Elezione e rappresentanza

Abstract

A certain degree of confusion and overlapping between the principle of elections and the principle of representation affects the political-constitutional vocabulary – both principles are given meanings relating to the idea of people’s participation. Yet at least in the beginning, the notions of elections and representation, which share a common theological origin, have no participatory content; rather, they refer to the issue of power legitimation. One cannot deduce “constitutional engineering” corollaries regarding the electoral systems from out of such concepts, nor can one go back to such concepts from out of the electoral mechanisms, whether real or possible.