intermediary bodies in society; its hypothesis is that society does not experience a decline of intermediary bodies, but rather their unequal distribution among citizens, whereby, to be schematic, the ‘strong’ parts of society enjoy more power of intermediation than the ‘weak’ parts, with predictable effects as regards the power to influence politics and determine policy choices; its main idea is that the erosion of political moderation and the growth of radicalization start outside parties, in the extra-institutional socio-political relations between citizens or where social intermediate bodies grow and operate.